01-11-2021, 11:46 AM
(01-10-2021, 06:16 PM)mamabug Wrote: For me, the hyperbole and hypocrisy surrounding recent events is potentially more dangerous than the events themselves. The in-group/out-group dynamics are intensifying, which is worrisome. The higher in-group preference is, the more people are willing to excuse what would otherwise be immoral behavior on the part of their in-group towards the scapegoated out-group. Right now, it feels as if every scenario I can come up with, from best case to worst, is equally feasible. That's the problem with a 4T, once the genie is out of the bottle you never know what you're going to get.
The balance is that people start to see virtues in the out-groups and faults in the in-groups. When the hierarchy has wealth and economic power as the measure of virtue, then the political culture and bureaucratic practice seeks to oppress the poor even more, to kick them harder, and to punish their poverty with even more poverty. Such is plutocracy, the neoliberal phase of the Skowronek cycle.
The fault is that the in-group becomes even more exclusive, shutting out any challenges, even of talent, to participation. But the neoliberal era that began with Reagan and almost certainly ends with Trump, has come to an end. The systems and causes that best recognize and recognize the Forgotten Man are more likely to prevail than those who intensify the harshness of the dying Old Order.
Much in a 4T is absurd, dangerous, or both. The whirlwind is reaped -- but destructive as the whirlwind is, it does not last. We don't know whether the whirlwind is a single tornado or a hurricane, and the settled condition for a short time might be the strange calm of the eye.
Once the storm is certifiably past we know what to do. Overt disgraces are ruined and judged.
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.
