The theory can never work perfectly because history does not act as a perfect machine. People make history, but history determines what is possible for people. History encompasses everything human; because people are not machines, history cannot be a machine.
Even so there is a cycle in history that establishes what is possible in some times and what is not. Obviously no country can long endure if its guiding principle is that every man is for himself all the time. People end up with nothing worthy of loyalty or show no ability to make sacrifices for even the survival of the community -- and the community goes rotten.
Historical eras tend to create habits that do not disappear easily while people around with those habits. When I discuss much that is wrong with contemporary America I focus not so much on conservatism and liberalism, as we tend to alternate between times of liberal and conservative domination. Donald Trump would be a disaster as a President whether he were a Bible-thumping reactionary or a self-indulgent liberal telling people to live for the moment. He exemplifies the ethos of every man for himself to the extreme.
It is hard to imagine brave young men storming the beaches of Normandy on the assumption that they do so for their own selfish benefit. Americans had to take individual responsibility to meet the economic meltdown that they just knew; to get a fair shake in most industrial work they would need a union on their side just to get collective bargaining; they would have to do big projects to create prosperity more lasting than some corrupt speculative boom. Everybody depends on everyone else doing his share in a Crisis Era so that there will be something worthy of keeping.
The habits that everyone old enough to remember the Crisis continue into the 1T, and everyone acts as if everything holds by a thin thread. Loyalty becomes the key to respectability -- and survival. That said, loyalty rewards itself in unprecedented prosperity. People may be loyal to questionable things, like segregation in the 1950s,,, and such comes under challenge in the 2T.
Culture loses its cohesion (as if cultural conformity achieved anything worthy) as kids who knew not the Crisis start to enter adulthood. The world seems safe enough to face some challenges. Maybe some commercial loyalty is suspect, as to cigarettes. Still, the projects are getting bigger -- if also more soulless. The youth give ethical and cultural challenges... and at times they are right. The Awakening Era is upon us, and it will last until society starts making compromises or one side crushes the other.
It's in the 3T that young adults sacrifice both community and principle in the name of gain and hedonism. Life is all about making money and enjoying its fruits. People are looking for easy money from short-term, high-yield investments easy to make and sell and requiring little effort. Anyone who wants such asks for what never was, can never be for long, and never will be. Gambling, for all practical purposes, supplants real work (real work is for suckers, as it is then ill-paid because 'lesser' people pick the crops, feed and slaughter the livestock for meat, do domestic service, and serve people at the retail and food-service places. Is something wrong then? Oh, is there!
Speculative booms crowd out more wholesome investments that really can create wealth. We find out the hard way, or things get so hard that we give up and do things as necessary or everything falls apart. Every man for himself means that almost everyone gets hurt.
Even so there is a cycle in history that establishes what is possible in some times and what is not. Obviously no country can long endure if its guiding principle is that every man is for himself all the time. People end up with nothing worthy of loyalty or show no ability to make sacrifices for even the survival of the community -- and the community goes rotten.
Historical eras tend to create habits that do not disappear easily while people around with those habits. When I discuss much that is wrong with contemporary America I focus not so much on conservatism and liberalism, as we tend to alternate between times of liberal and conservative domination. Donald Trump would be a disaster as a President whether he were a Bible-thumping reactionary or a self-indulgent liberal telling people to live for the moment. He exemplifies the ethos of every man for himself to the extreme.
It is hard to imagine brave young men storming the beaches of Normandy on the assumption that they do so for their own selfish benefit. Americans had to take individual responsibility to meet the economic meltdown that they just knew; to get a fair shake in most industrial work they would need a union on their side just to get collective bargaining; they would have to do big projects to create prosperity more lasting than some corrupt speculative boom. Everybody depends on everyone else doing his share in a Crisis Era so that there will be something worthy of keeping.
The habits that everyone old enough to remember the Crisis continue into the 1T, and everyone acts as if everything holds by a thin thread. Loyalty becomes the key to respectability -- and survival. That said, loyalty rewards itself in unprecedented prosperity. People may be loyal to questionable things, like segregation in the 1950s,,, and such comes under challenge in the 2T.
Culture loses its cohesion (as if cultural conformity achieved anything worthy) as kids who knew not the Crisis start to enter adulthood. The world seems safe enough to face some challenges. Maybe some commercial loyalty is suspect, as to cigarettes. Still, the projects are getting bigger -- if also more soulless. The youth give ethical and cultural challenges... and at times they are right. The Awakening Era is upon us, and it will last until society starts making compromises or one side crushes the other.
It's in the 3T that young adults sacrifice both community and principle in the name of gain and hedonism. Life is all about making money and enjoying its fruits. People are looking for easy money from short-term, high-yield investments easy to make and sell and requiring little effort. Anyone who wants such asks for what never was, can never be for long, and never will be. Gambling, for all practical purposes, supplants real work (real work is for suckers, as it is then ill-paid because 'lesser' people pick the crops, feed and slaughter the livestock for meat, do domestic service, and serve people at the retail and food-service places. Is something wrong then? Oh, is there!
Speculative booms crowd out more wholesome investments that really can create wealth. We find out the hard way, or things get so hard that we give up and do things as necessary or everything falls apart. Every man for himself means that almost everyone gets hurt.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
