We’ve been living in a counterfactual world since at least 1960. Nixon won the election, but in our space-time continuum, Kennedy was inaugurated president. It looks like we’re at another inflection point. So, what now?<\/p>\n
Francis X. Maier<\/a>:<\/p>\n What may be coming our way is an odd kind of \u201cnew colonialism,\u201d with flyover country\u2014that Dark Continent formerly known as places like Kansas, Alabama, and Tennessee, largely inhabited by reactionary troglodytes\u2014reduced in effective power to mission territory for our enlightened coastal elites; who, after all, are much smarter than the rest of us and have the expert skills to run our complex technocracy.<\/p>\n And of course, they\u2019ll do all this unselfishly, heroically really, for the benefit of us natives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Severian<\/a>:<\/p>\n What\u2019s going to come of the electoral mess? Nothing good, as we\u2019ve discussed ad nauseam. The likely outcomes \u2014 the ones produced by humans, excluding meteor strikes and plagues and other acts of God \u2014 range from \u201cbad\u201d to \u201cinconceivably horrible.\u201d There really aren\u2019t any Forces of History, my friends, but something out there wants what it wants, and what it wants, apparently, is rat utopia, the kinder gentler police state, Karen uber alles. Even the increasingly unlikely event of a total Trump victory in the courts only delays it a few years, tops. We all know which way the world is heading.<\/p>\n So\u2026 what do we, as individuals, DO?<\/p>\n Tend your gardens. Raise your children. Be loyal to your friends. Pray. Meditate. Read the great books, view the great artworks while that\u2019s still permitted. Enjoy your time in the sunshine, because that\u2019s all any of us ever really get in this world. Amor fati.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n See also Edward Feser<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We’ve been living in a counterfactual world since at least 1960. Nixon won the election, but in our space-time continuum, Kennedy was inaugurated president. It looks like we’re at another inflection point. So, what now? Francis X. Maier: What may be coming our way is an odd kind of \u201cnew colonialism,\u201d with flyover country\u2014that Dark … Continue reading “Trapped in an alternate universe”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-decline-and-fall"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xam3-rL5","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106707"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106710,"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106707\/revisions\/106710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}