by Chris Black
I’ve seen it in the most surprising places.
White Boomers I know upset about dead Palestinian children and admitting if they were there they’d fight for their home too.
People I would never expect to hear this from.
I am usually bearish on the utility of “happenings” because the shifting of consciousness is more of an art than a science.
Nationalists desperately want to believe there’s a formula you can follow but there really isn’t, and not all perceived opportunities are actually opportunities (e.g. the Kanye moment, the Musk moment, etc).
What does seem to shift people though is the feeling of history, of something that is happening.
When Tainter was discussing what causes the collapse of complex societies, one of the causes he cited was “mystical reasons”, which when you read it he’s explicitly talking about the Spenglerian forces of history.
When you have these moments where abject nonsense can’t compete with what people can actually see happening with their eyes, such as the Trump moment and now this Israel moment, where you have no choice but to pick a side and sharpen distinctions, people come around much easier than you’d think because they are living in history again.
Many people don’t want to believe this because, much like the desire for the formula, there simply has to be this one weird trick we can master to change the consciousness of people.
We’re part of the currents of history though and history isn’t over.
There’s not much you can do when you’re being swept up in the moment other than to have the right perspective and to prepare for the future.
It belongs to those who show up.