Themes and Predictions from 1866 to 2065

Intention and Acknowledgement

My intention is to describe in simple terms how we got here to this point of history in 2023. I will as best as I can explain the $34 Trillion in US national debt, the degradation of cities like Philadelphia, New Orleans, and San Francisco, the ineptitude of the US Congress, the rise of Cryptocurrency, and the lostness of society. I will do this by exploring the last 200 years of history from 1866 to today. My aim is not to take us back so we may move forward. There is no past or future. All we ever have is the present. It is in the present we are either living in truth or in error. However, in reviewing the ideas that influence our present, we may correct our errors and live more in the truth. This will feel like a trip through the past. I want you to think of it more like a code that we can review, affirm, or change. God knows, we need to understand the code operating in our society and change it. 

Further, I am just going to tell the story of the past 200 years. I am one man and I need the help of others to complete this task. I pick the last 200 years because those are the ones closest to us. The task of my generation is to take on this project all the way to the beginning of humanity, correcting our errors and accepting the consequences throughout.

What I am advocating for is essentially the destruction of bad narratives, erroneous ideas, and destructive practices. I am advocating that those who promote and practice these bad ideas be punished while becoming sure in our hearts the justice of holding these people to account. There may be those among you who think this is a dangerous practice, to challenge the stories driving our society. I understand the fear. Every great turning of the ages comes with risk and reward. Nevertheless, since we are collectively waking up to the destruction of our world and since we are at a great changing of the generations, from the age of the Baby Boomers to the age of the Millennials, let us at least attempt to question the story driving our age and see if its worthy to continue or be changed. 

Throughout this retelling of the last 200 years, you will see that there are there those who drag us away from the truth and there are those who leave bread crumbs to lead us back. I’m struck in particular by the popularity of Walt Disney’s retelling of ancient fairytales and DC Comic’s resurrection of supernatural heroes in 1937 and 1938, nearly 60 years after Neitzsche declared “God is dead”. In this small way, we see the battle between truth and anti-truth throughout the ages. 

Finally, I’d like to describe my method for telling this story. I was trained at Millsaps College in Jackson, MS where I was taught in their Heritage Course to understand how ideas flowed throughout history leading to expressions in art, literature, music, and political and religious movement. I am therefore, an analogous thinker, seeking to see the essential elements that are carried on in different expressions. For instance, I will assert that 4’32’’ by John Cage and “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Becket are musical and theatrical expressions of the 1942 philosophy of Albert Calmus asserting that  “Life is Absurd”. It is not my aim to exhaustively describe any of these subjects since my aim is more about the pathology of ideas than the ideas and expressions themselves.

Acknowledgements

For the exposure to these ideas and the skill of understanding idea pathology, I would like to acknowledge a few key figures in my journey.

I am indebted to the professors like Dr. William Storey, my symposium leader who taught me that people say “that’s interesting” especially when they don’t mean it, Dr. James Bowley, who wrote a scathing review of the Truth Conference I held at the college in 2008, Dr. Ammon, the village atheist, and many others within and outside of the Heritage course. 

I am thankful to my father, whose story won’t be told here, but whose love for me funded a large portion of my college education and provided me with a treasure of memories learning how to play, fail, and learn through the game of baseball.

I’d like also to thank a few Christian pastors; Dr. John Piper for his courage to seek and proclaim great truths, especially the story of God through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Mark Dever for extending me an internship to study with him from 2009 to 2012; and Jonathan Edwards for his brilliant mind applied to the study of the Will and the logic of God’s nature. 

I could go on naming many more, from Aristotle to Martin Luther to Ayn Rand to Martin Luther King. Let it suffice to say that I am thankful for many other lights, from philosophers, movie stars, poets, novelists, directors, artists, comedians, and others who have provided anchors into reality and windows into the truth. 

Finally, I would like to acknowledge the Creator whose story it is that we are all living and seeking to understand. He is the Author of all authors, the Genius of geniuses, and the Love of all loves. In every character, every event, every tragedy, and every triumph, I see His hand shaping, emphasizing, and proclaiming the goodness of His Name and the greatness of His Grace. I do not speak of Him as Frodo might speak of Aragorn but as both might speak of Tolkien. It is in Him that I have my thoughts, actions, and life and I am eternally grateful to Him for my every breath. 

