10-03-2021, 11:51 AM
Basic trust in institutions is a hallmark of a 1T. People have high expectations that those institutions honor, in part because they have learned the hard way that nobody can do everything himself. People know well what is expected of them and they accept such. Competence and diligence at any level of the economic pecking-order are expected, promoted, and rewarded. Business dealings are honest and above board. Economic inequality relates largely to differentials in skill, and people have opportunities to improve themselves.
Ideology is ill-defined, which is just as well. Pragmatism prevails in politics and economics. Schools teach, and religious institutions have more concern with making people more moral than with judging "sinners" (that is, outsiders). Crime is for schmucks and losers. Integrity and decency are norms.
Few seek revolutionary change or yearn for any return to the "good old days" that they recognize as rotten. The 3T is within the memory of most adults who know where it led, and the 4T had enough adventure, often of the wrong kind, for a lifetime. People seeking to change the world without recognizing the complexity of human character brought about apocalypse, something of which people are tired. The weapons of the preceding 4T that gave comfort to leaders of a society under siege are at best museum pieces.
Ideology is ill-defined, which is just as well. Pragmatism prevails in politics and economics. Schools teach, and religious institutions have more concern with making people more moral than with judging "sinners" (that is, outsiders). Crime is for schmucks and losers. Integrity and decency are norms.
Few seek revolutionary change or yearn for any return to the "good old days" that they recognize as rotten. The 3T is within the memory of most adults who know where it led, and the 4T had enough adventure, often of the wrong kind, for a lifetime. People seeking to change the world without recognizing the complexity of human character brought about apocalypse, something of which people are tired. The weapons of the preceding 4T that gave comfort to leaders of a society under siege are at best museum pieces.
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.