Some random thoughts

This is a bit stream of consciousness, but since it's my blog, here goes...

Explicit ideological discourses are downstream from economy. For instance, the postmodern SJW left won't change anything by simply changing the "stories". In fact, they don't want to change anything in the first place. As long as the economy stays capitalist, nothing fundamental will change. The SJWs are a social cult grasping for more institutional power in late capitalism.

But does this mean that the economy is the "cause" of everything ? Isn't there something upstreams from economy? We could call it "culture". 

Why did capitalism root itself more firmly in some societies, but not others? It has been most succesful in Anglo-Saxon societies, next in Continental Germanic and Scandinavian ones. It has been comparatively less succesful in Romance and Slav nations. This almost exactly follows the religious divides between Protestantism and Catholicism, but also different forms of Protestantism. 

Why have Germanic nations become unique in their "openness" to new influences? There is no Muslim, Chinese, Black, Aztec or Russian Livingstone. It's easy to imagine a non-Germanic Stanley. Why is Faustian civilization "Western"? Christianity can't be the reason, since it didn't change the Russians, Ethiopians or Sicilians. Nor can it be the Catholic Church ban on cousin marriage. South Italy is still clan-ridden after 1,700 years of Catholicism.

Could the eventual dissolution of clans in the Germanic nations have deep roots in pre-history? The comitatus or Männerbund could be an ancient Indo-European institution, which was not based on blood ties, but on individual recruitment of warriors not related to the ruler or to each other. Of course, patterns of marriage and land ownership must also have been decisive. 

Swedes have a very strange mentality. We don't make any distinction between the "state" and the "society". Indeed, we tend to think that *we* are the state. At the same time, Swedes seem surprisingly easy to brain-wash, Swedish culture constantly changing according to the wishes of the state (the real one).

The Swedish peasantry has always been free. It had organs of local self-government already during the Middle Ages, perhaps earlier. After King Gustav Vasa smashed the peasant rebellions against his autocratic rule (16th century), he and later kings nevertheless accomodated the peasantry by giving them representation in Parliament. Somehow, a synthesis of strong centralized leadership and a democratic impulse emerged, including a tendency to trust the great leader and the state. Note that this happened under Lutheranism. The parallels to how workers viewed the Social Democratic leaders are obvious, as is the "work ethic", and so on. 

More generally, does the economic base really cause the non-economical phenomena in the superstructure? The cultural diversity of "pre-modern" societies was enormous, even when the societies had virtually identical material bases. The material base is a constraint, but within it, there can be many different superstructures. We don't see this, since the superstructure in our society is (perhaps ) entirely dependent on its base. 

The idea of "Progress" is a conceit. It's really the ideology of the Faustian bourgeoisie, enthusiastically embraced by all of the people. It's similarities to Christianity, Postmilleniallism in particular, are obvious. The people often turn it against the establishment, but that doesn't make it more "true". In a society based on, say, the revelations of a Great Pumpkin, the people would no doubt use the Pumpkin's words against the establishment.

World history didn't inexorably take us to this point. Or if it did, it was because of deep societal karma that goes back centuries, maybe millennia. It's nevertheless relatively easy to envisage a situation in which Nazism or Stalinism would have taken over most of the world.

Liberalism is a paranthesis. So is globalism. 

That we are "open" and Faustian is not necessarily a good thing in the present situation.