We are in a Athenian moment societally now.
In Athens of the fifth century B.C., the city-state was beset by societal anomie and 
confusion as traditionalists and Sophists vied for intellectual dominance. The Sophists declared their hostility and rejection of the more conventional beliefs of their society but offered nothing at all to replace them. The old gods were robbed of their power as naturalistic explanations of the universe were attempted, but no coherent explanations nor ideology came of this. Thus, society had no rudder and no path forward. Cohesion diminished; chaos morally and intellectually threatened. It was not completely the fault of the Sophists, though.
Here’s W.T. Jones in A History of Western Philosophy discussing this.
It will not do to simply condemn the Sophists as a destructive force; they merely extracted an essence which was already there and which sooner or later had to be drained off before real progress could be made. From this point of view, indeed, their role was positive. Thy are important not only because they hastened the end of an era by spreading scepticism and relativism, but because their views, taken in themselves and apart from their impact on the subsequent development of theory, are “signs of the times.”
When examined from from a wider angle, we are all Athenians now — Democrats, Republicans, socialists, the alt right, it does not matter. Just as moderns make very little distinction between one fifth century Athenian’s beliefs and another’s, pull back just a little and we are essentially in the same condition — being as we all must creatures of our time, with our ideological predilections and intuitions small side notes in the grand scope of time. We all wish to tear the existing edifices down but we have not even begun to imagine even the barest shape of what can replace those (no, not even the socialists). As in fifth century Athens, the conditions are too altered now as compared to what came before, the world is too different; we cannot go back to what came before, yet we have no path out of the mire, either.
More Jones.
A widespread dissolution of the old beliefs which had held society together, coupled with a radical scepticism about the possibility of knowledge which prohibited any attempt to discover new and better grounds for for the old social formulas, resulted in the same narrow and ruthless self-seeking that the tensions of war and defeat naturally and independently engendered. Thus the very fabric of society seemed to be collapsing. Defeat and the economic and political losses which Athens had to face were bad enough, but they were coupled with an even more serious moral collapse. The hard, and only recently won, political unity of the city-state had disappeared in narrow and divisive party conflict; the old ideal of sophrosyne, of moderation and self-discipline, had given way to a deliberate and unrestrained seeking of the extremes; the old probity, the high-mindedness, loyalty, and devotion to civic duty, which had enabled a tiny state like Athens to defat the great Persian empire less than a century earlier, had been replaced by licentious self-seeking and an intentness on sensual pleasures altogether incompatible with the health and survival of the city.
That sounds very familiar doesn’t it? That is essentially where we are right now. Identity politics, alt-right resurgence, neoliberal ideology, and all the other polarizations and societal discordances that have assailed and bedeviled us over these past few decades, combined with a great economic calamity, defeat or stalemates in several wars and the possibility of great upheaval due to global climate change, have left us stunned and punch-drunk yet with no plausible defense.
This, then, is our Athenian moment, with the radical Sophists of our day accurately affirming that the old ways are done, that expedience and survival require their abandonment, yet offering nothing in their stead. That is where we stand now, though we are sinking ever further into the mire as we dither.
