Even as we wait in anticipation for Sunday's World Cup final between France and Croatia, there is at least one other major soccer event that we can watch right now: the "Philosophers' World Cup" by Monty Python.

What happens when a society, once a model for enlightened progress, threatens to backslide into intolerance and irrationality? How should that society’s stunned and disoriented members respond? Do they engage in kind, resist, withdraw, even depart?