The fervent debate surrounding the term “Broken Society” has been quite revealing. But is the debate willing to accept that individualism is its root cause?

Research papers on HT have become frequently seen recently. Some major research institutes have published papers on the issue. In 2003 the Heritage Foundation published a paper by Ariel Cohen and in 2004 the Nixon Center did the same for Zeyno Baran. However, a major development occurred in 2005 when Foreign Affairs published a paper by Zeyno Baran, entitled “Fighting the War of Ideas” in its November/December edition. In that article, Baran argues that HT is a radical organisation which poses a real and potent threat.

Four years after the War on Terror was launched and despite centuries of western interventions in the Muslim world, western nations remain in control but out of sorts. Over two centuries after the enlightenment, secular free market liberals dominate just about every important nation in the twenty first century, yet the western enlightened agenda has stalled. Cynicism has surged. A sense of a strong society is dead. And when voters are asked about their political rulers, the sense of apathy is electric. 

In the 1960s Bill Baroody Sr, president of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) coined a phrase that became famous: “the competition of ideas is fundamental to a free society.” AEI and other conservative think-tanks were setting out to develop an alternative set of ideas that were intended to challenge the liberal orthodoxy that dominated policy debates in Washington and on college campuses throughout the United States. AEI and many of the think-tanks in Washington ultimately achieved their objective through thoughtful and independent analysis of policy issues.