09-29-2020, 04:54 PM
(09-29-2020, 02:37 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:P1: the global warming issue should be having its turn in the batter's box now, but it is being overshadowed not only by the COVID pandemic but by all those barons who want to keep things the way they are, at least on that particular issues. Environmental concerns were hip in the late 60s and most of the 70s but got pushed aside when Reagan (in)famously took down the solar panels in the White House which his predecessor had installed.(09-29-2020, 10:38 AM)David Horn Wrote: Red and Blue may be adversaries, but neither can exist without the other. It's a kind of codependency. Eliminating the Blue faction would codify a preference for the private over the public, and keep government small and ineffective -- but no one would care all that much. Those of us in the downscale section of society would laud our betters for how clever and hardworking they are, and the upscale crowd would feel comfortable knowing that they deserved every dollar and perk they have. If Red disappeared, something more akin to true socialism might emerge organically, and we would all be one and happy.
Of course, neither of these scenarios is possible if there are thoughtful people who are not just cookie-cutter copies of each other. That's truer when societal norms shift too far either way, like they have now.
The Red Blue divide is at core the old and new values. This time around the flaws in the old values are in elitism and racism. Even if those go away or are much reduced in this crisis, other side issues such as global warming will step up to take their place. I could see the elites and conservative thinkers deciding they would rather be rich than save the planet, the urban crowd more effected by the problem be the more willing to address the problem.
But even if all the specific odd issues were to be handled, there would still be a stay the same against fix the problem conflict. The S&H cycles might be less strident. There wouldn't be as much of a crisis. Every time around the cycle the worst problems of the culture get addressed, one would eventually run out of serious problems? It is a while before we have to address The Last Question, the heat death of the universe. Still, there would be an element of selfishness in the unraveling followed by an element of sacrificing for the common good in the crisis.
What would be the odd issue that would break the cycles? What problem would show up that the conservatives would not wish to bother to solve, but the progressives would be ready to address? I'm not sure I see it.
P2: So often it seems, to me at least, than we have the tendency to fix what isn't broke and not fix what is.
P3: Jury still out on this one except to say that it still does, in many ways, feel as though we are spinning our wheels and getting nowhere. We many not know for several more years whether COVID will be the central issue of this 4T. The common men and women seem to know what they want to do but feel like they’re blocked at every turn.