I Drove through the Deutcheland in October. Berlin was quite an experience. On the one hand, that human civilization rests on eggshells - held together by only a collective force of will by those that _want_ civilization was all to clear. On the other hand, considering what was there only 60 years ago and what is there now, one might be impressed with the strength of that will.
Clearly there are those that despise civilization as we conceive it, and there is no guarantee for civilization "going forward".
Aside - I think that those that hate civilization are few, they can't count among their number, for example most of the Chomskites and their ilk who have made the amazing discovery that there are problems with globalization and economic growth, yet have not positive vision that addresses those concerns yet maintains the trappings of civilization which most of them, when push came to shove, would be loathe to do without. In the end, the self-loathing that their position comes to is rather more ridiculous than anything else ... nor does it include the _huge_ number of poor in the world, I imagine that given a choice they would chose as most westerners (who are unimaginably rich by comparison) choose. If they're pissed off, its because the current social-political structures are keeping them both from creating some wealth and the spirituality of self determination and genuine community. (One of the very real problems that US Hemogeny and the convenient dictator of the year perpetuates ... ). The ones that hate civilization very clearly understand what is at stake is the notion that civilization is _our_ problem and _our_ responsibility, rather than something (comfortingly) external - end Aside
The world is an interesting place - I wonder if the Indians and Pakistani's playing escallatio on each other have any clue that there was (and is for that matter) _nothing_ that guaranteed that the US/USSR/PRC wouldn't end it all. Now they want to play in an even less stable situation. Very foolish IMHO.
W/r/t shrub, yeah, we all know he's a lightweight. I read something interesting though in Salon about that in our current historical context:
salon.com
Reminds me a bit of being an eastern liberal in Utah during my formative years, and wondering how it was that no one could understand that Ronnie was an idiot, and probably starting to go senile.... yet, in retrospect, the least one could say was that the Reagan administration did not preclude the possibility of the good times that were to follow.
Of course, this focus only on the things humans have in their power to collectively control. A visit to the Smithsonian natural history museum will remind you that surviving species represent something like .1 % of species that have existed, and that extinction (for a ton of reasons) is this planets norm, not the exception. |
