change | Barataria - The work of Erik Hare

Another cycle of violence between angry mobs representing the majority religion flares up in another nation. What could be truly “new” in this news? This week it was in Sri Lanka, but there was a difference. The mob were Buddhists and their victims were the Moslem minority at prayer in a mosque. It seems to be a spillover from the much more violent confrontations in Myanmar where hundreds have been killed at the hands of “Radical Buddhists” who destroyed the homes of over 400 Moslem families. Has the world gone completely mad?

The short answer is yes, the whole world is going mad. But the apparent rise of violent Buddhist radicals and fundamentalists has to be seen in a larger context of the rise of fundamentalism generally. There is a growing backlash against pluralism, tolerance, and globalism itself. Groups everywhere are being pitted against each other in a desperate bid to preserve the old ways and forge a sense of social cohesiveness. That includes the USofA – and indeed frames the recent legislative battles in Texas and North Carolina in a way that makes a twisted sense of the whole mess. And it doesn’t seem likely to end soon.

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“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”
– Franklin Delano Roosevelt

One of the key features of the time we live in is paralysis. Uncertainty creates risk aversion, since risk is much more difficult to calculate. After a few years living like this and people start to live day to day. It eventually becomes “survival mode” when tomorrow becomes very difficult to imagine. The result is nothing – and that often comes even when one person is calling the shots, let alone a system based on consensus among many.

The evidence is all around us that something unusual is happening. Change is coming faster and in ways that are not often talked about adequately. The economy is not simply recovering the way it has after any other post-war recession. What should we do? FDR had it right – try something and see if it works. If that goes against every instinct you have right now, you’re not alone. But let’s see if we can convince you that there are, in fact, some things that point to very different actions than we’re all used to.

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