When a society is near collapse the social phenomenon of the "ghost dance" often developes...
I draw this notion from the American Indians of the 1890's, when the Native American "Cult of the Ghost Dance" caused some wild concerns in Washington. See link.
Essentially, the Ghost Dance is a mass bout of "magical thinking" about the future...where, perhaps, the "ancestors" would "come back" and kick out the white man, (or other "evil ones") and return our Lands and Culture back to the "old ways."
This is really the Messianic thinking that is often present whenever a culture is pushed to the extremes... The "Return of our Savior"...plays a grim part in human history.
Another sign of a culture in decline is doomsday thinking... Here I would include...oddly enough...the Twenty-something "Goths", the Gangsta Rappers, AND the Religious Right!
In all these cases there is the need somehow to escape current reality...and enter into a kind of fantasy world that never was and never will be.
The Rappers live in a world where their powerlessness...is suddenly turned into power. So too with the Goths...they live in a magical world of make believe that removes them from the unpleasantness of everyday life.
And amazingly the Religious Right are in this escapist tradition as well. The magical thinking of religion makes "everything right" again..."like it should be."
Of course it's all caused by the DECLINE of the American economy...and a certain hopelessness that is decending on the public mind... Kongress is hopelessly Korrupt. The Rich control every aspect of the economy, without regard to the rights of labor or the ordinary person.
Globalism has become a doomsday cult that we all must dance around, or else. Honest, just ask Tom Friedman of the NYTimes!
The whole thing reminds me of Germany in the 1920..."before the deluge"...when it was everyone for themself, and the "Goth" lifestyle was also in vouge. Of course it took the Fascists to "restore meaning" for that generation...!
The Native Americans in the 1890's...The Germans in the 1920's...and the Americans today...
They are all victims of the Ghost Dance mentality...!
Let's hope we can turn this around in 2006...at least a little bit.
