[mark]

Always one in every crowd.

[galacticsurfer]

I noticed an interesting book review in the latest edtion of Der Spiegel" about the new book by philosopher Peter Sloterdijk "Zorn und Zeit"(Rage and Time). It is only in German, below a review at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.de/Zeit-Politisch-psy ... 3518418408

However it seemed to me and to Spiegel reviewer as being radical. His premise is that the rage of the people is always manipulated by TPTB to achieve their ends. In Sloterdijk's idea communism, Fascism, Nazism, religious war are all the same. The people could be manipulated in any direction. They are in the end at fault for the massive destruction of the huge crisis wars and revolutions. Who wins in getting the people to do their bidding is secondary. The reviewer noted that in Germany they have taken a lot of trouble since the war to separate the two concepts cleanly("The average German is not at fault for Hitler, Himmler's, SS excesses, blah, blah, blah"). I was surprised to see this article and such a book in the MSM as basically the only comparable idea is the generational cycle concept from Fourth Turning. Although Sloterdijk does not analyze this in terms of generations he goes back to Homerian wars, etc. to show that violence and rage of "the People" are shown to be heroic in certain eras and to be world changing.

I think the idea of a paradigm is basically an intellectual concept that wins currency, perhaps through violence or a religious awakening (generally awakening followed 40 years later by crisis war- based on tensions resulting from that awakening- now we will fight WWIII over ideas from 60s- ecology/new age). At any rate the ideas are secondary to the feelings of people who espouse them. Whoever wins gets to impose their ideas(Neocon suburbia consumer military industrialists vs. Powerdown ecologicals). Might makes right. In the case of WWII more energy = more might and so the allies won the war as USA controlled West Texas oil fields.

So the new paradigm will be imposed by the winner of WWIII and the current PO and GW talk in the press and internet although important is just positioning before the conflict.

I read some stuff by Sri Aurobindo, Indian philosopher, who was previously an antibritish revolutionary educated in Oxford. After his spiritual conversion he gave up on politics and said that any reorganization of human society(communist, capitalist,etc.) is basically a waste of time as people themselves always stay the same. I would agree as we see that people always start a new system enthusiastic and then get lazy and corrupt. The only hope according to him is personal spiritual evolution:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo provides the seeker with a road map to discover the truth of his theory and their true Nature. The broad principles of the search he advocates are:

1. Man must begin by detaching from his surface personality, time, space, ego and selfishness.

2. Man must disengage from the constructive consciousness of the mind and its divided awareness.

3. Man must discover his psychic center which is the secret entrance to the ascending grades of higher consciousness.

4. Man must climb back to and station himself in the Supramental consciousness where he will rediscover the Oneness of Existence.

5. Man must act from a poise of consciousness that permits him to live in Status and Extension simultaneously.

6. Man must act from that center as a point of self-conscious manifestation to transform life on earth to that of heaven on earth -- God in manifestation.

I would say that the generational theory supports the idea of Aurobindo that social reorganizing is hopeless as obviously every 80-100 years the generation that has not seen massive conflict repeats their grandfather's mistakes, then no progress in a real sense is at all possible, regardless of what you call the "New Paradigm". I do not think Powerdown and permaculture as winner of new paradigm choice would be the New Millenium post 2025 anymore than Pax Americana has become it post 1945.

This realization is probably why Indian religion is so concetnrated on escaping the cycle of birth and death and the miseryof this level of existence. Europeans have gotten away from this religious fatalism since around 1400 but it is likely we will return to this under a low energy regime similar to middle ages (Great Depression forever).