Modernity as an experiment

We easily forget that democracy, religious freedom, and the commitment to being guided by reason and scientific evidence were uncertain experiments in the beginning. Our pioneering forebears recognized that there were no guarantees, no solid assurance that the whole project would be successful. It’s clear from the iconoclastic spirit of their innovations that they hardly viewed all the details of the social and cultural reforms they were undertaking as sacred, infallible, and final. The baton has been passed down from generation to generation, and it has been up to each generation to continue the ongoing work, accumulate new lessons, dig deeper, distill, refine, reframe the task, and eliminate what no longer works.