In order to remain in the Second Wave (industrial age), the following would need to happen:
9. Families will become non-nuclear.
Many say the family is falling apart today. They define the family as a husband-breadwinner, mother-housekeeper, and a numebr of children. This is the "nuclear family" which was created and idealized by the Second Wave. It is falling apart, because the Second Wave industrial complex system is falling apart.
If we really want to maintain the nuclear family, here's what we would have to do:
* Freeze all technology in its Second Wave stage to maintain a factory-based, mass-production society.
* Block the rise of the service and professional sectors in the economy. White-collar, professional, and technical workers are less traditional, less family-oriented, more intellectually and psychologically mobile than blue- collar workers.
* "Solve" the energy crisis by applying nuclear and other highly centralized energy processes. The nuclear family survives better in a centralized society.
* Return to mass media, and ban cable television, cassettes, local and regional magazines and radio programs. Nuclear families work best where there is a national consensus on information and values, not in a society based on high diversity.
* Forcibly drive women back into the kitchen. Reduce wages for those who insist on working. The nuclear family has no nucleus when there are no adults left at home.
* Slash the wages of young workers to make them more dependent, for a longer time, on their families.
* Ban contraception. This makes for independence of women and for extramarital sex, a notorious lossener of nuclear ties.
* Cut the standard of living of the entire society to pre-1955 levels, since affluence makes it possible for single people, divorced people, working women, and other unattached individuals to "make it" economically on their own.
* Resist all changes in our society which lead toward diversity, freedom of movement and ideas, or individuality. The nuclear family remains dominant only in a mass society.
This is the only explanation of provincial US populism, Trumpism, the Alt-Right, etc etc etc that makes any sense to me. I think that the yearning to go back to a memory of how things were is an instinctive desire deeply rooted in the psyche like sexuality, religion or political affiliation that can't be changed. It may not be mine, but I sympathize with aspects of that sentiment.
The great tragedy of it though is an inability to imagine something akin to the nuclear family in a post-industrial society. They don't imagine a coal miner doing subsurface work on the moon. This is why I think that the current hardline focus on escaping the reality of a changing world is going to be short-lived. At some point, as traditionalists get more of what they want, the idealists of the world will pull away to such an extent that their new normal will have the wholesome things manifested rather than just shadows of what once was.
Can you expand more on what you mean by “this is why I think that the current hardline focus on escaping the reality of a changing world is going to be short-lived. At some point, as traditionalists get more of what they want, the idealists of the world will pull away to such an extent that their new normal will have the wholesome things manifested rather than just shadows of what once was.”
Ya sorry my comment was kind of vague. I just meant that times are changing so quickly now that fundamentalism is becoming increasingly harder to maintain.
I think that a sustainable Third Wave culture akin to the Federation on Star Trek that embraces true technology that improves lives (as opposed to the distractionary and zero-sum vulture capitalism that we have now) will feel tangibly real in a way that authoritarianism can never be. Like how the internet perceives censorship as damage and routes around it but in a physical reality where everyone has renewable energy and makerbots.
http://www.criticalthink.info/Phil1301/Wave3lec.htm
In order to remain in the Second Wave (industrial age), the following would need to happen:
This is the only explanation of provincial US populism, Trumpism, the Alt-Right, etc etc etc that makes any sense to me. I think that the yearning to go back to a memory of how things were is an instinctive desire deeply rooted in the psyche like sexuality, religion or political affiliation that can't be changed. It may not be mine, but I sympathize with aspects of that sentiment.The great tragedy of it though is an inability to imagine something akin to the nuclear family in a post-industrial society. They don't imagine a coal miner doing subsurface work on the moon. This is why I think that the current hardline focus on escaping the reality of a changing world is going to be short-lived. At some point, as traditionalists get more of what they want, the idealists of the world will pull away to such an extent that their new normal will have the wholesome things manifested rather than just shadows of what once was.