Welcome to my e-column !
Date: November 13, 2006
Time: 11:17am est

As I begin, I fear that the title of this e-column - With Good Reason -will come across as rather pretentious. So, why did I choose this title? It will be no secret to most of you that American public discourse-on virtually any topic-is more often than not burdened by poor reasoning. From the pages of the New York Times , to the blogosphere, to the nightly news, to conversations at the grocery store, it does not take long for the attentive ear to identify the lack of sound reasoning that is pervasive of our culture. Now, I believe it is very healthy to call people's attention to this-and I will endeavor to do so. The American democratic experiment cannot long survive awash in a cultural Kool-Aid of unreasoned behavior. Who we vote for, what we complain about, the clothes we buy, the number of children we decide to have, the career choices we make, our religious commitments and the faith we profess cannot be , must not be the result of more or less passion-based, emotivistic responses to cultural stimuli that either threaten or promise to promote one's egotistical preferences in life. Such a culture will not sustain a thriving and well-ordered democratic way of life. Maybe you are tempted to say that that's precisely what we've been doing in the U.S. for 230 odd years? Well, I disagree. Our click-for-an-emotion culture of text-messaging, chat-rooming and MySpace deadens the very capacity for reasoned reflection in the lives of millions of American teens, twenty and thirty-somethings.

I would suggest that if Islamo-fascism doesn't do us in, this particular cultural crisis will. And so, I would like to end my life knowing that I tried to do something to avert such a crisis. Consider this e-column as one small contribution.

I sincerely hope that what I write will be thought and said with good reason. And I hope it will be worth your while. I can't guarantee that, of course, but I'll do my best. You'll find new postings every week or so.

God bless you!

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Fr. Thomas Berg is Executive Director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person.