Führer(losigkeits)prinzip

Slightly updated at the end

Illustrations via ChinesePosters.net.

David Brooks writes:

We're in the middle of a frightening generational shift in the way people see government and its relation to the community in general. According to the most recent Pew Research Center survey Millennials, the cohort of adults aged 18 to 33, are less likely to regard themselves as religious or [jump]
patriotic and more likely to call themselves liberal than any generation on record, more in favor of activist government and at the same time more in favor of personal liberty on issues like gay rights and marijuana use, and, spookiest of all, the most optimistic. Yipes!

Fortunately, Pew's house contains many mansions, and if we go back far enough there's a Pew poll I can cite to make people look gloomy, fearful, and left adrift by liberal fecklessness. I think I'll call it "the most recent Pew Research Center survey".

This is the survey conducted last October-November on America's Place in the World, which found that unprecedented numbers of Americans were or shall I say are unwilling to see our government try to solve global problems and think it should focus more on solving problems at home.

What's more, they're not isolationist; support for American participation in international economy and culture is at its highest point in the past decade. But they don't seem to object to deep cuts in the defense budget. It's as if they've lost confidence in our military institutions, or as I prefer to call them our political and military institutions, because that's a better description of what I want the data to say, which is that no phenomenon here has any relation to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.*

Or the Obama administration either, because I'm not one of those partisan pundits. What is at issue here is one of those broad cultural shifts that I tend to notice from time to time, like when I caught the Zeitgeist retreating from selfish individualism toward collective, communitarian values in 2000 or when I realized that the loss of confidence of the Iraq syndrome had ended before it began in 2007 or when I announced in 2011 how researchers had at last begun exploring the inner wilderness (Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, the Lewis and Clark of the mind).

In the present case it's a loss of confidence in the big units—armies, corporations, unions—that kept the peace during the Cold War with their hierarchical leadership structures in what was then the liberal international order, only now the liberal order is not a single system organized and defended by American military strength but a maze of person-to-person interactions on Twitter. Or else people (who may or may not include me) think it is, power arising from clamors in the public square, swarming individuals, decapitated mobs. They think there are severe restrictions on what political and military efforts can accomplish, suggesting to me at least that they think their crazy negotiated democracy could accomplish a lot.

Power now is not military or political but personal: the power of individuals to withhold their consent, like so many proletarian John Galts whose doctrine is neither Reaganite nor Kantian (those two equal poles of liberal internationalist philosophy) nor even realistic, or Realistic, or Socialist Realist. It's the belief that power rather than culture has undergone a fundamental shift and it's naive, even if I do, as I possibly may, believe it myself, because how is that going to work? It's the utopian belief that politics and conflict can be optional. I may be having a panic attack.

The minority of baby boomers who think people deserved to be trusted is quite a substantial minority, 40%; the minority of Millennials who believe this is only 19%. Oh my God, now I'm citing that other survey after all! I need a leader to tell me how to handle this! Blow a bugle call like I've never heard before! Help me!

The commune is like a gigantic dragon, production is noticeably awe-inspiring.

*The fact that the trends began in 2004—especially the perception that America is weaker and less respected than it was in the past—only reflects the cosmic goings-on:

assisted by the Indigo and Crystal children and those awakened Lightworkers who were able to carry the energy. It was strong enough in 2004 for this Divine Dance of Twin Flame energies in the Heavens to initiate a powerful surge of Creative and Transformative energy in the Collective Consciousness. Many people began their individual journey of Transformation, and many Soulmate and Twin Flame unions were created in the wake of this dance of the Sun and Venus.

For an exegesis that sacrifices the insanity of today's Brooks in favor of trying to guess what he actually thinks, see Corey Robin, "Better in the Original German". There's also a very nice discussion at Steve M's place, where I also left a comment which may say what I was trying to say with the gags above in a more intelligible way (there's nothing more pathetic than a joke that needs an essay to explain it, but at least it's shorter than this, unlike one of those ghastly Ted Rall self-footnotings).

Driftglass explains it all patiently to young Conor.