Chickens Running in All Directions (III)

While the Referendum to dismiss the Latvian Saeima, initiated by the former President of Latvia, Valdis Zatlers, was successful and the numbers of voters participating was respectable (688,246 or 44.62% of eligible voters participated; 94,3% voted for dismissal, while 5,49% voted against), the net result in this writer’s opinion signals “more of the same”. That is to say, the immediate past is likely to continue in the immediate future even as social disintegration picks up speed.

Reason for expecting no more than “more of the same” is the Referendum initiator’s (Zatlers) subsequent failure to agitate on behalf of his initiation at the populist* level. Such an agitation would likely have increased voter participation. If participation had reached past the 50% level, say 60%+, it could have become an expression of popular demand, rather than but a popular opinion, which is where matters stand now.

*[Former president Zatlers made a personal gesture toward the unorganized populist citizenry by saying (to paraphrase) that he had finally had enough of the Saeima and that his innards had revolted and had pressed him to publicly suggest its dismissal http://www.apollo.lv/portal/news/articles/244659 . However, the gesture was weak; it had no follow-through.]

While social disintegration in Latvia is the result of corruption, greed, and blatant dishonesty among the Latvian ruling elite, the worst of it, a lack of public trust in government (now a hot potato in the new President Andris Berzins hands), will continue to worm its way through the remains of society*, delivering, in the end, a sterilized wreck at a hospital named “Brussels”.

*[Society: in the sense it was perceived by Robert Owen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Owen , in the words of Karl Polanyi: “He was deeply aware of the distinction between society and state…. emphatically (he did) not (believe the state ought to perform) the organizing of society.”]

While the Latvian Kulturas Ministry may play Brussels’ bureaucrats Copland’s ‘Fanfare For the Common Man’ as they reverently celebrate the funeral of Latvian society http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzf0rvQa4Mc , the Ministry’s complicity in the loss of cultural bearings by Latvians is significant.

I have previously noted the eradication of former cultural orientations such as by Bishop Alberts Crusade, by the Herrnhuters, followed by the Lutherans (and other neo-Christian sects), followed by nationalist founding violence, followed by True Believers (Dievturi), followed by the Soviet occupation, followed by occupation of liberal capitalist banks, followed by the unread, followed by Pop ‘culture’, followed by a dominance of views as expressed by a corrupt Saeima. And this is not to say that there are no other cross-cultural currents at numerous intersections of what once was mainstream or proto-Latvian. The collective brain of Latvians quite simply has been overcome by the overload of disintegrations, and has now broken down and died.

Of course, one may wish to think that the listed series of cultural stages makes for an inheritance the size of the Ganges River. However, the actual result is a history of serial marriages suffering from forgetfulness of previous relationships, which has in effect led to near total loss of memory of history among Latvians.

Any effort by patriots to connect the present to the past is imagined by zealous supporters of liberal individualism as certain deviants sneaking off to the woods to have sex with fascists. And who can deny that following a system’s lockup everything outside the system becomes heretical and sinful? Institutional bureaucracy, having by now come up with its own recipe for ‘society’ and keeping the lid on the kettle to over cook it (to rid it of any vitality), does not remember ever having had an orgasm except perhaps at the time of the nation’s long ago founding. That event, however, has become abstracted and is no longer part of active collective memory.

Whatever the sorrows of those who support the rule of society over the rule of individualism, the leaders of Latvian society today act as if they are chickens entrusted with globalization. The fattest chickens are, naturally, strutting as if they were ‘oligarchs’, while the most henpecked chickens, the poor and mothers with children, are left to create the foundations of Latvian ‘society’ with a language few understand as having roots other than in the naked present.

Is there then a chance of survival for Latvian ‘society’ (whatever it may be like at this point) at this time of sacrificial crisis http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/pmahon/Girard.html short of renewed founding sacrifice? In this writer’s opinion—not.

Some form of founding or re-founding sacrifice has to take place. While many, perhaps fearing the attractions of a fascist orgasm, are likely to object (especially those for whom ‘human rights’ have become a religion), the attractions of society when society is breaking down are likely to override the objections.

What then might ‘founding sacrifice’ be like in our day—if it takes place outside of what formerly was—most of the time—known as  ‘founding war’ or scapegoating of an innocent? To find the answer, we must look at several authorities concerned with this question.

This blogger will continue develop this theme in the upcoming next several blogs.

This blog may also be found at http://the4thawakening.blogspot.com/