Then economic boom gave way to bust and optimism to apathy and 'group individualism'. By 'group individualism' I mean individuals who act mainly in the interests of the group they feel they most belong, to the exclusion of outsiders. To be fair, such activity has always been a major driver of events on all levels. From early alliances of hunter gatherers to today's emerging continental unions, success and failure has long been driven by how well- or not - we get along.
What is unique about our times however, is that in rich post-industrial societies cooperation for survival has vanished. Human beings may be social creatures, but as with the gazelles of the African Savanna, grouping together with strangers is often an exercise in neighbourhood watch. Therefore the more secure we feel from threats, the less the need arises to step outside the individual box. This could explain in part why two decades of globalization without a security threat has made the 'global village' more insular not less, particularly in its richest parts where lack of knowledge generally doesn't cost lives. For 'westerners' starvation, unnatural death and war is generally something only 'bleeding hearts' lose sleep over. Cliques, peer groups and their agendas reign supreme; the 'greater good' and perspective are not required in societies conned into thinking consumerism can replace the human 'soul'.
Many westerners live far more comfortable lives than those experienced by the vast majority of human beings elsewhere. But as any materially successful person can tell you, wealth doesn't necessarily buy happiness. It's quality of existence rather than the number of possessions which dictate well-being. Besides, wealth is an illusion for most westerners; as the saying goes, most people are 'one paycheck away from being homeless'. Up to their eyeballs in debt, they live in increasingly expensive homes owned by someone else, while fed on a diet of infomercial TV that encourages them to buy products they don't need, paid for by money that's not theirs.
During the early industrial revolution much was made of how sweat-shop factories were turning human beings into machines. Two and a half centuries later, Western citizens are expert button pushers, barely aware they're dependant on technology most don't understand, while living lives governed by process and shrink wrap. The promised compensation of more leisure time is, like the 'paperless office', a theory well off the mark in practice. 'Quality time' has been reduced, not increased, for all but the wealthiest. Men and women in such countries may well have their choice of 'theme bars' to spend a night, but the fakery is a soul destroying metaphor for everything else in a manufactured world.
If one word more than any other sums up the general feeling of western citizens who've grown up in this period, it's confusion. In this new world order, men- who have always been emotionally dependant on women- are remaining boys for longer as they no longer feel wanted by a society obsessed with the myth of male privilege. It's a fact that for most of history both sexes were equally abused. It's true men were doing most of the abusing, but that's an accident of biology; physical strength meant that before technology and the relative peace its superior weaponry brought, powerless men were suffering just as much as powerless women.
In the past many women felt like baby producing commodities unable to reach anything like their full human potential. Most men also lived a life in chains, but being patronised and protected would probably have been preferable to being killed or maimed in war or hard labour. Now, females can be soldiers too and universities are churning out more highly qualified professional women than men in fields such as law, medicine and journalism. It's time to stop the destructive gender dogma on both sides and realise it's power that corrupts left unchecked not the sexuality of the person leading the charge.
Like men, many women feel stressed out in today's world. But it's not because they aren't valued, rather it's the strain from being expected to be employee, beauty and mother of the year. Government hasn't helped, cutting back social services and family support to a point where it's almost meaningless. The sexes are caught in a prison of welfare collapse and consumer capitalism where most men and women have to work full-time to pay the bills. Having children can, for all but the most well-off, be a final financial nail in relationships already strained to breaking point. No wonder divorce rates are so high and not a single western nation is having enough children to sustain economies, pensions and health care into the second half of this century. These trends have led to a great deal of misunderstanding between the sexes and desperate efforts by men to find favour with the women they need in order to grow. As one gay friend put it, heterosexual men are becoming STRAYS; straight men who act gay because masculinity is often portrayed as a character flaw. As a result of this social revolution, many of the world's 'rich' are less spiritually happy than the poorest of the poor who at least have an extended family and community to call on when the heart or finances bleed.
