The Harmony of Harmonies

“I choose the term ‘Peace’ for that Harmony of Harmonies which calms destructive turbulence and completes civilization. Thus a society is to be termed civilized whose members participate in the five qualities — Truth, Beauty, Adventure, Art, Peace.” — Alfred North Whitehead, from Adventures of Ideas

Civilization and its advancement is the accumulation of human and social capital. And it's based a society being "a big family," with a shared culture.

Using Whitehead's list, it's clear there isn't much of a search for the Truth today, being how much of society is infected with Political Correctness, aka Cultural Marxism ("We must all be equal! Except for the white man, who is the cause of every problem in the world!"

Beauty? Well, there is that obsession with human beauty, but in the sense of beauty in the arts, or architecture (think those bland strip malls) no, that's gone, not with what passes for art today. The first time I truly noticed that was with the furor over Andres Serrano's 1987 "Piss Christ." It's gone downhill since then.

Adventure? I define adventure as play. And play is essential.

The things I did as a kid I no longer see anymore. I never see kids playing King of the Hill anymore, or having dirtball fights. They're not allowed to play in school anymore. Rowdy playing at recess? Forget it. Drawing war scenes on the back of our school papers, like we did? (You'll go the jail for that one.) These days, kids are apparently doing the fake adventures of video games instead of engaging in real adventures.

Art? Well, that has to do with Beauty, and again I refer to my awakening about art.

Peace? You've got to be kidding. We're heading towards a race war, and as for "multiculturalism," that is inherently war, contrary to the leftist loons, who apparently don't understand human nature at all.

As for the economy, it's pretty much in the crapper, and, believe it or not, has been since January, 1973, when wages stalled and have been stagnant since.

In many ways we're running on our accumulated capital. We're so rich from our accumulation that our decline will take decades.

In the long run I expect the United States to break up. It was tried during the War Between the States, but unfortunately that attempt failed. I don't expect another one like that, but expect the scenario to be more along the lines of "Escape from New York/LA." The cities turning into cesspools with those who can (that is, those who don't spend their lives on welfare) leaving for the rural areas. A lot of those who can are heading north, including the Pacific Northwest.

I personally was stuck by the Missouri Ozarks, where people are moving in droves.

But I do expect a move of the producers away from the crime-ridden parasites, (I think of Detroit).

What's going to happen is that those who have some interest in Truth, Beauty, Adventure, Art, and Peace are moving away from those who just want to destroy those things.

“Not being able to recognize the obvious, despite all the evidence that is right in front of you, is a sure sign that you’re not ready to survive in this environment as it exists today.” - C.M. Sturges