This means that the most basic and essential question for a person to raise concerning the conduct of his life cannot be the normative question of how he should live. That question can sensibly be asked only on the basis of a prior answer to the factual question of what he actually does care about. If he cares about nothing, he cannot even begin to

But this Culture of Open Options is not a neutral holding pattern. It’s a culture that arranges our economy against loyalty to particulars: particular neighborhoods, particular people, particular missions. It’s a culture that substitutes a morality of honor—guiding people toward the good and away

Postmodern secular culture tends to underemphasize responsibility, thereby generating a strange contradiction. On the one hand we have almost unlimited freedom to choose. On the other, when things go wrong, it is rarely our fault.

But if one is deciding one’s path oneself, it’s only natural that one will get lost at times. One comes up against the wall of “how one should live.”