The truth is quite the opposite. It is the esthetic-cultural imagination that has a fondness for tyranny, because tyranny provides effective mimetic models, good shows . The market is not about shows, but about the organization of human efforts toward satisfying our desires and generating new ones, in the unceasing, and, we hope, unending effort to stay a step ahead of the resentments it generates. Individuals are concerned more with creating their own esthetic identity from ethnic and other components than with passively consuming the products of culture creators. Wars continue to flare up and be settled tentatively by international agencies.
Ecological crises come to a head and are deferred by the application of new technologies.
Over the long haul, individual freedom increases, the population is better educated, careers become more fulfilling, information processing allows us to treat things more and more like signs. No Don't ask If you enjoyed this column, subscribe to the galist and you'll receive updates about our on-line journal Anthropoetics and get Chronicles of Love and Resentment every week by email .