Chris Caldwell is always worth reading, but this claim seems quite wrong to me: "All our treasured “values” were formulated for a society more uniform and more orderly than today’s." https://www.wsj.com/articles/macron-seeks-an-enlightened-islam-11607037298

The republican values to which Macron is appealing were formulated in the course of the most dramatic and bloody European revolution before the 20th century. I don't know how you call the France of 1789, or 1793, or 1848 more uniform and orderly than the France of today.

We could play the same game with American history. Were Americans more politically and culturally unified in 1776? 1800? 1812? 1850? 1860? These assumptions about the harmonious past just don't stand up to scrutiny.

What is true that the cleavages were *different* to those to today. So we see consensus answers to some of our questions, while ignoring bitter disagreement about many of their questions.