Indeed. The powerful play goes on, and all that.Quote:
Originally Posted by redgunamo
I've had a drink :-)
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Indeed. The powerful play goes on, and all that.Quote:
Originally Posted by redgunamo
I've had a drink :-)
:-\ Michael Mann's Public Enemies, starring Johnny Depp and Christian Bale is my favourite movie.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
I think I tried that but didn't make it very far.Quote:
Originally Posted by redgunamo
I will give it another go.
After another drink....
Of course, we don't really have this very American idea of a nostalgia for the future.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
Mann's Dillinger is Whitman's good, bad, dirty and divine; the rugged individual eventually crushed by the "powerful play".
(I read alot, until I stopped. Read everything as a youngster. Grew up near the village library, passed it every day on the way to nursery school, infants' school and primary school).
I loved all that stuff because those people are not me, nor anyone like me; the people I knew growing up. Pure fiction. Fascinating.
Writers are all the same, nothing like me :-)
It's not rolling over, Reds. It's just accepting times change.Quote:
Originally Posted by redgunamo
We're both post-grad historians, remember, so it gives us a different way of looking at the world.
The printing press, Columbus and the Reformation in less than a century changed Europe and the World in ways that were unimaginable and couldn't be undone. It definitely was over for the Aztecs and Incas, for example. And then for the Moghuls and the Chinese empire.
The Russian aristocracy didn't roll over in 1917 - we had the Whites fighting a civil war for half a decade - but it really was over for them.
The world we both new after 1989, when his Nato had won and we were living in vehicles, travelling with sound systems doing month long festivals has sadly gone for good.
No rolling over about it. As I said, when they introduced the Criminal Justice Bill after Castlemorton in '92, criminalising our lifestyle, we simply took it across the Channel and created the first {and possibly last} pan-European counter-culture.
Instead we've gone back a century to the left and right fighting each other on the streets with the rise of the far right looking for "others" to blame for the fact that western status is in terminal decline. Or with the Culture Wars, with their beliefs in their own righteousness, we've gone back 360-500 years to the Wars of Religion era. Trump is trying to take us back to the age of Empire.
We've done various courses together on Europe from the C15th to the C20th where we've studied the rise of the western world, on the changes wrought by the printing press, by Columbus, by the Reformation, on the medieval giving way to the early-modern, on the wars of religion giving way to the Enlightenment and then to Romanticism, the birth of a completely new global financial system, the political struggles and the consequent social changes and on the century of Total War where the world of 1913 was unrecognisable in 1946.
We're not rolling over any more than the Edwardian aristocracy did when their kids rushed to the trenches. But the game was up for them - forces were at play that they were powerless to stop.
If you've studied the last 5-600 years of geo-pol and socio-econ change, you can see quite clearly when an old world is dying and a new one being born. And we're powerless to stop it.
I'm not saying having a drink and leaving it to your kids isn't the best option for you. I'm just saying that we're personally not rolling over, we just know that the worlds we grew up living in and doing our best to secure {him militarily, me culturally} are over. And there's sweet FA we can do about it.
It's not rolling over, we'll both fight to the bitter end. But we've both studied enough mil-hist to know that at some point, der Krieg ist verloren.
Enjoy your drink. Ganpati bless you and your kids.
Reading is obviously a worthy pastime for a lad, once he has done his hours on his front and back foot defensive strokes.Quote:
Originally Posted by redgunamo
After all, not much point in quoting Whitman as you trudge back to the pavilion to looks of disappointment. :-(
I do think you are rather gloomy on the outlook here. If Romanticism is so fundamentally natural to us then surely it will find its way through the cracks, somehow.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult
As long as kids keep drinking, taking drugs and finding their OWN music, there is hope.
