02-04-2021, 06:23 AM
(02-03-2021, 11:22 AM)beechnut79 Wrote:(02-03-2021, 04:06 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: I was going to post this elsewhere but it was too much a shift from the direction of the thread (which was about music).
I can predict this: that America will come out of the Crisis of 2020 (with the War on COVID-19 as its focus) much changed. The deaths will not be largely of young males as is the case in shooting wars, but people will in general come out of this war with different attitudes on politics and culture. Except for regional effects and ethnic divides in vulnerability it will have pushed people to be more rational, more trusting of credible authority, and more likely to defer gratification. People not so rational, people who trust nobody or trust questionable sources or dubious figures of authority (such as Treacherous Reckless Unconscionable Muddler as President), and less willing to sacrifice hedonism for safety (think also of people who take selfies in dangerous circumstances or in an earlier time were reckless sexually or used IV drugs when AIDS was a death sentence) will be disproportionately among those who die directly or endure shortened lives. Americans of all origins will want economic changes that make America safer from dangerous infections even if such compromises profits and wages. Just imagine how people think of COVID-19 if its deaths correlate heavily to poverty or ethnicity. I expect that the Insurrection of January 6 will also have its effects on political attitudes.
Much that people tolerate in a 3T because it is seemingly profitable activity or harmless fun vanishes when it is shown to bring economic or personal disaster.
But the effect of the sexual revolution came a full turning earlier as it was on the 2T/3T cusp when the lure of sexual recklessness soured with the advent of the AIDS scare. To me that pretty much popped the balloon of the hedonistic culture.
Nope. The hedonism took different directions. Even the advice "use a f---ing condom when you f---" didn't require much of a compromise. At a certain point, most of the new AIDS cases came from IV drug use, which is not what most people consider fun. Go shopping. Take a cruise.
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.