Madam, – Andreas Hess rightly regrets the deficit of fresh ideas in Ireland’s public discourse (Opinion, October 31st). Maybe the Royal Irish Academy’s symposium later this month will help, Nama-like, to get them flowing again. But the delicate flower of good ideas may find it very difficult to bloom in the harsh soil of what constitutes Irish public debate.
At a time when our financial woes urgently require us to have a deeper appreciation of the meaning of citizenship, our ratings-chasing media are willing agents of societal divisiveness, amplifying the rude more often than the refined. Text and twitter soundbites are accorded equal standing with well-reasoned argument. Talk radio elevates individual personal experience above any notion of a wider common good.
At a time when one would expect some drawing from the deep well of inherited experience, our society seems unable to countenance solutions which might appear to emanate from a Christian value system. The public devaluing of marriage in the face of alternative family forms, despite the wealth of evidence of the societal effectiveness of the institution, is a case in point.
The problem may not necessarily be a dearth of intellectuals and ideas, but rather a lack of tolerance and of appropriate space in our public square. – Yours, etc,