Newfie wrote:Thanks for the definition.
Question for Ibon. Does this definition fit your idea as posited in th OP?
In short, is this what you were talking about?
This is what I meant. This definition is somewhat broader though than what I was referring to. We cannot preceisely measure certain intangible moods and impressions that are in the collective soup of a culture but that do have profound consequeces particularly in a cultures willingness to change or move on an issue long held as intractible.
Nobody, absolutely nobody saw the fall of the berlin wall and the emergence of Gorbachav and Perestroika coming 5 years before in 1985 in what at that time had already been 40 years of cold war polarity with the west. What was finally exhausted in the collective that created a tipping point toward change?
Who would have seen 5 years ago that a broad segment of the American society would suddenly embrace gay marriage.
Did something change, a certain innocence lost in American culture that existed right up to the moment when JFK was shot followed by MLK and Bobby Kennety 60's? Did this loss of innocence, an intangible, affect the social movements that followed? How we viewed the Vietnam war?
What about after 911? Or when we found out there were no WMD in Iraq. Or when the housing bubble tanked. Think about how these examples act like erosion to undermine what we consider this intractable status quo. Think of all the record temperatures, crop failures, droughts, melting ice caps and how silent many of opponents of climate change are suddenly. What is now incubating in their minds?
Or what Hoffer or are referring to of this ennui that sets in a culture shortly before revolutions.
Recognizing these intangibles cannot help you predict anything specific but recognizing that it can trigger change is worth to take note when we assume we are entrenched in a stubborn inertia.
As an analogy, we look at climate change and see the danger of certain tipping points like the release of methany hydrates that might accelerate global warming.
Think of these intangibles that affect the collective mood in a culture also having the potential to act as tipping points where suddenly public opinion, long seen as intractible and stubbornly conservative, can suddenly take a leap forward.
Think of all the profound consequences coming our way in this century as a result of overshoot.
Every culture and collective has an almost instinctive need to follow a narrative that promises the fulfillment of ideals. Specific ideals change with time and circumstance but when a culture in descending and exisitng institutions no longer can hold the dreams that make up part of this cultural narrative, then this ennui sets in. At that point pay attention.
The equilibrium of the long assumed intractible status quo is about to be punctuated with a shift.
It can happen. It has many times before.
Patiently awaiting the pathogens. Our resiliency resembles an invasive weed. We are the Kudzu Ape
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