Their anger and hate is driven by their fear, fear of what the end of their culture means. They see that the end is all-too-near and are clinging desperately to their increasingly meaningless ideology. They decry the end of morality and the decline of our society, and, truly, to them, the end of their culture seems to be the end of the world. (Notice the rising popularity of `Revelationists' who believe that we are living in the Biblical `end of days.') They are facing cultural extinction and are fighting for their lives. Thus, we have the Culture War. They believe whole-heartedly in their culture and would rather die than see it destroyed. Thus, the Republicans are an organized front, an army, and are ready to fight until the bitter end.
We, on the other hand, are culture-less, lost. We have no faith in the old ways any longer, those represented by the GOP, but we've yet to find ourselves new ways. We do not yet have an ideology to belong to instead of this evil, destructive one.
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Though it is our duty to resist their last attempts to keep control of the world or destroy it trying, we are scattered and disorganized. Millions, perhaps billions, know deep in their hearts and minds that something is just not right and that we, as a society, can not go on in the same manner as we always have. Unfortunately, most don't even begin to trace their vague unease back to its true source.
Therefore, one purpose of this essay is to bring these scattered fragments into a true opposition movement by naming their vague feelings. However, we can not defeat them through violence--we can only win by changing hearts, minds and souls. We must not hate our opponent. They are the victims of this culture, as much as we are. We must take pity on them, and act towards them with love and kindness. The revolution must be non-violent, and it must begin by education. That is the true path to change and that is the second purpose of this.
II.
We, as a society, first began to doubt our cultural ideology in the 1960's and it was from this skepticism that the hippie movement was born. As all know, this `movement' died out--not from a lack of faith, though, but from a lack of understanding. The would-be revolutionaries did not truly comprehend the magnitude of what they were up against, and so were unable to affect meaningful change. They were rebelling against this flawed culture that holds the notion that the world was made as a human support system, designed to take any punishment we inflicted upon it in our quest towards progress and unlimited growth. But, because they didn't understand the enormity of the problem, they could not find a meaningful solution.
Conversely, it was the reaction to this `children's revolution' that gave birth to modern `conservatism' and the current ruling Republican Party. (Witness their desire to return the country to the days of the 1950's and the Goldwater revolution of the 60's.) The Republican coalition of today is made up of three primary elements. There are the traditional conservatives and libertarians, those who believe in small government, states' rights and low taxes. There is also the Christianists, the fundamentalists who provide the manpower and zeal to keep the fire burning in their hearts. Finally, there are the Corporations, who provide the money. They are simply using this party for deregulation (and a return to laissez-faire capitalism) to ensure that they keep their wealth and make more. It's a sound business investment for them.
Their ideology has three main components: Fundamentalism, Consumerism and Imperialism. Fundamentalism is not only religious (Christian fundamentalism), it is also their unerring faith in free-market capitalism. The underlying premise of this fundamentalism is that there is only one right way for humans to live (their way), and it is wrong or even evil for anyone to live otherwise. Consumerism is predicated on the belief that the world was made for Man and, as his possession, his property, we can do with it as we please. Finally, there is Imperialism. By its very nature, this culture forces others to convert to its systems in order to compete and survive, or to die (the direct opposite of `survival of the fittest'). In addition, the believers are convinced that it is their moral duty to convert the `non-believers,' the infidels; they are `saving souls' and `spreading freedom.' So either by conversion or annihilation, this culture expands its borders to include all peoples.
III.
The 6 billion people on this planet living in an unnatural civilization have precipitated a cultural crisis among us. Faced with the mounting evidence of the harmful impact we are having on the earth and ourselves, many of us no longer have faith in the cultural vision that has carried us to this point in time. We are at a crossroads in the history of humanity, and we, as Americans, are in a unique position, due to our size, wealth and (remaining) prestige to affect meaningful change. If we continue on this path, our destruction is assured. We need to find another one. However, to do so, we must first come to grips with the true nature of what we are facing.
The cold, hard reality of ecological crisis and the ever-growing severity of the so-called `ills of society'--overcrowding, war, violence, famine, crime, insanity, drug abuse, corruption, etc--have caused us to doubt our faith in our culture. Our worldview has been rendered meaningless by this. Faced with this overwhelming evidence, we are unable to continue to believe any longer. What we are witnessing is a population in the midst of cultural collapse, and we all feel this at our most basic level. Some of us react to it by insisting that everything is quite all right; this is merely a speed-bump on our way to an ever-brightening future. Some see the end and react with violence and `reactionism,' longing for the days when they still believed, or rather, when they could still believe.
However, for the rest of us, we `feel,' on an intuitive level, the illusion and fallacy that is built into our culture. The cultural vision that has carried us forward for hundreds of generations has failed, as has this promise of an ever-brightening future. Now, with 12,000 years of evidence of this failed system and the complete collapse of our values, we come to see that it was all an illusion, or rather delusion, and we were foolish to ever follow it.