(08-15-2021, 02:37 AM)nguyenivy Wrote: [
Regarding the 3T behaviour remaining intact, I would imagine there will come a time (maybe it will take until we're fully in the upcoming 1T?) where the 3T behaviours that are not a net-gain in society are cast away. IIRC 3Ts are a time when people atomise more, right? So a libertarian attitude of 'live and let live', or you can live in your own little world doing what you like without interference are such things that can become dangerous in the 4T like we're seeing now with COVID & climate change, as our actions can indeed have consequences on the rest of the world and it shows a lot more clearly now in the 4T.
Atomization of society is exactly what I would want if I wanted to break down the institutions necessary for its defense. "Every man for himself" is one way to ensure that almost everyone ends up financially broke and personally broken. So if one is in the leadership of a power on a course of conquest one might promote extremist causes of both sides of the spectrum (one of those will collaborate, and the other will either sell out or be individually liquidated), push ethnic and religious divisions, and economic polarization. Obviously, create a Fifth Column of defeatists who see a military defeat as the perfect opportunity for establishing an unpopular agenda. With "every man for himself", but nobody capable looking out for himself except for selling out everyone else, some people will accept a more-privileged form of slavery or serfdom as a sick form of self-esteem. Maybe if one is greedy one can keep for oneself a little of what the occupiers steal as a sort of finder's fee for ratting out stores of hidden wealth.
Maybe some people look at climate change as an opportunity to sell waterfront property multiple times as the Gulf of Mexico inundates in turn New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Natchez, Vicksburg, Greenville (Mississippi), Clarksdale, and eventually Memphis. OK, if Pine Bluff, Arkansas (an infamous dump of a community) becomes the saltwater port of the Arkansas River it might become a great new metropolis... but that is a high price for others to pay.
Quote:What sort of personal things got big in the 3T that would likely not fly in a 1T? What does society usually care about in the 3T that is rejected or at least de-prioritised by the time we're in a 1T? I know economically, the whole trickle-down thing wouldn't work as we've just seen decades of a small group of people getting ever-larger slices of the pie while the everyday person works ever-harder to keep up. Political divisions appeared to have grown ever-wider during the 3T & into the 4T with no big resolution as of yet, so something has to give there by the time we're in the 1T.
1. Neoliberal economics. Enough said. It burns too many people, and the wealth that economic get by sweating everyone who toils and fleeces everyone who has any needs; the wealth never trickles down.
2. Focus on entertainment. People need culture, but they do not need mindless entertainment. People are spending huge amounts of time on vapid pop music, video, and video games without learning anything or otherwise improving themselves. Maybe when the economic realities make luxuries rare (you might have to turn off the TV and computer monitor during an air raid) people will accept that reality. In the meantime -- bad habits are worthy of the cost of losing them.
3. Reliance upon corporate and governmental behemoths to solve all problems. Some problems cannot be solved during a 4T even if they are solved easily after its end. Bureaucracy is incredibly unproductive, uncreative, and rigid. We will need to rediscover the desirability of small business as an economic solution instead of as something "silly".
4. Under-saving. Thrift is the ultimate source of all capital that does not come by forced sales of other people's assets or the brutal sweating of workers. I expect Americans to get saddled with mandatory savings plans that imply low yields and no easy access so that there will be cheap capital for investment.
People usually find that "every man for himself" ensures that almost everyone gets hurt badly. During a major war, armies and navies drill that ethos out of soldiers' and sailors' minds. Add to that, the giant corporations that produce huge quantities of materiel for the war insist upon highly-standardized procedures in manufacturing to fit rigid specifications. Donald Trump is the every-man-for-himself ethos in the extreme, as one might expect of a pathological narcissist.
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.