How Far Down River Are We? It’s Time To Have That Chat!
Just how bad is it—really?
How far down river has our society floated and can it still be rescued?
These are incredibly important questions for all to consider. Seeing the forest for the trees requires a ruthless inventory of the system as a whole. Problem fragments gleaned from haphazard scrolling through social media accounts seldom fit together as a cohesive whole which serves to mask the enormous difficulty of our situation that should be staring us in the face.
Canadian theologian Douglass John Hall thought that REAL HOPE could take hold only when illusions end. We must face the deep and systemic issues that have been piling up over time and whose remedies will require profound and painful changes. Tweaks to the status quo will only prolong the inevitable truth we must face.
Below is a very basic graphic entitled, Undermining A Healthy Society to spur thinking in this direction. The seven keys pertain to any thriving community of people or any society in general. You’ll find those keys on the left; their synthetic replacement in the next column; the dire consequences that follow and the hidden crises that have gone unrecognized and left to gnaw at the roots of once thriving communities. [ROOT PROBLEMS]
The accumulation of skill in the arts of Propaganda/Mercenary Speech and the aggregation of money to deploy that skill is what is responsible for the rise of the synthetic society starting at the turn of the 20th century and its power has only grown exponentially through rapidly advancing technological means.
Many of our ancestors were vividly alive and present to the great issues of the day, grappling with many of the questions that have resurfaced in our time. How can that be? The synthetic replacement largely misdirected or overshadowed those far-seeing heroes.
One of the reasons, you and I never learned their names is because textbooks, which were honestly critical of American history, written by men like Harold Ruggs and David Mussey, were systematically purged from high schools across the country through co-ordinated attacks, transforming history lessons with valid critiques into sanitized American mythology.
Despite the dire warnings, most of the alarm bells were silenced by the limited public reach of the critics; compromised leadership that betrayed their calling, and reform efforts that remained cosmetic and shallow based on faulty problem definition, allowing the sheep to fall back asleep, lulled into a false sense of security.
We find the very same tactics used today.
In the absence of true power to shift opinion, prophetic messages fell to the ground wasted, while the house of cards grew taller amd taller, ever more susceptible to imminent collapse.
This is the reason I have taken the time to re-publish some of those warnings in the Prophetic Voices Audio series and will continue to publish more as time permits.
One man who understood the difference between between ROOT and LESSER PROBLEMS was Harold Ruggs. In The Great Technology: Social Chaos and the Public Mind (1933) he wrote:
Of public talk there was much, but of thoughtful discussion there was all too little. Politicians and promoters pronounced and promised, while the men-on-the-street bandied catch-words and sought remedies by shifting their allegiances back and forth from one major political party to another. On every hand could be heard anxious queries and even informed thinking people were bewildered, questioning the alternative pathways to tomorrow. The situation demanded of each person such contribution as he could make. [How contemporary does this sound?]
The politicians, most of the captains and corporals of industry and some professed economists will not agree with its findings [his book] or its proposals for action, for it makes little of many of the problems and remedies to which they address themselves. It is not concerned, for example, with the bolstering of credit, the shoring of banks and utilities, gold as the standard of money, the stabilization of money, the settlement of war debts, the lowering of tariffs, or the acceptance of a lower standard of living by the people. [These are the “LESSER” problems constantly in the spotlight.]
On the contrary, it deals with what seems to many scientific students of society to be deeper lying issues: for example, the continuance or abolition of free competition; the relation between the productivity of machine technology and the return to the worker; the analysis of the ownership and control of the production-distribution system and the role of the middleman; the determination of the economic value of goods and services; and the all pervasive problem of government by consent of the governed. [Root Problems]
This condemnation could be levied at the modern era in general, as one long epoch in which leadership continuously shrouds and obscures ROOT PROBLEMS while catastrophically highlighting and debating “LESSER” issues.
In short, Ruggs saw his era as one of tectonic changes, that would likely upend the sovereign rule of the people—if it hadn’t already—unless ROOT PROBLEMS were addressed. And the first task of addressing ROOT PROBLEMS was and still is the intellectual task of actually GRASPING the ROOT PROBLEMS.
Our leaders simply will not do this no matter what sound and fury you hear in the daily press.
It is up to us!
This graph is a place to start some discussion.
Take the nucleus of a family for example, in a dysfunctional alcoholic family, respect for others is lacking, family secrets are maintained, some type of tyranny ensues, the family totters without strong leadership, speaking the truth to confront real issues is studiously avoided and the family generally moves from crisis to crisis while the children suffer in a chaotic environment, sacrificing the future. Without intervention families like this will ultimately shatter and split apart.
Larger societies follow a similar path.
Consider the first row dealing with community relations…If a global industry of trillions of dollars of Mercenary Speech (commonly called public relations) is allowed to continue unabated, manipulating consent and routinely deceiving the public, can anyone seriously contend that a health society will result?
Consider the second row…Is the global monopolization of news-gathering [Think Associated Press] and news reporting even remotely being addressed. Sure fake news is disscussed and media literacy promoted but again is anyone saying that the corporate structure that ties everything together needs to be disbanded? No small minority should have such far reaching power as mediating reality between one country and the next for citizens of the world
Of course, there are those who will say the internet has changed all that and while true to some degree, “reach” for all the smaller alternative media platforms remains miniscule compared to the enormous “reach” of opinion-shaping organs of society like magazines, publishing-houses, news, policy groups and cable news etc. linked together in one massive power block. The alternative news-gathering force is simply a hodge-podge of live time social media feeds and important pieces of information offered by other brave whistleblowersthat potentially refute the dominant narratives.
Consider free speech..without money or organization, voices representing the people are easily ignored, pacified or ridiculed and thereby marginalized as we all are well aware!
Consider the prophet…. the sophist of LESSER PROBLEMS will dominate while REAL ISSUES contine to be hidden from view except within small enclaves of society. Lacking the ability to speak truth to power broadly makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to course correct and just as importantly to hold those quilty of crimes and treason responsible.
Consider leadership and governance…Large sums of money select and elect our leadership and they work for and on behalf of that enormous economic block that currently lacks any loyalty to America itself nor her people having long since migrated to trans-national perspectives that follow the paths of highest earnings.
And finally, consider spirituality and the future…A materialist and consumer culture predominate, based on the illusion of never-ending technological progress without regard to the steady erosion of true spiritual values that make life worth living.
Is it any wonder that the house seems rickety, ready to totter. It is truly a house built on sand at this point.
Let REAL HOPE commence as we face this late hour.
Stop listening to the politicos and take up actions that have true meaning.
Think through the GRAPH for yourself, download and share with someone over coffee, or bring it up for discussion at the dinner table. The more conversant we are with REAL PROBLEMS, the less likely we are to fall victim to the diversion of LESSER PROBLEMS and the more likely we are to identify the rats running the system who betray us daily with deception.
“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom”