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Musings Report 2021-40 10-2-21 The Mystery of our Changing Zeitgeist
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The Mystery of our Changing Zeitgeist
Zeitgeist is "the defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time."
I would add that what makes an era's zeitgeist so difficult to discern in the present is that much of what characterizes an era's zeitgeist is taken for granted as it emerges so slowly to those living in the moment.
It requires living through previous generations to understand what's different about the present, and having a grasp of history, which is the progression of zeitgeists, many of which rhyme with previous cycles.
The zeitgeist is shaped by what people accept as received wisdom, what's viewed as ordinary and extraordinary, what seen as the critical issues of the day that inflame emotions, and by what changes are occurring that few even discern.
If we look at American history as a sample, we can observe many changes in the zeitgeist. To name a few:
1. The American Revolution. Benjamin Franklin and many others went from ardent reformers seeking a better deal from the Crown to a revolutionary in a few short years.
The resulting war was in many ways a civil war as roughly 40% of the public remained loyal to the Crown. Benjamin Franklin became a revolutionary and his eldest son remained a Loyalist, and though they'd once been close this divided them so completely that they never reconciled.
2. The early expansive years of the 1800s were known as "the era of good feeling." This was followed by the Second Great Awakening, a broad-based religious revival in the 1830s which ignited the Abolitionist movement in the North.
3. The Gilded Age in the late 1800s was a see-saw of booms and busts and massive shifts in the economy that generated the civil unrest and labor conflicts of the early 20th century.
4. In the mid-1960s at the start of the Vietnam War, American males had crew-cuts (very short hair) and strong trust in the US government was normal / the default. The Beatles' "mop top" haircuts were viewed as extremely wild. The initial wave of Counterculture "longhairs" were derided as sissies, etc. by the mainstream. Ten years later, distrust of the US government was normal and working-class Anglos sported long hair.
What's extraordinary about an era's zeitgeist is how little attention massive economic-social changes receive from those living through them.
The lived memory of a zeitgeist is lost as the generations pass away, and is encapsulated in memoirs and private letters that can only go so far to bring the past era to life. Historians spend decades (or centuries) attempting to catalog the deeper systemic changes that fueled the changes in social mood and norms.
Consider the Roaring 20s, an era that has passed from living memory. Today we think of the postwar boom, the technological advances, Prohibition and illegal Speakeasies, Flappers, Hollywood's golden age of black and white silent films, and the denouement of the era, the Great Crash of 1929 that ushered in an entirely new zeitgeist, the Great Depression. But what did it feel like to live through such a whirlwind of change? What did people see as worthy of mention? What extraordinary things did they quickly habituate to? We can only imagine.
Those of us living through each new zeitgeist are of course shaped by the one we grew up in, and the young generation who knows no previous era experience the current zeitgeist as "the way it is" as if that's the way it has always been.
One advantage of having lived through three generations is that I can recall the zeitgeist of the late 1960s and long-gone plantation life in Hawaii and understand how distant that world is from the present era.
Can we discern any general drivers of changes in the zeitgeist other than fashion and changing political winds? I think we can.
1. Profound economic shifts that change the nature of work and economic-political power and that reward some groups at the expense of others.
These are often triggered by technological advances which are generally A) new mediums of communication B) new modes of production and C) new energy sources and ways of using the new energy source.
The printing press and the Internet are examples of new technologies creating new mediums of communication, which then spark waves of unforeseen changes economically, politically and culturally.
Building canals and introducing new more productive farming methods change the society's mode of production as trade increases and larger surpluses support a larger population.
As the forests of Europe and the UK were depleted, a new source of energy was required, and coal provided the fuel for new technologies such as steam engines and mass production of iron.
It's easy to look back and laud the progress but we tend to overlook that the enormous gaps between those who profited from these changes and those who suffered from them drove much of the zeitgeist.
We applaud technologies such as mass-produced eyewear that revolutionize human life by creating a new industry, but we tend to overlook the technologies that enabled new ways to extract and accumulate value from the labor of others.
2. These changes in the economic fortunes of classes unleash political and social conflicts as those left behind seek to conserve their stake and recover their declining power.
Others see the rising inequality as the rewards flow to a select few and seek political reforms to limit the worst forms of exploitation. Those benefiting from the "new economy" naturally resist the reforms out of self-interest.
Another group responds to the resistance to reform by fomenting a revolution.
Yet another group focuses on the liberating aspects of the new modes of communication, production and energy, expansions of agency (control of one's life and opportunities) which threaten the classes benefiting from the status quo.
These four camps arise naturally as the zeitgeist changes: those resisting the decline of their own power and privilege, those seeking political reforms to limit inequalities and exploitation, those exploring the liberating aspects of the changes and those who seek tp overthrow the ruling regime as a necessary step in human progress.
Each of these responses find voice within the economic-political elite, which splinters into competing camps, and the larger social structure which also fractures along the same fault lines.
3. The social order--what I call the social ontology--manifests all these competing ideas, values and power structures in a variety of ways: in fashion, film, trends, political ideals and cultural / social experiments.
