Each author addressed the crime issue solely from the standpoint and perspective of economic deprivation. But missing from the articles was any sense of human responsibility. Crime was discussed without raising the issue of morality. I couldn t believe it, and then it dawned upon me the diverse world views that were at work between those authors and me, the reader. A Chinese proverb says, if you want to know what water is, don t ask the fish.
Water is the sum and substance of the world in which the fish is immersed.
The fish may not reflect on its own environment until suddenly it is thrust onto dry land and struggles for its life. Then it realizes water provided its sustenance. Immersed in our environment for the entirety of this century we have failed to take seriously the ramifications of a secular world view. Daniel Yankelovich, sociologist and social watch dog, defines culture as an effort to provide a coherent set of answers to the existential situations that confront human beings in the passage of their lives. A genuine cultural revolution is one that makes a decisive break with the shared meaning of the past.