As the nations of the 'west' became more insular and divided, the self absorption of peacetime contributed to the demise of passion politics. A new generation of grey career politicians clueless to the price of a loaf of bread took over and permeated the twin evils of spin and double-speak. As a result the public developed a nasty case of apathy. They dropped out of politics and tuned in to readily available alternative realities; the likes of Twin Peaks, The X-Files and Friends.
At the same time 'world news' was replaced by 'news you can use'; a public which thinks it's no longer threatened by far off places is more concerned with the safety of SUVs’ than an ethnic war. As good people tuned out, societies based on a high level of trust became more suspicious. Leaders failed to lead, political correctness robbed people of their own thoughts, and much of the 'good fight' was hijacked by zealots who alienated men and women from one another. This led to an increase in 'victimhood' and an obsession with 'my rights' versus 'individual rights'.
Alienation didn't happen over night and the materially successful in such societies at least have the compensation of good jobs, homes and attractive partners. But even they live on a virtual subsistence level, robbing Peter to pay Paul while having to contend with the social problems brought on by those who cannot plastic their way out of trouble. Gated communities are just the early stage of a move toward fortress cities, countries and continents, protecting those who have from those who have-not.
Evidence of why western nations feel the need to rebuilt castles are visible in their crime ridden inner cities, in the rampant drug abuse of their populations and in the loss of innocence in their children. They’re apparent in the disturbed actions of loners and in the unthinkable acts of distressed young mothers prepared to discard new-born babies under frozen park benches and in school wastebaskets. Cause and effect is an unwelcome truth in a world that turns its back on anything other than individual perspective and shrugs its shoulders at personal responsibility.
In such a world career politicians are free to minimize corrective actions, preferring to impress nationless bankers while their least important shareholders lie dishevelled on their streets. In the worst countries the clinically poor are thrown into police vehicles, moved out of sight or worse. In the best they're simply ignored until a holiday guilt trip leads to temporary accommodation, food banks and Christmas appeals.
Until September 11th the increasingly violent acts of the maligned in North America and other western societies were the most visible signs of such alienation. But it was only a matter of time before foreign regions, used to bankroll western greed, bred extremists who in their own twisted way spoke for millions of disenfranchised people. This is what the United States doesn't get when it asks why does the world hate us? It's not that the world hates America- it loves it, but doesn't trust it because the consequences of its winner takes all version of capitalism have spread around the globe like a de-humanizing disease.
The U.S. is still freer and more creative than most other countries but its star spangled glasses risk warping it into something else entirely. The vengeful acts of its own maligned citizens have now been joined by those its great power affects overseas. Washington had better listen or risk a truly awful wrath from the little people who've had sand kicked in their face one too many times. Unfortunately the U.S. public was all to quick to bury itself back into alternative realities and leave the politicians to make quick decisions based on revenge and the need to be seen to take strong action. It's too early to tell whether the Bush administration represents a major political trend in the U.S. But the style with which it applies its 'Multilateral Unilateralism' is damaging relations even with America's best friends.
Washington wants to act with others, but one hundred per cent on its own terms. This is peculiar perhaps for a country founded on the principle of no monopoly on opinion. But it can do so because the public has switched off from the political process, leaving politicians at the mercy of unelected interest groups rather than voter scrutiny. No one country should be a master of all fate. America has always been respected but will engender hatred if it seeks to be the world's first smiling empire.
The Bush Doctrine is indeed an answer to those who made Americans feel fear but it could be a knee-jerk one. The problem with the CEO approach to global governance is it alienates those who are not on the board of governors, at home and overseas. Not only does a 'war on terror' risk becoming its best fuel, but the trust based system the U.S. has with democracies outside the English speaking world is imperilled.
Empathy after September 11th quickly turned to wariness on all sides. In one sense this was good; all the group hugs of the 1990's were exposed as Liberal issue avoidance. The resulting 21st century version of 'ping pong diplomacy' continues. And while the killing of Saddam's sons or himself will no doubt ease domestic American concern, the rest of the world expects America to do the right thing and to be seen to do it without a pressing domestic reason.
