The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through a nine stage sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacence to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependency back again into bondage. ( Attributed to Alexander Tytler )
In our present Plutocracy we have just made the transition from complacency to national apathy ~ which will surely be followed by dependence on the state and eventually bondage by the state. As Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General, has said ~ " We're not a democracy. It's a terrible misunderstanding and a slander to the idea of democracy to call us that. In reality, we're a plutocracy: a government by the wealthy."
The obvious vehicle for this shift in consciousness is FEAR and APATHY. FEAR, in actuality, is False Exaggerations Appearing Real but APATHY is a lack of interest and indifference and it has always been the Great American Sin. See my column of August 27, 2007. http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2007/08/27.html
Joseph Fort Newman, Atlantic Monthly, wrote about the Great American Sin of Apathy in October, 1922 ~ and its worth repeating now in June, 2009 .
" What is the great American sin? Extravagance? Vice? Graft? No; it is a kind of half-humorous, good-natured indifference, a lack of "concentrated indignation" as my English friend calls it, which allows extravagance and vice to flourish. Trace most of our ills to their source, and it is found that they exist by virtue of an easy-going, fatalistic indifference which dislikes to have its comfort disturbed....The most shameless greed, the most sickening industrial atrocities, the most appalling public scandals are exposed, but a half-cynical and wholly indifferent public passes them by with hardly a shrug of the shoulders; and they are lost in the medley of events. This is the great American sin."
Unless we as individuals, and then as a nation, conquer fear and apathy we are doomed to dependence and then bondage by a state ruled by the wealthy. That state of dependence is drawing near and only faith and the great courage of civil revolt and even civil disobedience can revitalize this nation ~ particularly with a major economic Depression increasingly making its presence felt.
Allen L Roland http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2009/06/23.html
Freelance Online columnist Allen L Roland is available for comments , interviews and speaking engagements ( allen@allenroland.com )
Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net
