Excellent piece on virtue republished in Crisis Magazine

The money quote:

The Enlightenment was all about “freeing” the individual from the institutions, beliefs, and practices the philosophers of the eighteenth century in particular thought held them back from expressing themselves and achieving their own, self-directed lives.  Of course, as Edmund Burke well knew, the actual result was to expose our naked, shivering nature in all its weakness, leaving us at the mercy of either the mob or the mob-run state.  Unfortunately, we still live in this fantasy world of the autonomous individual who chooses his own “lifestyle” and ideals, constructing life as if it were a house, with the materials and structure open to infinite discussion (provided, of course, he has the financial and other means to fully engage in the process).