Living In Soviet Americana And The Coming Economic Collapse

Arminius · June 10, 2014, 5:39pm

Thank you, Obe.

Not all, some (including me) know quite enough about the U.S. situation. But the rulers in Europe don’t inform „their“ people, and most of the Europeans are not interested, because and although they are not informed by „their“ governments.

obe:

…, as it’s fairly obvious from world reporting on the late great recession, the plight of returning veterans who find themselves having to wait inordinately for referrals to specialists to treat their maladies, of gi’s living on the streets near VA hospitals, strung out on dope, not able to return to civilian life. Other things: the air here is not at all like the sixties, to give You an example, when i came to live here, gasoline cost per gallon was 15 cents, now it’s almost $5. A pack of cigs was 25c, now it’s $5. First class stamps were 4c now they are 50c. The same with rents and food.

The suicide rate in the military is very much larger then before, and there is a foreboding of valuelessness as purchase price of products rise, along with the cost of living.

Don’t get me wrong, only segments of the populations feel this downward trend, while the upper middle class has no apparent problems with any of it.

These „segments of the population“ are not a few, because, depending on the respectively definition of the word „classes“, the percentage of the population of both the middle and the lower class is generally more than 99%, and the percentage of the population of the middle class is generally about 50%, that of the upper middle class generally about 5%, so that generally about 94-99% of the U.S. population may be affected. Because of the fact that some people are more contended than other people, the percentage of discontended people is - for eaxmple - about 47-50%.

obe:

As far as my take on living in the USA, it is anchored in a sense of high resiliency of the population, much like Henry Miller describes it in his novel "air conditioned nightmare. Still, people are able to live the mix,of ghettos and areas of great wealth coexisting in a geographical no man’s land, and everybody tries to live under the idea of a ‘classless’ society. In a sense it is classless, and that too, is a catch 22, where that idea, also suffers when economic markers lower the bar, where social interactions at times painfully drag on the cheering thoughts of personal freedoms.

The collapse is nought, i don’t quite see that, but what i see, is more of the same, the hidden downtrodden, the homeless ghettos, the high rate of crime, etc., it implies a societal chaos, that the US population can absorb.

Recently, there has been a sharp upsurge of child molestation among educators, and this is a veery sign of moral decay.

The way i see it, if it wasn’t for the laxity of morality, (after all isn’t Sweden a good model for it?), dissent and societal unhappiness would not have the safety valve of releasing at least on Freudian truth, of civilization’s discontents.

That’s not only a Freudian truth.

And Sweden „a good model“? Well, I doubt that.

If so, then - according to Hegel’s Dialektik - it will have to be a Synthesis of the Thesis „capitalism“ (especially successful in the 19th century) and the Antithesis „communism“ (especially successful in the 20th century). What can that kind of Synthesis be? Merely something like globalism or its contrary: localism / regionalism which will lead to the pre-historical times resembling post-historical times (cp. my thread: Thinking about the END OF HISTORY).

And before U.K. and U.S. came together (during the First World War), there was a deeply realtionship between Germany and U.S.

Maybe it will turn out well in the end, but can we be sure?

obe:

The US has enjoyed 50+ yeas of unparalleled post world war economic superiority, and the sad fact is, a well fed middle class, taking such prosperity pretty much for granted, would not stand a chance of survival, was it not for the international corporations sustaining, as of yet a positive cash flow toward the United States, and Great Britain and the EU.

The new world order is as ideologically necessary in today’s world, as Marxism seemed to fit the bill, prior to the great ideological showdown, which brought in the World War. In that time, it appeared, as if Capitalism was a dying institution. History proved itself otherwise, and it is to Communism that distinction went to. It was a Hundred Years’ War, of ideological conflict, and what we are seeing and feeling in the world today, are the sparks shooting out of the dying embers of ideology. This is what the end of history signifies, there are no credible cognitive markers, which can be used, as tools, to unearth, ‘The Truth’ of what the basic formula requires. Pragmatism has definitely won out worldwide over all forms of idealism, excepting art.

Idealism, right. And idealism is mostly German idealism. If the „new world order“ is really „as ideologically necessary in today’s world“, then this new world order can merely be - as I said - something like globalism or its contrary: localism / regionalism, which will lead to the pre-historical times resembling post-historical times (cp. my thread: Thinking about the END OF HISTORY).

