Engineers and scientists aren't telling you their work will "fix" everything. They're telling you they will CHANGE everything. Unlike "fix", the word "change" is less charged with a value claim. The notion that the old grand narratives (like that of the Romantic movement) offer answers that are "here" is true -- but they're answers that have been already tried and found wanting. What seems to me to be missing are NEW answers that haven't disappointed us YET. I think there's a cause for optimism. That philosophy store just might succeed one day. In the meantime, we each have to do what we can, like monks in an Irish monastery, to keep the candles lit.
An old idea will take a new form when it's transplanted into the here and now. I really don't think the problem is that we don't have enough answers. The problem is that we can't remember what questions we should be asking.What seems to me to be missing are NEW answers that haven't disappointed us YET.