Madam, - Your Dáil Report (May 8th) of Brian Cowen's acceptance speech to the Dáil has him warning that one of the challenges we face today is how we are to temper a rising tendency towards individualism. Not correctly harnessed, he warns, such a tendency could sap the energy from our sense of community, which up to this point has been strong.
I believe Mr Cowen has put his finger on a very important fault-line that lies at the heart of the current political culture of our country. The Western world in general has for more than four decades witnessed the largely unhindered passage of a political philosophy that could be described as left-leaning-liberalism.
In recent years, Ireland too has abandoned her allegiance to long-standing Christian-Conservative values and embraced a postmodernist mix of irresponsible permissiveness and unthinking "tolerance". In the process, individuals have been imbued with a powerful sense of entitlement which can all too easily slip into uncaring self-centredness.
On top of this, and fuelled by human rights legislation emanating from Europe, too many people have a highly-tuned sense of their rights and not a clue about their social responsibilities. Their blinkered, egocentric view of the world has exacted a high price which is the unattractive underbelly of the recent Celtic-Tiger phenomenon.
Now, on the brink of Mr Cowen's stewardship, would anyone argue that Ireland in 2008 is more civilised, polite or better-mannered than it was in the 1950s?
In his address to the Dáil, Mr Cowen has shown that he is acutely aware of the problem at issue.
What is needed now may be action. Some small move in the right direction would be enthusiastically received by the overwhelming majority of morally sensitive and law-abiding citizens.
- Yours, etc,
THOMAS P. WALSH, Faussagh Road, Cabra, Dublin 7.