John,

Being as how I'm a libertarian, you probably already know what I have to say. :) :)

Truly, I think your unease is mostly baseless. Things have been changing (mostly for the better) since at least the Industrial Revolution began about 200-250 years ago. Yes, the pace seems to get ever faster, but I think ultimately the ability for people to cope with the changes sets an upper limit to how much change happens. You can't "sell" something to people if they don't want to "buy" it.

And I really don't understand the dread with which you seem to view life-extension. You may argue that this world is a vale of tears (and you may be right) and that passage into the next one is a Good Thing(tm). Yet there are people who may not want to "pass on"-- some of them don't believe in an afterlife, and find this life perfectly satisfactory; others may view Death as an enemy to be fought (within reason) with every tool at our disposal-- Jews, especially, seem to take this view; and then there are those who are simply terrified at the thought of dying. Whatever their motivations, shouldn't people be allowed to undergo the necessary treatments to extend their lives for 25, 50, 100, or 1000 years, or indefinitely? Live and let live, I say.

As for how it might change us, I think we need only to look at the changes since 1900 to at least get a good idea what those changes might be. Greater wealth more evenly spread, better health, longer lifespans, greater leisure, more children getting to know their grandparents, etc., etc. What's not to like?

I think I can hear you groan, John. You look at Europe, and your heart sinks. I think you're drawing the wrong lesson from their experience and present state. Is their malaise due to modernity, as you seem to define it (prosperity, the setting aside of superstitions, longer lifespans, etc.)? Or is it due to the destruction of two generations of men (and some women) consecutively?

Think about it. We in the U.S. hear about how we're losing generations of inner-city youths (mostly black) because they don't have good role models for one reason or another. Their fathers are absent (dead, imprisoned, or were never there in the first place), and what male role-models they have all seem to be drug-dealers. (Granted, I'm oversimplifying things, but bear with me.)

Europe may be suffering from a similar pathology writ large, John. Two generations of men-- young, strong, brave, self-confident, full of drive-- marched off to war and into meat-grinders, once in 1914-18, and again in 1939-45. The survivors came back changed by the experience, not always for the better. And the places that the dead would have had as husbands and fathers were instead filled (if they were filled at all) by the old, the weak, the wavering, and the lackadaisical-- the men who didn't go off to war because they either evaded service or were simply unfit.

(Again, I'm oversimplifying for the sake of argument.)

If what I assert above is true, then Europe's ills have less to do with modernity per se and much more to do with a population weakened by an inadvertant slaughter (from the standpoint of genetics) of their best people decades ago, and the flaws in upbringing that flow from that slaughter. I'm no eugenicist, but nature is important in a person's or a society's make-up, and the Europeans have been dealt a pretty lousy hand since 1914.

And the "nuture" side of the street hasn't been all that great since 1918, either. Europeans have been fed a steady diet of socialism, peace-at-any-price idealism, and religion-is-the-root-of-all-evil cynicism for the last few generations. No wonder they lack the fire and spirit of us Americans-- they've been told that they're nothing but helpless puppets in an Earthly hell for so long now, they can't imagine anything different. And so they never think to lift up their hearts, to strive for excellence, to do the things that we Americans do to make our lives more pleasant and meaningful.

Another point-- I think you fall into the same trap as the Communists, John. The Communists talked about things like "the New Soviet Man", a more nearly perfect human being made possible by the wonders of Communist ideology and philosophy (such as it was). Just as the Communists erred by imagining human nature as being almost infinitely plastic, so do you err by imagining that "life extension" and gadgetry and what-not will somehow make us less-than-human, that we will cease to be the noble, base, loving, vicious, generous, and envious creatures we have always been.

John, it's because we will still be human in ages to come that religion will still matter to us. We will still have to get along with each other, we will still wonder what (if anything) comes after death, we will still wonder if the Universe makes any sense and if it was created by a God or Gods.

Instead of despairing about something foolish (as I see it, John), why not set about making the world a better place. How you do that is up to you, of course. But I think you've already done a big part of it already by bringing a couple of fine children into the world, if I remember your previous posts correctly.

In short, Bill Joy, Al Gore, the Club of Rome, and the rest of them are all full of beans. And more and more people understand that.

Cheer up, dude. The good guys are winning.

I disagree with the sanguine Mr. Adams above and tend to agree with your take on the changes we, ourselves, are and will undergo.

These changes will not be a linear progression but non-linear and asymptotic, going to infinity quickly at some point.

On the merely practical level, there are and will be more and more diversions available through extreme technology which keep our lives in pursuit of the trivial and quick and easy sensations. Then we start to settle for more and more triteness and relativity and think it's the norm.

More than ever the solidness of Truth, and for me it's the Truth found in the Bible, will be the only sustaining force available to anchor us.

It predicted over and over again and it will happen. And just like in Noah's time, not a soul took note of the deluge that was imminent until it was too late.

