FJAG said:
Perhaps that's because you, like me, never had to live through one. My early years were spent in immediate post-war Germany and I heard more than one story from my aunts (most of my uncles never made it through the war) and parents about what wartime and interwar Germany was like. I expect the same for people who experience living in Vietnam during the 50s to 70s, Cambodia during the Khmer days; Ukraine post WW1; the Rwandan Civil War; the Yugoslavian breakup; or even Venezuela today. Here's a little list of what chaos and misery can look like:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revolutions_and_rebellions#1980s
I'm not. But like that part in the alcoholic's crede, I've recognized the things that I can't change so I don't get heartburn over that anymore. I do agree that many of the conflicts are based on religious (and/or racial) differences making people intolerant of each other but I think that fundamentally it's an economic struggle where the have's fight hard to keep and to increase what they have while the have-nots do the best they can to survive until the situation becomes intolerable. Modern communications capabilities make the sharing of grievances simpler and heightens the level of frustration. When the antivax movement can convince so many people to do stupid things in the face of science, imagine how easily a real grievance can be circulated and adopted by the masses.
I think we can both agree that experience impacts one's sense of the future. I believe that that applies to groups as much as to individuals. I further believe that that shared experience, that history and its perception, defines a culture - whether it be a familial, clan, tribal, national, imperial or racial culture. Those cultures will inevitably drive decision-making.
Geography also plays its part. It decides whether cultures are isolated or dispersed. Whether certain characteristics flourish or are submerged. Whether change is rapidly accommodated or submerged in inertia.
I understand that your perceptions and my perceptions, and those of our respective cultures, could be at significant variance. I can understand how continental history and experience, going back thousands of years, can encourage views similar to your own. Being trapped in a circling mass of ever changing influences likely inclines people to seek to create order out of chaos.
On the other hand, the culture in which I grew up, generally has a different outlook. I venture to suggest a more optimistic one. One summarized as "It will all work out in the end" no matter how bad things get. Or "It will be right come the night".
The world looks different across the Channel. That can be ascribed to the access to the open seas. And America, Canada, Australia and Japan are far across the Channel.
That different view is what drives our different senses of what is necessary.
I believe the European sense is driven by a belief that one can't escape one's neighbours. Therefore it is necessary to control one's neighbours.
The alternative sense is that one can always find breathing room, whether on the high seas or the lone prairies. You don't have to worry about fists and noses coming in contact.
And there you have the difference between the Urban and the Rural as well. And the difference between free trading merchants, also known as pirates, and licenced traders with authorized and controlled monopolies.
FJAG said:
I do agree that many of the conflicts are based on religious (and/or racial) differences making people intolerant of each other but I think that fundamentally it's an economic struggle
Actually I think you and I talk past each other on religion. I believe that when you see me write the word religion you infer that I am talking about God or gods, whether wine is blood, whether there is a heaven or hell or we just keep going around in circles. Just to be clear, that is not what I am meaning at all.
When I say that I believe that religion is important to culture I am not talking about what a particular religion, church, sect or cult believes but rather the polity of the religion. How does a group of people decide on what they believe? And how do they decide with whom they will associate?
My sense on this is that for millennia the debate has been between those who hold that there is a truth and that that truth can be revealed and that that revealed truth must be imposed. In mediaeval Europe, including Britain. That position was the position held by the Church of Rome and dominated discourse. It upheld the concept of a priesthood schooled in mysteries who would then underpin secular authority. That priesthood predates Christ, Rome and Babylon. It is a caste. Belief is entirely divorced from its existence.
That caste has always struggled against those that disagree with the need for such a caste. Heretics are heretics not because of the beliefs they hold but because they don't accept the authority of the priesthood. Any priesthood.
Those heretics have included Gnostics, Arians, Unitarians, Bogomils, Cathars, Albigensians, Lollards, Waldensians and many many more prior to the Reformation. The Reformation didn't spring magically in the 1500s. It was merely yet another eruption of a longstanding debate.
Luther gave voice to the Universal Priesthood, essentially a gnostic position, that every individual can understand god in their own way. This largely came from the Papacy having lost its cachet due to three Popes all running around claiming to be the one, true, repository of the truth. In the interests of order Luther, and the Kings and the Papacy all came to accept that divine authority could be distributed - within limits. And that that authority could only be distributed as far as the King. The King got to decide on the religion and control the church.
Calvin disagreed. As did the citizens of Geneva.
Sweden, one of the first countries to adopt Luther was also one of the first countries to categorically reject Calvin. Because Calvin rejected all priests and undermined all authority.
