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If WWI with a followup WWII reminder hasn't done it, not sure what will

• ramesh31 1y ago
  >If WWI with a followup WWII reminder hasn't done it, not sure what will It did it; for two generations. The GI's and the Silents were the most civic minded generations we ever had. But those were our grandparents (or great grandparents) now, and living memory has finally faded. Here's hoping it doesn't take another Passchendaele or Hiroshima to reignite it.
  • potato3732842 1y ago
    >It did it; for two generations. The GI's and the Silents were the most civic minded generations we ever had And the mass buy-in resulted in the building of systems, creating of institutions and setting of precedents that were and are being used less than civic purposes. So unfortunately I'm not sure that's sustainable either.
    • TimTheTinker 1y ago
      The fact that institutions can be corrupt (or corrupted) doesn't invalidate the concept of an institution. Humans must coordinate their efforts to have widespread impact, and institutions are the de-facto way to coordinate effort: from marriage, the nuclear family, and extended families to local clubs, churches, companies, non-profits, and governments at various levels. Ever since the counter-culture movement of the 1960s, it's been cool to "stick it to the man", which unfortunately translates to anti-institutionalism too often. Tearing things down never yields a positive result when no good institutions exist or are created to fill the vacuum.
      • maigret 1y ago
        Institutions are not corrupt, people are. Corrupt people like to blame the problems onto institutions, that serves them well.
        • TimTheTinker 1y ago
          Yes and no. Corrupt leaders corrupt institutions. But for large enough institutions, institutionalized corruption tends to transcend the corruption (or lack thereof) of its current leaders. At that scale, it takes a lot of power, courage, and integrity for a leader to reform the institution. Power itself can be a corrupting influence when too much is vested onto a single person -- hence the necessity of integrity.
      • potato3732842 1y ago
        Institutions and organizations ought not to be architected in a manner that makes them useful to the corrupt. This is the defining failure of 20th century western governments. They were so "all in" and had so much public support they shape shifted themselves into these things that are magnets for the corrupt and self serving (and arguably tempt their leaders to become those things).
  • dragonwriter 1y ago
    > It did it; for two generations. On the specific issue of internal surveillance and its abuses, that is laughable, given the way that accelerated after WWII, with no substantial attempt at checking it until some fairly limited reforms were adopted in the 1970s after the Nixon-era abuses, with those restrictions being fairly flagrantly ignored (and formally weakened) after 9/11.
  • rxtexit 1y ago
    You mean the same people that built the CIA and NSA? You are literally talking about the founders of the surveillance state.