First, thanks for the mini-review of Pantheon. I had not heard of it. It is now on my ever growing to-watch list. Second, I haven't yet read Zinn's A People's History, but remember years ago several concervative friends trashing it as "Marxist propaganda". There is something to be said for using marxian class analysis when it comes to understanding parts of American society, but we interdisciplinary futures researchers have to check our tool favoritism along with our bias. I find it easier to question my go-to frameworks & theories by remembering that we live in a dynamic, constantly shifting set of overlapping complex systems. Even a wide set of tools will only get us an incomplete picture (Foresight Virtue #1 - Humility). That said, I've found several works and authors who seem to have goid insights on what got us yo our current era. Noted historian Heather Cox Richardson's HOW THE SOUTH WON THE CIVIL WAR shows how southern slavery culture formed and how that culture has adapted and influenced America politically and socially until today. A nice companion book to that is Isabella Wilkerson's CASTE: THE ORIGIN OF OUR DISCONTENTS. Putting them both together seems to show how we live within a hybrid & maleable Caste+Class system, one with virulent social prohibitions about admitting that either caste or classes exist. One conflict lense we could interpret our recurrent elite overproduction conflicts through is which is dominant, Caste or Class? Another is german academic expert on American Democracy Thomas Zimmer. I highly recommend his DEMOCRACY ANERICANA substack.
Tim, I've heard this meta-theme from you a few times, and will definitely write more about it: I appreciate your epistemic humility and suspect it's probably "correct", but I want so badly for my understanding and frameworks to be grounded on a foundation of real concepts and processes, not just "this explanation kind of works for now and we'll change when it doesn't". I want truth! I want to peel back the fabric of the universe and see the secret structure underneath. Giving up on that dream will be hard.
I understand that impulse well! I got to the holistic path in stages. Now my ultimate statement of truth is: The Universe Exists. Everything else is Commentary.
First, thanks for the mini-review of Pantheon. I had not heard of it. It is now on my ever growing to-watch list. Second, I haven't yet read Zinn's A People's History, but remember years ago several concervative friends trashing it as "Marxist propaganda". There is something to be said for using marxian class analysis when it comes to understanding parts of American society, but we interdisciplinary futures researchers have to check our tool favoritism along with our bias. I find it easier to question my go-to frameworks & theories by remembering that we live in a dynamic, constantly shifting set of overlapping complex systems. Even a wide set of tools will only get us an incomplete picture (Foresight Virtue #1 - Humility). That said, I've found several works and authors who seem to have goid insights on what got us yo our current era. Noted historian Heather Cox Richardson's HOW THE SOUTH WON THE CIVIL WAR shows how southern slavery culture formed and how that culture has adapted and influenced America politically and socially until today. A nice companion book to that is Isabella Wilkerson's CASTE: THE ORIGIN OF OUR DISCONTENTS. Putting them both together seems to show how we live within a hybrid & maleable Caste+Class system, one with virulent social prohibitions about admitting that either caste or classes exist. One conflict lense we could interpret our recurrent elite overproduction conflicts through is which is dominant, Caste or Class? Another is german academic expert on American Democracy Thomas Zimmer. I highly recommend his DEMOCRACY ANERICANA substack.
Tim, I've heard this meta-theme from you a few times, and will definitely write more about it: I appreciate your epistemic humility and suspect it's probably "correct", but I want so badly for my understanding and frameworks to be grounded on a foundation of real concepts and processes, not just "this explanation kind of works for now and we'll change when it doesn't". I want truth! I want to peel back the fabric of the universe and see the secret structure underneath. Giving up on that dream will be hard.
I understand that impulse well! I got to the holistic path in stages. Now my ultimate statement of truth is: The Universe Exists. Everything else is Commentary.
Americana. Typing on a phone is error prone!