1974?
"What builds the civilization and the cathedral is a mad aspiration of some kind. And as long as that lasts, people are pulling together. And if you don’t have an aspiration, then the only other thing that will pull people together so they will do something is fear. Either aspiration or fear, and then people will work together. But let them not be scared, and not have something crazy pushing them, then just their thinking of survival, security and you know what else.
The myth of the Middle Ages was of Man’s Fall, of all being born in Original Sin as a consequence. When they die they will go to hell unless they are saved. They are saved by the Savior Jesus who was crucified, and founded the Church, and through the Sacraments of the church, salvation is achieved.
This supported an enormous institution: the Church, and the whole civilization of the Middle Ages was based on this. And when that belief disintegrated, the culture disintegrated; it has disintegrated now.
We are in what is called a wasteland. T.S. Eliott put his finger on it, back there in 1922, I think it was. What is a wasteland? It is a wasteland of people living without aspiration, going through the routine of their lives, doing things they are told to do because they don’t have the courage to do something they want to do, which would be a little bit insane.
We are in a realm that I would describe as a terminal moraine of myths. There are no end of destroyed mythologies around us."