On the peril of "rootless liberalism"

Before my Christmas eve midnight mass began, a friend told me that she was worried about what she called "rootless liberalism". According to her, there is now a group of ' secular' and 'post-modern' people all over the world that tries to challenge and destroy almost all forms of established identity in the names "peace", "harmony" and "scientific or technological progress", except their own "rootless liberalism".

To a certain extent, I agree with her that there are elements of ethnic, religious, cultural, historical, national and ideological identity and core value that are positive in that they preserve a sense of community and prevent human society from degenerating into a state of leaderless, nihilistic and socially irresponsible individualism whose randomness of thinking or caprice of behaviour is more dangerous to the security, stability and sanity of the world.

The achivement of peace and harmony is not to destroy these elements of identity but to preserve them and encourage them to live in mutual respect.