The Question That Explains Almost Everything
Dennis Prager Posted: Feb 04, 2020
If you want to understand a human being or the human condition, what is the single most important question you should ask?
Most religious people would probably ask, "Do you believe in God?"
The most important question most secular people, especially progressives, could imagine asking is probably a policy question. Today it would be "Do you support Donald Trump?" Otherwise it might be "Do you support abortion rights?" or "Do you support gay marriage?"
As important as all of these questions are, in attempting to understand human beings, especially large groups of human beings -- i.e., their society -- the most important question to ask is "What in life gives you the most meaning?"
The answer does not explain everything, of course, but it explains the human condition better than any other question.
The reason is this: After food, the greatest human need and human desire is meaning. Even more so than the ability to reason or even to speak, this is the great divide between human and animal. We share all other needs with the higher animal species and share many needs with some of the lower animal species. Like them, we need food, shelter and companionship. But, while human beings seek and need meaning more than anything except food (and companionship -- but for human beings, companionship usually provides some meaning, and sometimes enough), no animal needs or seeks meaning. As an aside, this is one of the reasons I believe in God, the Creator. There is no evolutionary explanation for the need for meaning. Meaning is not a biological need.
Given its unique importance, that is why what gives us meaning must be deemed the most important question.
The problem, however, is that just as the need for food has no inherent moral quality, the need for meaning has no inherent moral quality. Meaning can be found in evil just as it can be found in good. Nazism provided millions of Germans with as much meaning as helping the dying in Calcutta provided Mother Teresa. Slaughtering infidels gives radical Islamic terrorists as much meaning as feeding the poor gives those who work for the Salvation Army. Killing the "Christ-killer" Jews gave some medieval Christians as much meaning as saving Jews gave some European Christians during the Holocaust.
For most Americans until the last generation, the need for meaning was filled by family, religion, community and patriotism (i.e., love of America and belief in America) as Abraham Lincoln put it: as "the last best hope of earth."
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