A big part of the problem with the Western mindset is that it is based on monotheism and the logical flaw in monotheism is that ideals are not absolutes.
Truth, beauty, platonic forms are ideals. The core codes, creeds, heroes, narratives at the gravitational center of every culture are ideals.
The universal, on the other hand, is the elemental, so a spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we fell.
More the light shining through the film, than the stories playing out on it.
To the Ancients, gods were what we would call ideals, metaphors, memes today. Those concepts central to human perception. Gods of love, war, beauty, nations, seas, sun, etc.
The Christian Trinity originated out of fertility rites. The young god born in the spring to the old sky god and earth mother. Though by the age of the Olympians, Zeus didn't give way to Dionysus. Tradition prevailed over renewal. Which was why the story of Jesus had such fertile ground to rake root.
Monotheism equated with monoculture. One people, one rule one god. Basically the tribal spirit as god. Politically expressed as monarchy. Ancient Israel was a monarchy.
Democracy and republicanism originated in pantheistic cultures. The many ideas and ideals interacting.
By the time Constantine adopted Christianity as state religion of Rome, it too had started to calcify, so the monotheism served to validate the Empire. The Big Guy Rules.
The Catholic Church served as eschatological basis for European monarchy. Divine right of kings, as opposed to consent of the governed.
When the West went back to democracy and republicanism, it required separation of church and state, culture and civics.
Yet the essential assumption remains, that ideals have to assert being absolute and universal, or they get dismissed as relativistic and weak.
So there can be no live and let live. It becomes a feedback loop with no circuit breakers.
https://johnbrodixmerrymanjr.medium.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-western-mind-906dc73cffe2