What you are calling the „Hundred Years’ War“, „of ideological conflict“, is the epoch where egalitarianism (socialism, communism etc.) were stronger that liberalism (capitalism etc.) bcause it had undercut and threatened all liberalistic (capitalistic) systems. But now we are living in a different epoch: capitalism is weak, communism is not as strong as in the last epoch, and globalism - as the Synthesis of capitalism and communism (cp. Hegel’s Dialektik) - is the strongest. That means that both capitalism and communism still exist, but as a mix in which capitalism dominates as a communism.

Referring to the fact that globalism is a Synthesis of capitalism (Thesis) and communism (Antithesis) the end of history will be reached when this Synthesis has changed to such a New Thesis whithout any historical existence. Merely something like globalism or its contrary: localism / regionalism, which will lead to the pre-historical times resembling post-historical times (cp. my thread: Thinking about the END OF HISTORY).

obe:

So as bad as things are in the Western World, it is more stable then at anytime in the history of the world, and as new emerging markets get progressively involved in a new world trade, we, who appear in a decline, have to grin and bear it, hoping for a turn for the better.

That much for the social/economic markers.
It would be preposterous, and naive of me to not notice the psychosocial objects left hanging, as the genius of utilitarianism is always to point to the futility of such an abstract yet naive way to describe a situation, where it can just as equally be pointed out, that it is not the ‘system’s fault but those singular individuals’ who decide to construe a point of view, predicated on the simple
notion of directing fault outside their orbit of reference.

Art has retained this freedom of expression, an absolute reminder that the 2nd amendment is alive and well, but there are a lot of starving , disheartened artists out there, with or without a portfolio, to whom life as art, best describes their being, and soul.

The current art shows also what globalism means (see above), so the current art is also enbedded in both capitalisms and communism, in Thesis and Antithesis of the Synthesis globalism. Nobody else than Oswald A. G. Spengler has so consequently and arrestingly shown how art works as a semiotic and/or linguistic indicator for historical phases of a culture / civilisation.

According to Schopenhauer in the face of the will as Kant’s „Ding an sich“ („thing in itself“) human beings are almost powerless, but amongst them the genies of the art, especially of the music, are able to conceive and represent the eternal ideas.

obe:

I think most are all attuned to the aesthetic side of our personality, and it is that, which somehow manages to feel and react to the plight of ourselves and those others’ around us in need. I have this feeling, and the beatniks and the various movements of dissent , no one can let pass without notice. However, the media is such an incredibly strong force here in the U.S., that any movement can be popularized to the extent, that the message is lost herewith. The media is the message, and even great reactionary movements, can be bought out this way, as a few minutes’ worth of time in commercial utilization. Mainstream media can absorb almost any social dissent, and the middle will hold it’s own, under the most ridiculously obvious nonsense. I could give countless examples, but one which comes to mind off the bat is the conspicuous way the Warren Commission handled and neutralized all the conspiratorial ideas about ‘who really killed JFK’ That study pretty much put to rest any doubt as to ‘what really happened’
 The pragmatic inertia of society, and the devaluations thereof, are successively modified and dealt with, the incessant and relentless march of newer and newer products.  Production is the key to social cohesion, and the production machines of Hollywood dreams, creates the very schizophrenia of the dreamlike world of how life and fantasy are blended , albeit in a very imperfect way, into the fantastic as a retreat from reality.  The legitimization of such retreat and escape, has always been part and parcel of the escapism , always westward, into the wide open spaces , to create anew, and tear down the old.  
The only true escape from this tearing down, is the narcotic effect, of experiencing the dissolution as part of the self, there is joy in tearing one’s self apart, and experiencing the complete, and dangerous newness emerging from this. This is how the west was won, the emerging heroes? Kit Carson, Dillinger, Wyatt Earp, Lucky Luciano, Steve Wynn. The American myth is founded on violence, on land grab and claim jump, the existential jump not available to such men, as Hart Crane, who could not jump from New York to Cuba, a voyage of diminishing returns, as time flowed by. The East, could never fathom the West, the Old World is in the same relation to the New World, they are unwitting bedfellows.

Thank you, Obe, for answering my question that I have asked on behalf of most Europeans.

Orbie · June 10, 2014, 7:03pm

Yes, and connecting this to the , in about the middle of this forum, where we agreed that the fact that Kant is being reconsidered, shows logical , metaphysical and epistemological correlation. I feel comfortable with that. Incidentally, Polanyi is likewise a Kantian, and he was not in essence considered a ‘continental’ philosopher.