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John Merryman's avatar

Our consciousness is a bubble of perception and we all need some sense of stability, some structure, of self, of community, of the cosmos, that gives us comfort. Thus the power of religions. At most we want answers to our questions, not universal truths. There are a lot of priests and politicians to give us those answers, but the philosophers are pretty much intellectually neutered and confined to the back alleys of academia. Stoicism anyone?

The problem is, as Philip K Dick so effectively put it, "Reality is what doesn't go away, when you stop believing in it."

I suspect the mother of all reality checks is in the mail and it will rip away far more than just our fantasies of war. As brutal, delusional and criminal as they have been, they really are a distraction from and effect of deeper issues.

Debt, for one thing. Debt doesn't matter, until it does.

Also the founding principle of our country is universal rights. Yet the basis of any healthy society has to be a general acceptance of responsibilities, with rights as reward. When everyone has all the rights they want and responsibilities are optional, the consequence is the Tragedy of the Commons.

When our country was first being imagined, the irresponsible were more likely to starve, so the assumption of a general degree of responsibility was a given, but now people wonder why their lives don't seem to have any meaning, without any clue that being responsible is what gives our lives meaning. What we give, matters more than what we get.

It is sad, but some lessons have to be learned the hard way.

Russia had a bit of a reality check, with the fall of the Soviet Union, thinking they could become good capitalists. Now we are all looking at a much bigger bubble being burst.

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Jeffrey Harrison's avatar

Great piece, Patrick. Yes, the ruling elite is currently running a narrative that, as Chris Hedges argues is being carefully managed. Unfortunately as Mr. Merryman points out through Phillip K Dick, reality is what doesn't go away when you stop believing in it. Unfortunately, our elites don't seem to recognize that they can't alter reality. Equally unfortunately, we don't have an "allies" to thwart the forces of evil and/or wickedness that are foisting the bubble on us.....

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