10 Membranes

El Momentos

Consider this. During my lifetime there have been three defining historical events. The first was the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse  of socialism. This supposedly heralded the End of History and ushered ion a new era of harmony, liberal democracy, free markets, peace, prosperity and the triumph of the West. The hammer blows in the Wall were hammer blows against the forces arrayed opposite the March of Progress.

So the nineties were great and we were all happy and our lives had been nicely defined.

Then came the other two defining events: Septemeber 11th and the Credit Crunch. The first can be viewed as giving the lie to the notion of one world, one ideology. The complacent security of the West was directly compromised, just as new oppositional ideology left it’s calling card.

Now the Credit Crunch has at some level discredited (haha) lassez faire capitalism. Essentially the Washington consensus is of over; it’s twin pillars rocked. There is a nice but fearful symetry in these events. Rather than obsessively worrying about it however it probably marks a return to the normative state of humanity: hatred and poverty, rather than peace and prosperity.