Our world has shifted. From comments here it is obvious YOU already have seen it happening over the past two years
What we are living through right now is rather common occurrence across the history of man. It can be vaguely called "Giving Up On Ones Golden Age", where society pivots on its ideals and suddenly wallows into the excrement pool of the worst of human capabilities. There are many historical examples of this across many different civilizations. These three I've studied: the fall of Rome; the Cromwell Rebellion; the advent of WWI. All share a common occurrence where Reason fades to black, and an age dominated by raw emotions, takes over.
Society then turns on and eats its elite.
We too have moved into a like emotional age now. Our current commander-in-chief asserts it to such a point, it is impossible to deny otherwise. Everything from his language skills (or lack thereof) to his tweets, are there solely to provide emotional foundations to his policy. Everything including his electoral win, feeds off his constituents’ emotion and nothing he has done so far, can be said to make good rational sense for the country. Tax cut? A disaster. Pull 30 million off insurance? Another disaster. Build a wall? A disaster. Keystone II? A disaster. Betsey De Vos? A disaster. Scott Pruit? Disaster. Leaving the Paris Accord? Disaster. But all rational argument falls flat on his ardent supporters. It is as if they can't hear rationality when it gets spoken to them. It is as if their brains cannot be wired to resonate that way. Yet they glibly accept emotional appeals with no supporting evidence...
But this is not just happening in the US.. Brexit served up the UK. Turkey has gone over to the dark side. Spain of all places is disintegrating. Cambodia is no longer democratic. Myanmar has decided to embark on genocide. Thailand is under military junta. The Philippines are eating their young. Indonesia may be about to implode into a millennial-driven religious civil war. North Korea is launching missiles with the potential to have nuclear armaments attached.
Ironically, this comes just at the time we are finally finishing off ISIS's threat. Their methodical extermination involving former enemies and their proxies (Turkey, Kurdestan, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Syria) is a quintessential textbook case of various civilizations using rationality to address a threat and working towards one common goal. Sure-proof rationality works.
For those of us who actually grew up in a rational world, where one thing would lead to another and one could plan on certain events taking place far in the future, today's environment where the most recent biggest shock effect carries an entire argument, is unsettling. We heard stories (Farewell to Arms) of civilization breakdowns but they occurred far away on fictional battlefields. Now we see it every night on digital screens. Like it or not we are being herded, jostled, and cajoled into believing certain lines of fantasy, with no regard being given to whether it will do us harm or good, or if any of it is true... We function in a mob mentality swayed by current emotions... As in...should one steal a watch in Shanghai? "Well, how do we feel right now? Yeah, ... let's do it... "
And it is not just in geopolitics that rationality is fled, Here Al Franken's peccadilloes have blown Roy Moore not only off the Kos’s front page, but a good number of pages back.
How can this happen? The answer is to think emotionally.
Since Roy Moore is a Republican, him being a pervert is no big deal.. We are only discussing his 14 year old target because no other younger women has yet come forward. If she does, we will discuss that and poor Al Franken gets some breathing room from the media spotlight. But Roy’s despicable behavior fits quite well into our current frames of reference. WE ALL KNOW ALL REPUBLICAN MEN ARE PERVERTS. THAT IS WHAT THEY DO.... EVERY DAY, EVERY MINUTE, EVERY SECOND OF OUR OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE REINFORCES THIS….
Democrat men are supposed to support feminists. At least that is what we've been led to believe. That is what we always think. Therefore, a Democrat under accusation for breaking that mold, involves our emotions on a deeper personal level, because besides whatever reaction it give us viscerally, it is also coupled with the deep hurt of betrayal. )How could you? You are one of us?) Roy Moore, despicable as he is, did not betray us because we all knew he was a piece of shit anyway....
This too is not rational. Rational would be choose a path that would be best for you and sticking with that path. Allowing Roy Moore into the Senate is a path good for no one. Removing Al Franken from the Senate is a path good for no one. Making it harder for Donald Trump to pass anything in the Senate, is good for everyone.
This is rational.
What else is rational? The act of rendering the State Department impotent, EPA impotent, Commerce Department impotent, Labor Department impotent, Department of Education impotent, HUD impotent, the Supreme Court impotent, the FBI impotent, and the CIA impotent, is very, very bad for the US... except for those few who would benefit. So who are those few who benefit? Surprise! It's a loose confederation of criminals.
When there is no effective law, criminals always thrive. Whether they want to attack their neighboring country... whether they want to dump their waste into a river, whether they want criminalize commerce, whether they want to steal power away from workers, whether they want to monetize public schools, whether they want to eliminate any support for poor people, whether they want to water down law enforcement with political operatives, whether they want to destroy America's intelligence gathering capability, ... the bottom line is that they are already doing it because there if no structure to stop them from doing it.
WE still let them. Just like the Roman public gave up on Rome's gangster's corruption, just like the English gave up and let Cromwell fight his way into ruinning their nation, just like the Europeans rushed into the First World War thinking it would be only a brief exercise of honor to fulfill those secret committments solidified by treatys. All every one of those cases rational thought tried to get a word in edgewise and it was drowned out. it's true. No one listened to reason.
It's obvious. Turn on your TVs. We are living it now. What puzzles me, is why is that? How did that nation that brought the world together after WWII and led for 70 years, throw away everything good its done, and inhale the crack pipe of raw emotions?
