On Barbarism
Tales of our Times
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida
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And a Touch of Barbarism makes all the world Alien?
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That’s what future historians will call the last 4 centuries of West.
ern domination: : The Barbarian Interlude..
Sure , they see themselves as superheroes, the very cat’s whiskers., right now.
No one else does.
But histories, henceforth, will (also ) be writ by Others,
Whence , a dissentient Narrative..
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I am no admirer of humankind ( or, at least , a near half of it).
Nor am I a Utopian.
Nor do I believe it’s getting better all the time.
Or that the Emergent New Powers are going , in the long run, to act differently.
Sure, for now, they appear peaceable?
But the future is less certain.
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Why?
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Because the Endless Growth Paradigm they embrace is exactly the same as the West.
That was the Key EuroModernist plank, now universalized.
So, in due time, they will also mature in just the same way.
And pose a similar threat to the Planet.
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The idea of Limits to Growth is off limits.
Left and Right both want to push growth.
Regardless.
So , we are doomed.
.
Wanting more gold , or goulash , brings conventional capitalist and socialists together.
Until we sink the GDP fetish.
Material expansion of goods and services is not a Solution to human ills
It is the Problem.
The maximization of net product is an unworthy goal.
It is also a life threatening one.
The Planet , simply, cannot afford it,
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Once simple tribal society is destroyed - whence empires commence - the Path to Human Devolution is set.
Men are responsible for that fatal breach of domestic felicities, - originally, the domain of women - , of the values of hearth and home.
Their animal spirits set off the debacles, that then ran amok, in leaps and bounds.
It was, and still is , the Prime Mover.
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It is the sole reason that humanity is forever immured in wars, and gratuitous conflicts.
The irrepressible male ego is the permanent fons et origo.
This is the most limpidly obvious of all home truths: but , because men have been the prime authors of history , and social theories , it has remained obscured.
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I speak of European global domination, of the past 4 centuries, as the Barbarian Interlude.
But let me be plain.
There has been its ilk before, and even worse could await us in the hereafter.
If worse has preexisted , why do I still characterize it as Barbarism?
Because NO prior order had the will , and the carefully cultivated ability , to destroy all life on the Planet.
NO only did they invent the certain means of Planetary extinction, they have also used them , without the slightest compunction.
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We need to resist the temptation to be naïve or idealistic.
It is not merely hope that springs eternal in the human breast.
Also , plain , homespun , fatuity?