A Civilization Without Elders
The Last Generation Raised by People
A civilization inevitably begins to resemble whatever is educating its children.
Germany’s upper house of parliament recently advanced legislation that would criminalize the public denial of Israel’s right to exist. Whether the proposal ultimately becomes law remains to be seen, but the headline itself deserves attention.
Nearly eighty years after the Holocaust, Germany appears to be asking a question that much of the Western world has struggled to confront: what responsibility does a civilization have to protect the moral foundations upon which it was built?
That question extends far beyond Germany. It extends beyond Israel. It reaches into every society attempting to distinguish conviction from propaganda, truth from performance, and wisdom from information.
The modern West has become fluent in labels while forgetting the traditions those labels once represented.
Jew. Muslim. Christian. Zionist. Capitalist. Progressive. Nationalist.
These words are repeated constantly, often with confidence and remarkable emotional force, yet rarely with much curiosity about what they actually mean. They have become shorthand for identities, political positions, and cultural anxieties. In many public conversations, the labels have become more important than the beliefs, histories, and moral traditions behind them.
It is one of the paradoxes of our age that we possess unprecedented access to information while appearing increasingly detached from wisdom.
Every civilization forms its children. For most of history, that formation occurred primarily through parents, grandparents, elders, teachers, neighbours, and communities that understood themselves as custodians of inherited wisdom. Whether transmitted through religious practice, family life, or civic custom, each generation received a moral framework that had been refined, challenged, and preserved over centuries.
Today, much of that responsibility has quietly migrated elsewhere.
Children increasingly learn what to value, what to desire, whom to admire, and whom to distrust through digital platforms whose incentives are fundamentally commercial. These systems are extraordinarily effective at capturing attention and shaping behaviour. They are not designed to cultivate prudence, humility, self-restraint, or wisdom.
A civilization inevitably begins to resemble whatever is educating its children.
An economy detached from moral limits gradually rewards appetite over character, consumption over stewardship, and power over service. Markets themselves are not the problem. Commerce has generated extraordinary prosperity throughout human history. The deeper question is whether commerce remains a servant of society or gradually becomes its master.
This is where public discussion often loses precision.
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are frequently presented as though they are defined primarily by conflict with one another. Yet anyone willing to read their foundational texts soon discovers that they also share a substantial moral inheritance.
The Torah commands, “You shall not steal” (Exodus 20:15). The Qur’an similarly instructs believers not to consume one another’s wealth unjustly (Qur’an 2:188).
The Torah forbids false witness (Exodus 20:16); the Qur’an calls believers to stand firmly for justice and truth, even when doing so is personally difficult (Qur’an 4:135).
Both traditions emphasize honesty in commerce, care for the vulnerable, responsibility toward one’s neighbour, reverence for family, and accountability before God.
Their theological differences are profound. Their shared conviction that freedom requires moral discipline is equally profound.
That distinction deserves more attention than it receives.
Many contemporary debates frame freedom primarily as the removal of external constraints. The Abrahamic moral tradition generally frames freedom differently: as the capacity to govern oneself wisely before attempting to govern anything else. Whether one accepts that vision or rejects it, it represents a coherent understanding of human flourishing that has shaped civilizations for millennia.
Years working in corrections reinforced a lesson that extends well beyond the walls of any institution. Harmful behaviour rarely begins with dramatic acts. More often, it develops gradually through habits of dishonesty, entitlement, impulsivity, exploitation, and the erosion of accountability. Habits become patterns. Patterns shape cultures. Cultures eventually shape institutions.
The same principle applies to civilizations.
Societies do not decline solely because of economic downturns or political disagreements. They also decline when they lose the shared moral vocabulary needed to distinguish liberty from license, responsibility from entitlement, truth from performance, and justice from vengeance.
Perhaps that is why Germany’s proposed legislation resonated so deeply with me.
It is not simply another international headline. It suggests that somewhere, a society is asking whether ideas matter, whether moral boundaries matter, and whether a civilization has not only the right but the obligation to defend the principles that made it possible.
Those questions have become deeply personal.
Increasingly, I find myself searching not for a perfect country—none exists—but for evidence that somewhere a society still believes civilization is something to be inherited rather than endlessly reinvented; that freedom and responsibility remain inseparable; and that wisdom accumulated over generations deserves more authority than the latest algorithm or slogan.
Every civilization inherits a body of knowledge painstakingly assembled by those who came before it. Some call that inheritance tradition. Others call it religion. Others simply call it culture.
Whatever name we give it, one truth remains.
No civilization survives by asking every generation to begin again.
We have not stopped raising our children.
We have merely stopped remembering our values.