03-20-2020, 02:57 AM
(03-19-2020, 08:39 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: It sure does feel like a regeneracy. Everyone is united in their stupidity.
One partisan side seems to more respect intellectual activity and its results more than does the other. The other side seems to prefer superstition and dogma. One partisan side recognizes that it cannot substitute any one of many cultural traditions over another (the struggle is not between some of the most disparate traditions on Earth that can seem to exist in harmony), and one partisan side seems to be connected heavily to two (Mountain and Deep South. The most that any two of the traditions on one of the sides can do is to meld at a personal or family level; the other sees the melding of two cultures establishing a proper norm for us all.
We do not have a struggle between tradition and modernity; we have a struggle between two traditions (the Mountain South and the Deep South -- but only among whites in the latter).
No side is united in wisdom.
The reaction to CORVID-19 looks much like a regeneracy with people abruptly changing many of their behaviors under a threat (mass death characteristic of a war going badly). The solution from both sides seems to be regimentation to get people to keep their distance for the duration. Nobody can say how long the duration is. We all know the consequences: not only do we not want to get sick with a disease of unknown severity, but we do not want to finish off Grandpa or Grandma.
Most of us expect the world to change. Our economic behaviors will change. We will be more socially limited. (Oh, do I wish that I still had a dog to walk...) Many of the sleazy deals that we have made in recent years will suddenly prove unworkable.
But the Crisis is far from over, although we are probably entering the final stage. Things can move fast. I expect the 2020 election to establish some new consensus about the direction of American political, cultural, and economic life. Neither side will yield, but one will break. That is all that I can say while trying to be neutral.
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.