In 1951, Will Herberg, an American Jewish philosopher and sociologist of religion, published “Judaism and Modern Man.” He coined the phrase “cut flower culture” to describe the spiritual rootlessness of modern European and American societies.
He said, “The attempt made in recent decades by secularist thinkers to disengage the moral principles of western civilization from their scripturally based religious context, in the assurance that they could live a life of their own as ‘humanistic’ ethics, has resulted in our ‘cut flower culture.’ Cut flowers retain their original beauty and fragrance, but only so long as they retain the vitality that they have drawn from their now-severed roots, after that is exhausted, they wither and die. So it is with freedom, brotherhood, justice, and personal integrity – the values that form the moral foundation of our civilization. Without the life-giving power of the faith out of which they have sprung, they possess neither meaning nor vitality.”
I would say the same goes for military might and technological advantages. Our military and technology are still towards the top, but as the things that made them great, are replaced by inferior systems and cultures, these will eventually fall behind other world powers. We’re probably part way there.
Thank you for that response. That’s quite apropos, for our military and technology in the USA. Will Herberg’s “cut flower culture” will be embedded in my memory and, sad to say, I’ll probably be reminded of it for the rest of my days.
I used to think that all the low iq people coming into the country would lower the standards of living for everyone.
now I don’t think that will happen.
why? Because AI will make even the dumbest doctors look good. AI will smarten up every institution for good and evil.
There’s right now a cambrian revolution scale technological revolution just getting under way because of AI.
That’s half of it.
The other half is energy.
Civilizations grows and become more prosperous because of lower cost energy. The lower and middle classes become more prosperous because of lower cost energy.
That’s going to happen in spades over the next 10-15 years.
The big energy source that will deliver will be fusion energy. That’s gone from 20 years in the future and always will be to the first production plants in the USA by 2028. The first will deliver energy for .01@kwh to microsoft.
Compared to current electricity prices—that’s. revolution on the scale of say a horse to a horseless carriage. That’s the first generation. Costs go down from there