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Friday, September 28, 2007

Dark Age Blog: Life in "The New Normal"

"... The new normal represents, in effect (apart from the madness), the transition from the social security state to the national security state. This may appear to be a confidently aggressive posture (with terrible implications for the practice of democracy). But that is all superficial Wizard of Oz gimmickry. The move from a social security to a national security posture is a highly defensive and even reactionary one -- the response of fear and uncertainty and the reaction to a sense of fracture and disintegration -- anything but assured and confident. The Modern Era (or Western Era) feels threatened and even besieged by the emerging Global Era. This is reflected in the West's declining and dominant share of global power over the last decade or two. The new normal in fact looks a lot like the last years of the Roman Empire.

When all the elements making for "life in the new normal" are factored together, the picture that emerges is not one of renewal, rejuvenation, and confidence, but one of decline. The condition of "permanent change" appears to be one of steady erosion and corrosion of an "old normal" of past standards and ideals. The apparent paradigm shift from a social security state to a national security state would seem to be involved in all descriptions of "the new normal" as the new rule.

But what this shift leaves completely out of account is the recently emergent paradigm of "human security" that has arisen in conjunction with globalism itself, and which transcends, by virtue of being more encompassing, older categories of "society" and "nation". If the only valid criteria for any measure of "normal" is, that it must span more than one generation in time and more than one locale in space in order to be considered "real", then only the paradigm of "human security" actually meets that standard of authenticity currently. Just as the Global Era represents the supersession of the Modern Era, so the concept of "human security" represents the supersession of both social and national security categories by virtue of its being more embracing of all notions of security. ..."
 

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