I have discussed in an earlier blog the battle between modernity and tribalism.
In my own society, the U.S., where modernity is ascendent, I must still ask the question of modernity’s future.
‘What is the future of rationality?’ is a fundamental question. Rationality is in fact, at the core of modernity and modernity’s doppelgänger: commerce.
To be able to survive in the world of commerce with its inherent meritocratic environment, with its inherent diversity of people, with its enduring need for technology and openness, we need a rational basis for human interaction.
It is definitely legitimate to question the future of rationality. The magnitude of Jew hate around the world is a measure of the level of anti-rationality. Jew and Israeli are synonyms for rationality. Jew hate is epidemic in Europe, Islam and the Latin world. That comprises nearly half of the global population. It is also endemic in American and Anglophone academia.
While academia pretends to support the values of rationality that is not a defensible pretense. Academia universally promotes Jew hate and environmental Armageddon. Two positions invulnerable to rational examination.
At its core, academia is anti-modernity. It is hostile to the corporate world, to the modern military, to commerce in general, and most of all it is hostile to open debate. Anyone who has seen the commencement speaker brouhaha in the past year, knows that academia rejected speakers for their opinions. That should leave no doubt about the hostility of American academia to rationality.
My view on the future of rationality is based on the very slow creep of commerce into a significant position in the world. More countries now have open commerce in their society than at any point in history. That open commerce is not necessarily protected by the rule of law or popular opinion in every instance. Nevertheless commerce does have some footing in much of the world.
I live in a city very hostile to commerce, San Francisco. I constantly see that this position cannot survive in the long run as people refuse to confront ‘the 20th century problem’.
The 20th century problem was hostility to commerce, a dominant governmental position in the USSR, China, India and a dozen other places. This anti-commerce position failed because these societies were faced with the inability to feed their populations. Additionally, the appeal that the cultural messages of commerce conveyed globally, life opportunities for individuals, also hastened the failure of anti-commerce statism.
I know I am a lone voice in this matter but I see people learning the hard way from the lessons of the 20th century. In the United States we have urban bankruptcies and Detroit. The collapse of thriving local economies will teach some of us that statism is a dead end. Those who need to learn, will learn slowly but the lessons are being learned by younger people.
I am not overly optimistic. I don't see progress as being rapid or as a straight line.