Subject: Are We Going Back Into The Dark Ages?      June 24, 2012.

  Here are some people who think so.  Let's hope they can
change our thinking so we don't go back into the dark ages.

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Dark Ages Redux: American P-litics and the End of the
Enlightenment!

http://www.commondreams.org/john-atcheson
John A-cheson

We are witnessing an epochal shift in our socio-po-itical world.
We are de-evolving, hurtling headlong into a past that was
defined by serfs and lords; by necromancy and superstition;
by poli-ies based on fiat, not facts.

http://www.commondreams.org/sites/commondreams.org/files/imce-images/dark_forest_wallpaper_0.jpg
Much of what has made the modern world in general,
and the Un-ted States in particular, a free and prosperous
society comes directly from insights that arose during the
Enlightenment.

Too bad we're chucking it all out and returning to the Dark
Ages. Literally.
Two main things distinguished the post Enlightenment world
from the pre Enlightenment Dark Ages.

First, Francis Bacon's (JW Now that's one of my people who
helped to make this World a better place.  Some say he was
influenced by St. Germain or was actually St. Germain. )
Novo Organum Scientiarum (The New Instrument of
Science) introduced a new way of understanding the
world, in which empiricism, facts and as well reality defined
what was real. It essentially outlined the scientific method:
observation and data collection, formulation of hypotheses,
experiments designed to test hypotheses and elevation of
these hypotheses to theories when data consistently
supported them. It was and is a system based on skepticism,
and a relentless and methodical search for truth.

It brought us advances and untold wealth and health.
From one-horse carts to automobiles to airplanes.
From leaches and phrenology to penicillin and monoclonal
antibodies.
Until recently.

Now, we seek to operate by revealed truths, not reality.
Decrees from on high often issued by an unholy
alliance of re-igious fundamentalists, self-interested
corporations, and greedy fat cats are offered up as
reality by rightwing polit-cians.
For example, North Carolina law-makers recently
passed legislation
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/north_carolina_lawmakers_legislate_sea_level_rise_20120613
against sea level rise. A day later, the Virginia
legislature required that references to global
warming, climate change and sea level rise
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/06/13/global-warming-text-was-removed-from-virginia-bill-on-rising-sea-levels-
be excised from a proposed study on sea level rise.
Last year, the Texas Department of Environmental
Quality, which had commissioned a study on Galveston
Bay, cut all references to sea level rise the main
point of the study.

We are, indeed, at an epochal threshold.

As Stephen C-lbert so aptly put it:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/414796/june-04-2012/the-word---sink-or-swim
if your science gives you results you don't like, pass
a law saying that the result is illegal. Problem solved.

Except it isn't. Wishing reality away, doesn't make it
go away.
Pretending that the unreal is real doesn't make it real.
And the descent into the Dark Ages is marked by more
than global warming.
Take austerity budgets. There is
http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/cameco/cjeissueonausterity.html
an extensive historical record showing that
implementing austerity measures in an economic
slowdown is counter productive. And this data is
backed up by current experience in Europe,
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/05/08
where austerity measures have been disastrous.
So the data is telling us austerity during a jobs
crisis hasn't worked in the past and isn't working
now. What to do?
http://crooksandliars.com/blue-texan/paul-ryan-we-must-pass-my-austerity-bud
Pass an austerity budget, of course.
Welcome to the Dark Ages.
The litany of ignorance goes on and on. Teach
Creationism.
Teach the controversy on climate science and
intelligent design.
Declare deregulation which was a primary cause
of the 2008 economic collapse to be the solution
to it. Preach trickle down economics, even after
it has failed every time it's been adopted; even
as we watch wealth rocket up the income brackets.
What's next? Give the flat-earthers a say. Oh h-ll,
why stop there. Let's put Earth back in the center
of the solar system where it belongs.

We don't need no stinkin science.
We don't need no pesky reality. We just gotta pass
a few laws and declare things to be the way we want
them to be, facts be da-ned. You know, keep your
gov-rnment hands off my Medicare.
Second, the Enlightenment laid the groundwork for
our form of gov=rnment.
The Social Contract is the intellectual basis of all modern
d0mocratic r0publics, including ours. John Lo-ke
and others argued that gov-rnments derived their
authority from the governed, not from div-ne right.
Govern-ents could be legitimate, then, only with
the consent of the governed.
Jefferson acknowledged Loc-e's influence on the
Declaration of Independence and his ideas are
evident in the Constitution.
Here again, our founders used reason, empiricism
and academic scholarship to cobble together one
of the most enduring and influential documents in
human history.
For all its flaws, it has steered us steadily toward a
more perfect union.
Until recently.

Now, reason, empiricism and scholarship are the
punch line to right wing jokes and jihads. S-ntorum
captured the Tea Party's ho-tility to these
Enlightenment virtues when he 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/santorum-stands-by-snob-comment-says-conservatives-singled-out-and-ridiculed-at-col
leges/2012/02/26/gIQA7InobR_blog.html
likened a college education to an indoctrination.
Thankfully, Sa-torum is gone, but the embrace of
ign-rance he advocated lives on.
And so corporations are now accorded the rights of
citizenship.
Power, once again, is meted out by birthright, not
inalienable right.
By possession of wealth, not by justice or equity or
merit.
So what?
Well, the US now has the same income inequality as
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/09/map-us-ranks-near-bottom-on-income-inequality/245315/
Cameroon, Uganda and Rwanda, and we're trapped
in this pathetic state
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/01/05/398469/us-economic-mobility-lags/
income mobility in the US lags behind most other
developed nations.
In short, Horatio A-ger is de-d, long live Exxon.
We are, indeed, at an epochal threshold. We can continue
to discard the Enlightenment values which enabled both
an untold increase in material wealth and a system of
gove-nment which turned serfs into citizens. A system
which for all its flaws often managed to protect the
rights of the many, against the predatory power of
the few.
Or we can continue our abject surrender to myths,
m-gical thinking, and self-delusion and the Medieval
nation-state those forces are resurrecting.
Re-ublicans and Tea Partiers may be leading this
retreat from reason, but they are unopposed by
Dem-crats or the Press.
And in the end, there is a special place in H-ll for
those who allow ev-l to prosper by doing nothing.

http://www.commondreams.org/john-atchesonimagecache imagecache-author_photo
"John Atc-eson"
https://www.commondreams.org/sites/commondreams.org/files/imagecache/author_photo/johnatcheson.jpg
http://www.commondreams.org/john-atcheson
John Atcheson is author of the novel,
http://www.amazon.com/A-Being-Darkly-Wise-ebook/dp/B006ZGQE8U
A Being Darkly Wise, an eco-thriller and Book One of a Trilogy
centered on global warming. His writing has appeared in The
New York Times, the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the
San Jose Mercury News and other major newspapers.

Atc-eson's book reviews are featured on
Climateprogess.org.
http://www.commondreams.org/john-atcheson
more John Atch-son
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/06/18-2
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John Winston   johnfw@mlode.com