11-09-2019, 08:11 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-09-2019, 08:35 PM by Eric the Green.)
(11-09-2019, 07:54 PM)Isoko Wrote: Hi Eric,
You express interesting thoughts and I can see where you are coming from. However, I do not wish to sound abrupt but the idea of one global state I feel has passed. It was a popular mode of thinking in the 1990s but the world has retracted since then. I have met a few Russians who share the utopian vision of thus but for the most part I think it is just wishful thinking.
Ultimately it was a western desire born out of world war 2. The west decided never again and desired the global vision of unity. Problem is the rest of the world hasn't caught up to this level of thinking. Hence the problems with jingoism, radicalism, etc, etc.
Basically my thoughts are the world is going to be another 19th century with Russia, China and India and others getting rich and the west being the sick man this time around. It'll be a long century like the 19th but when these countries have finally achieved what the west has, they will fight amongst themselves. I'm looking at a 22nd century age of conflict like the 20th was to the 19th.
We could have had a global century but America kinda screed it up with the Bush admin and its never been right since.
As for Putinism you are correct in one essence. It is draining the nation. But on the other hand the idea of Russia being a unique country with a special destiny I think will live on. Its not Europe its Russia and it is a different mindset altogether.
"Hasn't caught up"; that may be true, and I do agree. People do often revert to the familiar and old fashioned; they like the comfort of authority and tradition. But progress in the long run means that eventually people will catch up. I don't see that it is anything but inevitable. Nations lived and grew within a horizon, but that has been broken by commerce, technology, global crises and wars. Races are co-mingling in ever-greater numbers. Young people want freedom and prosperity, not national pride. Right now the Arab Spring spirit is rising again in the lands that Bush shattered with his wars; young people are rising up there again now for freedom and prosperity, not for Islamism and terrorism. More and more they care about life, not about abstractions like nations and religious sectarianism. The old framework of warring nations and colonies was shattered and can't be rebuilt. The 19th century was the last in a different era of civilization from our own. The 1890s/1900s and the world wars were an epochal shift that can't be shifted back. 200-year cycles don't exist, but 500-year cycles do.
The W. Bush admin was a fluke, provided by a supreme court decision that circumvented the will of the people. His wars are seen a deviation, not a new normal. The early 1990s was a trend-setting time; the early 21st century is a deadly holding action, holding back a dam that will break within just a very few years now. The 2020s will be the return of progress; bank on it
I am not saying that a global state will be erected in our lifetimes, and if it ever is it will just be a UN with more power. There will be local governing entities and nations. But that does not matter. The global society has been a fact now for 120 years and its reality is ever-greater. The League of Nations established in 1919 was the beginning of a new civilization. Barriers and walls are breaking down and we are realizing that humanity is one people on one threatened Earth-- threatened by our own behavior and by the small ruling class. It will be saved, and that requires global cooperation. The terrible Trumpists are trying to stop this cooperation, but one retrograde nation-- retrograde because of the votes of 77,744 people in 3 US states-- can't hold back progress for long.