The universities are filled with an ugly nihilism. Politicians keep repeating the mantras of the welfare state. Nevertheless, we are not living in the Dark Ages. Communism is in collapse around the globe, as one country after another revolts against the naked threats and empty promises of collectivism. Free-market ideas are in the ascendancy throughout the West.
Tax revolts seem to have put an upper limit on the growth of government.
They have tried to impose speech codes to prevent blasphemy against the egalitarian faith. But they have run into fierce resistance from an increasing number of scholars who are beginning to grasp what is at stake. Outside the universities, the economy offers considerable scope for entrepreneurial ambition, especially in the fields of computers and communications. Indeed, by automating the use of information, pioneers in these fields are fomenting a technological revolution whose effects on human well-being may rival those of the Industrial Revolution. The intellectual revolt against the Enlightenment that began two centuries ago has run its course.