The Future
“It’s perhaps not coincidental that a younger post material generation, while more empathic and spiritual, is less religious and less prone to otherworldly or utopian visions. If one is living an embodied full life of deep participation in the here and the now, there is less likelihood that he or she will dream of finding solace in a perfect state sometime in the distant future.” — Jeremy Rifkin, The Empathic Civilization
February 5th, 2010 at 4:40 pm
Like I always say: this IS utopia. There isn’t any other.
February 5th, 2010 at 8:42 pm
I love that “embodied full life of deep participation in the here and now.” I believe you. If there was anything else, our language wouldn’t work there. Words like future, utopia, heaven wouldn’t apply. They barely apply here and now.
February 7th, 2010 at 8:36 pm
I’m not sure what he means by the new generation adopting post-material tendencies. If he means “post-material” as in “beyond the need for materialistic belongings” I would wholeheartedly agree with him but I don’t see many people my age unenthusiastic about capitalism (though maybe I’m younger than the generation he’s referring to). If he means “beyond the belief that we exist only as material beings with no supernatural nature” then I wouldn’t agree that culture is evolving “beyond” that somehow.
I think history reveals a lot about what is emerging from the philosophical American left. Leading up to and after the Great Depression, there was an enormous distrust and downright hatred for what Marx called the bourgeois — i.e. the archcapitalists who structure society in a way which maximally serves themselves and minimally serves the working class. In much of the developed world, the downtrodden proletariat banded together to overthrow the capitalists destroying their societies, only to quickly compromise the unifying beliefs of communal post-materialistic life and adopt the clenched fist of fascism. In the same way the bourgeois exploited the proletariat through wage control, the fascist parties controlled the working class through quixotic propaganda that masked their own deficiencies and seeded xenophobic hatred (which, in turn, allowed the parties to imprison and kill those it deemed unloyal or foreign such as the capitalists or Jews).
My point is that this is not the first time the bourgeois archcapitalistic elites have screwed up. The last time it happened it plunged the world into more than half a century of political turmoil. Since then we’ve evolved a postmodern middle class who have struck a kind of peace treaty with the archcapitalists who, in turn, essentially promise to take care of them through capitalism.
They’re now abusing that trust. The younger, more middle-class generation is waking up and seeing fiascos all around caused by the balance of power shifting from the people into the hands of the archcapitalists. Marxism is an irrelevant ideology today (what Marx and Engels wrote in The Communist Manifesto seems pathological in today’s political climate) but there is definitely a growing desire for egalitarianism in which the people, not the elites, are served. It’s called real democracy.
February 7th, 2010 at 8:43 pm
By the way, there is a great article on The Huffington Post about this trend which builds on The Empathic Civilization:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glenn-w-smith/prairie-humanism-and-the_b_452696.html
February 8th, 2010 at 5:19 pm
Thanks for the comment and the link, Jay. I also found this link to the intro and first chapter of the book.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/11/the-coolest-online-readin_n_416975.html
I think Rifkin is referring to Madonna’s material-girl world of the 80s and 90s, which is not so fashionable anymore. Glad to see that you hypenated post-material. I thought it should be hyphenated too.
Yes, we all want real democracy that serves everyone. I’m just nervous about what those teapot doomers are going to do in pursuit of that goal.
February 10th, 2010 at 5:55 pm
How difficult it is for the mind the grasp the here and now. We are under its mercy unless we take charge and bring back control to ourselves. The only reality, the only truth is right in front of us, we just fail to see it.
February 10th, 2010 at 8:25 pm
I agree, Walter. We have everything we need at our disposal. It’s just a matter of exposing it, of peeling back some layers to get to the heart of it. Thanks for your comment.
February 15th, 2010 at 12:56 pm
The last sentence is perfect. “…deep participation here and now…” Magnificent!
February 15th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
Hey Kaushik, would you believe I’ve had this blog for four years and this post prompted my son’s first comment here! Yes, I’m running into here and nowness everywhere I look these days. Must be something to that.
February 15th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
Yeah, I have two adult daughters, and the little left some comments in the beginning, and that was it. But then sometimes they will ask me something and I know that they are reading and absorbing.
Yes, me too, “running into nowness.” It feels very spacious!
k