Chapter 106 Chapter 19 Towards a New Millennium 2

2 The powerlessness here is not due to the difficulty of the problem itself or the complexity of the world crisis; it is because all countermeasures have obviously failed, regardless of the old and the new, and no management improvement can be made to human beings. The short 20th century was an era of religious ideological wars.But one of the most vicious and bloody cases comes from the secular religious ideas left over from the 19th century, such as socialism and national (state)ism.The gods in them are abstract dogmas, or are regarded as god-like political figures.This devotion to secular religion was so extreme that it may have gradually declined by the end of the Cold War (including various personality cults), at least the phenomenon that originally belonged to the universal church has been reduced to sporadic rival sects.Yet the strength of secular religions lies not in their ability to mobilize the same passions that traditional religions can arouse--in fact, liberal ideologues hardly ever try--but in their claims to propose permanent solutions for a world in crisis. Answer.Unfortunately, as the century draws to a close, they fail to provide this answer.

The disintegration of the Soviet Union naturally focused everyone's attention on the failure of Soviet communism. The collapse of Soviet-style communism just showed the failure of the system of ownership by the whole people.All means of production, as well as all-encompassing planning, are in the hands of the state and the central government, without the help of market or price mechanism adjustments. This system has completely failed today.And all kinds of socialism in history also advocated that the means of production, distribution and exchange should be owned by the society as a whole, and private enterprises should be completely eradicated, and resource distribution should no longer be carried out through market competition.So the failure of the Soviet Union, the dashing of hopes for non-communist socialism - Marx or otherwise - although, look around the world, no regime really claims to be a socialist economy.Regardless of any form of Marxist theory, whether the theoretical foundation and spiritual inspiration of communism can continue to exist in the future will be a subject of debate among the world.But it is evident that, if Mr. Marx the Elder had lived and continued to be a great thinker (and no one doubts that), then since 1890, the various versions of Marx's thought that have been formed to call for political action and set off a socialist movement Among them, I am afraid that none of them can appear in their original colors.

On the other hand, another Utopian idea, which is opposed to the Soviet system, is also clearly bankrupt.That is, the superstitious insistence on a completely free economy, that the distribution of economic resources should be determined entirely by unrestricted markets and completely open competition.It is believed that only in this way can the highest efficiency be produced, not only provide the most wealth and work, but also bring the greatest happiness, and it is the only social form worthy of the name of "freedom".In fact, a "completely laissez-faire" society as described above never existed.Fortunately, unlike the Soviet-style utopia, before the 1980s, no one in the world had attempted to establish an ultra-liberal utopia.The spirit of liberalism, throughout the short twentieth century, existed only as a principle to criticize the failure of the current economic system and the expansion of state power.Among the western countries, the regime of Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom yearns for this the most. After repeated attempts, until Mrs. Iron stepped down, the decline of its economy has been recognized by the general public.But even the British attempt dared only incrementally.When the ex-Soviet socialist economy sought medical treatment from abroad, the prescriptions proposed by Western consultants were "shock therapies" (shock therapies), which immediately replaced the old system with "laissez-faire" special medicines.The result is naturally terrible, causing economic, social, and political disasters in many ways.The theoretical foundations on which neoliberal theology rests are vainly attractive and completely out of touch with reality.

The failure of the Soviet model affirmed the belief of the supporters of capitalism: "Without the stock market, there would be no economic society." The failure of extreme liberalism has confirmed that the socialist view is more reasonable and that human affairs are important, including the economy. , is truly extraordinary and must not be entirely left to the market.And the success of a country's economy obviously has nothing to do with the reputation of its economic masters.However, from a historical point of view, the so-called capitalism and socialism are irreconcilable, two extremes that cannot coexist. In the eyes of the future, such disputes and debates may be just the aftermath of the cold war between consciousness and religion in the 20th century.During the three millennium years, the debate between capitalism and socialism may have been just like the debate between Catholics and religious reformers in the 16th and 17th centuries over who is true Christianity, but in the 18th and 19th centuries, it was a meaningless debate.

Compared with the obvious collapse of the bipolar system, the biggest crisis lies in those who practice the middle road or mixed economy, and they are also at a loss.Policies of this kind have dominated some of the most impressive economic miracles of this century.They combine public and private, market and planning, state and business in practical ways, tailored to individual conditions and ideologies.But the problem here does not lie in the application of some brilliant knowledge theories, because the strengths of these policies lie not in the integrity of the theory, but in the success of actual operation—the crux of the problem lies in the fact that these practical The results, too, have now been eroded.The emergence of the crisis for two decades has proved that the various policies of the golden age also have limitations, but no other convincing method can be found to replace it.At the same time, what has been fully exposed is the various impacts on society and culture caused by the world economic revolution since 1945, as well as the potential ecologically destructive consequences.Simply put, all this is enough to prove that the collective institutions of mankind can no longer control the common consequences of human actions.In fact, one of the ideological attractions of neoliberal utopia's popularity is that it aims to "transcend collective human decisions".Let each individual pursue his or her happiness and fulfillment with absolutely no hindrance, so that whatever the outcome may be, it must enter into the best possible outcome.Any other way—and these people even advocate it—would be less effective than this best means.

