"3. Ed Boyle: your last post diagnosed the problem accurately. I'm increasingly inclined to believe that societies can't function without some consensus, and if they can't achieve it peacefully it will be imposed." DK
Here are a couple of my prior posts, discussing what I call minimum requirements, besides some consensus.
I talk about political and moral integrity, which are seemingly outside the scope of what Professor Kaiser is discussing here, which is a society which can function as a society at all.
For me, that is not, by itself, a feasible criterion, in isolation, (unless one now has nothing else, of course), nor a standard toward which one should aspire, really, on its own.
I believe, nonetheless, that both political and moral integrity are even required to some extent, as a basis for a broad consensus, and thus for social and political order.
You don't get consensus, whatever that is taken to mean, in isolation, in other words. I guess that is one point I would suggest.
Another, very important point, is that we had consensus, call it really more like cooperation, between higher elites in both parties, for their mutual benefit, for a long period in the 20th Century, what Dionne calls the vital center.
What did the vital center achieve for that period? Beside its alleged good results, which I need not discuss, we had relentless relative civilizational decline in economic, commercial, and industrial terms; we had no pulling together of the whole society into any kind of broad consensus, below the level of the higher elites.
Those who benefited most from this vital center consensus were mainly the higher upper eschelons of our society, wealthier but not of course aristocrats, and the elites and middle classes in Europe and in developing countries abroad, primarily.
The cornerstone of their consensus was that they agreed, ostensibly in keeping with their differing liberal or conservative ideological reasons, to boom the world, especially the non Communist World, for global peace and prosperity together.
How do you think that consensus has worked out?
Domestically, for average and lower income Americans, for whom this vital center consensus was not at all designed, it was usually indistinguishable from what people like Nevins characterized as drift. Its focus was on foreign policy, and on the global economy for the so called bipartisan elites.
Those who benefited most from this vital center consensus were mainly the higher upper eschelons of our society, wealthier but not of course aristocrats, and the elites and middle classes in Europe and in developing countries abroad, primarily.
The cornerstone of their consensus was that they agreed, ostensibly in keeping with their differing liberal or conservative ideological reasons, to boom the world, especially the non Communist World, for global peace and prosperity together.
How do you think that consensus has worked out?
Domestically, for average and lower income Americans, for whom this vital center consensus was not at all designed, it was usually indistinguishable from what people like Nevins characterized as drift. Its focus was on foreign policy, and on the global economy for the so called bipartisan elites.
Friday, January 27, 2017
HYPOTHESIS RE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS FOR SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ORDER
I am going to state this proposition as a hypothesis. It seems to have been borne out, over time, by history since 1776, and most importantly, since 1789.
You cannot have a society with political and moral integrity, coherence, and order, and commercial and industrial effectiveness and order, of any significant size, which is not composed of hierarchical social classes and professional classes, related to each other, which are durable and have geographical dimensions and parameters.
Saturday, July 30, 2016
LET'S COMPARE 1812 or so to 1865 and 1942 to 1990 or so
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