(04-03-2020, 04:49 AM)Blazkovitz Wrote: [ -> ] (04-02-2020, 05:45 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]today's libertarian neo-liberal right wing promotes the idea that collective problems can be solved by individuals, as when they say that rather than asking the government to do things, we should just vote by how we shop.
Society is made up of individuals, so if all members of society stop buying an unethical company's products, the company will either go bankrupt or be forced to change its ways. Segregating wastes, stopping watching porn or buying plastic containers are good examples of DIY approach to solving social problems.
If everybody was so responsible, legislative approach wouldn't be necessary and libertarianism or anarcho-individualism would work fine. Unfortunately some people are not motivated enough.
But that's the rub. How do you get everybody to be responsible? And quickly, if necessary? In our current stage of evolution (which in our early boomer hippie days we didn't really face up to), we are not very responsible beings. That requires a spiritual journey, which very few people take. Problems can't wait for everybody to do the right thing. We'd wait forever. No, it takes the government to set policy for the nation. Individuals can make great contributions; I don't knock that at all. But besides DIY and inventive entreprenuers, we need laws and regulations, and for everyone to participate in the national programs and enjoy being a part of something greater than ourselves. Sometimes JFK the civic is right: ask what you can do for your country.
Quote:Quote:The civic archetype is becoming a dominant force at the time that collective solutions are needed. That obviously applies to the COVID-19 event. People need to follow guidelines and rules issued by the government. Otherwise, if people behave as individuals, they are endangering themselves and others.
Yeah, but this should apply only in emergencies. The danger of Civic is precisely that they retain the collectivistic attitudes after they cease to be necessary, that's why 1Ts are so oppressive.
Yes, that's the danger with any trend, that it goes too far. In the last 40 years, individualism has gone way too far, and it's past time for us to get more collectivist again. Individualism has ceased to be necessary, and in fact it is very oppressive. The Republicans have forced this false individualism upon us, and not only does it mean we can't act together as a nation very often or for very long or very well, but it merely allows the greediest and wealthiest to rule over us and hog all the money and power. I am glad that the slogan for this crisis is "we are all in this together." I hear it a lot, and it has been the Democratic Party slogan for a while. I hope it sticks.
Quote:Quote:According to The Fourth Turning, whereas nomad Generation X helped nurture individual risk-taking and adventure in the freewheeling 3T era in youth and helped make it as exciting as it was, creating Xtreme sports and such, Gen X nomads are now supposed in mid-life to apply the skills they learned as can-do risk-takers and pragmatic, ad-hoc adaptive entrepreneurs to becoming good situation-managers and officers during the crisis, applying their skills to serve the community and the needs of society in the 4T crisis. It can be a difficult adjustment for nomads, but they aren't so young anymore, and thus they feel more responsible, or at least that was/is the hope of the T4T authors. I watch Gov. Newsom in action and he seems to fill the bill nicely.
Responsibility is an individual trait. "Serving the community" really means serving the individuals that make it up. So, collectivism should be replaced by love and kindness between individuals.
Pragmatic, adaptive Xer entrepreneurs will be very necessary to rebuild the economy after the pandemic is over. And exciting entertainment helps people relax during the lockdowns.
You are right about Newsom, he is doing much better than the boomer Cuomo.
Such entrepreneurs are needed, and entertainment is needed, although the Lost and Greatest Generations were the greatest entertainers, and nothing remotely approaching them exist today. So that in itself was not a Generation X strong point at all. It was their adventurism that was outstanding. What Gen X can contribute now is boldness in action, like Gov. Newsom shows. Sports will continue, although that's mostly a millennial realm now, but if Gen X applies their innate courage to the social and political realm now, it will be entertaining in a better way. But Gen X has little vision, so Boomers are still needed at the helm, if they can step up to the role.
Being in a 4T, what is necessary will be quite in line with what the authors say, and it's quite the opposite of what you say here, for the most part. The community is more than the individuals that make it up. It is a whole, greater than the sum of its parts. We are not individuals, in fact, except in a relative degree. The individual is the main locus of learning and responsibility. We don't want to see individuality submerged. I still have my individual goals, desires and creative ambitions. But we cannot exist alone for more than a second. That's a scientific fact. As individuals we don't even know who we are without others. Love can be part of the collective being too, as it was in the new sixties love culture, and in spiritual communities throughout history, and this greater love nourishes and inspires us. Love is divine energy, as Teilhard de Chardin said. This greater love is more fantastic even than a pair of lovers is. When a people are alive, and moved by a common love, some magic is afoot in the land. Memes and divine ideas spread among us. This has also happened in more recent times in spite of Reaganomics. The Gen X and Millennial memes and fads aren't so interesting nor so genuinely subversive to the status quo as the silent and boomer ones were, but they still happen. And they can be liberating as well as connecting.
We need
far more than to rebuild the economy
after the pandemic! Come on, you know that. It was already broken almost beyond repair, just as Sanders says. The oligarchy needs to be replaced by wealth and power spread among the people again, not hoarded by the 1%. The environment needs to be restored. We depend on it for life, and for love, and for all the best experiences of our lives. We also need to restore our democracy and our government after 40 years of erosion and destruction. We cannot abide a revival of racism and xenophobia. We were in crisis long before this pandemic, which is just some shock treatment which wakes us up to the fact that we ARE all in this together. We depend on each other totally; no one can make it alone. Responsibility is an individual thing, but we also gain it when we can feed off the energy of others and the energy of a society-- the greater human being which has energy and identity of its own, and the greater being of Nature too, and the greater being of the divine and angelic spirit worlds.
We have fallen so far out of balance toward the individual, that it will be a while before we need to worry about a degree of collectivism that ceases to be necessary. No doubt this could happen someday. The best thing is to have as much balance as we can during all times and all turnings. When genuine and evolved, the individual and the collective are synthesized into the creative. That is the project of humanity in this era of civilization, as we become one people on one planet but still individuals who want to be free.