A lower and even more dishonest decade

The previous decade seemed bad enough: a decadent, cynical war of choice - the late empire gathering good ratings for homeland. And then that lame interlude did not seem so lame at first. But now these garish colours: reckless, compromised late empire, the stench of decay. Corruption, spite and ignorance. Conservatives forgetting all conservatism, forgetting history, getting easily bought. Liberals only semi-convinced of anything, only half-heartedly offering some feeble defence for half-forgotten positions.

Admittedly, only local, fleeting issues - these questions will be resolved, become utterly irrelevant soon enough in the longer perspective, and that longer perspective in itself only a moment. But we are here and now, and can only so be. So this is the moment and the place to engage: our absurdly short moment. The only time we have.

Cultural fugue

We don't live by bread only. A critical addition to this retro-30's (so far lite) era is the other central theme of this blog: the increasing decline of christian-humanist values - and the concequent emptying of liberalism into a shallow official creed not understood, not believed in, not defended, only practiced as a handy way to increase the various further concentrations of capital. We are consumers, not citizens, servants, not masters. 

Yes, this has been said before and by some very doubtful people, like Heidegger, like Nietzsche. They had very little understanding of liberalism, little understanding of history, of freedom. But here we now are in the West: opulent but with no convictions whatsover. Faith is not by far the only thing necessary to keep a civilization going, to keep a society coing, but it is the minimum requirement, the base. We are losing our memory, we are forgetting our beliefs, our convictions.