The word “awakening” came up twice yesterday, once in a very good article by Michael Needham and Tim Chapman, the second time in a less clear context in the comment section.
Awakening is a concept that’s been on my mind lately, too.
Needham and Chapman say that “a great awakening is sweeping the nation.” I think a great awakening is trying to sweep the nation. But so far (for most people) it’s only reached that early a.m. stage where you know something is strange in your dream but you haven’t yet gotten conscious.
But then, that’s the way awakenings are.
Still, I don’t think you can call the current mass of formless rage against the machine an enlightenment. Not when so much of its discourse is conducted on this level. Not when the Republicans can take the whole Tea Party back into the establishment without a fight. Not when the aims of a protest are so amorphous that both the Nazis and the Communist party can claim kinship with it. (And yes, I know; they’re just two different forms of socialist, but they’re two very different forms in this case. Or at least one likes to imagine they’d be horrified to be in bed with each other.)
It’s clear that the establishment (“The Bigs” as Needham and Chapman astutely name them) will try to bring any would-be awakening back into the dreamland shadow of power. That’s what entrenched power does. That’s what it’s done throughout history.
Sometimes it wins — and the awakening (and sometimes the entire culture) goes dark. Sometimes the would-be awakening succeeds just far enough to throw the old ways into chaos — but offers nothing new to build on. (I fear we’re in danger of that.)
Occasionally the light actually breaks through. A critical mass of people understand what they’re for — and why — and not just what they’re against. At that moment, the potential for hope can arise.
Which do you think it will be? Awakening? Endarkenment? Or some crepuscular in-between state?
http://www.321gold.com/editorials/moriarty/moriarty101711.html
Another take on it.
I hope he’s right. I doubt that he is.
Which, you ask? “…some crepuscular in-between state.” (Where did you get that word at that hour of the morning?!)
I’m figuring on directionless anger.
The September monthly newsletter at combat shooting and tactics has the ” quote of the decade” that’s spot on…
An awakening-slow, but an awakening. I thnk we’re at the stage where the clock radio has gone off and we’re listening to the news..
Maybe I’m not thinking this all through deeply enough, but it still strikes me that what I’m hearing is “If we make enough noise, THEY will fix it.” People are waking up to the fact that the system is badly broken, but whether or not that constitutes an actual awakening isn’t so clear.
Pat — while I can’t exactly say I’ve always wanted to use the word crepuscular, it is right up there with tenebrous for cool words to describe twilight. 🙂
bumperwack — care to post or link to that quote? I went to their site and did find an amusing quote in the Oct. newsletter: http://www.combatshootingandtactics.com/picts/2011_oct_news_/oneanddone.jpg
Oh. Wait. I found it. But there’s no attribution. And I’m not so sure that quote speaks any special wisdom. After all, what choice did the v*ters have? McCain? Gimme a break. He was not one wit better. A third-party candidate? Heck, even the Libertarians didn’t field one worth two seconds of anybody’s time. Would that make every v*ter a fool? Maybe so. But here it is, FWIW:
The expression “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath” comes to mind here. Number one…..I hate socialisim/communisim with a purple passion. I also feel that big money….meaning international bankers and their kind are to blame for the present problem. Whenever a society undergoes a radical change….the “pendulum” tends to swing way to far to the opposite. That is what scares me. Also what Claire posted last…..lets face it…we are becoming a nation of idiots. How to change that? For one…get the school system back to becoming that. A school. Not some social engineering thing. Not a means to instill radicalisim. And for sure not a way to brainwash our children. Have we gone to far? Is our country in its present state salvageable? I do not know. I hope so….but it will not be easy or “nice”.
There are a lot of tea partiers who are rejecting the Republicans who try to claim them. Maybe not enough, but a lot.
My mother was in on the Tea Party movement within the first few hours of it starting, so I’ve kind of had a front-row seat while watching it develop. My favorite story is one that I’m not sure was ever mentioned by the media, but a friend on a news discussion forum was there and described it. During one of the very early Tea Party protests, a local politician got up to speak . . . and was shouted down with the words “You’re going to listen to *US* for a change!!!”
As for some of the recent comments on your “Occupy Yourself” thing, jeepers-creepers!!!! People are seriously getting THAT worked up over what an author, who they’ve never met and from the look of things don’t read, does or does not “allow” them to do?!?! Have they ever looked up the definition of the word “freedom”?
