There is one word in the English language which rises above all others as both the cause and effect of wisdom. I'll tell you about it with examples from my daughter, the government shutdown, and Tolstoy.
An interesting Times article popped up yesterday that has some relevance to this (or at least to the political aspect).
@dfadeyev had some excellent comments on this post (via Twitter): Nice post, but the thesis can be turned around too: where fundamentalism has a foundation, moral relativism has none, and so... as a result those without a strong philosophy seek structure and identity in other things, such as materialism you mentioned... In this way, powerful shifts in values are unavoidable, but it does not mean that you should give them up to avoid the loss... Rather that you have the strength for the transition should it be proven right and just - i.e. strong opinions weakly held... Which is to say: fundamentalism and radicalism are not inherently bad, what's bad are weak minds who cannot handle them.
Quick story about that word, which I agree is one of the most important: When my wife was about three years old she was extremely precocious. She always had to know what everything was and how it worked. All day long she asked, "why."
After an entire day of answering the "why's" that she had, her father finally said to her, "young lady if you ask me 'why' one more time you are going to your room. She paused, thought for a moment and said to him, "how come?" Trust me, we'd all like to ask our politicians "how come" or "why" but the likelihood of receiving an honest answer is next to nil. I enjoyed the chef/waiter analogy!My great country is easily the most materialistic society that’s ever existed.
Are we sure about this? Materialism runs rampant in many societies, both current and past.