The family is in flux, and signs of trouble are widespread. Expectations remain high. But realities are disturbing.

The problem of the universal is difficult in every case. The universal and the particular can never be separated; they always go hand in hand.

Hinduism, Confucianism, and Buddhism are huge traditions of enormous importance, and they aren't monotheistic. Again, this reflects the fact that our preconceptions about what religion is are so influenced by Protestantism - either real Protestantism or the secularized Protestantism that dominates our culture - and its assumption that beliefs are the most important thing.

Our culture is at a critical cusp - a time that requires that we define what it means to be a citizen in a democracy. Within our nation we need to foster a greater sense of collective responsibility.

That happiness is to be attained through limitless material acquisition is denied by every religion and philosophy known to mankind, but is preached incessantly by every American television set.

Human culture, in evolutionary terms, moves from episodic, to mimetic, to mythic, to theoretic - that made all kinds of sense. To some extent, ontogeny repeats phylogeny, because children go through something like the same thing.

We have imagined ourselves a special creation, set apart from other humans. In the last twentieth century, we see that our povertyis as absolute as that of the poorest nations. We have attempted to deny the human condition in our quest for power after power. It would be well for us to rejoin the human race, to accept our essential poverty as a gift, and to share our material wealth with those in need.