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Puritan

The Puritans always win?

Submitted by Roanman on Mon, 05/03/2010 - 16:50

 

Charles Sizemore in the HS Dent Forecast offers the following thought:

 

Steven Rosefielde and D.Quinn Mills in their book, Masters of Illusion: American Leadership in the Media Age analyze what they call the “conflict of moralities.”

They see history as a continuous cycle of conflict between “puritanism”

(defined as being patriarchical, religious, and moralistic)

and “cosmopolitanism”

(defined as being egalitarian, tolerant, and amoral).

 

In the authors’ opinion:

 

Abraham was puritan; the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians were cosmopolitan.

The Hebrews were puritan; the Philistines were cosmopolitan.

The Persians were puritan; the Babylonians were cosmopolitan.

The Persians became cosmopolitan; the Greeks were puritan.

The Greeks became cosmopolitan; the Romans were puritan.

The Romans became cosmopolitan; the Germanic tribes were puritan.

The Byzantines were cosmopolitan; the Arabs were puritan.

The Chinese were cosmopolitan; the Mongols were puritan.

The Catholic Church was cosmopolitan; the Protestants were puritan.

The Cavaliers were cosmopolitan; the Roundheads were puritan.

The English were cosmopolitan; the Americans were puritan.

Today, America is cosmopolitan; its Islamic radical antagonists are puritan.

 

He goes on to say that he's not all that concerned about Islam, it's them no-good Russians that have him worried.

 

"To the authors’ list, I add that the West was cosmopolitan during the Cold War and the Communist bloc was puritan.

It appears that all successful puritan societies evolve into cosmopolitan societies. The key here is “successful.” 

The Communists were not successful and never evolved into cosmopolitans.

They simply disintegrated, as in Russia, or rebranded themselves as capitalists, as in China.

So, the puritans do not always win, and I certainly would not expect to see the Islamic radicals win this time.

They might make our lives difficult, but as I wrote earlier, they present no existential threat to America or the West.

As the authors tell us, America’s most immediate challenge is the war on terror, but it is by no stretch the most important.

The biggest threat and most important challenge remains what it has been for more than 60 years: to avoid a nuclear exchange between great powers.

With the nuclear weapons antiproliferation regime in tatters, Russia desperately trying to hold on to its past glories, and China rapidly expanding its military and economic might, this threat is as significant now as at any time in history."

 

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