April 7, 2024:
Marin County mantra of the 1990s. We collectively live the increase and improvement of consciousness, in an unbroken ascending arc of progress. 19th Century Positivism as 20th Century pop spirituality, although she certainly doesn't know that.
Primary citation: the movement against the Vietnam War. "There's never been anything like this in all of history."
Hasn't there?
The American anti-Imperialist movement of the 1890s, Mark Twain and Mother Jones the great spokespersons. The French movement against the Algerian war, which convulsed and mobilized French society to an extent the American anti-Vietnam movement never equaled. To name two.
There is an ascending arc. Not the one she imagines. Where wars become more and more lethal, as mechanization and technology and capitalism are applied to the annihilation of bodies. In World War Two one in three frontline infantrymen fired their weapon at an enemy. Contemporary figures are closer to 100%. At the same time the lethality of those shots has very greatly increased, as laser sights plus training make "kill shots" standard.
This is invisible to her because it's outside her personal experience. Wrapped and trapped and engulfed in overwhelming and toxic narcissism, her participation in marches against Vietnam reaches her field of vision because she was in them. It's all about her.
She was a passionate Neoliberal, where expansion of international trade equals growth of collective consciousness. How does she then understand the global collapse of Neoliberalism, with the consequent rise of international neo-Fascism?