Millennium-Shock

[poliphilo]

I think of it as millennium-shock- the mindset that has propelled conservative governments and dictators and demagogues into power and influence all round the world. We're afraid of the future with its shinyness and its mind-and-body-warping technologies and its promise of an end to life as we know it, and we fall back on the defence of green-mouldy certainties from way back when. Thus the demand for sharia law throughout the Muslim world, thus the dominance of the religious right in the USA, thus a Pope who decries personal religion and demands that his young people submit to (his) authority. We're a race of scaredy-cats. We'd prefer to have the Middle Ages back rather than commit ourselves to the unknown.

I think in the end we'll get over this reactive fit. Science and invention will continue to motor away- and we like the goodies they provide too much to shut them down. And ideas are harder to censor than they used to be, now that we have the Net. Even so, these are hard times, and those of us who don't want a new Dark Ages to descend- and the world be run according to the lights of Bush and Khamenei and Pope Ratzinger- are going to have to make a fuss.

Comments

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

We're afraid of the future with its shinyness....

I'd never thought of this as a component. I thought our fearfulness and flight to ultraconservatism was a result of the fear of terrorism.

Actually, your thought is much more hopeful. We have reached a point when we could do so many wonderful things--go far into space and explore, design housing that is cheap and useful to everyone--

But we are alive in this transition, and it's so sad to watch us retreat back into our caves.

This morning, a leading televangelist, Pat Robertson (who once ran for President), told viewers the "U.S. should kill Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to prevent the Latin American country from becoming a launching pad' for extremism."

What happened to the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," Pat?

You're right--we're going to have to make a fuss. But how?

I want off the planet, I think.

All my hope is in reincarnation.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Here is more about Pat Robertson's scary little speech. This is all over the news here this morning.

A view from the "right"...

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Just a comment from someone partially over there on The Dark Side.

I'm a fiscal conservative / social liberal. I know that many social services are now delivered by various governments because well-intentioned people want to see the beneficiaries receive those social services. I do, too. But I also observe a staggering amount of waste, inefficiency, political patronage, and corruption involved when the government here delivers social services. I'd like to see those services delivered by nonprofits.

Why? Because I can look at their tax returns (every nonprofit with more than $25,000 in income must file a Form 990 with our Internal Revenue Service -- and the 990s are online at http://www.guidestar.org/). If the delivery-to-donation ratio falls below acceptable limits, I can pull my funding -- deciding, perhaps, that Lutheran World Relief operates more effectively than The American Friends Service Committee (to pick some examples at random) and sending my social service dollars where I can be reasonably sure that the highest percentage will get to the hands of folks I actually want to help, instead of [Kofi Annan's son][Halliburton][pick your favorite corruption target and insert here]. I sure wish I could pull the xx% of my tax dollars that go to social services and bestow them where they'll be used more efficiently.

Now, if I (or someone like me) articulates this viewpoint, we're quickly branded unenlightened anti-social-services types, and much of our mainstream media will talk about us -- condescendingly -- as marginally tolerable subhumans who have somehow learned how to bathe, wear shoes, and not make messes in the house, and as uncaring folks who want to see their fellow Americans, especially children and the elderly, continue to struggle in poverty, disease, and ignorance. If we support school vouchers, we're somehow anti-education. If we think Social Security needs to be reformed, we're anti-elderly. Ditto if we sugest that the law of the land should be made by the legislature and not an activist judiciary responding to some sort of self-directed higher morality.

[hyperbole alert]That's also how the mainstream media has been talking about the religious right for years -- when it isn't labeling them as slavering, fanged, violent folks who should be locked up in the interest of public safety. A certain amount of what's happening here is a group of folks who are more laissez-faire than you might realize taking a long-overdue swipe back at the smarty-pants commentators who've been mocking them for years.[/hyperbole]

Seriously now, a lot of what's happening here at least is a desire on the part of a large number of middle-of-the-road people to make sure we don't go haring off one way or another without fully considering the implications of where we're going.

[Given the subject matter, I'm fairly confident Robert Heinlein wouldn't mind my borrowing his "marginally tolerable subhuman" line, as long as I give proper credit...]

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

I wonder - the world saw a similar level of hysteria (religious and secular) when we hit 1000 AD. I'd be interested to go back and review the history of the decades following to see how the cultures/governments developed.

Re: previous post - I think surgeons have grown tired of removing Robertson's foot from his mouth, and just created a second one for him so he can still eat when he makes his continually bizarre (and decidedly un-christian) statements in his increasing old age.

[frankepi.livejournal.com]

the fuss part is important. one of the mistakes we "liberals" make is thinking that the bad guys are so obviously wrong, even ludicrously so, that they can't get much power, can't win people over. then when they do we think it can't last, it'll blow over. people are smarter than that, we think. the problem is, we don't make enough noise, don't articulate well enough, charmingly enough. we roll our eyes and snicker and condescend and turn our backs and then shake our heads in disbelief at what happened while we were being incredulous.

[kaysho.livejournal.com]

There has always been this tacit partnership between the people who just want to be told what to do and the people who want to control other people's lives. It is the duty of the independent thinkers to make sure that this partnership doesn't swamp everyone else.