Thus Holger Richter, head of psychiatry at St Mary's Hospital in Dresden, Germany, whose ideas, thankfully printed by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, merit consideration
We are now in the years after 454AD: the Empire is falling and failing, and the old identity as a Roman citizen is evaporating at the same time as new ones are forming due to mass-migration of tribes, both the ones of the old Empire and new arrivals. In competition, conflict and co-operation all over the place: often all three at the same time.
The Eastern half, while under pressure from Oriental marauder-tribes, is still centralised around its core identities and will last a while longer, but will eventually too fal - either to said marauders, or to degeneration and miscegenation, or by mimicking the western half - probably all of it mixed together.
From this, something new will arise. What, we might not live long enough to see since the development from new and radical to old and well-known usually takes at least half a century or more.
You might as well replace 454AD with 1995AD, and the above is equally true: the template is to show the scale and scope of the change we're living through and as with all such changes there's no going back, only forward. But forward to where and what, and as who and what - that's what the fight's about. (Also, how to move forward without making forward motion into its own cause and reason.)
---
I feel democracy is ending, the scale tilting between corporate hegemony using parliaments as a temple and politicians as a clergy in the cult of capitalism, to sanction whatever decrees the super-rich decide are tio be levied on their human resources.
And some form of more openly totalitarian techno-crazy, where voting and holding office or having a career is based on how many units of electronic capital (i.e. social credits) you posses.
With the rise of pre-Black Death style Islam all over the West as the outlier. It is not beyond the realm of probability that around the year 2100AD, we'll have de facto Islamic theocratic city-states all over EU-rope, and many of them in a perpetual state of low-key war/feuding.
The goal of the USEmpire, China, and Africa and MENA is the same as always: keep Europe down, keep the Europeans from becoming again the greatest power on the planet. If we'd only accept and understand that, we could do anything and everything.
---
I'll end by noting the the professor must be close to retirement, being so outspoken, or is he betting on the wave sweeping DEI and woke away in the USA will have enough power to trigger a cleansing of the Augean Stable-state of European academia - humanities and social sciences especially?
As to the content, well, I suppose it's getting increasingly hard to deny reality much longer; the DEI woke-nuts have insisted on their hyperrealism for much too long, and so we're all set for the proverbial banquet of consequences.
With respect to the cleansing that might come (or not), this will merely be a possibility if the empire's academic establishment is cleansed first, and if that's not happening, fat change we'll see changes here…
With regard to the issue of diagnosis being identity, cattle expert Temple Grandin, who has autism (not Asperger's, but full-blown autism) spoke of a worrying trend. When she talks to children at, say, conferences and asks, "What are your hobbies?", the child will answer, "I have autism!" So she asks, "but what do you like to do?" The child will answer, "I have autism!" That's the child's whole life.
It's no wonder those with Asperger's and autism get all touchy when people talk about a cure or the possibility that vaccines caused the problem. It's so tied up in their identity--or maybe is their identity--any suggestion that they could get better is an assault on who they are.
Oh, that's kinda the same reaction one gets from the Branch Covidians, isn't it? No amount of evidence or experience will change their minds…for precisely the same reasons: they've invested so much into this new aspect of their self, it's hard, if not impossible, to recognise it.
A very good analysis of the situation, we both come to a similar outlook. I have always enjoyed being with young people. My son is currently starting his first job in March. Next week I will be helping him move. It is so much fun to see how he asks the right questions (and has someone who answer 😉). Blood is thicker than water, that's a point deep stater can't handle. He is a biologist and has got a job in a good planning office. He will start life with a lot of energy. We should all place our hopes in this generation, even if they will have a lot to build up (back better🖖).
What you describe picks up on the core theme of our existence, the common sense (or its aberrations). It drives the indescribable understanding of the guard rails that need to be observed in life every day.
Walking through public spaces with open eyes these days has something to do with taking the wrong access road to the motorway. The question always arises as to who the wrong-way drivers are. The situation is shifting and I am beginning to realize that mentally fit people have a tremendous amount of energy to expend. Every generation has received or will receive socialization in the sense you describe and behaves as if it will change direction at any moment. As I told my wife in 2020, it's now all about mental and physical fitness and an overwhelming will to deal with things for their own sake without positive feedback from the "liberal" world
My working assumption is that there's not a lot of mileage left in the current system to last much longer. If you're retired now, you might have a few more 'normal™' years ahead of you, but everyone below, say, 70 or so, the next decades will bring many, many changes.
The most relevant one will be far less in terms of 'return on investment' in regards to the very high taxes most Westerners pay, and since most governments have little, if any, legitimacy beyond welfare spending these days, guess what will inevitably happen once inflation, war, and cutbacks have eroded most of the purchasing power of whatever paper currency we're talking about.
No, AI and robotics won't save us as not nearly enough people will have the means (money) to buy the announced/expected amounts of goods and services (to say nothing about fat, decadent Western lifestyles on a finite planet).
The state will gradually reduce its spending, which contracts the economy, setting in motion a downward spiral that will crush any resistance: chime in, fellers, lest we stand no chance; we've gotta at least try 'doing something™'.
