Heh - the loudest evangelicals I know are lefty Gaia worshipers.
I like Potter's term "declinism". It completely undoes the marxist concept of "social progress" by [correctly] observing that socialism is in fact proving to be a return to feudalistic tyranny. His analysis also points to psychological motivators.
I suspect his in-box is going to be, er, polarized.
Potter writes:
"Life expectancy rose while infant mortality dropped; the air quality of our cities improved, our food got cheaper and more nutritious, and the workplace became safer as wages steadily climbed..."
Let's play a game. After AGW fails to kill us all, what will be the next big disaster these neanderthals predict will doom capitalist society?
I choose nutrition. I watched a TVO Agenda with Steve Paikin last fall where environmentalism was discussed. When the topic of soil depletion arose, the defender of current agricultural practices cited the existence of studies that stated that there was no evidence of wide-scale soil depletion. He offered up the example that organic farms currently have the same level of nutrients as those using other methods.
As soon as I heard those words, I predicted the response would be "those studies are funded by agri-business (big agriculture)"
Ta da! It took 5 seconds.
What's your prediction for the next doom and gloom catastrophe caused by man?
The decline and fall of NASCAR?
Mark
Ottawa
Gee, 8's... I've heard about human birth control hormones showing up in sharks at a trace level. Hmmm.
Got it... Anthropogenic Seismic Aggravation. Dig: Every car that hits a bump, every mining blast, every plane that lands, every truck that rumbles over washboard shakes the Erf's crust. All that energy [obviously!] disturbs tectonic forces. The recent increase in tsunamis, erfquakes and volcanoes is directly caused by human activity. QED.
Hell... Let's find a way to get rich selling ASA Offsets!
"I happened to come across a "Hate-Fest" gathering at an infamous Toronto university today .... A few Palestinian Jihadists disguised as students in collaboration with the Leftists, Homosexuals and other useful idiots showed their pure hatred for Israel, the Jewish people..."
Interestingly, the target of the "Two Minutes Hate" in the leftist dystopia of Orwell's 1984 is named Emmanuel Goldstein, a typically Jewish name...
Mark,
"The decline and fall of NASCAR?
I thought we peaked with lawn jarts. I miss the exhiliration of ever present danger when a 3-finned plastic projectile hurtles in my direction.
Seriously, though. Aren't you afraid that we are exceeding our quota of entropy?
Several years ago, a now-sadly-defunct Italian blogger wrote:
Cupio dissolvi...These words have been going through my mind for quite a long time now. It's Latin. They mean "I (deeply) wish to be annihilated/to annihilate myself", the passive form signifying that the action can be carried out both by an external agent or by the subject himself...Cupio dissolvi... Through all the screaming and the shouting and the wailing and the waving of the rainbow cloth by those who invoke peace but want appeasement, I hear these terrible words ringing in my ears. These people have had this precious gift, this civilization, and they have got bored with it. They take all the advantages it offers them for granted, and despise the ideals that have powered it. They wish for annihilation, the next new thing, as if it was a wonderful party. Won't it be great, dancing on the ruins?
photoncourier.blogspot.com
8bEbgcBBi: Not as long as there are road courses:
[External Link]
[External Link]
Mark
Ottawa
One helluva good essay. I've never heard of Potter. Mark, does he write a regular column in the Citizen?
Posted at 2008-03-27 21:55:31 [PermaLink]Not as far as I know--at the end of the piece:
"Andrew Potter is a Citizen editor. This column first appeared in This magazine."
I hope we writes more.
Mark
He is a columnist in macleans:
www.macleans.ca/andrewpotter
Potter also co-wrote a book called "The Rebel Sell", which while written from a "progressive" bias is a very level-headed attack on leftists of various stripes and their utopian world views. Well worth a read, esp. the deluxe paperback version which includes a brief author interview and references for followup reading/info.
Posted at 2008-03-28 14:59:57 [PermaLink]Prior to the 1960's, declinism was largely a phenomenon of the religious right, especially the European religious right, who saw in changing social structure the abandonment of the laws of God which of course could only lead to disaster. Secular leftist by contrast were fiercely optimistic, confident and saw nothing but progress and happiness in the future. They identified themselves with technological, scientific and economic progress.
