07-27-2022, 01:26 AM
We had the best sort of Reactive leader possible in Obama (the Mature Reactive), followed by the worst sort of Idealist possible (someone weak in the virtues of culture, vision, and religion but strong in the vices of selfishness, arrogance, and ruthlessness) -- and a Silent President clearly past prime. The usual pattern is to have mediocre-to-dreadful Idealist leaders followed by one great one. FDR and Lincoln may have been similar enough that FDR modeled himself as a wartime leader up0on Lincoln.
Trump is as far from Lincoln or FDR as is possible. He has done far more harm than good to America during a Crisis Era, intensifying such polarization as already existed. Nothing says that a Crisis Era must have a benign ending. It is still possible that this one will end with America becoming a fascistic "Christian and Corporate State" that melds hierarchy, inequity, and repression with brutal enforcement behind it. It might be "Christian" in the self-righteousness of leaders resembling the Ayatollahs of Iran. An America headed in that direction will have a huge brain drain reminiscent of other tyrannies -- and will squelch creativity and innovation so that the well-placed get what they want and the rest will simply endure grinding poverty in soul-killing jobs. I hope that we are better than that, but I have doubts due to the debasement of undergraduate education into either an anything-goes playground or technical proficiency at the expense of all else. Such religion that remains gravitates toward the wealth cult and the superstitious fundamentalism that offer no moral improvement. The mass culture that we have is thoroughly debased and depraved.
Wholesome societies weed out people like Donald Trump and his acolytes relatively early in their political careers before they can become top leaders.
I have my solutions, but they may be repetition by now. Here goes:
1. We need to favor small business over giant enterprises. Our political system depends upon the absence of the concentration of wealth and power. I can think of no system that deals gracefully with extreme concentration of wealth and power unless to undo that concentration. Om view of all the corrupt people who wield great power, scrapping our Constitution for something new is a high-rsik proposition.
Corollary: we need tax laws that favor competition instead of concentration. We need to get people to start small businesses as solutions for local poverty and even unemployment.
2. We need an educational system that teaches essential knowledge that enriches life and allows people to live better on modest rewards. At least two years of inexpensive or subsidized liberal-arts education should be available to anyone who has the intellectual capacity. Pbviously there would need to be a pattern of mandatory learning: philosophy, economics, psychology, statistics and probability, world literature comparative political systems, art and music appreciation, world literature, basic writing,. with perhaps a foreign language and some college0level math or science tossed in. Maybe even some nutrition. We need to become less vulnerable to hustles (including demagoguery), to expend the area of aesthetic curiosity,t p strengthen s and communication, and to meet a complex world with mature decisions.
We have conventionally understood that enough prosperity solves all problems. I'm not sold on conspicuous consumption, and such as we have implies resource depletion that will ultimately impoverish us and waste heat that could make our planet far less habitable than it is now.
Trump is as far from Lincoln or FDR as is possible. He has done far more harm than good to America during a Crisis Era, intensifying such polarization as already existed. Nothing says that a Crisis Era must have a benign ending. It is still possible that this one will end with America becoming a fascistic "Christian and Corporate State" that melds hierarchy, inequity, and repression with brutal enforcement behind it. It might be "Christian" in the self-righteousness of leaders resembling the Ayatollahs of Iran. An America headed in that direction will have a huge brain drain reminiscent of other tyrannies -- and will squelch creativity and innovation so that the well-placed get what they want and the rest will simply endure grinding poverty in soul-killing jobs. I hope that we are better than that, but I have doubts due to the debasement of undergraduate education into either an anything-goes playground or technical proficiency at the expense of all else. Such religion that remains gravitates toward the wealth cult and the superstitious fundamentalism that offer no moral improvement. The mass culture that we have is thoroughly debased and depraved.
Wholesome societies weed out people like Donald Trump and his acolytes relatively early in their political careers before they can become top leaders.
I have my solutions, but they may be repetition by now. Here goes:
1. We need to favor small business over giant enterprises. Our political system depends upon the absence of the concentration of wealth and power. I can think of no system that deals gracefully with extreme concentration of wealth and power unless to undo that concentration. Om view of all the corrupt people who wield great power, scrapping our Constitution for something new is a high-rsik proposition.
Corollary: we need tax laws that favor competition instead of concentration. We need to get people to start small businesses as solutions for local poverty and even unemployment.
2. We need an educational system that teaches essential knowledge that enriches life and allows people to live better on modest rewards. At least two years of inexpensive or subsidized liberal-arts education should be available to anyone who has the intellectual capacity. Pbviously there would need to be a pattern of mandatory learning: philosophy, economics, psychology, statistics and probability, world literature comparative political systems, art and music appreciation, world literature, basic writing,. with perhaps a foreign language and some college0level math or science tossed in. Maybe even some nutrition. We need to become less vulnerable to hustles (including demagoguery), to expend the area of aesthetic curiosity,t p strengthen s and communication, and to meet a complex world with mature decisions.
We have conventionally understood that enough prosperity solves all problems. I'm not sold on conspicuous consumption, and such as we have implies resource depletion that will ultimately impoverish us and waste heat that could make our planet far less habitable than it is now.
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.
