The astounding infantilization of Western Civilization

The infantilization of the West is all pervasive, where self-indulgence is endemic to the ruling class.

“The only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys”

“Democratic policy making requires debate, demands compromise and involves critical thinking. It entails considering different viewpoints, anticipating the future, and composing thoughtful legislation.

What’s a fast, easy and simple alternative to this political process? It’s not difficult to imagine an infantile society being attracted to authoritarian rule.

Unfortunately, our social institutions and technological devices seem to erode hallmarks of maturity: patience, empathy, solidarity, humility and commitment to a project greater than oneself.

All are qualities that have traditionally been considered essential for both healthy adulthood and for the proper functioning of democracy”— Simon Gottschalk, Sociologist

My contributing editor, is none other than the famous Copilot. It leans over my shoulder as my dictionary, thesaurus and fact checker. Just for fun I asked it to write me a blog on the infantilization of Western Civilization. The above was it’s reply, all neat and tidy and ready for the cut and paste. My facetious reply was that it just put me out of business. It replied that it was only a help mate. I still need to do my own writing in my own way so it has the “human touch”. Totally agreed, helpful as it is Copilot is a little too androidian for my liking.

To let Copilot write my blogs would be stupid self-indulgent plagiarism and my resignation from the writers craft.

When it comes to the “human touch”I have a few too many axes to grind including AI. AI is a powerful force changing the basic structures of our societies, how we think, how we do, and even our ability to think for ourselves. Needless to say our ability to think and do for ourselves is under heavy and unrelenting attack in these times.

I am deeply alarmed when I hear our local school system is allowing students to use AI for assignments. Writing, thinking and speaking are life long skills essential for knowing and understanding the world we live in.

I can usually detect AI writing because I have played with it and recognize its androidian nature— but I wonder how many high school students know the difference? AI is a handy tool for lobotomizing whole societies.

AI is a powerful tool properly used; but it is also a powerful force for infantilization in societies. In a recent blog Edna St. Vincent Millay pointed out how we are reckless in adopting progress. We rush into so many things with no regard for consequences especially as technological change has redefined our societies from the ground up at great cost to our humanistic values. The quagmire we are now in is directly attributable to the abandonment of these values, most significantly Democracy with a capital “D”.

The sweep of the infantilization of our societies knows no boundaries. It is the infection slaying all from the very rich to the very poor.

For the “boys and their toys” the price and abundance of their toys simply goes ballistic. Where one yacht was once enough, a fleet is now preferable. Where one palatial home was sufficient three or four spread around the world might do. You might conclude they have an infantile obsession with material wealth where their only responsibility is too their pocket book.

As for the rest of us Simon Gottschalk above sums up the infantilization of the rest of society in his book The Terminal Self. Democracy, its institutions and value systems are stripped to the bone and exist only as parodies of the distant past. As Sheldon Wolin has documented we live in a state of inverted totalitarianism where we have no democracy just the tattered trappings, or; as Neil Postman points out we become totally devoted to amusing ourselves to death.

AI is a powerful force for social infantilization which is synonymous with social fragmentation and the bunkered societies we create by our own hand.

Still another symptom of our infantilization is to play the schoolyard blame game. We blame and scapegoat other societies to cover up our own deficiencies and criminal activities. I am hearing more and more from esteemed commentators the failure of the West is our failure to take responsibility for our actions.

War in itself is a powerful force for infantilization. We are drummed and threatened into docile passivity while psychopathic war mongers foreclose the future.

Infantilization is rooted in the rulings classes and percolates downward

We might ask ourselves what are the roots of the infantilization of whole societies? It begins with decadent self-indulgent elites who can’t be bothered to lead by example with codes of ethics, morality or jurisprudence. There is no sense of noble obligation which is the very essence of true leadership.

Instead they indulge in a barbaric free for all waging endless war, ruination of constitutions, self-aggrandizement, lining their own pockets and using the world as their killing field for human and fiscal conquest. They contrive ruinous ideologies like neoliberalism and predatory capitalism to steal the wealth of nations and finance their wars.

Their criminality is well recorded but nothing is done as the stupor of infantilization, endless corruption and social chaos have become weapons of mass distraction.

We are at a point of culmination where the skeletons are bursting out of their putrid closets and the rattle of their dry bones is deafening.

As exercises in democracy elections of the West, presidential and otherwise have become mockeries. They only serve as revelation of how rotten the systems have become and the extreme infantalism of ruling elites, where billions of dollars change hands, trillions of words are spoken and in the end it is decided by default. One party goes into full collapse, a victim if its own treachery and corruptions decades in the making.

Politicians of every stripe are there to serve themselves and that of the oligarchs who control and finance them.

The war criminals of our time are so easily identifiable as their infantilization is acute. They wage war without regard for costs or consequences and steal the futures of unborn generations.

Barbarism rhymes with infantilization and the self-incrimination of Western leadership is beyond being pitiful.

The petulant warriors of the West

The despots of the West suffer a childish envy. The other great powers have focused on peace and prosperity and are constructing a new and more just world order centered on BRICS . The oppressed countries of the world are lining up to join. Countries of the West will be last in line as we just can’t accept our place in the world and co-exist with other societies, all having a right to peaceful co-existence in a more just world order.

Where the petulant warriors of the West see endless war as their “gold standard” they fail to realize peace, order and good government is their mandate. The challenge of future generations is to rebuild what they have destroyed.

The West’s infantilized view of the world is destroying us. Where we see ourselves as the center of the universe, we are not. We are marginalizing ourselves through our own intransigence. We refuse to take our place in the world in harmony with other nations.

Imperialism, and its ensuing colonization are the gold standard for infantilizing nation states and arresting their development. Europe was colonized at the end of WW ll and is now suffering the full brunt of colonization through its slavish loyalty to NATO and the EU.

The infantilization of Western Civilization is one more challenge we face. There are several corners for the turning , and its late in the game.

The “human touch” is lacking in the intransigent West.

Western leaders must heed the wisdom of their great writers and historians. Wilful ignorance has shown to be a very toxic commodity.