The Existential Question

Is it a punk band or a clash of civilizations?

I hesitate to add to the ever-growing gloom and doom that I read on Substack.com.

Every essay seems to be an attempt to outdo all the others as it presents facts about our dying empire and our way of life.

Self-professed experts (e.g. Alex Berenson and Dr. Robert Malone) now argue and the question of whether COVID is real has been posed. Alex Jones has suddenly reappeared in the news and, despite his recent loss in court, the book he released on August 30 is a best-seller on Amazon.com. Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Steve Bannon and Julian Assange are hailed as heroes and condemned as devils.

Have we reached the stage of pre-historic Babylon?

Following the news has become the mental equivalent of preparing for a colonoscopy. And yet, most of us are pulled helplessly to television screens and computer monitors. Is it a masochistic desire for self-punishment that draws us?

Human behavior has always been a peculiar thing. When I was in school, the common understanding was that 90% of our actions are directed by unconscious impulses, drives that had been engrained in us before the age of five. Now, many dismiss the unconscious mind.

Once, it was considered hip and cool (pardon the ancient words) to be anti-social. It brought to mind the harmless and happy Maynard G. Krebs. Now, the term has been redefined to be akin to schizophrenia. I have lost my train of thought. Sorry.

Casting caution and doubt aside, I am compelled to repost part of an essay entitled FADING SMILE OF A BURNING EMPIRE. It was originally posted on www.theburningplatform.com on August 21, 2022. A lengthy article, I’ve just highlighted that part that interests me.

The global elite and their moral depravity have engulfed the world, as their ravenous greed, insatiable appetite for dominion over the masses, immoral deceit, manipulative use of propaganda, and satanic decadence have created economic, social, political, and military distress across the globe. As Toynbee and Solzhenitsyn note, the lack of morality and courage among those who profess to be leaders has permeated throughout society, leading to a dearth of citizens taking civic responsibility for the path of the country.

“Of the twenty-two civilizations that have appeared in history, nineteen of them collapsed when they reached the moral state the United States is in now.”
― Arnold Joseph Toynbee

“A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today. The Western world has lost its civic courage. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling and intellectual elite, causing an impression of a loss of courage by the entire society.” ― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

We are a lost society, ruled by emotions, captured by technology, misinformed, uneducated, indifferent, fearful, passively accepting of whatever government and media tell them is true, and entranced by materialism funded by debt. We are a sick dying culture where common community standards, self-responsibility, hard work, kindness, and manners have been superseded by the worship of abnormality, celebration of degeneracy, living off the government, spreading hatred, and waging undeclared wars across the world.

There is an empty shallowness to our civilization, with the vacuum filled with gadgets, pathetic displays of fake affluence, trivialities like social media, and superficial displays of virtue signaling regarding the latest woke craze shoved down our throats by those controlling the levers of society. There is an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness, fear, and foreboding mood of impending doom, as this Fourth Turning accelerates towards its bloody denouement.

The aura of pessimism about the future and fear that our superpower status, only in existence since 1946, is rotting from within permeates the psychology of those actually willing to think critically and see what is really happening. The existing social order will be extinguished during the waning years of this Fourth Turning. We are in the interval between the decay of the old and formation of the new, whatever that may be.

This transition will be one of uncertainty, turmoil, miscalculation, fanatical misrepresentations, war (civil & global), false prophets, bloodshed, and clear winners and losers. Decay and death of empires have happened for centuries and are necessary to expunge the excesses and abuses which always occur as empires expand and its leaders exhibit a hubristic arrogance towards their people and the world.

“Just as floods replenish soil and fires rejuvenate forests, a Fourth Turning clears out society’s exhausted elements and creates an opportunity.” – The Fourth Turning

It is hard to believe the prognostications of Strauss & Howe a quarter century ago, just after I moved to my community, could be so eerily accurate. But, when you are sure of the catalysts: debt, global disorder, and civic decay, the volcanic eruption of distress can only flow along certain channels, preordained by choices made over decades by our leaders and ourselves.

“Imagine some national (and probably global) volcanic eruption, initially flowing along channels of distress that were created during the Unraveling era and further widened by the catalyst. Trying to foresee where the eruption will go once it bursts free of the channels is like trying to predict the exact fault line of an earthquake. All you know in advance is something about the molten ingredients of the climax, which could include the following:

• Economic distress, with public debt in default, entitlement trust funds in bankruptcy, mounting poverty and unemployment, trade wars, collapsing financial markets, and hyperinflation (or deflation)

  • Social distress, with violence fueled by class, race, nativism, or religion and abetted by armed gangs, underground militias, and mercenaries hired by walled communities

  • Political distress, with institutional collapse, open tax revolts, one-party hegemony, major constitutional change, secessionism, authoritarianism, and altered national borders

  • Military distress, with war against terrorists or foreign regimes equipped with weapons of mass destruction” 

On this happy note, I leave. The question posed by the punk band the Clash has been answered.

The Clash - Should I Stay or Should I Go (Official Audio)