the second great turn

{written for a geography in the middle east class, our apologies for the academic references}

Trying to make sense of history can be a difficult process. Here, I would like to sketch the outlines of a peculiarly feasible future-history of the world, as modulated by a sort of Islamic enlightenment arising out of the current sets of youth movements originating in the Middle East.

As Reza Aslan diligently points out, “. . . religion is the foundation of America's political system.” (Aslan, 262) If we take also his point that “. . . religion is to this day an integral part of the American national identity and patently the moral foundation for its Constitution . . .” (Aslan, 262), what we are left with in a strange sense of non-terror about the prospect of an Islamic democratic system. In fact, we can begin to construct a narrative: if American democracy, arising during the western Enlightenment period and, as per Aslan, couched in the moral presuppositions of Protestant Christianity, can rise to become the prime example of effective democratic systems, ostensibly the model for all other modern democratic nations, then what of an organic, Islamic-normalized democratic system? Such a thing would be a distinctly 'fresh' reorganization of democratic principles, alive with contemporary knowledge and potentially healthy tendencies.

Key here is “Islam's quintessentially communal character . . .” (Aslan 264), which may be contrasted with the contemporary marriage of American right-wing conservative individualism with American right-wing conservative (Protestant) Christianity. While both scriptures involved place great value in communal effort and collectivization, contemporary Christian political discourse has become thoroughly Capitalist in nature, conveniently forgetting virtually all of the recorded words of the Christ. In Islam, there is a sense that it has strayed less far from its collectivist origins. Even in images, it is easy to conjure the groups of the faithful, moving in unison during prayer or the Haj. Perhaps it is because it is the youngest of the three Abrahamic traditions. More likely, like most other things, it is simply the way things have happened, due to any number of individually discernible historical mechanics. Regardless, if Aslan is correct that an Islamic bill of rights would primarily “. . . take into consideration the protection of the community over the autonomy of the individual,” (Aslan, 264) then Islamic democracy may be precisely the jump-start that our globe's decaying political systems need!

Visualize, please, the notion of American democracy arising from a hegemonically Christian background. Indeed, as Aslan points out, “[a] democratic state can be established upon any normative framework . . .” (Aslan, 262). And so we may posit that the America-centric, Christian-normalized democracy that is taken for granted in the West is in fact the 'democratized' version of a Christian morality. Over time, the pluralistic and secularizing “. . . process that develops naturally within a democracy,” (Aslan, 264) has digested this system into the quasi-secular, mostly-pluralistic America-type we see today. Thus, a system that arises organically within Islamic hegemony and given time (which is always occurs faster and faster throughout history) to similarly digest its theocratic underpinnings may well be the next grand set of governing ideas that revolutionize the world. We would do well to look to Tunisia's soon-to-be-hammered-out new constitution for the inklings. If this is indeed the path that lies ahead, it seems that those communal instincts of Islam could end up being the perfect antithesis to the sick, dilapidated, corporate state of Late Capitalism we in the West and across the globe are newly and correctly seeing as the oppressor.

There are new shapes on the horizon!

beta

"We all know the story of the stock market crash. We all sat and watched CSPAN as congress reconvened to pass the emergency powers bill. There isn't a deliberative body in the world that won't pass on the opportunity to place responsibility elsewhere. It became politically untenable for the president, however, and he was forced by conservatives in congress to appoint a steering committee of wealthy industrialists to "revitalize" the economy. When the corporations started hiring the private armies, we knew we had to do something. In a month, they had forced congress to terminate the federal government. It helped that almost half of the members were all for the idea. Today there is no currency. They tell us the union still stands. The conglomerates own branches of the military. We had already been letting them run our prisons, it wasn't so difficult to make the switch to a private penal system. They tell us the union still stands. They tell us, don't you still have your television set? The state governments each went their own way. There's a few loose federations here and there. The's even a confederacy. Two midwestern states are at war. But most of those governments dissolved, too. If there's anything corporations are good at, it's merchandising! They tell us the union still stands. They tell us, don't you still have your television set? They tell us, your lawn is looking a bit under the weather. You should probably buy an irrigation system!
We are here because we remember the way it used to be. We're the only thing left in this country. We're lucky to have the skills we have, because if we didn't, the struggle would be all that much harder. We hack their computers, we keep ourselves anonymous. We try and do little things here and there. But we're growing in number. And it won't be long before they hear from us again."