How We Got Here: From “God is Dead” to $34,000,000,000 in Sovereign Debt

Each generation both inherits the ideas of its parents and accepts the task of refining or rejecting those ideas. The generation prior to 1866, the generation of American Independence, rejected the idea of Monarchial sovereignty and religious authority. Say whatever you want about other ideas at the time, the political expression of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution was the high watermark of the efforts of the generation before it. By 1866, however, that generation was dying out and handing on the task of furthering its ideas to its children. The main idea, I will argue, that was passed on was that this material world is all there was and that we ought to find a way to live without the endless squabbles of church leaders or the tyranny of kings. The final act of this generation is the American Civil War which killed the old world of black chattel slavery. 

1866-1904

This generation inherited the idea from their parents that that this material world is all there is. They then concluded that this meant that God was dead. Religious institutions especially though-out Europe fell during this time. The task they would hand to their children would be to find meaning without God.

Notable Dates in this Generation 

1882 - “God is Dead” spoken by Friedrich Nietzsche at age 38 (Born 1844)

1890 - Manifesto issued by Later Day Saints president Wilford Woodroof condemning the practice of polygamy in exchange for admittance into the United States union. 

1899 - Russian society is not allowed to have any religion

1906-1945 (Life is Absurd)

This generation believed that God was dead and found out this meant that life was absurd. Leaders, both political, economic, and philosophic started to become separated from the meaning of their words.

Notable Dates in This Generation:

1913 - Installment of Federal Reserve by Woodrow Wilson at age 57 (Born 1856)

• Wilson was 26 years old when Nietzsche wrote “God is Dead” in The Gay Science

1913 - Federal Income Tax installed - Reestablishing the institution of slavery on the American people

1914 - World War I (The Fall of Germany)

1920 - American inflation (The Roaring 20s)

1921 - Hyperinflation of the German Mark 

1921 - Nazi Party created

1929 - US Stock Market Crash

1937 - Walt Disney releases Snow White (A story of a girl who lost her parents and is now under the control of an evil power. The theme is the juxtaposition between the fading beauty of power (The Queen) and the Rising beauty of love (Snow White). Elements of the “True Image” are captured in the Queen’s mirror. 

1938 - The Golden Age of Comics begins (Superman, Captain America)

• In the absence of God, society elevated heroic, supernatural figures to fight the chaos engulfing them.

1939 - World War 2

1940 - Walt Disney releases Pinocchio (A story about a wooden boy becoming a man and rescuing his father from the depths of chaos)

1942 - “Life is Absurd” spoken by Albert Camus at age 29 (Born 1913)

1946-1985 (The Age of Rights and the Death of Responsibility )

Notable Dates in this Generation

1946 - The Nuremberg Trials - Nazi leaders were brought to justice while thousands of soldiers who were members of the regime and the other “silent bystanders” who carried out orders and permitted the atrocities of World War II were never held accountable. The movie Judgement at Nuremberg is released in 1961. 

1963 - President John F. Kennedy is assassinated

1964 - Civil Rights Act passed

1965 - Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society supported by Congress

1968 - Martin Luther King Assassinated

1971 - Petrodollar created

1972 - Richard Nixon takes America off the gold standard, establishing an empty dollar as a standard of price.

1972-1974 - Watergate which forced Nixon to resign. Nixon famously said “When the president does it, it’s not illegal” establishing a category of political actors who are above the law.

1973 - OPEC oil embargo

With the defeat of Nazism, Americans were considered the good guys. Yet the existential crisis from the death of God (the source of goodness) and Camus verdict that life was absurd still weighed heavily on the conscious of the West. The Nuremberg trials shortly after V-Day did not offer the West a true solution into the atrocities of Nazi Germany since many silent and willing participants in the atrocities, the Germany people and the industrial and political leaders of other nations were not held to account.

Since the knowledge of goodness had been lost, the West attempted to focus on the feelings of being good. To maintain this feeling, myths of American exceptionalism were told. Without a villain, however, it was hard to feel like a hero. This led to the era known as the Cold War where both the characters of the heroic West and villainous East were built up in a fictions and real arms nuclear arms race. 

In addition, this was an era of existential crisis. Americans needed to know they were living right, even if that belief was an illusion. The character in Saving Private Ryan illustrates this when he asks his wife “tell me that I’ve lived a good life”. This generation would be known for seeking external validation for internal worth, rejecting all forms of external negation, such as the oil embargo of 1973 and famously in the words of Richard Nixon rejecting all forms of legally responsibility by claiming the president was above the law. The monetary printing press and deficit spending would become a tool of political satisfaction, for what would the Great Wars of the previous generation been for if America was found to be weak? 

