10-30-2021, 06:32 PM
(10-30-2021, 04:14 AM)nguyenivy Wrote: I think what year it will be depends on whether COVID is our big crisis climax or not. If it is, then whoever is born in the 2 to 3 years leading up to its end will be the new Prophets. What makes me wonder if COVID really is the big one has more to do with last time: the 1918 flu killed many people around the world but we weren't in an 'official' crisis until 1929 (unless you were in Europe where they seemed to just have a gigantic Crisis from 1914 to 1945 between both WWs). Were people's reactions to the 1918 flu different given it happened during a 3T? Did places close down on their own accord or did governments sweep in to enforce closures in like these days?
We have been in a Crisis since 2008 with the financial calamity. To be sure, this Crisis has had much 3T character, reflecting the will of the economic elites for what they most like about a 3T (severe inequality, market power, and no constraints upon economic indulgence), but for about everyone else it is a Crisis. The 3T character reflects that the elite the attitude that every man is for himself alone, which is one way of ensuring that just about everyone gets hurt.
When that cracks, we will have solved most of our problems. COVID-19 has killed over 700,000 people in America, roughly the population of Denver. One ideological segment of America has done far worse in meeting the Crisis, and that is the part most likely to support the more reactionary interests in America. Resistance to masks, vaccines, and social distancing has been strongest among Trump supporters. Such bodes ill for the current constellation of Republican voters.
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.