Business leaders should join a debate on the Republic's "national philosophy", a leading literary critic said yesterday.
Prof Declan Kiberd of UCD said the State lacked an agreed and overall cultural outlook - and neither business people nor artists were contributing to the debate. "Our business schools produce an American-style graduate committed to the unleashing of unconditioned market forces, while our arts faculties and economics departments generate public servants who work to a more social democratic or European model," he said.
"The result is a certain incoherence in public life - we have disparate, even contradictory policies, but no agreed and overall cultural philosophy."
Prof Kiberd said business leaders should not limit themselves to supplying occasional economic arguments. "It would be a good thing if business leaders, far from shunning publicity because of the hostility of many journalists, were encouraged to enter a debate about a fitting national philosophy."
At an IBEC conference, he said the real question was not why the Republic was so affluent now, but why the wealth took so long in coming. "The sheer energy spent in dislodging British forces is one answer. The Civil War is another - for among its losers were many republicans of entrepreneurial flair who subsequently grew wealthy in the US."
"In a sense, the current generation is the first to live through the full realisation of the republican ideal - enterprising in economic activity, liberal on questions of personal freedom, perhaps a little traditional on matters of culture," he said.