The U.S. and its Anglosphere allies are now almost two years into a global war. But unlike in the twentieth century mass armies involving the civilian population are not required. This means the U.S. public doesn't need to personally concern itself with global events until personal consequences become evident. It appears from the outside as if the United States and Americans have forgotten what was fought for in independence and two world wars. The rest of the world sees a nation grown lazy on success; a country admirable in its own defence but a miserable failure in understanding why attacks like September 11th are now more likely than less. Because it doesn't understand the rest of the globe it's putting up blinders.
Washington is developing technology which will allow its military to react at lightening speed without leaving home. Americans will rarely have to die on foreign fields; pinpoint shelling via space and advances in aircraft technology will mean it'll soon acquire total armchair warfare. The U-S public will then have even less reason to care about the rest of the world, successful video war by machines against foreign combatants will just be another form of entertainment to the most desensitized public in the western world. Peace without security and tough decisions is an illusion which will end in disaster, war without reconciliation equally so.
Americans, westerners and the world should also be paying attention to the efforts of the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.The agency's pet projects include Information Awareness- a program to collect as much information about every single aspect of everyone in America as possible, from doctor's records to bank deposits, e-mail to travel tickets, phone conversations to magazine subscriptions. Congress was so alarmed by this White House backed plan that it recently cut funding but DARPA has many similar Orwellian programs under development. The U.S. coastguard is to buy over 70 of the Predator drones now being used in Iraq and Afghanistan. Homeland Security and police departments are also interested. It may not be long before leaflets dropped into Afghanistan warning "We Are Watching" will equally apply to citizens of the United States and elsewhere. These technologies if utilized without proper checks and balances could be a department of pre-crime and pre-war, able to strike when deemed appropriate. While such technologies may be held up by legislators it's only a matter of time before they, or related programs, are used to create blanket coverage of the world. Planned amendments to the Patriots Act will also make surveillance much easier and while that bastion of free thought the internet will likely remain a window on the world, new tracking technology means it will also be a window on us. Even if such technologies aren't fully used now, it is fact that they are being developed.
Washington is no doubt aware that many a great power and empire of history has fallen after being blindsided by its technological inferiors. Its military thinks it has the answer, developing programs under reported by the mainstream media which will ensure not a creature stirs without the Pentagon knowing. This may eventually bring universal peace, but it could come at the price of the liberty Washington claims to defend. The U.S. public must ensure its politicians create proper scrutiny of such technology or they'll risk waking up to a combo of George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. The technologies Washington is developing may well be necessary for its security but if it spent the money on building bridges rather than better ways to blow them up it might find its aims achieved a whole lot quicker and with a lot less collateral damage at home and abroad.
It is the obsession with self over the common good which allows all of these things to happen to our detriment. Selfish individuality without regard for others is part of our dualistic nature; one half of a battle between the primordial and higher brain. The fight has been reflected throughout history in the tussle between barbarism and enlightenment; until now barbarism has always won, another victory in such high tech times could be final.
While it's still fashionable to deride any form of belief system that looks beyond the here and now, most people would probably agree they feel more than mere flesh and blood. While this may be a trick of the mind, history shows moral decisions have often been taken, even when it meant the brain's biological mission would end in failure. It is true that we are hardwired to pass our genes on and that could be the base cause of the human penchant for bringing suffering to competitors. But the challenge of this historic era is to ensure that the higher self is not ruled by basic instincts designed for a nascent world. As we move out of adolescence, survival will mean abandoning early programming inappropriate for the next stage of evolution. The de-humanizing trends of the current era are allowing our primate selves to regain control or at least to hang around as an unwanted troublemaker. There needs to be a recognition that internal control and not external is our best chance of winning the war between good and bad and right and wrong. All it takes is acceptance of personal responsibility and a willingness to do well by others for all our self interests. It is up to every one of us to ensure that our leaders get the message, and return to government for all the people and not just those who ensure their enrichment. As 19th century American poet Walt Whitman said " Resist much, obey little. Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city, on this earth ever afterward assumes its liberty".
Mark Connolly August 2003