Yet, population and resource decline will render most manufacturing un-economical and supply chains increasingly wobbly before they snap. And that's the lucky prospect--for the alternative is world war, which I wouldn't rule out as this 'off-ramp' makes it more likely that people will trod along a while longer…
We are now in the years after 454AD: the Empire is falling and failing, and the old identity as a Roman citizen is evaporating at the same time as new ones are forming due to mass-migration of tribes, both the ones of the old Empire and new arrivals. In competition, conflict and co-operation all over the place: often all three at the same time.
The Eastern half, while under pressure from Oriental marauder-tribes, is still centralised around its core identities and will last a while longer, but will eventually too fal - either to said marauders, or to degeneration and miscegenation, or by mimicking the western half - probably all of it mixed together.
From this, something new will arise. What, we might not live long enough to see since the development from new and radical to old and well-known usually takes at least half a century or more.
You might as well replace 454AD with 1995AD, and the above is equally true: the template is to show the scale and scope of the change we're living through and as with all such changes there's no going back, only forward. But forward to where and what, and as who and what - that's what the fight's about. (Also, how to move forward without making forward motion into its own cause and reason.)
---
I feel democracy is ending, the scale tilting between corporate hegemony using parliaments as a temple and politicians as a clergy in the cult of capitalism, to sanction whatever decrees the super-rich decide are tio be levied on their human resources.
And some form of more openly totalitarian techno-crazy, where voting and holding office or having a career is based on how many units of electronic capital (i.e. social credits) you posses.
With the rise of pre-Black Death style Islam all over the West as the outlier. It is not beyond the realm of probability that around the year 2100AD, we'll have de facto Islamic theocratic city-states all over EU-rope, and many of them in a perpetual state of low-key war/feuding.
The goal of the USEmpire, China, and Africa and MENA is the same as always: keep Europe down, keep the Europeans from becoming again the greatest power on the planet. If we'd only accept and understand that, we could do anything and everything.
---
I'll end by noting the the professor must be close to retirement, being so outspoken, or is he betting on the wave sweeping DEI and woke away in the USA will have enough power to trigger a cleansing of the Augean Stable-state of European academia - humanities and social sciences especially?
Nice one, esp. the end times allusion.
As to the content, well, I suppose it's getting increasingly hard to deny reality much longer; the DEI woke-nuts have insisted on their hyperrealism for much too long, and so we're all set for the proverbial banquet of consequences.
With respect to the cleansing that might come (or not), this will merely be a possibility if the empire's academic establishment is cleansed first, and if that's not happening, fat change we'll see changes here…
With regard to the issue of diagnosis being identity, cattle expert Temple Grandin, who has autism (not Asperger's, but full-blown autism) spoke of a worrying trend. When she talks to children at, say, conferences and asks, "What are your hobbies?", the child will answer, "I have autism!" So she asks, "but what do you like to do?" The child will answer, "I have autism!" That's the child's whole life.
It's no wonder those with Asperger's and autism get all touchy when people talk about a cure or the possibility that vaccines caused the problem. It's so tied up in their identity--or maybe is their identity--any suggestion that they could get better is an assault on who they are.
Oh, that's kinda the same reaction one gets from the Branch Covidians, isn't it? No amount of evidence or experience will change their minds…for precisely the same reasons: they've invested so much into this new aspect of their self, it's hard, if not impossible, to recognise it.
A very good analysis of the situation, we both come to a similar outlook. I have always enjoyed being with young people. My son is currently starting his first job in March. Next week I will be helping him move. It is so much fun to see how he asks the right questions (and has someone who answer 😉). Blood is thicker than water, that's a point deep stater can't handle. He is a biologist and has got a job in a good planning office. He will start life with a lot of energy. We should all place our hopes in this generation, even if they will have a lot to build up (back better🖖).
Sounds like sound parenting you've got going there, I'm happy for you!
We also have to place our faith in the next generation; there's no-one else (yet).
What you describe picks up on the core theme of our existence, the common sense (or its aberrations). It drives the indescribable understanding of the guard rails that need to be observed in life every day.
Walking through public spaces with open eyes these days has something to do with taking the wrong access road to the motorway. The question always arises as to who the wrong-way drivers are. The situation is shifting and I am beginning to realize that mentally fit people have a tremendous amount of energy to expend. Every generation has received or will receive socialization in the sense you describe and behaves as if it will change direction at any moment. As I told my wife in 2020, it's now all about mental and physical fitness and an overwhelming will to deal with things for their own sake without positive feedback from the "liberal" world
My working assumption is that there's not a lot of mileage left in the current system to last much longer. If you're retired now, you might have a few more 'normal™' years ahead of you, but everyone below, say, 70 or so, the next decades will bring many, many changes.
The most relevant one will be far less in terms of 'return on investment' in regards to the very high taxes most Westerners pay, and since most governments have little, if any, legitimacy beyond welfare spending these days, guess what will inevitably happen once inflation, war, and cutbacks have eroded most of the purchasing power of whatever paper currency we're talking about.
No, AI and robotics won't save us as not nearly enough people will have the means (money) to buy the announced/expected amounts of goods and services (to say nothing about fat, decadent Western lifestyles on a finite planet).
The state will gradually reduce its spending, which contracts the economy, setting in motion a downward spiral that will crush any resistance: chime in, fellers, lest we stand no chance; we've gotta at least try 'doing something™'.
Yet, population and resource decline will render most manufacturing un-economical and supply chains increasingly wobbly before they snap. And that's the lucky prospect--for the alternative is world war, which I wouldn't rule out as this 'off-ramp' makes it more likely that people will trod along a while longer…