A slow, almost imperceptible, and yet definite shift is currently unfolding within the civic life of the United States. Most observers have failed to noticed this shift for the simple fact that many political activists and commentators (like the rest of humanity) tend to live about twenty to forty years behind the times in which they live. It is a rare politician, activist or historical observer who actually is aware of the spirit of the age in which they live. The sad fact of the matter is that most people approach the public realm of ideas more as reactionaries, and seldom grasp what is truly happening in their world and time.

In my first blog, I wrote the obituary for that Socialism, and claimed that this particular political theory was dead. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or a political scientist) to observe that the Left, politically, economically, socially, and religiously is totally bankrupt of ideas, policies and practical solutions for our world. But as I asked in my previous article, what killed the Left? My answer: Just as the Post-modern killed the Modern, so it has now slain Socialism.

Now before I continue, allow me make this one caveat. The death of any political theory always takes time, and the left will most likely continue to hold the socialist paradigm as their default position for next several years The reason is that humans are creatures of habit, time, and tradition, and we prefer to live with the devils we know rather than the devils we don’t know. But having said this, the noticeable trend is that not only has Post-modernism killed Socialism, but it is now driving public opinion in America to a right of center position. The explanation of this developing trend lies in the impact the death of the Modern has had on the Western world.

As I stated in my previous post, the Modern viewed mankind primarily as one unitary material organism not necessarily composed of individuals with immaterial parts (such as souls, spirits, minds, etc.), but as material beings united in a mystical and organic whole which was on the verge of reaching the climax of their evolutionary and dialectic march. Thus, the Modern was enthusiastically expecting mankind to enter imminently into the bliss of a materialistic paradise wherein all the corruptions of the past levels of the dialectic process would pass away. However, when mankind reached the twenty-first century, not only did that eschatological hope fail to materialize, but the Post-modern discovered that the dialectic process of human history wasn’t even happening in the first place. Mankind was not a unitary material organism moving towards some historic climax. Instead, the great “We” of humanity was nothing more than a bunch of subjective “I“‘s disconnected from one another while each one simultaneously created their own distinct realities that not only offered contradicting claims, but according to some had their own co-equal and co-existing ontological essences. Hence, for the Post-modern, reality is no longer a unitary whole, but millions (or dare I say, trillions) of disconnected realities all driven by the subject and the subject’s methods of interpretation or lack thereof. Ergo, the two buzz words for the Post-modern are these:

Contextualization and Paradox.

Now I shall not attempt to define the Post-modernist usage of those terms simply because I do not believe even the Post-modernist possesses coherent definitions for them. But I digress. My point is that this paradigm shift in the western world, the death of the Modern, and the rise of the Post-modern, is the simple explanation why Socialism and its Centralized State are dying and being replaced with a new geo-economic and political theory of society. What will be the dominant political and economic theory of the twenty-first century? A modified form of Localism or Libertarianism. But lest those on the political right get overly excited about this observation, this embrace of Localism is not because mankind has suddenly experienced an awakening to the value of individual liberty. No, for the most part, the world is still rushing full speed back to authoritarianism. But for the Post-modern who views reality as splintering apart into a trillion little pieces, entirely disconnected to each other, the only sensible political theory is a form of anarcho-Libertarianism which could be stated more succinctly this way:

Let every man, woman, child or whatever gender you prefer to identify as do what is right in their own eyes.

Thus, in my opinion, the United States will look something like this in the next ten to twenty years:

In government, the centralized state will be replaced with localism or tribalism.

In economics, Keynesian theories will be rejected for a form of anarcho-capitalism that will seek to break both the power of the centralized state as well as that of the centralized corporation.

In society, the family unit will be abandoned for the preference of the co-habitation unit which will involve the growing acceptance of the gay, lesbian, transgender, or alternative life styles. The traditional family unit will not cease to exist in spite of this change of social attitudes. Rather, more individuals will opt for a uncommitted habitation unit rather than a family bound by the Biblical definition of the covenant of marriage between one man and one woman.

In culture, the greater good and glory of the individual will celebrated over that of the unitary whole of the human race.

In the religion, the worship of the individual ego will be exalted over the worship of the collective unity of mankind.

And in theology, a sensory based experience will govern a person’s ability to know God, himself, others and the world, as individual professors of faith will reject both objective propositional truth from a supernatural source or a code of doctrine from a human ecclesiastical authority. Ergo, when the Post-modern era reaches its zenith, its adherents will look something like this:

The Post-modern, Gay (or Lesbian), Libertarian, Existentialist who craves a religious experience that is co-equal and contradictory to the experience of his, her, or its neighbor.

Now that vision of the near future does not scare me at all because that vision will be incredibly short lived for reasons I shall explain in a later post. But here is my point, this growing shift will not only move most of the American populace to the right of center; it will ignite a new political, economic and social conflict for the twenty-first century that will be radically different from the political, economic and social conflict of the twentieth century. This new conflict will not be between the political left and the political right. Instead, the new defining ideological conflict of the 21st century will occur between the Post-modern Libertine Libertarian and the Religious Institutional Authoritarian. And this is the paradigm that is killing Socialism.