Here is what I've put together having lived through the life and (in December soon), the death of the Internet. Hailed as society's greatest achievement it failed to live up to it's promise. Turns out, one only gets out of the internet what one puts in it. For scientists and social researchers, it is hard to remember how complex it was to do research prior to its creation (Library hard copies of professional journals is the answer). Now if one finds at 4 o'clock on a Thursday afternoon that one has ovarian cancer, by the time one goes to bed, one can know almost as much as their doctor. Yes. that is amazing.
But the downside is, if there were only two people on this planet who think having sex in a coffin filled with squirming tapeworms is their lifelong ambition, they can find each other in matter of minutes. All through this the internet has been neutral in the battle between good and bad, between hope and cynicism, between prosperity and failure, and what we are seeing is the manifestation of mankind's evil being brought out and exemplified, not the evils of an impartial internet in action.
Mankind is not as noble as many of us had led ourselves to believe. Racism. It was so dead the Supreme Court got rid protections for minority voters... "There is no endemic racism anymore" -- Justice Scalia. For many of us that was true. We saw stereotypical white males overwhelmingly vote in a black man over an white war hero of amazing caliber. Racism appeared dead, it appeared that way until the internet brought it back to life. It was just sleeping; the internet woke it up.
Sexism, was so dead. Sexual awkwardness still occurred but were usually misinterpretations of personal signals. Anymore no one misused their power to force themselves on women who were not financially independent enough to say "no". If it ever happened, HR would step in and rectify things. Hell, we had a female Secretary of State and presidential candidate. The glass ceiling needed broken, women in the workplace were safe. Sexual harassment is back... bigger than ever, thanks to the Internet.
How could this be? Today what many American's are fighting inside them, is this gross feeling of betrayal. We were told we were the best country. Obviously now we aren't. We were told we had a manifest destiny. Obviously now, we've lost it. We were told that we were the greatest nation on earth. It was a lie. There are many better places on this globe to live.
Americans are left with an empty bag, and empty wallet, and just now, realizing too slowly that they were duped into paying out everything they owned, for a bag of nothing.
If you don't think you were duped, just go back and watch reruns of the the Cosby show, knowing what you know now. Watch some Weinstein productions, knowing what you know now. Watch some old Saturday Night Live routines, knowing what you know now. Watch some CK highlights, knowing what you know now. Watch Bill's and Hillary's speeches, knowing what you know now... In two weeks, everything has changed...
We live in a new world. The rug has been ripped from under us. Just reading the accounts of ISIS taking over Mosul, provides a clear perspective of what the Trump administration is doing here to ALL Federal government. He is rendering all that remains of the past, impotent, and therefore it can offer no impediment to his power... There is little effectual difference between taking 1200 civil servants down to the Tigris and mowing them down with lead, or running out 1200 state department employees and not replacing those vacencies. The means are different but the effect is the same.
You may read this now... but after the Internet loses net neutrality... you'll never see this again.
These are changed times, and if these changes are truly caused by independent actors playing parts of their own creation, or if unbelievably someone actually masterminded this American take-down from far or near, the result is the same. America is in crises, or its democracy is about to be....
Things were great while they lasted. Free Speech. Freedom to worship as we please. Freedom from search and seizure. Freedom from self incrimination. Freedom to confront our accusers. Innocent till proven guilty. And in America's defense, 5 million more did vote to continue advancing society for the better.
But those days are long gone. And if Roy Moore gets into the Senate, items permanently logged in the past will continue to slip away far too quick for any Resistance to retaliate effectively. History has shown us this scenario many times before. Far more than the few I mentioned.
But of those 3, only one turned out well. It cost a lot of lives but people did fight for good, and fought to the death of their enemies. The violent War of Roses did save Britain and subsequently intellectual thought did slowly re-emerge. But had it not done so, history today, including whatever would now exist on these shore, would be entirely different.
The only way to save accumulated knowledge, science, and all things leading to the betterment of our species, will be to fight for it. Hopefully in these times, the fights will take place in an arena which won't involve loss of life, but it very well could. We have seen one white supremacist car do so already... And there are many ways to fight... The most effective method today, is by reaching out, making the other side realize we are both on the same side, we both want the same big things, and we both love our country very much. Then if we can make that connection, both sides can turn on those sowing seeds of dissension, and render them impotent.
For when I find myself actually getting angry at my fellow citizens who insist I must stand for my national anthem as the single sole express device to declare my patriotism, I should be able to realize the great level of manipulation being done to me. For on its surface the rationality behind this is ridiculous... Me... getting angry at someone I know, have laughed with, shared children's stories with, having voted with even.... over something I normally would have no thought, whatsoever?... (Of course standing for the Star Spangled Banner is fine, why wouldn't it be? )
But angry I do get. It is absolutely true. We live in an emotional age not fettered in any way by any reasonable constraints of intellect or reasoning skills.
Btw, there can be a plan for fixing that. Levy $328 million dollar fines on every national news organization for every blatant lie told. (That represents one dollar for every single American, man, women, and child)... Can you imagine rural America actually getting truth for once?
When Americans have a solid definitive definition of what "is true", and what "is really happening", only then can we accept those with different perspectives as being similar to us , enough to allow us to negotiate with each other.... again.
