The entrance into modernity is a painful and traumatic business for everybody. Two world wars and endless local conflicts have been fought over it. Russia is going into a tailspin right now because a neighbor who is entering into modernity faster than Russia is prepared to do freaks the whole country out. And before you condemn the stupid, terrified Russians, tell me where your country was in 1914 and 1939. I’m guessing it was either in the exact same place or about to get there.
The US was always much better at modernity than everybody else. Anti-colonial struggle, Constitution, separation of church and state, participatory democracy, individualism, capitalism, industrialization, women’s rights, workers’ rights, sexual revolution, mass culture, technology, education, science – it was always ahead, always rushing head on into modernity, the very modernity that everybody else feared so much. The US fought its big anti-modernity vs pro-modernity war back in the 1860s and, as a result, wasn’t that interested, that emotionally involved and passionately invested in the two world wars. Why worry and fret if the decision to become modern was made long before others started to awaken to the inescapable push of modernity?
And then something happened. It was as if by the end of the XXth century the country had reached the limit of its capacity to tolerate modernity and got scared of its own comfort with it. Great efforts started to be made to roll back all of the great advances achieved since the XVIIIth century. Modernity’s greatest project – and its greatest success – seems to be giving up on it.
Of course, it’s all useless. Time can’t be turned backwards, and just like every effort the world has seen of stopping modernity’s triumph, this one will fail, too. It’s up to us whether the price we pay for this resistance is as high as what others paid for it.
Clarissa's Blog 
I know you exaggerate sometimes to spark discussion, but what “great efforts” are you talking about? Women rights are better than in the 50ies. Wars abroad were before too.
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The point I’m making is that the US today is far behind on women’s rights compared to other developed countries today.
In the 1950s, US was ahead on women’s rights compared to other Western countries.
Today, we are falling behind other developed countries in every area where we used to lead. Every single one.
And I never exaggerate. I always say exactly what I think. It’s the autism. 🙂
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I’m not so sure that time can’t be turned backward. Look at Iran.
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Spain also managed to pretend it was living back in the XVIIth century for two whole minutes (in historic terms.) But that was obviously just temporary.
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I was always under the impression that Russia never quite managed to jump from feudalism to an industrialized society and this caused great trauma which neither Russia nor any of the former satellite states ever recovered from.
And yes, I do believe the U.S. is in decline when it comes to modernity. While I’m in the middle of it, I’m declaring that we are in a historical moment of immense stupidity.
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All cultures carry a degree of feudalism and ideas from different eras into the present. Capitalism would surely die if we were to not have these pre-existing structures of desire. For instance, consider martial arts. The origin of all the arts is totally feudalistic. And we continue to bow as we enter the doors of the dojos. Consider marriage — the basis a huge capitalist industry and yet based on the principles of patriarchy and woman ownership. Consider fashion — it comes from the French and other aristocratic courts. Etc.
It’s very naive to think we have totally transcended the past, or even that it would be desirable to have done so.
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Read the following and thought about escaping modernity:
Medieval peasants are the epitome of sheeple. They did what their monarchs commanded, deferring to the divine right of kings. […] Both secular and religious leaders worked to convince the peasants that obedience was their lot in life.The world becomes a better place only in the indefinite future when Jesus comes.
Eventually the peons realized that together they were powerful, and the world changed.
Now we see this process in reverse. We have power, and a political structure allowing us to exercise that power. So our elites work to convince us that organizing is bad. Even the formal groups through which we exercise power are bad: unions are bad for their members, governments are corrupt and seldom effectual.
History shows these beliefs to be obviously false, the result of amnesia about our past.
Thus, you get homeschoolers, libertarians, etc.
Ironically, instead of exercising self-reliance and defending “freedom,” they would make exploiting the new peasants, including themselves, all the easier.
In Israel there is “we vs. them” narrative, not “I vs. society.”
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