Desire and Fate
Both in the West and in Latin America, which is many ways are the marshlands of the West, we are watching the moral life revise itself (the expression is Lionel Trilling’s), and at breakneck speed. However, unlike in earlier periods of moral revolution, in our era economic life proceeds largely unaltered. To be sure, many corporations have gone both Woke and Green in trivial senses - speech codes, advertising campaigns in which white faces have largely been replaced by non-white ones, and, least convincingly, commitments to become environmentally more responsible. But these changes are largely superficial. If one imagines two houses - the moral life occupying the first and economic life the second - the former is being torn down whilst the latter is being repainted.