alpha

"When the stock market crashed again, it just seemed like we knew what to do. The first few days were quiet, it seemed like the world had finally just stopped. There was very little traffic...most of it to bars or grocery stores. Soon, the campuses started to fill up. The cameras caught on, and in interviews, the students always said the same three things: abolish the banks, abolish the pentagon, call a constitutional convention. Of course, we found out later that they had rehearsed. Soon, what remained of the labor unions called for a general strike. After that, the national mall was filled for two weeks before washington caved. And then we went to philadelphia. The silicon valley types had an idea: crowdsource it. And the so-called most important website ever went live; anyone could suggest ideas, and ideas were voted up and down by the population. Corporate influence was banned as a matter of course. The silicon types assured us the security was all very state-of-the-art, but the result spoke for themselves. The ideas that floated to the top were almost universally lauded, and by the time the document was passed to the committee, it was a matter of pride for the vast majority of the population. It seems absent the corporations and the political parties, americans didn't have all that much to fight about. Labor relations were modeled off of germany's highly successful system; a national health service was bought and paid for by a graduated tax on income. Corporate taxes were kept low, but reformatted to prevent offshoring. Income tax was graduated steeply, and when it became clear that the wealthy were trying to buy votes against the tax system, violent demonstrations were held on property known to belong to the culprits, the first truly violent aspect of the entire revolution. The military budget was drastically reduced, and it was constitutionally mandated that any military action would take 80% of the popular vote. The voting system itself was radically overhauled, and became modeled on the process used to develop the constitution. The national social security system was preserved as one of the few remaining functional systems in the old government. No parliament was deemed necessary in light of the popular voting method. The president was replaced with a council of three popularly-elected executives. They mainly just try to raise awareness about particular issues. Companies are required by law to be majority owned by their employees. Finally, twenty percent of all of the federal taxes collected in any given year is dedicated to scientific research. Because of this simple, inalienable spending, our economy has flourished and the world once again looks to america for inspiration. It took us three years. Three years, and we put the first human on mars. That was six months ago. And here we are, in the first colony ship on our way to the red planet. We have much to be grateful for, ladies and gentleman. The future shines brighter than many of us could imagine. Let us remember the time when it didn't."

the twilight zone

Consider this past week that the united states just completed. A week ago, we were hearing that there was probably a deal in the works and so the government would not be defaulting on its dept. By wednesday we were out of the woods, and the democrats had arrived tortured and pathetic. On thursday, the dow jones index lost 512 points, about 4% of its value. On friday there was a slightly less dismal than expected jobs report, and the market fooled itself into hovering for the day. On friday night, last night, standard & poor downgraded the u.s. credit rating. The arguments they gave rang true for many, but washington disputes the legitimacy of the downgrade. Here is a blockquote from s & p's press release, although if you haven't heard it by now i don't know what you've been doing:

 More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges to a degree more than we envisioned when we assigned a negative outlook to the rating on April 18, 2011.

S & p is saying that the government has ceased to function reliably. Reliably as in 'does this thing, which determines most of the aspects of all u.s. citizens' lives, actually do anything?' Let alone anything of value? They are saying that because of said cessation, why in the world should anyone completely trust that we're responsible for our dept? As it turns out, a small contingent of ultra-right-wing conservatives have successfully convinced themselves that defaulting would be a great thing for the country. And they have apparently convinced everyone else in washington that raising any taxes whatsoever is tantamount to treason. It should, but doesn't, go without saying that believing that a government can't tax its citizens for the common good is in effect an existential threat to said government. That is to say, treason. (we don't think anyone should be prosecuted for treason anyway, but the point should be made.)

Oh, and china decided to use the opportunity to vent some frustration with the world's favorite debtors, as well.

But the most harrowing detail is that this downgrade mostly came through after the stock market closed on friday. Today is saturday. So we have another day and a half of speculation, and... . . . we'll see what happens on monday?

What is clear is that standard & poor is correct. Taken objectively, the united states has become quite unstable and unpredictable. The wealth gap is the worst it has ever been, higher even than it was immediately preceding the great depression. Societies with gaps like that tend to either collapse or revolt. We've never quite been down this road before, although the great depression was similar. What is going to happen to america?