If ideas born in the revolutionary years and nineteenth century found themselves at the end of the twentieth century, then the oldest guiding lights of mankind, traditional religions, are not in much better condition, nor can they provide the world with way to go.Religion in the West is in such a mess that, although in a few countries—most strangely led by the United States—attachment to a church and regular religious ceremonies are still a fixed habit of ordinary life (Kosmin/Lachmann, 1993).In short, the power of the new denominations declined rapidly, and the churches and churches that stood at the beginning of the century were empty by the end of the century, and were either sold or used for other purposes.Even the area of ​​Wales, England, where the national identity was established by Protestantism, has also failed to recover.Since the 1960s, the decline of Roman Catholicism has taken a turn for the worse. Even in the former communist countries where Catholicism enjoyed a symbolic status against totalitarianism, after the defeat of the Communist Party, the flock here, like other places, gradually turned away from the pastor. signs of going away.Sometimes, some religious observers think that in the post-Soviet Orthodox area, there are some clues of returning to religion.But at this moment of the end of the century, such a development trend is unlikely and lacks strong evidence-although it is by no means nonsense.The teachings of various Christian sects, regardless of their good intentions, have fewer good men and women who are willing to listen quietly.

The decline of the power of traditional religions is not offset by the rise of militant sects, at least in the urban societies of the developed world.The prevalence of novel sects and congregations, the men and women of the world escaping from a world they no longer understand, are throwing themselves into all sorts of bizarre beliefs whose greatest pursuit is irrationality; The power is lost in case.Although the society is full of such strange sects, their mass base is actually very weak.Only 3 to 4 percent of British Jews belong to any ultraconservative sect or group.Among the American adult population, less than 5% belong to the militant missionary school (Kosmin/Lachmann, 1993, pp. 15-16).

As for the marginal third world, the situation is naturally very different.However, the vast population of the Far East should be excluded as a rule, because under the traditional teachings of Confucius, they have been separated from formal religions for thousands of years—although there are no informal folk sects among them.In addition, in other third worlds, religious traditions have always been the backbone of their worldview.At this moment, as common people have also become frequent guests of the protagonists, it is natural to think that the influence of traditional religions on this stage should also become stronger.This kind of speculation is actually the dynamic of the last few decades of this century, because the few secular elites who advocate and advocate the modernization of their country are, after all, only a minority among the broad masses of the people (see Chapter 12).The pursuit of politicized religion has thus become more powerful, precisely because the old religions, by their very nature, are enemies of Western culture and godless rich countries.In the eyes of the old religions, the latter not only caused social disorder, but also oppressed and oppressed poor countries.The target of this type of movement within the country is the Westernized wealthy class who drive Mercedes-Benz cars and liberate women. This phenomenon adds a bit of class struggle.This group of sectarian groups became known in the West as "fundamentalists" (this name is actually misleading).The name may be trendy, but in terms of its nature and origin, it comes from an artificially imagined "past"; there, everything is more stable and reliable.But firstly, time cannot be turned back, and secondly, (for example) the ideology of the pastoral society in the ancient Middle East cannot be linked to the actual problems of today’s society at all.The phenomenon of the so-called fundamentalists is just as the Viennese wit Klaus commented on "Psychoanalysis" (Psychoanalysis): "It is the object it treats."

And for a while, what seemed to be a bustling mishmash of slogans and ideas—it would be hard to call them ideologies—was in the same slump.They grow on the ashes of the old regime and the old consciousness, just as overgrown weeds grew on the ruins of the major cities of Europe after the bombardment after World War II.This is the rise of xenophobic thinking and identity politics.But refusing to accept the unacceptable reality of the present does not help solve the problem (see Chapter 14).In fact, with the beginning of the new millennium, the political means closest to this kind of thinking, that is, the Wilson-Leninist proposition that so-called nations with the same ethnic language and culture should have the "right of national self-determination", has now Reduced to a brutal and tragic scene of absurd drama. In the early 1990s, many rational observers began to exclude political factors (except for some activists advocating nationalism)—perhaps for the first time they began to put forward publicly—perhaps it was time to abandon the "right of nations to self-determination".

It is not the first time that rational thinking has failed, but public opinion has become more intense.So in desperation, in this crisis era, and when countries and systems in various places are disintegrating, they have great explosive power politically.Just as the hatred of the inter-war years gave rise to the rampant fascist thought, so in this disintegrating world, the religious political protests of the Third World and the hunger for identity security and social order are the same. Provides the soil for certain political forces to grow (the demand for a "community home" traditionally echoes the call for "law and order").These forces then overthrew the old regime and established a new one.However, just as fascism did not provide the solution for the age of catastrophe, they cannot provide the answer for the world of the new millennium.At the end of the short twentieth century, it is not even possible to see whether they will be able to organize a national mass force like the one that brought fascist ideas to political power before fascism seized decisive state power. .Counting its greatest assets, I am afraid that it is free from the interference of academic economics, which is inseparable from liberalism, and the rhetoric of anti-government opponents.Therefore, if the political climate dictates that industry should be nationalized, there will never be any dissenting views to the contrary, especially if they have no idea what all this "nonsense" means.In fact, everyone doesn't know what to do, and no matter who does it, they don't necessarily know what to do better than others.