Then Calvinism gained a great advantage. In 1560 it secured a national home and a supportive government that could buy arms and raise armies. John Knox organized Presbyterian Scotland. A country that devolved power to local communities and decided things in a general assembly. That assembly was permitted by the local powers because the local churches were controlled by local magnates and their supporters acting as Elders of the Kirk. If not quite democracy it certainly distributed power more broadly.
Meanwhile, in England, the English Lutheran church was suppressed by Bloody Mary Tudor and the protestants were driven underground, dispersed and detached from each other. Each detached congregation was forced to, and free to, adopt their own set of beliefs and organizing principles. Once that freedom had been found in the face of persecution and burning martyrs it was very hard for anybody to convince people raised in that environment to accept subjugation to higher authority. And thus you have the Congregationalist Puritans.
From there you move on to the Quakers who believe that each individual experiences god their own way and is free to do so, and express it openly, when surrounded by friends.
I would further argue that that open, friendly association devolves in the Free Masons and from there to the Labour Party and Socialists and Communists and ultimately to modern atheists that feel free to accept or reject god, express their beliefs openly and associate with whom they like.
The mediaeval Roman church believed what the Pope believed. The Lutheran churches believed what the King believed. The Presbyterian Church believed what the Lords of the Congregation believed The Congregationalists believed what the Congregation decided. The Quakers believed whatever they liked. Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Quakers shifted and dissolved and changed direction and reformed as people associated freely choosing whose authority to accept and how much authority to voluntarily give up. A chaotic polity if you will.
That polity moved from the religious world to the secular with the rise of the Masons, some of whom felt that God was necessary, some of whom felt that any deity was adequate and some, dominant on the Continent were accepting of atheism.
Those free associations, those underground meetings, suppressed by authority, gave space for the masses to meet and for the rise of secular movements leading to political beliefs like liberalism, communism and socialism.
Democracy rises regardless of authority. The masses have their own organizing principles.
FJAG said:
The trouble is that true democracy only works well in small societies where direct participation is possible. The larger a given society gets the more it needs to rely on representative government which automatically means there will be winners who feel included and losers who feel excluded.
I take exception to the notion of true democracy. I have no idea what true anything is. And, to quote Bill Murray. It just doesn't matter. I do agree that size matters. And it is why I am disinclined to accept any imperium.
FJAG said:
I think in Trumpism we have a unique confluence of Haves who are generally of Republican ideals and who see his administration fostering their ability to grow what they have; Evangelicals who feel they are losing what was once Christian control over the morals of the country; and Economic Have-nots (victims of the Rust Belt and others) who are searching for someone who will bring back the 1950s industrial powerhouse and solid jobs. On some issues, their interests coexist, on others they don't.
As you like. As I suggest above, by focusing on the beliefs of the Christian trees you might be missing the forest of the Christian polity. And as to wanting to put food on the table... I find it hard to disagree with people that used to be able to do that and remember those days fondly.
FJAG said:
You can't realistically micro-manage a large country or even a province--it's simply too hard to handle all the details. What you have to do is set up a system whereby large numbers of small communities--neighbourhood by neighbourhood--manage themselves (and the chaos) under a stable framework. The way that I see the differences between Democrats and Republicans (or conservatives v liberals) is that Democrats favour a very detailed framework and Republicans favour a very loose one.
And there, without demur, we agree.
FJAG said:
The problem with Trump is that he is undermining that stable framework. Equally important is that there will come a point, where his supporters will stop pretending that their interests are in alignment. The only question is: will the Democrats be able to offer an alternative vision that will pull their supporters and the pragmatic middle together? Or will there be a power struggle at the various neighbourhood levels?
I have difficulty accepting that a framework that is constantly being modified, that is variously being attributed to 1968, 1945, 1776, 1689, 1519 ... can be defined as stable. I don't perceive Trump's disruption as any greater than Trudeau Srs effect on my life.
As to his supporters - some will continue to find interests in alignment even when they find others in conflict. No self-delusion is necessary.
And as to the Democrats - the Lutheran party of the Prince and the Priesthood - we shall have to see at the next election whether they or the Presbyterians, the Congregationalists, the Quakers, the Masons and the freethinkers prevail.
I will always put my money on the neighbourhood and the individual.
:cheers: Your good health, Friend.
Edit: And the difficulty of finding people capable of drafting good, let alone perfect, rules and regulations, I would argue, just strengthens my case.
Jeez. I did it again. Didn't I?
