Revenge of the Forgotten Class

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-14-2017, 02:22 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-14-2017, 01:33 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(08-13-2017, 05:51 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: As to PBR's cringe worthy propaganda--I expect that from the likes of him.

Like most conservatives I well know how scummy human behavior can be. I know how liars can use words -- even, as the unseen villains in 1984 do, turning words into lies. "Final solution of the Jewish Question"... "Ten years imprisonment without the right of correspondence"?

With Trump as president, Orwell and Solzhenitsyn become much more relevant.

Quote:Perhaps Boomers are in an industrial age time warp.  The left-right axis dominated the industrial age.

As a Boomer I can attest to our own worst tendencies: we want the best of both worlds and end up giving the world the worst of both -- if we are the ones who get the best of both worlds for ourselves alone. I have a conscience, which may have kept me from joining the elite party of unconstrained indulgence.

The left-right axis is alive and well, and stronger than ever, and although Millennials and Xers may complain about it, I don't see them offering any viable alternatives. As long as powerful, wealthy people hog all the benefits of automation and globalization, to the detriment of the people and their environment, the left-right axis continues beyond the industrial age. As long as they are able to rig the political system, and arouse the prejudices of their non-wealthy but regressive followers to their favor, then those who oppose them and stand for greater equality and ecology are "the left" and must be supported. That's what's happening, and those who don't see it are truly blind.

If we accept the idea of ages of civilization, the three recent are agricultural, industrial and possibly information.  The agricultural would feature the written word, animal power and muscle powered weapons.  The industrial would feature the printed word, steam power, and gunpowder weapons.  The hypothetical information age would feature computer networks, renewable energy and nukes.  While the information or post scarcity would is hypothetical in many ways, the technology changes are a big deal.  The development of new patterns is quite plausible.

Eric suggested things have been popping for about 500 years.  By coincidence or design, this suggests Martin Luther’s Ninety Five Theses of 1517 as an off the cuff marker for the agriculture / industrial cusp.  While it may be a bit early, I’d throw the Hiroshima bomb out as an early marker for the industrial / information cusp.

If those are more or less acceptable, the major transformations between cusps might include the Reformation, the Industrial Revolution, the Enlightenment, shifting political power from the hereditary nobility to democracy, ending slavery in North America with the parallel enabling of the robber barons, the New Deal and the world wars.  I’m open to any suggestion of other significant transitions.  I’m likely several short.

Looking at these transitions, it is not hard to pick out an arrow of progress.  I’d suggest the culture shifts to follow technology, thus elites gaining power through the new technology have an edge.  Academic, religious and political theories enable the new elites and common man.  Democracy and human rights have done well.  Church, politics and even academics have become less controlled by an autocratic hierarchy, more by a competition of ideas.

Thus, while I’m trying to respect tradition and the merit and place of older power structures and ideas, at heart I see much of the transitions we’ve faced as adaptation to new technology and setting the culture to best adopt to a changing reality.  Elites who benefit from existing power structures will resist, but the world moves on and to some extent cultures must follow.

The world hasn’t stopped changing.  Thus, there will still be elites clinging to power while the culture, struggles with the changes.  I don’t see how the technology shifts of the hypothetical information age changes that.  The issues change.  The change changes.  So it has always been over the 500 year interval.  Global warming, renewable energy, health care and jobs availability seem lurking changes that in time will demand action.  

Must the adaptation come now?  That isn’t clear.  A great number of folks can ignore problems for another election cycle, or two, or many.  The crisis might not seem as blatantly obvious and immediate as past transitions have seemed.  There is no government endorsed slavery, or the crushing Gilded Age poverty and repeated economic crashes that let to the New Deal.  Without that tension and pressure, conservatives holding the status quo have an edge.

One difference today is the lack of a new elite pushing new technology that requires structural basic changes to become wealthy and acquire power.  Capitalism is working fine from that perspective.  Thus the frequent alliance between working folks seeking equality and a new elite pursing the levers of power seems to be missing.  Without such an alliance, the regular clockwork crises that have ticked on in the Anglo American sequence seems to be faltering.

Another aspect is the incredible energy of the GIs, their willingness to attack and solve problems, ended by the national malaise and unravelling memes.  This results in a divided culture where many are unwilling to address problems.  I don’t see this as directly tied to the changing technology of the hypothetical information age, but the timing of it makes it part of the puzzle.

There is also the not so subtle racist element of Nixon’s Southern Strategy that was originally kept relatively quiet but has resurfaced openly in the alt right.  The idea of vanquishing the supposed black urban welfare queen was a key element of Reagan’s unravelling memes, notably the push to not fund domestic services.

Not simple.  There are any number of issues and conflicts in play.  Technology and environment are still changing, though.  We will eventually have to adapt to it, but the pressure for change may be less as we lack a driving issue that demands now.  None the less, there will be progressives attempt to adapt to modern issues, and conservatives attempting to maintain advantageous power structures.  I don’t see that changing.