Francis Wheen's STRANGE DAYS INDEED

[xiphias]

Lis is reading Francis Wheen's history of the 1970s, which is subtitled "The Golden Age of Paranoia". It is a history of the 70s, mainly in the United States, but also in the UK (where Wheen is from), and around the world.

Lis just told me that she's just got to the part where Wheen makes the argument -- and backs it up -- that the reason Richard Nixon was ABLE to go to China was because Mao and Nixon were both psychotically paranoid -- and they thought of each other's fears as reasonable. Mao and Nixon had actual sympathy for each other, because nobody else actually BELIEVED that there were conspiracies out to topple and/or kill them, but they found kindred souls in each other, people who actually ACKNOWLEDGED the dangers that the other one lived under, and lived under similar ones themselves.

It sounds like an amusing and terrifying book.

One thing that keeps me from despair and apocalyptism is studying history. You think it's bad now? What about in the 1930s, when criminals ruled most of America's cities, and organized crime literally ran the justice system? Or the 50s, when there was a real clear danger of nuclear annihilation, and fascist elements in the United States ran witch-hunts against dissidents? Or the 1970s, when a real good chunk of the world's population was under the governance of people who were literally, clinically insane, and heavily armed?

When you study history, it puts today's problems in perspective.

Comments

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

Could be worse... when I first heard the title my mind immediately thought of Paranoia the RPG rather than where the book was going :-)

I'm not sure that we aren't just in a 'pause' period between terrifying cycles.... there are too many of the forces of unreasonableness of a violent nature trying to stir things up in the background for their own fear, paranoia and profit.

The drum beats of the Tea Party folk is starting to sound more racist, more proto-fascist and more prone to violence as time goes on.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I'm certain that there will be other terrifying periods in history. And, sure, there's a possibility that we're on our way into another one of them. But I'm also certain that we'll get through it somehow. Not without damage, because damage always happens. But getting through nonetheless.