Wit, Wisdom &amp; Wonder

Yep. He's right on all accounts.

He also said that about every 20-25 years, we need to hang corrupt politicians from lampposts. It is far too easy to create corrupt bureaucracy in this country, and we see what it gets us. :(

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Lamposts, what are those? LOL We don't have them around here.

Though, I've got a neighbor with a really crazy bull. We could volunteer him.

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I've been thinking about the decadence of our society, and the parallels with other societies which ultimately died of corrosion.

A friend of mine who is the companion of someone who "knows these things" mentioned to me the other day that Las Vegas has 2- 3 years of water left, and that businesses are folding there left and right.

I started thinking about the BDSM community, and what seems to me to be an apparent surge in its numbers (I'm not amongst them). I considered the spread of goth culture and its attraction to decaying oppulance. I started wondering about what creates a society that flocks to a coliseum, or numbs itself with indulgence, or otherwise goes for the bigger thrill while the gov't turns to slime mold.

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There are parallels in Wicca, as well.

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Absolutely. It will be interesting to see where BTW has gone in the next ten years.

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Some segments of it actually seem to be waking up to the concept of personal responsibility. Others . . . not so much. I've got a theory about the maintenance of a ratio within the ranks. :)

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As you know, I hope to return someday. Preferably after a move, from the looks of things.

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So you've mentioned. I've got a few opinions that would be best done privately.

Imagine that, I've got opinions.

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Opinions from you are always welcome, as you know.

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The Wicca are part of the societies they live in.

What do you see as parallels?

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The Wicca are part of the societies they live in.

The Wica are, and often seek to be, but many of those identifying as Wiccan are actually quite opposite. Many of them see themselves as outcasts, misunderstood, victims of the partriarchy, or outright separatists of one sort or another. There is a -very- different paradigm among the pagan/wiccan herd than there is for people in the trads.

The parallels, as I see them, are centered around escapism and distraction. The more disconnected from ourselves and each other we become, the more likely we are to seek indulgence, or distraction, or escapism. There's a huge difference between a user of magic and someone who succumbs to magickal thinking.

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Ah. I was using my usual default definition of Wicca to mean Trad types.

Those that self-identify are also looking for a sense of belonging to something - anything - which in turn explains the proliferation of subcultures. I'm reminded of the song Kicks by Paul Revere and the Raiders. The disconnection and rootlessness is nothing new. This societal sickness has been growing since the earliest part of the last century, but it's gained a lot of speed since the mid-1950's.

Maybe the current crop of snake oil salesmen should start hawking ruby slippers.

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Let me see if this quote helps put some of this into context. It's from a weather forum that I am on, and the topic is the irresponsible activities of contemporary tornado chasers--another segment of society that has seen an astronomical influx of people, with the exact. same. problems.

*"We have all seen stories on TV about people, mainly kids, posting videos on YouTube of themselves attacking others (students, teachers, homeless people) and performing dangerous and/or illegal acts for the sole purpose of gaining attention or creating a "bad ass" alter-ego to compensate for their otherwise pathetic and boring lives."*

But isn't the end of that statement part of the problem? When "Voices of Reason" portray simply living quiet, normal, responsible (usually) lives as "pathetic and boring" they are in essence using high school-esque peer pressure to encourage turns to irresponsible behavior.

And let's be honest, the primary reason that quiet, normal, responsible living (the foundation of civil society) has been berated for the last 50 years as "uncool, boring, and pathetic" was basically for political reasons. Leftist that now dominate most aspects of the media didn't like how those people tended to vote. Outnumbered, they couldn't win at the ballot box so they've engaged in a long drumbeat of sneering and denigration to try to stigmatize and peer pressure change. The whole counterculture garbage where in the 60's and 70's outlaws were portrayed as cunning heroes and lawmen or productive housewives as not so bright 'squares' and 'Stepford Wives'. Let's not perpetuate their urban myths and demonizing by using their same soundbites. Sorry for the tangent, but that phrase really struck a nerve. It really irks me how decent people who are so foundational are often denigrated and devalued for not engaging in irresponsible and reckless behavior. Though I'm willing to bet that the author didn't intend that at all, and given the overall theme of his post, probably quite the opposite.

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