Bleak House...or...McRevolution

This world, and its people, are very seldom passive for very long. The dynamic of human beings, living in various nations, ruled by one form of government or another, struggling to feed their families, dealing with famines and other natural disasters, not to mention wars, makes the status quo something that usually lasts only a few decades. This past century alone saw two world wars and various and sundry other wars around the globe. Now that we are in the Information Age people will not be content to plow the farm and raise children. We have seen Communism collapse and lay dormant for two decades and we are in the midst of the effort for a new paradigm for a new America. The formation of a New World Order may yet see its day. I wrote the following blog in December of 2008. In it I noted, very unscientifically, that much of the world, in modern times anyway, seems to move in cycles of approximately 49 years. I'm listening to the 50s on XM right now and as much as I enjoy the music of that period, it was a different world from what began at the beginning of the 60s. We seem to be entering another period right now. The differences? Well, for one we do not value thinking anymore. We simply process information. Quality of thought has been displaced by quantity of files to be accessed when needed. Using logic is like a slow computer, discarded for a Droid. America, previous to today, could be defined by liberty and individual freedoms, the Protestant work ethic and a pull yourself up by the bootstraps mentality. Penny candy or a drive-in movie made us smile. Today our egos are obese. We demand to be served. Every material possession is an individual right bestowed on us by Madison Avenue. We offer up our country, our heritage and our future for a mess of pottage given to us by a mainstream media who are the least informed and discerning among us. It is a bleak house we build and only God can intervene to save us from ourselves.

December, 2008
I'm a "boomer," so you may have to try to see through my eyes on this. 1960 does not seem that far away to me. John Kennedy seemed to usher in a new "present age." We can talk about him today and it is not ancient history. Hollywood seemed to change in that year. One particular movie that sticks in my mind is "Strangers When We Meet" with Kirk Douglas and Kim Novak. It dealt with suburbanites and marital infidelity. I haven't seen this movie, I'm sure, in 40 or more years but one scene still lingers in my mind. Kirk Douglas was washing his car in his driveway and a neighbor, (Walter Mathau I believe) gave him a critical look because it was a Sunday. The house was of a modern architecture that developed around the time and we still think of this type of house as an embryo of today's modern housing. Mr. Douglas drove around in what might have been a 1960 Thunderbird.  Elvis changed dramatically after coming out of the army. Interestingly, the previous 48 years seems to me to have been unified in a similar way. The Titanic sunk in 1912 and world wars followed, a depression was experienced. It ended with the development of atomic bombs and a "cold war." Another 48 years backwards and the Civil War was ending. The goals and methods of the universities were changing. Ministers were not sought after to head institutions of higher learning. Curriculum's were changing. Another 48 years and the Napoleonic Age was coming to an end. I can go on but I'm not trying to present a firm theory. I'm sure that there are many holes in my examples here. What I'm concerned with is that we do seem to be coming to the end of what we grew up with. Something new seems to be coming and it is not good. Then again, maybe (even probably) everyone at the end of these ages said the same thing. This financial crisis appears to be far worse than most government leaders describe it to be. A struggle for total globalization is on right now. I don't mean, simply free markets that open up trade all over the world, but a whole new financial creation where everyone must acknowledge that we are all chained to one another. As I mentioned in a previous blog, it's hard to argue with the logic of those that believe that a "One World Government" is the only remedy, for we now have the threat of small nations, even small groups, using nuclear or biological weapons. There are two perspectives of looking at this coming "change" that I see; one discouraging and the other with a perpetual hope. Of the former, we cannot cling to a particular period, for history lays this fact out before us that times change. Of the latter, the mindset of the Christian is no different from Christians in any of the ages before us. We still have to deal with our fallen nature and sin, and with a world that will, at times, let us proclaim that only the imputed (not infused) righteousness of Jesus Christ can cover our sin but at other times will not let us speak. Alan Greenspan has been a believer in the "Objectivism" of Ayn Rand where man's happiness and productiveness, through reason, should be his goal. Greenspan, commenting on the catastrophic sequence of events in the financial crisis said "Everyone has (an ideology)... to exist, you need an ideology. The question is whether it is accurate or not." with astonishing insight he continued "Yes, I found a flaw (presumably in his own ideology)....I've been very distressed by that fact." What he hit on that he does not realize is that humanity is fallen and that philosophies that rely "solely" on the logic and reason of man, who is presumed to be fundamentally good, are doomed to disaster.

Such is part of the problem we are facing in Egypt today. We are not dealing simply with a desire for democracy. There is a famine, so to speak, and any ideology that promises food and buying power will be embraced. Add to that an ideology of hate and brute force, and we do not have a recipe for freedom, but for disaster. This is also part of the change that is in the works. One big commercial for anything the techno-savvy can fashion can reach even the smallest hamlet. McRevolution rules.