c2011 (S)
It is difficult to be objective about the times we live in, especially if one isn’t doing too well.
But a historian living in the year 2110 will have an abundance of information and an absence of reliable facts to deal with, in assessing the period 1990-2010. That’s because all the sources are essentially corrupt. None of the data is trustworthy.
None of the conclusions drawn and stated at that time may be trusted. They are completely erroneous for unknown reasons. Certain inescapable facts remain.
What truly stands out from this perspective, is that middle-class wages were essentially frozen in terms of real purchasing power. What stands out is that working-class wages were reduced, with barely a murmur; by an estimated thirty to forty percent. What stands out is that the poor plummeted towards third-world status and stayed there.
What stands out is that the ethic went from savings to easy credit. Thrift and prudence shifted to waste and crass hedonism. The Free Trade Agreement was sold by government and media as, ‘good for all Canadians.’ It was also sold as, ‘Good for all Americans.’ How could it work both ways? It was good for the rich and the big international corporations. The national economies grew by leaps and bounds—at the expense of fundamental social values. Exports grew. And consumer debt grew. Bank profits grew.
What stands out is the pervasive and pernicious influence of the mainstream mass media. What stands out is the dis-education of the populace; in spite of rising professional standards of educators, and what stands out is the sheer economic and political weight of the teacher’s pension fund. What stands out is that no one seemed to notice the results of these monopolistic trends. What stands out is that no one cared. What stands out is that species-survival took second place to next quarter’s bottom line. What stands out is that nothing has really changed; in at least two or three thousand years.
Ultimately all archaeology is subjective, although we would like to think of it as pure science.
We impose our own values upon these imposing old ruins. We interpret them as best we can.
What destroyed this civilization? Did they learn nothing, in spite of their metaphysical certainties?
The pseudo-revelations of the mouthpiece economists, all paid and purchased opinions? Did they tell the customer what they wanted to hear? Like pollsters? Did it collapse of its own sheer top-weight? Its own fallacious mythology? Surely it did not collapse from greed, ignorance, decadence and corruption?
Did it collapse from sheer stupidity? The technology of the times would indicate otherwise.
The ancient philosopher once said, “One gets out of it what one puts into it.”
What did he mean by that? And why carve it on a rock in the public square? The end was near. Why bother? And what was meant by, ‘globalization?’
When archaeologists truly understand what was meant by that most mysterious of terms; then perhaps we will be a little closer to understanding what actually happened here.
Until then, keep digging. You never know what might turn up.
I once dug up an entire set of Elvis collector plates. They’re in the Imperial Museum.
Perhaps you’ve been there? That’s how I got appointed a priest in the temple and now I’m set for life.
The only constant in the cosmos is change. Except for human nature. It is unchangeable.
The God-King has decreed it, and the media has proclaimed it.
But what really strikes home about this micro-epoch is that the paradigm shifted.
No longer did the state exist to serve the people, or even in its most extreme application; to serve a few highly-privileged individuals. At some point the individual existed to serve the state. That was the tipping point. Enlightened self-interest was no longer possible, for it no longer paid any dividends to the
individual. The state became an insatiable sponge, sucking up all surplus. It became a moral deadweight, perpetuating itself at the expanse of the life-force of the weltfolk.
This was not a conscious decision, on the part of society, groups of people or individuals.
It was an intuitive, collective decision; a phenomenon of mass hysteria, a kind of fin-de-siecle feeling spread by mass media and example, word of mouth and the slavish imitation of one’s peers. It was a mob.
When there was no longer any incentive then there was no longer any effort, and the disintegration of society was complete. That was the tipping-point, and from that point onward, society was doomed.
