Apocalypse Porn
The irony is exquisite -- tech billionaires buying up luxurious bunkers and hiring military security to survive some societal collapse that they themselves helped to cause (Super-Rich Preppers). If this serves as a glimpse of some Spenglerian end-game, perhaps it's time once again to discuss governance.
The Onion some years back featured a delicious satirical piece citing the engagement by the American people of a high-powered lobbyist to further the peoples' interests. After all, if the likes of Goldman Sachs, Pfizer, and Monsanto can purchase an inside voice in the Beltway, perhaps it's high time for the people to have their own seat at the table (The People Hire A High-Powered Lobbyist). Or, as they say, if you're not at the table you're on the menu.
Too cynical? Per Oscar Wilde's definition of a cynic as someone who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing, to whom do we look these days to be singularly focused on those values, like community, we profess to hold dear as a nation? As such, the defining issue of this peoples' lobby would be "Virtue Politics" i.e. the key to a healthy regime lies in bringing to power those who are good and wise.
Easier said than done, of course, and somewhat at odds with the Western political tradition primarily designed to limit the power of and the damage wrought by bad and foolish leaders. The result: money-centric special interests; polarized federalism; elections reduced to a Fight Club event. Behold the Jeffersonian warning that the government we elect is the government we deserve.
The current system thus cries out for a relook -- nothing less than a revolution in our moral values, the subject of our discussion piece (The Case For An American Revolution In Moral Values).
Imagine, then, an interest group dedicated to Virtue Politics, focused on advancing to power those who are the good and wise. Imagine further how the embrace of Virtue Politics might be levered within a differently-connected world, the subject of its own upcoming session (MM 9/19/22 Network State).