The Greek Philosopher behind Nearly Every Bad Idea
Two and half centuries ago, John Adams complained, “Our modern philosophers are all the low grovelling disciples of Epicurus.”
That’s even truer today.
The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus is—acknowledged or not—the source of secular “woke” liberalism.
In his own time, Epicurus was a fringe thinker. He and his few followers speculated about how invisibly small entities of indivisible matter called “atoms,” hurtling endlessly through an infinite void according to fixed physical laws, could explain the world and everything in it. Most ancient philosophers thought his speculations abstruse and counterintuitive, and he gained few adherents.
But today, the overwhelming success of modern science has turned Epicurus’ fringe philosophy into the governing worldview of nearly everyone. Atoms hurtling through a void—that is what everythin
