I Don't Believe In An Afterlife. I

We Have Responsibilities For Others, Not Just Across Space But Across Time. We Have Responsibilities To People Who Came Before Us. They Left Us A World Of Institutions, Ideas Or Possibilities For Which We, In Turn, Owe Them Something. One Of The Things We Owe Them Is Not To Squander Them.

There Is Nothing To Be Said For Being Crippled. You Don't See The World Better Or Clearer, Nor Do You Develop Some Special Set Of Skills By Way Of Compensation.

There Were Various Different Keys In Which European History Had Tended To Be Written. One Is The Lyrical Key, The Idea That Somehow, In Bretton-woods In 1945, A Bunch Of Well-intentioned Men Got Together And Said, "this Can't Go On; Let's Build A European Union." And It Just Wasn't Like That.

Contrast 1968, When The Ceo Of General Motors Took Home, In Pay And Benefits, About Sixty-six Times The Amount Paid To A Typical Gm Worker. Today The Ceo Of Wal-mart Earns Nine Hundred Times The Wages Of His Average Employee. Indeed, The Wealth Of The Wal-mart Founder's Family In 2005 Was Estimated At About The Same ($90 Billion) As That Of The Bottom 40% Of The Us Population: 120 Million People.

How Should We Begin To Make Amends For Raising A Generation Obsessed With The Pursuit Of Material Wealth And Indifferent To So Much Else?