8 Comments

This piece started out so promisingly. I agree that we are in an age of decadent decline of the West, and in particular in the US. (It is been astonishing how fast the US overtook and left Europe behind in this regard.) However, the utopian nonsense in Rethinking Humanity will not be helpful in changing course. What is needed is a return to fundamental truths about human nature, best described by the world's great religions. Whether you believe these truths are divinely inspired or not doesn't really matter. In becoming a secular society we lost not just faith, but meaning and a moral framework for how to live rewarding and satisfying lives. People are suffering in a world of devoid of purpose, so they chase pleasure and false prophets promising redemption. How we get there I don't know, but the problem is clear.

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In 1972 I taught a course in the Free Univertiy of Wichita, Kansas titled "Applied Whole Earth Catalog." Stewart Brand's "Whole Earth Catalog" was inspired by Buckminster Fuller. The first section is on whole systems and it starts with Buckminster Fuller. A major theme of the course was Fuller's philosophy of doing more with less, his comprehensive anticipatory design science. Over 50 people signed up and we collectively assembled two geodesic spheres using the instrucions in "The Dome Book," one of the first books reviewwed in the Catalog.

The course design was structured around Maslow"s hierarch of needs. It was argued that Fuller's design science was the key to fulfilling all of the planet's people basic physical needs. The image of the whole earth on the cover of the catalog was a symbol of the global requirement. The one time I heard Fuller speak it was on the topic of the global village. You mention the cliché “think globally, act locally.” There are folks out there working with the idea of "glocal." It seems to be an attractive way of looking at things for a lot of mayors.

As I see it, your piece here is about what I would have wished that my course would have evolved to in 50 years. What you write is more aligned with my present worldview and hopes for the future than just about anyone I can think of.

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Enjoy your writing and your thinking. And not (exclusively) because I'm also an old school jazz fanatic.

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This is the scariest essay I’ve read in a while, written so eloquently about a utopian society of the near future. Exactly who are these cosmopolitan elites who will be destroying our society & rebuilding it in whose image? ....”We have to rethink not just the structures and institutions that manage society, but the very concepts they are built on”. If the American sheep fall for this classic Marxist tactic, America is doomed. Oh just do away with it all. We only have the greatest nation that ever existed- let’s just pull the whole damn thing down! THINK PEOPLE! We are a nation founded in the Judeo -Christian tradition: heaven will never be on earth, because earth will never BE heaven. Heaven is heaven. It is antithetical to say we will abolish racism, poverty, hatred, and isms of all kinds- this will NEVER happen in earth. Because: earth is not heaven. Seek the Lord in the real heaven. The false prophets such as this author will never have their grandiose dreams fully realized on this earth, which is a pale imitation of the glory to come!! I pray Americans will wake up and see the MANY wolves in sheep’s clothing like this man in our government/Hollywood/media/Educational/corporate complex mega-monster which is eating our nation’s soul

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Mr Thomas, perhaps you do not remember the 60s, when we were all assured that by the Year 2000 we would be commuting to our jobs in flying cars.

The houses were going to clean themselves, and nuclear energy would be virtually cost-free.

It seems to me that your pie-in-the-sky predictions are advanced precisely because you do not remember those deeply mistaken predictions.

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Feb 25, 2023·edited Feb 26, 2023

No mention of planned obsolescence in Rethinking Humanity. That is how things have been getting more and more screwed up since WWII. The technology has been used stupidly to create an economic treadmill.

But making comparisons to the declines of ancient empires makes no sense. The ancient Romans did not have to maintain a continent spanning electrical power grid. If we collapse now it will be far faster.

Our brilliant economists ignore the depreciation of all of the consumer junk even though they added it to GDP.

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So glad to have found this substack. Good writing that I always get something from. The historical discussion of societal decline and the optimism around future disruptions was interesting, the former not being completely new to me (more here: https://open.substack.com/pub/yuribezmenov/p/how-to-repeat-history-part-3?r=17itk0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web)

If Bob's opinion is an informed one, well than that's sad. I hear truth in Patricia's point of view. Not having read the "rethinking humanity" I was hopeful it might have something useful to offer given this articles cogent assessment of society today. I also liked the local global thinking.

Have a nice day, yall.

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