05-13-2017, 09:04 PM
Commitment to Unraveling and especially Degeneracy memes into the most dangerous part of the Crisis Era is bad for one's credibility and perhaps even survival. When things get truly dangerous, the Degeneracy meme implies culpability or even disloyalty for affiliation to the proximate cause of the greatest dangers. Loyalty to the Unraveling meme is simply reactionary -- out of sync with the general trend.
At this point, prediction of what will prevail is risky in the extreme. Should we have a New Feudalism, then liberal ideas might be good for getting one exiled, imprisoned, or killed. People who believe that no human suffering can be in excess so long as it indulges the elites and have the power to impose such suffering will treat anyone who disagrees with mass suffering as a mass virtue as a heretic or traitor upon which to impose the worst possible suffering. Marxism-Leninism? We all know the record, including the body count. Liberalism? If not perfect, it probably serves more people better than does anything else (although I can easily see liberalism circa 2030 having some socialistic elements).
At this point, prediction of what will prevail is risky in the extreme. Should we have a New Feudalism, then liberal ideas might be good for getting one exiled, imprisoned, or killed. People who believe that no human suffering can be in excess so long as it indulges the elites and have the power to impose such suffering will treat anyone who disagrees with mass suffering as a mass virtue as a heretic or traitor upon which to impose the worst possible suffering. Marxism-Leninism? We all know the record, including the body count. Liberalism? If not perfect, it probably serves more people better than does anything else (although I can easily see liberalism circa 2030 having some socialistic elements).
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.