Video Rewind: What happened to America?
Reviewing the past in order to better understand the future.
Dear Friends of the POP-UP School
We are headed for another US election, and the news cycle has been eerily silent. There is something about the US election cycle that creates an inordinate influence on the rest of the world. This makes me pause for reflection. A couple of days ago Jonathan Rowson emailed me this link, as a reminder of what we said in the early months of 2021. I thought I would share it here first, and then write an essay about my thoughts about what has changed since, and anticipations around this year, 2024.
Here is an AI generated summary of our conversation:
The erosion of social democracy and institutions has led to a crisis of legitimacy and trust, resulting in a generation unable to engage in informed civic discourse, with global implications for the health of democracy.
00:00 The recent events in America and the impact on democracy and the world as a whole are discussed, emphasizing the difficulty of understanding the current situation and the importance of resisting the urge to simplify or capture its complexity.
The discussion explores the deeper currents of the recent events in America, including the role of informational warfare, cultural and economic trends, and the global significance of American politics.
The focus is on the recent events in America, the new administration, and the impact on democracy and the world as a whole.
The speaker reflects on a childhood experience of feeling the immense size and importance of the United States, leading to a sense of fear and responsibility.
The United States' significant founding as a global catalyst has led to a love-hate relationship with the rest of the world and its citizens, and history is moving faster than our ability to comprehend it.
The current situation is like crossing a point of no return, making it difficult to understand and make sense of the world, leading to polarization and uncertainty, so it's important to focus on personal dynamics and not get swept up in the insanity of thinking we know what is real when we actually don't.
The speaker discusses the difficulty of understanding the current situation and the importance of resisting the urge to simplify or capture the complexity of it.
09:20 America has undergone significant changes in wealth, supply chain control, surveillance, and free speech, with concerns about the impact of Covid and Trump on democracy, and the entrenchment of certain ideas leading to a lack of concrete discourse.
America has experienced a significant transfer of wealth, centralized control of the supply chain, expansion of surveillance, crackdown on free speech, increase in insecurity, and transfer of power to bio technopharma, with little discourse on these concrete changes.
Covid and Trump's impact on democracy is compared to the immune system, with the concern that an overreaction to Trump in the media could become a threat to democracy.
The entrenchment of certain ideas has led to a lack of concrete discourse and a focus on changing people's minds, but there is hope in the diversity of perspectives and approaches.
Financial capitalism has decoupled from the capitalist economy, leading to socio-economic upheavals in 2020, driving genuine discontents and alienation that appeal to various communities, resulting in the QAnon phenomenon and the events at the Capitol.
The speaker discusses the psycho-spiritual drives that led to the gathering of people into unhealthy forms, and emphasizes the importance of material conditions and erosion of social democracy in understanding recent events.
The speaker wanted to ask clarifying questions to make it easier for others to respond.
19:18 The crisis of legitimacy in America is driven by socioeconomic factors and a lack of community, leading to an epistemological crisis and a disconnect between people's experiences and narratives, impacting democracy.
The sense of illegitimacy in America is driven by both socioeconomic factors and a lack of community and social belonging, stemming from the collapse of unions and the atomizing force of consumer neoliberalism.
The speaker discusses the epistemological crisis and its potential threat to democracy, as well as the impact of information streams on individuals' perceptions of reality.
The crisis of legitimacy in modernity is related to the severe crisis of authority and the complexity of society, leading to a velocity towards something new.
The speaker discusses the impact of cultural, economic, and psychological disruptions on our ability to think critically and the metaphor of democracy as an immune system.
The epistemic crisis is the result of a lack of shared narrative, leading to a disconnect between people's actual experiences and the narratives presented, causing a breakdown in the narratives.
The beliefs and experiences of a country's people must be connected, and the narrative, memetic, and cultural wars cannot be solved at just a surface level.
31:16 Societal inequality and lack of informed citizens are leading to a global erosion of democracy, with the US shaping many of these trends, as the recent events raise questions about the promise of democracy and the need for virtuous leaders.
The speaker discusses the recent events in America and their global implications, approaching the question from multiple perspectives and emphasizing the need to simplify amidst the complexity.
Societies devoid of love and care, experiencing inequality, and lacking informed citizens are leading to a rise in hyper paranoia and erosion of democracy globally, with the US shaping many of these trends.
The speaker discusses the materialist and socio-economic factors that shaped the events of January 6th, and argues that the storming of the Capitol is more reminiscent of a Ku Klux Klan sentiment and tied to institutionalized racism in the US.
