interesting read about fundamentalism and society...

[jbm]

http://www.human-nature.com/nibbs/02/history.html

<snip>
Is what we are seeing so different from the social life of the mass of the people in Roman times? Is the phenomenon we are viewing simply a process of the evolution of complex society in humans? So, perhaps, again what we see is a process of the evolution of complex societies and that the period of transition between traditional belief systems and new ones related to changed economic and technological conditions produces stresses in these societies which create fundamentalist movements. These movements either change the society, are destroyed or seize control. They are either the last hurrah of a culture whose members are in the transition of acculturation or the signal for reorganization which leads a people to revitalize a society. Or, are they simply disturbances in the great system of societies, like the entropy of Norbert Wiener (1950).

<snip>

SO what do you think? Are todays fundies experiencing their 'last hurrah',or will they be successful in altering society? I'm a 'last hurrah' supporter myself,but then I'm an eternal optimist.

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

1. Could be transformational...

....could be we are seeing more the last hurrah of the Englightenment.

Its not impossible to have fundamentalist societies together with modern technoloy..look at Iran. Or perhaps China (not really fundamentalist, but repressive & non-democratic).

I think an interesting future possibility would be the possibility of a fundamentalist, traditional cultural turn, combined with technological advance, and a freerer form of capitalism...repression in the serive of cultural conservatism AND market freedom (censorship + degregulation).

[jbm]

4. I'm afraid...

that you may be right. We have got to win this one.

[leesa]

5. Deregulation has been a disaster every time it has been tried, why

would you crave that?? People are simply too greedy for either communism or unfettered capitalism to work. Surely you can see that our form of capitalism is a failure. Deregulation has proved to be an utter disaster since Reagan began this nightmare.

[sweetheart]

2. We are nothing but reincarnate romans

fundamentalism is just a symptom of the decline. I highly
recommend the book at "link".. read the few pages they give
away for free at amazon... If you read it, you'll surely have
a more penetrating consideration on the USA than fundamentalism.

The words be: "militarism" and "empire".

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0805070044/ref=sib_rdr_ex/102-1359518-1781748?%5Fencoding=UTF8&p=S00U#reader-link

[jbm]

3. I am stunned...

and pissed! I just read the excerpts you suggested and even though I sort of kind of 'knew' this stuff,it just struck me that we spent billions of dollars to continue to build a military that should have been sustained at best,and probably downsized. We had an opportunity to really be advocates for peace,and instead we searched for more war.

[opihimoimoi]

7. Bush has cost this Nation TRILLION$$

and he is not done.

[DeepModem Mom]

6. kick