America in the age of primitivism
And then their people suddenly got tired of modernity and tried to crawl back into the past.
On the left, technological optimists were replaced by Rousseauian romantic primitivists. In the 1970s, Green guru Amory Lovins promulgated the gospel that “hard” sources of energy like nuclear power are bad and that called for a “soft path” based on hydropower, wind and solar energy. Other Green romantics decided that even hydropower is wicked, because it is generated by dams that despoil the prehuman landscape.
My comments: One of the best articles I've read. How the right and left politically have lost the belief in the power of progress. Like favoring small organizations which can't do much, versus huge bureaucratic organizations which can accomplish radical change.
An exampleis how the modern left is reflexively against GMO foods. Yet GMO foods would be something 1930's to 1970's New Deal liberals loved. A way to increase yields, increase nutrition, using the power of science, leading to less hunger, cheaper food and the ability to return farmland to wild nature.
I think the decline we are seeing in America and Britain is related to this change in belief in progress. Like why are modern leaders pushing energy of sun and wind that humanity used in the 13th century, instead of nuclear power, the breakthrough energy technology of the 20th century. It is primitivism.
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