09-05-2016, 05:29 AM
The Fifties were fine for a smart, conformist, straight, white male who had in no way challenged the cultural norms. Others got the scraps if they were 'good' boys or girls, meaning that they were fully subordinate to the Establishment. Maybe GIs let WASP supremacy slide some; maybe they might let the Talented Tenth among African-Americans get a few breaks (but make sure to avoid showing marital interest in our precious white children!) . They would let the Silent cultivate some harmless whimsy... but one stayed within well-delineated borders or else.
The next High will not be like the last one. It can't be. America may have found the way to avoid a Depression like that of the 1930s and will almost certainly not face two enemies so evil and dangerous as Nazi Germany and imperialist Japan that defeating them takes precedence over all else. We are likely to face some scorpions in our collective soul, and be obliged to make major changes in our political system. Some people have found how to exploit the seams in our political system and establish government based upon economic power, the reality of fascism and the political theory behind fascism.
Let America become a pure plutocracy, and the upcoming High will be one of tainted achievements. America could be the sort of country in which two fifths of the population is domestic servants who get paid in room and board alone, in which work is mandatory but ill paid for those with slight skills, and whose middle income comes with crushing debt that makes one a near-serf if one needed education beyond K-12 learning. As is so, the nastier the system is, the more severe is its demand that helpless people exalt its cruelties. That's the ethos of an Agricultural Age (with anomalously-advanced technology) that Bob Butler warns us about.
...Since the 3T began, things have been harder than they need be. Much of the American economy has the enrichment and pampering of elites as the objective. Maybe that happens when we can no longer be yeoman farmers and small-scale shopkeepers but instead employees of organizations dedicated above all else to the enrichment and pampering of ownership and management. Such implies a nasty order with no mercy toward anyone with a fault even if not one's making.
The next High will not be like the last one. It can't be. America may have found the way to avoid a Depression like that of the 1930s and will almost certainly not face two enemies so evil and dangerous as Nazi Germany and imperialist Japan that defeating them takes precedence over all else. We are likely to face some scorpions in our collective soul, and be obliged to make major changes in our political system. Some people have found how to exploit the seams in our political system and establish government based upon economic power, the reality of fascism and the political theory behind fascism.
Let America become a pure plutocracy, and the upcoming High will be one of tainted achievements. America could be the sort of country in which two fifths of the population is domestic servants who get paid in room and board alone, in which work is mandatory but ill paid for those with slight skills, and whose middle income comes with crushing debt that makes one a near-serf if one needed education beyond K-12 learning. As is so, the nastier the system is, the more severe is its demand that helpless people exalt its cruelties. That's the ethos of an Agricultural Age (with anomalously-advanced technology) that Bob Butler warns us about.
...Since the 3T began, things have been harder than they need be. Much of the American economy has the enrichment and pampering of elites as the objective. Maybe that happens when we can no longer be yeoman farmers and small-scale shopkeepers but instead employees of organizations dedicated above all else to the enrichment and pampering of ownership and management. Such implies a nasty order with no mercy toward anyone with a fault even if not one's making.
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.