See, this is what sons are for; so you can show rather than tell; create a world you're happy to leave to your children. That's the only way the world knows you're not just talking nonsense. Don't teach us, a bunch of dirty old drunks who have long forgotten how to listen; teach your young boys where it can actually do some good. They see you every day, you can show them what a good, honest life looks like; lead them by example. Salute your father dear, kiss your darling mother, drink a pint of beer. As the man said.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult
Then everyone can see you mean what you say as you have a sincere incentive, a stake in the future that does not simply involve filling civilisation up with cheap African imports; perhaps among the least civilised folk in Creation (as a cheap African import myself, I know very well of that which I speak).
It was alright when Wenger did it, I suppose, but it's no way to build a better world.
Anything else is just chickening out, rolling over, no matter how many books you've read or how many words you need to use to justify it. The world needs fewer Captain Blackadders and many more Captain Darlings. Fortunately for now though, that's what we get.
Have to disagree re Captain Darling. The man was not only a trench dodger, he was a wicket keeper for God's sake.Quote:
Originally Posted by redgunamo
You simply cannot trust a wicket keeper. Cads to a man. Bad eggs. :-(
On the rest you may well have a point.
Oh, I am naturally gloomy, but Romanticism isn't fundamental to us, it was just one era in western society. Like the absolute belief in Christianity and the post-death future of your immortal soul and the Enlightenment that came between the two.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
We've seen a regression to a pre-Enlightenment world in this modern, digital era. Vax scepticism, conspiracy theories, the absolutism of the culture wars as opposed to tolerance and objectivity when during the late Enlightenment, they thought that would last forever in an "end of history" way. The French Revolution was seen as the apogee of the Enlightenment, the Berlin Wall falling down at the end of the Cold War. But that led to the change over to Romanticism in the same way the end of the Cold War wasn't the end of history, it was just the start of a new world order - one that saw the beginnings of the end of western dominance as opposed to its final victory.
And that's the sort of point I've been making. We've agreed that the working class yoof aspect of Romanticism that started in the '60s was the first time it was open to all as opposed to upper class poets then middle class novelists and painters.
But even within that period of say 1960-2000, the '60s was socially limited. Many a working class parent has been asked by their kids "What did you do in the '60s?" and the parents replied "The '60s didn't happen to people like us."
That's was raving {not just my crusty free raving which was a tiny subset, but raving and clubbing, was the very pinnacle. Most of the country were boshing Es at a weekend, hugging those next to them on the dancefloor. You didn't need to play guitar like Hendrix or write lyrics like Dylan, you just had to be able to keep two records in time on the ones and twos.
You could still work 9-5 and go clubbing off your head at weekends. You didn't need to be living the lifestyle full time like those of us in squats and vehicles doing the free parties. The whole country was part of it and that wasn't the case with the hippies, mods or punks.
As with the end of the cold war, the period raving coincided with, we thought it would last forever.
But it just changed into something new. The guns, bitches and bling, the materialism, misogyny and homophobia of gangsta rap replaced the peace and love of E-ed up ravers and then we switched to the digital, selfie generation where your curated online presence was more important than your real life soul.
It was just a period and we were at both its apogee and its end.
As Reds says, the kids won't care as they weren't part of it so won't feel its loss.
But the kids aren't drinking and taking drugs like we do. They need an app to find a partner. They're having far less sex as they go for porn and AI GFs. Their music has just become a global lowest common denominator as there's no space for individual scenes. How can you really enjoy a gig or a party if you experience it through your phone's screen? It's more important to show your online world that you were there than to experience it in real life.
So Romanticism wasn't fundamentally natural to humanity. It was just a western social movement between the end of the Enlightenment and the birth of the digital age.
And as I say, the longer and more deeply you were part of these Romantic scenes, the more deeply we'll feel it's passing.
You might want another drink......
I dunno, Kolo helped build a world which was better in terms of invincibility than any before or since.Quote:
Originally Posted by redgunamo
But yes, I get what you're saying about kids and a stake in the future of humanity. You have no choice in that and it makes the transition much easier to deal with. I get that.
But the social contract that underpinned the Romantic period - that coincided with the industrial revolution, massive economic growth based on British free trade {the informal empire} and the Pax Britannica, the growth of political power and social liberty for the poor, the welfare state and the growing middle class - was based on kids knowing they would have a better life than their parents.
