the divisive nature of societal relationships and the extreme views which fuel the fires of hate and prejudice, more so today perhaps, than at any time in history.

I am curious why in your opinion this might  actually be more heated than other comparable times in history this extremism has gotten rolling? When I have read your stories I see you have lived across a wide swath of serious cultural change. So have an interesting personal experience to make observations from.

I have been attempting to get a grip on historical periods that seem to have similar extremism elements, but now recede from living memory. I worked my way from WW1 across the '30s, doing some reading for a friend writing a bio of English Empire ex-pats. And now am looking at the fallout that came after the mid 1600s in England and the colonies when people had had enough of the English civil wars and turned away from the extreme religious sects and their divisionism. Seeking another way. Well at least for a generation or three, until the preachers retooled the religious doctrine and came up with new branding for the "Great Awakening".

The echoes of extremism echo down from the generations like a haunted lurking dream of bad clowns that will not go away. Yet so does the reaction against it and with it have seem to come periods of people reaching for another way to be at peace in mind and livelihood. At least I think that is what I am interpreting in my reading. 

What is the nature of arousing more of that from this chaos. To counterbalance culture in a world of divisionism for profit at the risk of real peril to so many? Embodying it even, as it rematerializes? If it reforms again in my lifetime. Or maybe I am not giving humans their due.  If it is already here in part in people's hearts and exists parallel to the din of nabobs nattering. For myself. I scatter mere breadcrumbs for others, is that choosing what to leave for the ones who come after me?

Ugh, efficacy may be optimized, but effect may have been just as great in past fervors.

Its alarming to tease out how people thought about what they did in the 1600s.

But the common issue with history is that past living memory, the record gets scattered by the winds of bias. And not just our modern take on things, the historical record is sculpted on all sides at the time of telling by the propagandists who had a vested interest at the time in how they spin it. The truth is not the first casualty of war, it is also the last.

My author friend is a professional historian and I am amazed by what they must comb apart to get to what people really were like and how they thought at the time.

MonkeyMan wrote:

"I am curious why in your opinion this might  actually be more heated than other comparable times in history this extremism has gotten rolling? When I have read your stories I see you have lived across a wide swath of serious cultural change. So have an interesting personal experience to make observations from."

Well, not to go too deeply into it... I will sketch out what I am thinking about with all of this.

In mid 1967, I was introduced to post SDS/Proto Weatherpeople. I moved from group to group as militancy on the left started to build up.  Some stuff was proposed earlier on, a trip to Cuba (Pre-Vinceremos) for training etc. I demurred. I moved to the countryside, trained with others.  I extricated myself from all of this morass in early 1972, after a very near miss on doing something extremely stupid.

It was an intense time, perhaps a bit like now. There was serious lunacy being proposed, and only by my wits did I not end up doing something rather stupid like an acquaintance, who I met by accident years later who was involved with the Sterling Hall Bombing. 



I think it seems more intense now because the news cycle is 24/7. add to that the Radio personalities, The Rogan's, Beck's, Carlson's, and others who push "conceptual" violence knowing full well what the results will be.

Burroughs was totally correct IMPOV in his assessments of mind parasites, and mental anomalies being shared/via meme & trope viruses.

Seeing the nexus of Qanon/NewAge (Rhymes with Sewage) being played out by friends and once allies, some I have known since the late 60's has disheartened me on the state of humanity.  The madness seems very close to what started after the Beer Hall Putsch, into the 1930's.  When one realizes that much of this shite is being sponsored by billionaires and corporations... and that most people are entranced, yes, it is a very unhealthy moment.  It also is rich with possibilities for something new emerging, which has happened time and again during times of plagues and mass illness.  Perhaps all of this is a precursor of a new world's birthing. A romantic thought, but I am nothing if not a dreamer.

Might be time to lay off the Red, dude.