“In 100 Words Or Less: What’s Wrong With The World?”

A while back, The Anchoress had up a post called “What’s Wrong With the World?”

It started like so,

I’m feeling a bit punk – feverish and swollen glands – so I’m just going to throw this question out and invite answers from readers and from other bloggers:

In 100 words or less: What’s Wrong With the World?

About 100 years ago, a British paper invited many writers to answer the same question, What’s Wrong With the World? They extended the invitation to G. K. Chesterton who wrote back,

Dear Sirs;

I am.

Sincerely,
G.K. Chesterton

I will take his answer for my own. Have at it.

Chesterton’s answer was short, memorable, and seems profound at first glance. However, ultimately it’s just a cop-out. There are many things you could say were wrong with the world back then and today, but G.K. Chesterton wasn’t one of them.

So, I thought it might be interesting to take a real crack at it. We’re not talking about a perfect world here, because we will never have that on earth — so I avoided answers like “unlimited resources.” Also, I also tried to avoid touchy feely answers, like “love,” “decency,” or “change” because they’re so vague in this context that they’re practically meaningless. With that in mind, here’s what I came up with…

“Not enough Christianity, capitalism, democracy, freedom, free markets, free press, property rights, privacy, & rule-of-law. Too much bad religion, atheism, agnosticism, socialism — and way too many corrupt and/or all powerful governments.”

Let me know in the comments section if, improbably, out of all the things wrong with the world I missed anything ;).

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