I hate to say it, but the sheer number of people who have the same mindset as those commenters, that they need “permission” from some authority figure in order to act on their own behalf, is why I’m pessimistic about this OWS movement. It’s sounding a little too much like certain other movements, that ended in bloodbaths.
The time to go underground was last year. The situation is such that even the best, kindest, strongest, most capable leaders possible could not fix this without it getting much, much worse first. And people who think Pol Pot is a plant variety are not the ones I’d trust to guide anybody’s future.
Would love to be proved wrong about all of that, though!
Curt S- “…we are becoming a nation of idiots. How to change that?”
First step: refuse to be an idiot. It’s hard, since “People are idiots” is Unfortunate Truth #1, and we are all people.
“For one…get the school system back to becoming that. A school.”
Actually, abolish the “school system” altogether and you’d be ahead of the game. Home schooling, or best yet, unschooling avoids all the downside of a school “system” and allows you to avoid the indoctrination that invariably comes with any authoritarian hierarchy such as a “school”.
There is a solution, but it involves doing things more differently than looking to others and tinkering with something that was never intended to do what you were told was its function.
Work on fixing yourself and the rest seems less important.
Endarkenment. The current wave sweeping the nation is, for the most part, simply more people who want to be given stuff that is taken from others, preferably when there’s a high-falutin’ label attached to the taking. The small percentage who actually think criminals should be held accountable will be overwhelmed by the vast majority who see it as an excuse to try and get their trotters in the trough.
I mentally picture masses of people running in circles yelling OMG in total chaos, right now….direction of any sort: impossible – until they get a grip on their fear, before they can attempt to do any clear thinking……
There’s just to many people now….to many to try to control, or rehab from idiotness, or trusted to be left on their own without someone else telling them what they should do/think/say…….to untangle the mess will take decades, or at the least longer than in my lifetime, and even if some have the “light” of a correct way or answer, getting heard will take magic and/or super powers…..
Unfortunately, you could introduce me to the brightest, wisest people with the perfect answers to all the problems and I probably still would refuse to follow/agree/accept it because I’ve gotten so use to digging into my own trenches by now…..Before any solutions can ever be implemented there will be a lot of mistrust and apprehension to overcome first, then all of that group will have to educate the idiots that probably will outnumber them…..and who’s to say what’s the right thing to do or impose next, since voting doesn’t seem to be working………..
It’s actually less complicated to just handle our own business, and somewhat more predictable….and harder and harder to find a place to do that, too……
I dunno Claire …Romney /Cain? ..Gawd…it would appear the ballot box is broken a nd the only guy who’s got about a perfect voting record, and the stones to address the fed – fraud…if he did get in, what could he do? Were freaking doomed!
Seriously though …we all know what’s coming …prepare people, prepare …
Awakening. Because of the internet-communications revolution. Knowledge and enlightenment is now at the fingertips of practically the whole world population, even in third world countries where inexpensive cell phone technology is revolutionizing life for the poor. The enlightenment is rapidly happening and I don’t think the establishment can even turn off the system now that it’s been unleashed.
I could introduce you to some new friends in Ghana… Africa. Last year they were socialists, for the most part. Now they are libertarians. Next year, heck, they may embrace real freedom!
The culprit? ISIL and the internet. This has injected a ray of hope into the gloom for me.
Did you see this, Claire?
http://www.klfy.com/story/15717759/second-hand-dealer-law
So much for “Legal Tender”.
These protests do not have the direction, commitment, or the leadership of the protests lead by Martin Luther King.
Same with the Vietnam protests of the late 60s. That was a mixed lot of people promoting their own agendas. Besides, the protests died out in 1970, if I remember, and the Vietnam war dragged on until Nixon stopped it in 1972. So a lot of good those protests were.
I vote for enfizzlement.
Winter will kill the protests by freezing the protestors, at least in northern climes.
[…] Claire Wolfe asks the question. […]
I was skeptical about reading this (link at the end), given who the author is, but I’m always up to seeing any points of views as long as they are presented rather intelligently….and a bit curious to see how people in other countries look at our situations, too – or in this case someone with dual perspectives….
The bits of silliness are to be expected, but the insight was well thought out especially when he finally zeros in on the “an anomaly the government does not know how to address” part….
http://www.russellbrand.tv/2011/10/occupy/
Endarkenment in the short term.
The carefully crafted men-children camped out in public squares across the land are in essence demanding freedom from the responsibilities of Liberty.
[…] Awakening or endarkenment? […]