And across the west {and I'm talking about the west as Romanticism was a western phenomenon} this social contract has broken down. Whether we talk about the cost of buying a house, the student debt that doesn't guarantee a secure middle class job, the rise of AI now taking the well paid, white collar jobs that those best and brightest students took as their guaranteed reward for studying hard, there's no longer the belief that most kids will have a better life than their parents.
Most revolutions, eg French, Russian, occur when there's an oversupply of educated middle classes for the available jobs.
That's one reason for the rise of wokeism. I know the latest PC terms which you learn at uni and can tell off those less educated working classes who are making more money as a plumber than I am as a graduate. I may be poorer than you, but I am superior because I am purer. Exactly the same reason behind religious fundamentalism whether Jihadis or the Hindutva fascists. I may not be rich, but I am doing God's work so He will reward me more and I can therefore feel better by killing an infidel or untouchable.
You sound like one of the lucky ones. You know your kids will have a better life than you. But your reality is an increasingly small one. More and more people are finding the opposite.
And there's no easy political solution. Not that people will vote for when they want jam today. Hence the rise of populist and extremist parties across the west.
Inequality's growing. Instead of an 11+ for grammar school, we divide the country at 18 on who goes to uni. And make them pay for the three years with fewer and fewer jobs at the end of it. You need rich parents to help buy a house, you need parents with connections to get you internships and the money to support you while you work for free.
We're regressing to the Georgian oligarchy of the late Enlightenment. The kids are fuming about the world we were leaving them - ignoring the growing inequality, falling living standards, fewer prospects, and the fact that tax-scamming tech oligarchs are stealing the tax revenues that paid for the welfare state and the economic growth required to create the jobs for this huge new generation of graduates with middle class aspirations.
They are scared to **** about global warming like we were of nuclear war. But while everyone just doing nothing stopped WW3, it's making global warming worse. And now we have right wing culture warriors like Trump and his European acolytes actively wanting to create more global warming as it pisses off their culture war opponents.
We're seeing the effects, worse every year. 38C in Canada, forest fires across the globe. Delhi could soon get to the state where it becomes too hot to live in summer. Well have water wars and wars for resources and climate refugees from across the globe as everyone tries to pull up their own drawbridges and expects everyone but them to make the required sacrifices.
So the young try to distract themselves by putting on a keffiyeh and campaigning for trans rights to feel like they're doing something that will make a difference. Because accepting the reality of global warming and their complete lack of agency to stop it will be soul destroying.
I'm genuinely happy that it's working out for you and your son. But for many it's not. And the number of losers is increasing every year. And that explains the discontent, the rise of populism and extremism, and the search for scapegoats to blame for the inevitable loss of western status.
Far flung our navies melt away
On dune and headland sink the fire
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Ninevah and Tyre
God of nations, spare us yet
Lest we forget, lest we forget.
You should thank your lucky stars/the Divine [delete as applicable] that things have worked out so well for your son. I just pray they keep working out for your grandkids.
Maybe AI will come up with solutions, but given the investments {and the mentality of the tech bros} all the benefits will go to them and their shareholders, not to the public.
Which takes us back to the situation in the late middle ages when only the aristos and very rich had money to lend. The demand for money vastly exceeded supply so the price of money, the interest rate, was huge. So the profits from all trade and innovation went to the ultra rich who lent the money, not those who did the trade mission or made the invention.
As I say, in so many ways we are regressing to the situations as they were in previous eras.
With added global warming.
"create a world you're happy to leave to your children."
Have we? Not you, personally, but the West or humanity as a whole.
As stated, the social contract that underpinned the Romantic era, that kids would inherit a better world with better prospects than their parents has broken down. Not for you and your son, thank God. But for increasing numbers every year.
And that leads to populism, extremism and revolution, assuming climate change doesn't kill us directly, or indirectly due to climate-based resource wars.
We actually need more Baldricks with cunning plans because the more I look at this, the harder I find it to see a solution.
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