Thanks for the tip. My dad's a lawyer.S_Parc wrote:IMO, it sounds like your thinking is aligned for a law school academic career, where you're neither an active Big Law attorney nor a busy-body at a DA's office, but more of a consultant on big picture issues.abcdavid01 wrote:Honestly I'd rather be a new Lee Kuan Yew, but that requires certain institutions. Thoughts are free (although confined by language). Maybe an heir of mine could be such a leader though.
The point isn't to suggest a plan. I'm just observing the current culture and how it's evolving. So many people on this forum are despairing as if the current state of the Western World is the final, inevitable organization of humanity and the next phase can only be destruction. Ragnarok perhaps? But I'm predicting a revolt against the current order. I'm expecting a return to older values. It wouldn't be blind faith like before postmodernism, but an informed reverence for tradition. It won't even be entirely conscious. How many people actually realize their place within the context of history? So it will just be an organic development because people are so unsatisfied with the current culture of postmodernism. Fourth Wave Feminism will be on the defensive as it faces, perhaps for the first time, a real intellectual challenge. I already see this happening. As far as plans go, since these movements are organic I can only contribute to it. After all, religions have many prophets, apostles, etc. My main plan for contribution is to have an heir. Studies in demography show a high birth rate is more productive to the growth of religions than conversion. I may also begin authorship of certain works or even create art in different mediums. Who knows?fschmidt wrote:Okay, first I agree that everything influences everything else to some extent since everything is part of culture in some way. So philosophy influences art and art influences philosophy. But if you are going to change anything, you have to get to the emotional core of people. Computers actually don't help much with that. Shaking people's hands has a bigger impact on people than anything one could ever write. All those whose writings we now read shook plenty of hands first. The best practical book I have read about starting a movement is Mein Kampf which I suggest reading. The New Testament doesn't seem very useful to me at this point considering the current state of Christianity.abcdavid01 wrote:Yes, the culture is what should be challenged. I don't view philosophy as a symptom of culture, but the only way culture is expressed. All of art and every institution has a philosophy behind it, even if it is nihilism (anti-art). A new philosophical paradigm like I am proposing could have one of its manifestations as a religion. Really what we are proposing is pretty much the same. You have to remember though, the New Testament wasn't written in year 0 or 33 A.D. Nor was it even a major religion until Constantine. So I think the next movement, which is opposed to the current culture, I think it is already in early stages. Happier Abroad itself is one form of that. You also have to look at things like modes of transmission now. Originally missionary work was required and they didn't have a printing press. Now we have computers.
Do you actually have a specific plan? I am trying to figure mine out, having had a few false starts. I meet weekly with my Chabad rabbi and I hope to work something out with him. Chabad is an example of a very successful movement.
Postmodernism took hold because it blindsided everyone. No one expected beliefs held sacred for millennia would ever be challenged, so no intellectual defenses were necessary. It was easy for the post-modernists to spread their beliefs once they realized things like morality are easy targets for assault. It's just an attack on the common decency. But now that we've lived long enough under a regime of moral relativism the shock has faded. Attempting controversy is no longer controversial. It's just bland. So the next rebels must be straight as an arrow.
There has been anger over the publication of Post-modern editions of the Bible that do things like use female pronouns for God and address Feminist concerns. Theology evolved to reflect the prevailing philosophy. Christianity became toothless to protect traditional values because it adapted to the reigning philosophical paradigm instead of resisting it. So just by nature of your beliefs and attempts at refining religion to protect certain values, if you ever do publish something or give sermons it would be a contribution to the new, emergent, anti-postmodern philosophy whether intentional or not.