Sociologists characterize social norms as "tight or loose," meaning some societies expect rigid obedience to social norms (tight) while others allow a freer response to norms and rules (loose).
Each has selective advantages and disadvantages. The rigid society that demands obedience can issue top-down orders that rapidly change everyday life, but this rigidity suppresses experimentation and adaptation, exposing the society to stagnation.
The looser society has more freedom to experiment and more diversity of options, but it may be unable to gather sufficient consensus to respond rapidly enough to stave off crisis-driven disaster.
This is not an exact analogy, but sociologists have found that drug and alcohol use wax and wane through the generations. We can speculate on the reasons--self-medication for the stress of dealing with rapid change comes to mind--and these cycles may provoke responses such as Prohibition or the War on Drugs that end up not solving the problem while adding another destructive dynamic.
Concentrating power appears to solve the problem of competing groups by shoving changes down the throats of competitors and stifling the revolutionaries, but this elimination of competing camps removes the limits on the abuses of centralized power.
Once there's no longer any corrective forces in play, the central power can pursue its own self-interest and agenda without any limit. This leads to extremes that lead to war or revolution.
On the other hand, if there is no political resolution to the bitterly divided camps, then the society breaks down into fiefdoms which out of self-interest resist any consolidation of shared power: better to rule a petty dictatorship completely rather than share power with others in a larger dysfunctional structure.
Humans do not favor chronic insecurity and uncertainty, which is the backdrop of all major systemic changes. Humans respond to the stresses of uncertainty, contingency and ambiguity by self-medicating more and by hardening their loyalty to whatever camp best fits their social upbringing and economic position.
This polarization is evident today, as is the temptation to consolidate power to shove one set of perceived solutions down the throats of resisters, reformers and revolutionaries. But this centralized power-play then opens the door to excesses that lead to systemic collapse.
Social changes result from the interplay of these four competing camps, and social forces tend to follow the "tight or loose" divisions in which some seek to conserve "the old ways" which "worked so well in the past" (as a way of maintaining their privileges and status) while others seek to expand the liberating aspects as fast as possible, while others demand political and judicial redress of past wrongs and new inequalities while the revolutionaries declare the status quo irredeemably corrupt and demand wholesale change.
If the political structure is dysfunctional and unable to form a consensus path forward, then the social ontology responds with its own extremes of polarization, experimentation and methods of escaping the unraveling, with opting out being an increasingly attractive option to all those tired of the struggle and the conflicts.
This sets the stage for cultural revolutions which bypass conventional political reforms because that avenue of change has broken down or been captured by self-serving special interests.
Shoving the "obvious" solution down the throats of competing camps seems like an expedient way to resolve the conflicts via concentrating power and using it to impose totalitarian obedience, but this "solution" generates extremes that collapse the entire system.
Uncertainty and endlessly conflicting views of what's "right" and a "solution" are difficult to endure, but this process is the only way to slowly find reasons to cooperate rather than reasons to suppress and silence others.
The zeitgeist isn't controllable by centralizing power, it is a complex, organic processing of tumultuous changes that proceeds in its own mysterious way and time. We may be tempted to hurry it along by force to an outcome that's optimal for our camp, but this only creates more destructive dynamics that end up unraveling the entire system.
Highlights of the Blog
While Everyone Cheers Soaring "Wealth," America's Social Order Is Unraveling 10/1/21
The Market Crash Nobody Thinks Is Possible Is Coming 9/29/21
Sorry, Fed, Inflation is Already Embedded 9/27/21
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
We made taro burgers by grating pressure-cooked taro corms from our taro patch and mixing in onions, garlic, seasoning and an egg as binder, and pan-frying the patties. The result was a very satisfying veggie burger, the main ingredient coming from our own yard.
Photos: the harvested taro plants, the cooked corms (root bulb) and the patties.
From Left Field
Wildland review: Evan Osnos on the America Trump exploited
Can China’s Outsized Real Estate Sector Amplify a Delta-Induced Slowdown?
Xi Jinping Aims to Rein In Chinese Capitalism, Hew to Mao’s Socialist Vision
Corruption and inequality of income distribution are correlated
Simply put, the average person has no idea how complex and precarious an international supply chain is, or how easy it is for costs to spin out of control. (twitter thread)
Beyond Evergrande’s Troubles, a Slowing Chinese Economy
The Liberation of Paris From Cars Is Working
The Crisis of Venture Capital: Fixing America’s Broken Start-Up System-- an important article, well worth studying...
The Record-Breaking Failures of Nuclear Power-- yes this is biased, but nonetheless issues remain unresolved...
the great resignation: why everyone quit their jobs & what this means for our future (12 min) -- one sample of content on the massive changes occurring in work / the labor market...
Lost & Found: Peter Frampton's "Phoenix" 1954 Les Paul Custom Guitar-- a remarkable story...
Crisis by design -- intermittent power can't cut it alone, even with batteries....
"The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth." Chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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