Americans to an increasing degree are becoming more conservative and, as I wrote the other day, based on the Pew Research study, more likely to be climate deniers. I find this hard to accept, but the data demands I do so. You will find some more of it in today’s SR edition. It is like watching a slow motion train wreck. In a thousand passive ways, much of the Middle Class is participating in the processes of its own destruction. Healthcare reform has made this trend starkly obvious. The credit card story today is a variant in miniature. For the second time in my life — the first being the end of the Soviet Union which I was then regularly working in — I am watching a large portion of a society choose dismantlement. It was exciting in a positive way the first time; this time it is tragic and sad. I think these trends in the U.S., and reflected elsewhere as well, arise from fear. Fear of loss. Fear of change. Fear in our unconscious as we precognize the coming events of climate change. It engenders cultural rigidity, theological dogmatism, […]