"While everyone chafes under any ethical and moral systems, we’d shine and prevail by flagrantly ignoring and disregarding modernity in favor of successes, results and growth."
or should I have written it as:
"While everyone chafes under any ethical and moral systems, we shine and prevail by flagrantly ignoring and disregarding modernity in favor of successes, results and growth.
Is it correct and/or does it change the meaning of the original sentence?
The two mean slightly different things; the first sentence means we would shine and prevail if only we were to flagrantly ignore and disregard modernity, but since we don't, we aren't shining or prevailing. The second means that we do flagrantly ignore and disregard modernity, and that is the reason we shine and prevail.
Actually, I think the distinction @Brian Hooper cites would be lost for a great many readers. Your first clause sets up the present indicative, but many people would understand the "any" to introduce a sense of the hypothetical and then interpret the second clause to be subjunctive.
How can an indicative declaration be conditional? Consider:
An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
These declarative sentences mean just what they say, but each also sets up a conditional: [If you eat] an apple a day [you will] keep the doctor away. No apple has yet been eaten (by you), yet you are being encouraged to eat one every day, and assured that if you do you will be healthy.