Leftist associated themselves with technology and science because since the days of Marx, they had argued that they and not capitalist could better provide the benefits of technological progress to the masses.
By the 60's, however, that dream died. The free-market proved more adept at providing the benefits of technology to the masses than could Leftist intellectuals. They quickly found the only role open to them was as protectors of the masses from the negative side effects of technological progress.
In the last 40 years, this role has intensified and leftist increasingly want people to view technology as a threat in order to enhance their own social status. This viewpoint inevitably leads to a world view in which technological progress means doom.
It's something of an ideological scorched earth policy. If leftist cannot claim credit for the benefits of technology, then they won't allow any technological progress.
To expand a bit on "rejection of modernity", the left's rhetoric is just updated fire-and-brimstone preaching. "Change your wasteful ways or we're all going to die" is analogous to religion's "Repent or suffer the wrath of God in this world and wind up in hell when you die".
Posted at 2008-03-28 20:20:09 [PermaLink]"Declinism" sounds too pat, Spenglerian as 'twere. Try a tag from "scientific socialism" (sic), such as "entropism"-- the easy Devil's Workshop view that "things fall apart, the center cannot hold" [Yeats]. True enough, but although the world of 1814 - 1914 vanished utterly, virtually overnight, by the start of free-market peace-and-prosperity in developed countries c. 1950, we bid that High Victorian era good riddance, an unfond farewell.
Opposed to entropy is Emergent Order, eddies in the stream described by Ilya Prigogine et al. (awarded a Nobel). Entropy in physics is one thing, in socio-cultural contexts quite another: A vicious backdoor effort to inflate one's elite status by demolishing all else.
Entropists are kin to Will James' 17th Century Anabaptists of Munster, a degraded cult glorifying Sin and Death to acolytes anointed. Fortunately, Entropists are their own worst enemies. Nihilistic death-eaters dine on just desserts.
There's a poem by Constantine Cafavy called 'Waiting for the Barbarians' which deals with this desire for self-destruction. In it the citizens of a decadent and degenerate Rome dread the coming of the barbarians who are reported to be approaching the city; but they do not come, and the citizens, far from being relieved are disappointed and perplexed.
And now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.
For much of the 20th century the role of the external barbarian - supported by an intellectual class all too ready to open the city gates - was played by the Soviet Union. With the end of that threat at the end of the 20th C. environmentalism was already being shaped as the sword by which History would smite down the unworthy. The renewal of the external barbarian threat in the form of a modern day Saracen attack on Christendom was unexpected but surely welcome.
Socialism, Environmentalism, and Islamism are all merely means to justify actions by which our enemies hope to see their dreams of Western defeat realised. It would only seem strange to see 'socialists', 'environmentalists', and 'jihadis' collaborating if we take seriously the constructive claims of those ideologies. We should not. We would do better to pay attention to the common destructive intentions of their adherents which are, by contrast, in perfect harmony.
Palestinian jihadists?
Where?
I don't see any RPGs or AK47's in the pictures, am I missing something? Surely there is something to make the jump from "guy with flag who needs a shave" to terrorist?
"What role do the gay and lesbian activists play in the crowd by flying their rainbow flag?"
As far as I can tell, it's like an asshole litmus test that is used at universities all across Canada. If you plaster rainbow flags everywhere, it makes certain people get uncomfortable. The general consensus that exists amongst the university population is that these people can f*** off and take their ball with them.
Let's call it what it is & has been since the first Earth Day: Nihilism.
Posted at 2008-03-29 08:52:10 [PermaLink]"What motivates declinism is an attitude so pessimistic that it is almost theological"
In postmodern terms, such a posture is theological, but it's not evangelical as I and other mainstream evangelicals are methodologically Modernist. For more of the same "declinism" in an unintentionally humorous vein, visit the website of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. I show "The Stork" to my classes as an example of brilliant rhetoric in the service of a deluded cause.
"May we live long and die out!"
Now there's an apocalyptic tune to lead the sheep to. Kind of like "Yes we can!" It has that Che Gueverish "Si se puede!" ring to it.