Setting our sights and intentions on the Profound is and will be more important than ever and sadly the last resort for most of us.

God help us all.

It's one thing to live longer due to being healthy and having better food, diseases being cured, etc. It's another thing to artificially extend life using unnatural means -- artificial bodies, nano-implants, and so on are some of the things I have seen speculated. And you may say "but those are outlandish!" but so was the idea of men flying through the air at one time. I'm sure that artificial life-extension will be tried, and I'm sure that the results will be far from a good thing. For one thing, life-extension fans seem to be as blind to the truth about human nature as communists.

People tend to forget about such things as "Whatever can go wrong,will" or the Law of Unintended consequences. Growth doesn't occur without change, and ageing is change. Can you imagine living ,forever, in a world of Boomers? Imagine living in a world where Stalin or Mao lived forever, or Che> I don't know. I grew up thinking change is good,still do. We need new generations to try new things.

Thank you, Hale! Far better said that I could.

I would add that Romano Guardini blaming the two world wars on folks not believing in his God is rather beyond the pale.

To my mind, some folks are good, and some folks are bad - always have been, always will be. And the good folks traditionally have often expressed that in the Church. That's neither surprising, nor indicative of causation.

But let's also keep in mind the good the non-Church has done. Christianity's structural blind spot to the free market as a society-organizing principle is a horrible failing, because nothing has done more to raise more people out of poverty and suffering than capitalism. And it did so often despite the efforts of the Church, not because of them.

I think your post two spots down ("Religion of Conquest") is a far more likely reading of history, with Christianity as an effect, not a driver...

Hale, I don't think you get what I'm getting at. (Good comment though; you are right on lots of things.)

My fear is not of the changes themselves, but that we men will forget who we are. Do I think human nature is plastic? NO. (an interesting issue for another day.) But I think wisdom is plastic, because it is social, not individual (mostly). It is learned and absorbed and is being constantly corrected and taught by society.

My dread is not about things like life extension per se, but about how people lose their bearings in times of rapid change. Part of this comes from having lived through such a time, as a suburban California youth in the late 60's. I saw millions of people jettison much of the hard-earned wisdom of their parents with hardly a thought, and I was not immune to this myself. (A mysterious process, a mysterious giddy time--I'm still puzzled by it.)

Of course a lot of us quickly bounced back. But there are plenty who did not, as I know from living in the midst of them. Plenty of people around here who have simply lost things like patriotism, toughness, pugnacity, and a lot of old-fashioned morality and virtue. It's gone, and they don't even know there's something that's missing!

You are not alone, but may have a kind of canary-in-the-mine sensitivity on these issues.

I am somewhere between bemused and horrified by how little I can find in common with people 2+ generations down. I know the old have always felt a gap, but I do believe it's widening and accelerating. And I can't imagine how the undereducated, celebrity-culture, contracepting two-generations-down will relate to 4/5-generations down. A bumpy ride, because, as you observe, cultural capital is being devoured apace. I am by nature a libertarian, but conclude that libertarian optimism seriously discounts the cultural infrastructure on which it coasts.

Secondly, we may already be at a point of no return even before a Transhumanist Eugenic Singularity. "Believing in the Global South," by Philip Jenkins, in the December 2006 First Things, makes a provocative observation that the prosperous West has lost the experiences and psychology that can actually engage Biblical metaphors of sacrifice, sowing and reaping, scarcity and loss, neighborly / tribal social organization, etc. If the power of the Gospel is what I think it is, this immune-to-the-Biblical epistemology may tip the global balance even more quickly than we expect.

Even if the gates of hell cannot prevail against the Church, that may not sustain the business-as-usual churches and formerly Christian cultures, however enthusiastic and self-affirming, in the developed countries.

That's interesting that you mention Jenkins, I just read his The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South. I recommend it.

But I suspect that there biblical metaphors that us advanced types may become more attuned to. That we are called to be the image of God is more meaningful now when people around us are declaring that they shall remake themselves in whatever image happens to be in fashion this year!

The problem I think is more that we today are encrusted with cynicism and think we already know it all. We are not open.

Ethan,
I don't think Guardini means to suggest a direct cause-and-effect explanation of the wars. (I haven't actually read his book yet, though I have it on order. I found the quote elsewhere.)

But the roots of the wars go back very far (and will never be untangled) and the roots of the decline of faith in Europe also go back very far (and also will never be untangled, at least by us mortals). And I don't think it is at all unreasonable to speculate on their possible inter-relatedness.

As an instance of how these things might be connected, Germany in the 19th Cent. saw a good deal of religious doubt and change, and also saw a growth of militarism that was wierd and almost pathological, and could possibly be explained as a substitute for religion. I read an account of a couple of Englishmen who were drinking with some German students in the pre-war period. The Germans were becoming arrogant and obnoxious. One of the English guys drops into the conversation that his campanion was a captain. The leader of the students instantly shouts "Stand for an officer!" and they all stood up, came to attention and clicked their heels in respect! (I'd call that pretty sick.)