/*

American empire, n.; a large and wealthy late industrial empire whose power and influence peaked after the second world war, in the 20th century. It had grown from a large set of colonies which had rebelled against the british empire, a colonial and mercantile power in the centuries prior. It is generally credited with popularizing republican democracy as a form of government due to its successful revolutionary war. It expanded across the north american continent in a centuries-long pillage and conquest of the native population. It was a uniquely multifaceted place, as it was populated entirely by people whose ancestors had immigrated at some point in relatively recent memory. It had a civil war in the 19th century along the fractious line dividing the industrial north from the agrarian south sections of the early territory of the country. The south was economically dependent on slave labor to work its fields, and the legal issue of slavery became a sticking point in the founding of new states. The southern states declared themselves a new confederate, and the north invaded and defeated them over the course of three years. Slavery was abolished, although the country's population would remain racially divided through most of the 21st century. Around the turn of the 20th century, the country experienced a burst of innovation and efficiency gains. The assembly line, the telephone, and the skyscraper all originated in this period of prosperity. The global conflagration in the early 20th century caused instability in the country, but it ultimately prevailed. After the second world war, the american empire, which had grown exponentially more productive in the past fifty years or so, was left amid the ashes to claim economic and military dominance over the rest of the occidental world. It helped rebuild europe, and was the first nation to send a human to the moon during this period. Soon, however, the forces in favor of laissez-faire policies in the government grew more and more entrenched. A right-wing faction leveraged the newly-emergent forms of mass media to spread a message of fervent christian evangelicalism coupled with the type of economic libertarianism favored by extremely wealthy industrial tycoons. In a few decades the grip these forces had on the government's general decision-making ability meant that by the time its economy finally collapsed, it had cut taxes to the lowest level in the contemporary industrialized world, it had deregulated entirely the markets which had caused its great depression generations earlier, and it had even normalized bribery as a completely normal part of the legislative process. It had spent several times as much money on its military as the entire rest of the contemporary world combined. It also holds the distinction for contributing the most in history to the global level of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

*/

We are in limbo right now. Can you feel it? Just a day and a quarter or so until monday..

the Metaculturalist top 10 in the 10s (full cycle)

{We continue our list in the new year! For the first cycle, click here!}

vi. The climate gets dangerous. While this trend clearly has its roots in this past decade, climate change seems poised to begin some real destruction very soon. Naturally, 2010 was the warmest year on record, much like virtually all of the last ten years before it. This is not only a warming trend, though. It is to be more accurately thought of as general instability, with more energy in the system causing a virtually unpredictable slew of new norms.

vii. The culture improves. While it may not seem like it on the surface, popular culture is rapidly improving. While it may be an entirely subjective measure, it is extremely difficult to contrast lady gaga with britney spears and not feel as though propensity for artistry and artifice has greatly increased over the last decade. Gaga herself has been a large part of this, waving the 'strangeness' banner higher than ever in an explicitly mainstream context. While the commercialization of popular culture is clearly not going anywhere anytime soon, the values that the most commercial artists seem to represent are indeed mutating very quickly, and have come a long way since the naughty schoolgirls and clean-cut boy bands of the late 90s.

iix. Everything bad is good (in moderation). Drugs become much more commonplace, not necessarily in quantity but in role. The younger generation's familiarity with (and cultural digestion of) pharmacons of varying types breeds a shimmering blossom of cultural expression, both echo of and development upon a similar revolution which had it very beginning precisely half a century ago. Obviously, this element is inextricably tied to vii. That late capitalism has its upsides!

ix. A new revolution in transportation. From highways to outer space, in ten years the way that humans move around will be completely different. It had better be--just ask those aussies from vi. The first private orbiting spaceflight a month ago heralded the coming of a new era. Think of it as the Actual Space Age, a time when market forces will actually cause some good in society and make near-earth orbit the norm for rapid travel, tourism, and perhaps even industry. Innovations in distributed networks and robotics will take the fear out of driving, even if we no longer get to (or have to) actually drive. Teenage mortality, as a result, flatlines, and your humble metaculturalist will no longer have to worry about all those miles of highway they drive on (a topic for a future post).

x. The architecture remains awful. In spite of all these changes, The Most Backward Profession will remain obstinately rooted in the 19th century. Building practices will remain the same, and building a house in 2020 will take the same absolutely absurd amounts of time and money as it does now. What little innovation happens will, as always, remain on the fringes. Despite vast improvements in materials science, it will still be extremely likely that your home will be built of the same shit it always has, wood and prejudice.

And that does it for our year-end non-review! I hope you've enjoyed your stay, and please remember to rss if you've been enlightened!