"DK speaks wisely and has prompted several thoughts.
First, there is precious little left of the ‘traditional political process’ because the past 40 Biblical years of ‘revolution’ have led to identity-politics and thence to symbolic politics and thence to celebrity politics, while simultaneously reducing the pols to ‘deal politics’ (think of a used-car salesman focused on only one thing: getting the deal closed and the sale made before closing time).
Second, the New Left of the late Sixties(whatever its strengths and possibilities) is no more; the Post-modern Left of today is a fundamentally different entity, and its embrace of the Universal Solvent of pure and unrelenting skepticism against any possibility of a common-weal or a Beyond or any Higher Law or Higher Things or Larger or Common Narrative operates as a black-hole, sucking in any genuine political life around it.
Third, ‘liberation’ is useless as a concept until one has defined the nature of the being-to-be-liberated; otherwise there is no way of knowing if a change you wish to impose upon it leads towards a more genuine life for the ‘liberated’ entity, or leads away from a more genuine life and toward a more deranged life for the entity.Throwing a fish into water is or is not liberating depending on what type of fish and what type of water: a freshwater fish ‘released’ into salt water is not, strictly speaking, liberated.
Fourth, ‘respect’ is an excellent thing. But one must first have respect for one’s own position, and that includes the responsibility of ensuring that the position itself is worthy of respect. But in light of the third point how can one ‘respect’ a non-liberating dynamic if ‘respect’ means accepting it?
Fifth, modern politics is no longer about rationality. Identity Politics has drunk far too deeply of the wells of totalitarian agitprop and manipulative mass advertising and the manipulation of (rather than the genuine enlightening and informing of) public opinion; current politics seeks the limbic, rather than the prefrontal-cortical, response and indeed avoids the latter like vampires avoid holy water.
Sixth, given the damage wrought by the past 40 Biblical years of identity politics, ‘many revolutions all at the same time’ (one of Gerald Ford’s most unfortunate verbal misadventures), and the Pomo assault on Western Civilization, the Beyond, and any possibility of large or common Meaning, there is no longer a conceptual basis for trying to form a New Deal-type alliance.
Plus, of course, the ‘civic infrastructure’ called the Citizenry has been allowed to rot away, and indeed has purposely been ‘deconstructed’. To borrow a trope from our modern-day cadres of the Illuminatae, ‘it’s not your grandfather’s America anymore’. Agreed: that America and that Citizenry is gone, baby, gone. Hey, hey, ho, ho – it was deconstructed.
Seventh and last: the one historically redeeming aspect of the First Gilded Age was that it took place in a context where the Framing Vision and the ideals and characteristics associated with it and required for it were still in place, capable of influencing the course of incorporating the post-Civil War corporative wealth-creation into some sort of service to the common-weal. That context is gone now and there are for all practical purposes no nationally shared ideals (or a national community to hold them) that might act as brakes or rudder for the Second Gilded Age.
I discuss these points often on my site, especially my recent essay on Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1997 book “The Grand Chessboard” in light of our situation 14 long years later. My site is Chezodysseus at blogspot.
Publion"
First, there is precious little left of the ‘traditional political process’ because the past 40 Biblical years of ‘revolution’ have led to identity-politics and thence to symbolic politics and thence to celebrity politics, while simultaneously reducing the pols to ‘deal politics’ (think of a used-car salesman focused on only one thing: getting the deal closed and the sale made before closing time).
Second, the New Left of the late Sixties(whatever its strengths and possibilities) is no more; the Post-modern Left of today is a fundamentally different entity, and its embrace of the Universal Solvent of pure and unrelenting skepticism against any possibility of a common-weal or a Beyond or any Higher Law or Higher Things or Larger or Common Narrative operates as a black-hole, sucking in any genuine political life around it.
Third, ‘liberation’ is useless as a concept until one has defined the nature of the being-to-be-liberated; otherwise there is no way of knowing if a change you wish to impose upon it leads towards a more genuine life for the ‘liberated’ entity, or leads away from a more genuine life and toward a more deranged life for the entity.Throwing a fish into water is or is not liberating depending on what type of fish and what type of water: a freshwater fish ‘released’ into salt water is not, strictly speaking, liberated.
Fourth, ‘respect’ is an excellent thing. But one must first have respect for one’s own position, and that includes the responsibility of ensuring that the position itself is worthy of respect. But in light of the third point how can one ‘respect’ a non-liberating dynamic if ‘respect’ means accepting it?
Fifth, modern politics is no longer about rationality. Identity Politics has drunk far too deeply of the wells of totalitarian agitprop and manipulative mass advertising and the manipulation of (rather than the genuine enlightening and informing of) public opinion; current politics seeks the limbic, rather than the prefrontal-cortical, response and indeed avoids the latter like vampires avoid holy water.
Sixth, given the damage wrought by the past 40 Biblical years of identity politics, ‘many revolutions all at the same time’ (one of Gerald Ford’s most unfortunate verbal misadventures), and the Pomo assault on Western Civilization, the Beyond, and any possibility of large or common Meaning, there is no longer a conceptual basis for trying to form a New Deal-type alliance.
Plus, of course, the ‘civic infrastructure’ called the Citizenry has been allowed to rot away, and indeed has purposely been ‘deconstructed’. To borrow a trope from our modern-day cadres of the Illuminatae, ‘it’s not your grandfather’s America anymore’. Agreed: that America and that Citizenry is gone, baby, gone. Hey, hey, ho, ho – it was deconstructed.
Seventh and last: the one historically redeeming aspect of the First Gilded Age was that it took place in a context where the Framing Vision and the ideals and characteristics associated with it and required for it were still in place, capable of influencing the course of incorporating the post-Civil War corporative wealth-creation into some sort of service to the common-weal. That context is gone now and there are for all practical purposes no nationally shared ideals (or a national community to hold them) that might act as brakes or rudder for the Second Gilded Age.
I discuss these points often on my site, especially my recent essay on Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1997 book “The Grand Chessboard” in light of our situation 14 long years later. My site is Chezodysseus at blogspot.
Publion"
