[independentmind]

Can we put the genie back in the bottle or the toothpaste back in the tube and return to a more stable, duty-oriented way of life?

Maybe "duty-oriented" isn't the right way of looking at it. Why not go back to our roots, and ask what is our nature? Do we have one, or can we literally be anything we want to be? If we have an inherent nature, what are our limits? And, assuming one believes in Revelation, what is the significance of "God created them male and female"?

[x]

Good response. I don't know if our exaggerated individualism is the cause of our social ills, as Dalrymple says, or a product of them, but the two are so closely related that it would be pretty near impossible for us to untie the knot. Dalrymple's view is very different from the heroic individualism that characterizes many Americans, even conservatives. His is more of an Old World view. Rightly or wrongly, most Americans would probably find it confining and rebel against it. It's not just our vices that individualism is tied to, but also our virtues. The question of whether we have a nature and what it might be should receive more attention than it does. I'm certainly interested in the answers people may have, but don't have one of my own.