Powell Memorandum at 50

[Eric the Green]

(09-08-2021, 01:02 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-08-2021, 12:18 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(09-08-2021, 09:30 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-07-2021, 10:32 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(09-07-2021, 08:08 PM)sbarrera Wrote: Here is a link the memo, clearly a right-wing reaction to the "new left" of the Awakening.

https://law2.wlu.edu/deptimages/Powell%2...script.pdf

Golly isn’t it very obvious that the right wing won and for the most part continues to do so despite obvious flaws which the lid has come off of.

The left won the culture and the right won the economy -- at least that's the narrative that seems to dominate most discussions like this.  We may be on the brink of real change, but greed is hard to defeat when it has the kind of power it does today.

I am not sure that the left really won the culture. If they did wouldn't we still be in the "free love" mindset?

I don't think it matters.  We're still open about sex, and comfortable with consenting sex of all types, assumiing the consenting are old enough to consent.  That sex is now a mundane enough issue that it has gotten boring (or at least not exciting) makes the point.  Nothing is nearly as tempting as the illicit.

Sex is indeed on the way to becoming taboo again. I myself don't care much about sex workers and prostitution; if people resort to that service, it's the sign of worse underlying personal problems. The me-too movement and the excessive fear of sexual predation is closing off people from the value of sexual relationships. This is also the fault of those predators themselves who took sexual permissiveness as justification to pursue predatory male impulses left over from ancient history and patriarchy. So the problem comes from both sides; misconduct itself and the fear that causes over-reaction and excessive punishment and inhibition.

So the walls that came down in the sixties are being erected again. How far will this go? It's certainly confirms the saeculum cycle, and the views of the authors regarding trends between 4T and 2T. 

The larger problem is loneliness and alienation in general, aggravated by the pandemic recently. This is a problem created by our industrial and tech society, so it goes beyond our current 4T. Community breakdown has happened, and extended families have collapsed. Too much individualism has happened in free-market societies. Loneliness leads to frustration and aggravation of the impulses of frustrated males who take advantage of their power over women in the workplace and on the streets. Obviously, moving away from neoliberalism and other features of out-of-control capitalism and a trend toward rebuilding community is needed. I think further progress, begun in the sixties and now forgotten, will be made as the Awakening period returns again. 

I doubt much will change in the 4T on the personal levels, but if progress can be returned to our politics and our institutions, at least hope will return to our collective mindset, which would reduce the feelings of alienation and bring back a society with greater trust, and from that grows more permissiveness and breakdown of walls, and if greater awareness of our inhibitions and frustrations goes along with this, then perhaps some growth in society towards better relationships will happen.

Right now, it is Senators Sinema and Manchin who stand in the way of everything that we need.