1986-2025 (The Fall of Communism and the Addiction to Money)

Notable dates for this generation

1986 - I am born

1987 - Allan Greenspan, disciple of Ayn Rand, becomes chairman of the Federal Reserve. He would head the institution in charge of controlling the nations money supply until 2006

1987 - Stock market crash of 1987 (Black Monday)

1989 - Fall of Berlin Wall (Marks the end of the Soviet Union

1994 - MLB baseball strike

2000 - Dot.com Crash

2001 - Terrorist attacks of 9/11

2008 - Great Financial Crisis

2009 - Introduction of Bitcoin / Rise of Cryptocurrencies

2020 - Covid-19 Lockdowns

2023 - US Sovereign Debt reaches $34,000,000,000,000.

With the death of Communism, this generation is marked by a struggle to enjoy the victory of the decline of the Soviet Union. While many declared the fall of the Berlin Wall as the triumph of free markets, the refutation of atheism, and the exceptionalism of America, seeds of discontent and unease were evident throughout the country. Baseball players who once played for food money cancelled the 1994 season in protest of low salaries. Allan Greenspan used the money creation powers of the Federal Reserve to artificially stimulate markets, resulting in the dotcom crashes of 2000 and the Great Financial Crisis eight years later. ]

Meanwhile American political leaders were advocating for a New American Century with America leading the way of the hero of the world. In order to be a hero, however, America needed a villian. With the fear of the Soviet Union falling in the minds of Americans, these leaders created terrorist threats in the form of Middle Eastern Islamist while also orchestrating the dramatic attacks of September 11, 2001. 

The Great Financial Crisis woke many Americans up to the fragility of the markets and the ineptitude of American leadership. In an effort to wrangle the process of money creation from the political psychopaths of the time, Bitcoin was created. Unfortunately, this was a continuation of the previous generations belief in the value of empty numbers, using them to keep the powers of poverty and evil at bay. 

Now we find ourselves trying to understand ourselves the same was an alcoholic or drug addict might attempt to understand themselves. None of this makes sense. We are so far removed from the belief in God that we have lost our understanding of science. The period between March 2023 and the end of the Covid-19 pandemic illustrated this loss of logical and scientific thinking in vivid color. Political convenience was used to deploy the pre-text of scientific authority, resulting in massive abuse and subsequent distrust of American and global institutions such as the World Health Organization (WHO). 

In addition, now we find ourselves embroiled in global military conflicts that seem to be driven more by market forces and monetary interest than any pursuit of justice or peace. The current US president clearly has dementia, embodying perhaps a visual archetype of the ineptitude of the Baby Boomer generation. 

Summary:

The generation that claimed that “God is Dead” led to the generation that concluded “Life is Absurd.” Since Life is Absurd, the next generation concluded that Responsibility is a Myth. In the absence of responsibility, the current generation is left with few guides for how to live, elevating monetary wealth as the highest good one can possibly achieve. This story has now come to its logical conclusion. Global debt is beyond sustainable and we are on the brink of possible global death with the threat of nuclear war. My generation, the millennials, must now make a choice. Shall we continue on with this story or question its validity. Is this indeed the best story we can tell or is there perhaps another story that is better?

In asking these questions, I feel compelled to affirm the goodness of these past 200 years. All things happen for a reason. What could we possible appreciate about the past 200 years? What was the purpose and what are we to learn from it?

I would like to argue that for 200 years, the global world has been able to experience the death of God. We have become intimately familiar with a taste of what it’s like when God ever so slightly removes merciful hand from humanity and lets them reign apart from him. We have finally reached the dark alley of a godless world, isolated from our morality, our science, and our words. We have looked directly into the face of evil in the expression of Nazism and we have experienced the destruction of bearing false witness in the form of our money. The past 200 years is a warming and a testimony, therefore, to the goodness of God. It calls us to return to the source of our era, the murder of God, which is an era as old as time.

I pray, therefore, that my generation, the Millennials, who will come to power soon, reject the errors of the previous generations. May we reject faith in nothingness and return to Gold Standard of economic value May we return to an era of personal responsibility, recognizing that the line between good and evil runs down the heart of every individual. May we understand that life is meaningful because God is alive. May we long for the resurrection of God and the return of wisdom and logic. May we reject the hate of the last 200 years and elevate Love as the driving force of our generation. 

God is alive

Life is meaningful 

I am responsible 

Millennials therefore, reject the authority of the government and the value of the dollar. Let us see the rebirth of society!