Plot Twist: From Decadence to what?

America, demoralized, on the eve of crisis and catastrophe is gripped by decadence and malevolent propaganda. The topic du jour is whether the State should go full-bore on scaring and sexualizing young children and Trump derangement syndrome, which is more factually evident than Covid. Recent studies show that since the pandemic: patriotism, religion, having children, and community involvement have dropped even more than our IQs, precipitously. While the love of money and our waistlines have expanded dramatically. Most folks have no idea what’s happening, as they have been indoctrinated and filled with a steady stream of propaganda all their lives, which has become merciless in recent years. The trivial has been fashioned as paramount, while the critical is deemed unimportant. Morality has experienced a near total inversion and society is being transformed. Creativity is shunned for conformity, history is being re-written, God has been traded-in for State authority, family for work and promiscuity, a person’s character or “inside” no longer matter only external characteristics are to be considered, wallowing in sickness is preferred to thriving, the list goes on, corruption is the norm. Our Nation, the global hegemonic super-power is cracking up, collectively going insane, along with the rest of Western civilization. Folks are being presented with increasingly absurd premises and ideas, incongruent with reason, beauty, and truth that are then regurgitated as fact. This extreme cognitive dissonance increases anxiety and eventually breaks people. The weakest among will “spin off” or “lose it”. This is associated with violence – expect more. The U.S. empire’s fall from grace, while a long time in the making, like a slow moving train, will likely be dramatic, feel abrupt, and fairly soon.

Looking back, it will be hard to miss that we followed a similar pattern to previous failed civilizations. Having learned nothing from history, we lost our way, and became farcical caricatures of the absurd, signalling our virtue right along with our latest meal. Many of us, unwittingly, have become accomplices to corrupt institutions by participating and indulging their influences. There are legions of government and corporate bureaucrats, each pursuing individual career goals, who enforce the corrupt status-quo out of self interest. They play the game which includes falling inline. They are the ignoble betrayers of the common good. Perhaps there is no other institution on Earth more corrupt and wasteful than the US Federal Government. In many areas it has become government for and by the government (and their closest insiders). Yet, dutiful bureaucrats lie and fashion themselves as heroes to feel at ease. Myth and lore is what runs the government, not Congress, policy, or laws – though most of those have been corrupted too. We have allowed for zero accountability which has resulted in no responsibility. The result is that many of our Nation’s senior executives and experts are not only corrupted by systems, but are also shockingly incompetent.

We, in the West, have past the point of no return just as artificial intelligence is about to come online in a big way. The anthropological story is about to get really interesting.