The rise of populism and the manipulation of irrational emotions by political leaders, particularly Trump, has been carefully engineered and weaponized to achieve specific outcomes, using imagery and symbolism to emotionally mobilize and manipulate the masses.
Creating distance from political narratives and returning to values-driven intentions and actions can be a powerful way to cope with narratological warfare and promote productive debate.
The recent events in America raise questions about the promise of democracy and the need for virtuous leaders to embody and transmit transcendent values.
47:00 The need to understand the purpose of freedom and the loss of rationality since the "death of god" has led to a call for something more than just democracy and epistemology, highlighting the perniciousness of meritocracy and the false virtues of democracy, and emphasizing the importance of returning to basic questions about human desire and the good, the beautiful, and the true to prevent the collapse of shared discourse and the weaponization of untethered narratives.
The importance of understanding the purpose of freedom and the need to ask ourselves that question in order to return to a balanced state.
The world is not becoming more complex, but rather the sense of rationality has been lost since the "death of god," leading to a need for something more than just democracy and epistemology.
The speaker discusses the perniciousness of meritocracy and the false virtues of democracy, highlighting the inequality and lack of true meritocracy displayed at the capital.
The speaker discusses the risk of expecting salvation from political systems and emphasizes the need to return to basic questions about human desire and the good, the beautiful, and the true.
Democracy requires a solid foundation in truth and epistemology to prevent the collapse of shared discourse and the weaponization of untethered narratives.
The speaker discusses the presence of irrational forces in the recent events in America and their potential impact on the world.
53:28 The recent events in America may lead to a transformation of democracy, addressing discontent and institutional power, with a need for consensus and education to revivify democracy and prevent global geopolitical implications.
The recent events in America may lead to a reckoning and transformation of democracy, as the current conditions of discontent and institutional concentration of power need to be addressed to revivify democracy.
The speaker emphasizes the need for transformation and building consensus to address the material and spiritual conditions that drove recent events, while acknowledging that different visions of transformation may reflect different underlying values and priorities.
Democracy is valuable because it is not a finished product, but it needs an overarching value structure and a focus on education to address its current gaps.
Social transformation is historically violent, and the weakening of the United States has broader geopolitical implications, with China potentially becoming the world superpower and the danger expanding beyond civil unrest.
The left's division and scapegoating will not resolve the problem of democracy in the United States, and there is no going back to the way global geopolitical blocks used to be stabilized.
The tensions in the United States between classes and races require a new form of education, one that is digitally oriented and radically new.
01:02:31 The impact of political changes in the US and UK, the need for a more humanitarian and democratic approach in politics, and the prediction of a future that may be less democratic and more like a return to neo-feudalism.
The situation is volatile and likely to get worse before it gets better, with some narratives shifting towards optimism.
The speaker discusses the impact of political changes in the US and UK, highlighting the symbolic nature of undoing previous policies and the distraction from underlying social and economic transformations.
Many people are developing a meta level of awareness and there is hope that these discourses will be integrated into education, leading to the development of sense-making and narrative detecting skills at scale.
The future of democracy needs to be examined and we should expect more from it, as there has never been a golden age of egalitarian democracy and the actions of different nations in Africa highlight the complexities of democracy.
The speaker discusses the need for a more humanitarian and democratic approach in politics, emphasizing the importance of infusing democracy with humanitarianism and viewing ourselves as world citizens.
The speaker discusses the immune response of democracy and predicts a future that may be less democratic and more like a return to neo-feudalism.
01:12:23 Democratic processes and truth and reconciliation commissions can help build a complete picture and aspire towards something transcendent, even if not perfect.
Democratic processes and truth and reconciliation commissions can help build a complete picture and aspire towards something transcendent, even if not perfect.
Democratic is not perfect, but it is the friendliest place, and we trust in adjectives.
Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore
https://youtu.be/1A4dMK7S6KE?si=8p43znahgeeTq2Q1
There is a lot here to digest. There is much here that I could comment on but will limit myself to the early refrence to "informational warfare."
I have an as yet uncompleted article on Medium titled "From Thought Reform to Fifth Generation Warfare." It is incomplete in part because a lot of the information I have on Michael Flynn's Fifth Generation begins to look like a conspiracy theory. Of course there are conspiracies.
https://medium.com/@davidwatkins_91752/from-thought-reform-to-fifth-generation-warfare-13655ea5d3ca