I believe Nietsche actually predicted that, because of the "death of God" the 20th Century would be worse than any that had come before, and even said that bad stuff would start around 1915! Which proves nothing, but is certainly worth chewing on.

I don't think what changed between the 19th and 20th centuries was the death of god suddenly birthing hatred and the horrors of war - I think what changed was the speed of communication and transportation, and the firepower of the weaponry. Anything beyond that is, in my mind, overlaying our own prejudices on the past. I mean, I've read way too much about the 18th and 19th centuries to believe that they were a time of peace and love, and it took the death of God in society to finally break the war-making logjam.

That's obviously not your argument - but I think that absurd reading points to the main flaw in it. People of the 18th and 19th centuries were the same as people of Shakespeare's day, who were the same as people of today - it's just that when Charlemagne wanted people to die, he had to get on his horse, ride for a month or so, sit outside a baron's walls for a while, and maybe eventually bash in some skulls. When the Kaiser wanted people to die, he could tell someone to mobilize the army, and the trains would pull out according to the meticulous schedule of the Schlieffen Plan, hauling some Krupps Paris Guns along...

BTW, not directly relevant, but a thought reading your original post and Hale's reply brought up - especially this line:

Europeans have been fed a steady diet of socialism, peace-at-any-price idealism

...I wonder how much of the current obsession with diplomacy is a learned behavior. The idea is that, as they say, Generals always fight the last war - well, that's probably true on both sides. And one of the common readings of how WWI happened was that the diplomats simply could not get together - delayed communications, misunderstandings, lost opportunities - most of what I've read about the summer of 1914 is written as a litany of failed attempts to get people talking, which would have stopped a senseless war.

I guess, given the upheaval that war caused, and the lack of resolution all that sacrifice brought - in that context, the anti-war left makes complete sense. They're still trying to stop WWI. Unfortunately, wars have a myriad of causes and solutions, and using the WWI template on, say, WWII or the Cold War or the Gulf Wars gives the wrong results.

Sorry, rambling thoughts I thought I'd put out there...John, I'm sure you'll see what I mean better than I explained it, since you're far more steeped in WWI than I am, and have thought more about leftism and pacifism than I have as well...

I read an account of a couple of Englishmen who were drinking with some German students in the pre-war period. The Germans were becoming arrogant and obnoxious. One of the English guys drops into the conversation that his campanion was a captain. The leader of the students instantly shouts "Stand for an officer!" and they all stood up, came to attention and clicked their heels in respect! (I'd call that pretty sick.)

Why? I would call it, rather, a touching example of the Old World honor and discipline and regard for the civilized niceties that were extended even to rivals that were distorted, then abandoned, after World War I (or thereabouts). The society where men bore duelling scars proudly and would always pay their gambling debts while letting their tailor wait for his fee might have been narrow and crazy, but at least it had rules of engagement that everyone agreed on.

Hmmm, maybe you have something there. Quite a few people these days could use a bit of "Old World honor and discipline," to brace them up and get their minds out of the mud. (All present company excepted from these discussions.)

And when I think about how susceptable liberals are to "Stockholm Syndrome," and how when they get kidnapped and later released by terrorists they always come home singing the praises of their captors---their simple dignity, their honor, their selfless devotion to a greater cause blah blah blah---you know what I mean. Well, maybe there's something to be said for a new sort of military draft.....

In general, people are resistant to change. Most people can manage one or two or a few major changes in a lifetime.

I have looked at the accelerating pace of change as a challenge. I want to be adaptable without being completely pliable and strong in my values without being so inflexible I break. It's an interesting challenge, because I certainly have the values that I want to keep.

Ah, well. I am actually optimistic, because I can look at what people say about the world and see how my viewpoint differs— usually for the better. There will be unexpected consequences, but there will also be people who rise to the challenge.

John,

I certainly agree with this statement: Each new technology that comes along changes our societies, often drastically.

But you seem predisposed to assume that the changes will be for the worst. I ran across this essay which makes a pretty good point that, at least to date, society has changed for the better as technology has improved - and he's not just talking about better toys; he's talking about fundamental moral values.

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=011007D

I'm not really prepared to defend everything the guy says, my point is simply that the changes that will result from the age we are in are unknowable. Mankind can change for the better. In fact, I believe that is the natural order of things.

That's a very interesting piece. worth pondering.

My point was not exactly that changes will be for the worse, but you are right to say that I have a predisposition to pessimism. Perhaps because i've grown up in a society with a certain leftist predisposition to feel optimistic about changes that I abhore. (Steyn put it so well, that the leftist assumption is that "In the future everything will be like Sweden." I know a bit about Sweden (in fact I have relatives there) and I don't like the idea one little bit...

One problem with these discussion is that we don't share common definitions of what improvement is. When the author says that people have improved morally, I have a sneaking suspicion he means something very different than I would if I wrote that line.