Your mind and mine may agree on more
Quote:
Originally Posted by
marct
Oh, I doubt you will see them dying out. First off, I fully expect you to be around in 20 years, and second, I'm pretty sure we 20 years from now will just show us another bunch of ego-centric psychotics wanting to control the world ;). 100 years from now, OTOH, will be another story...
than a few years but I suspect a body that has, as they say, been rode hard and put up wet isn't likely to cooperate. :cool:
I meant the current crop of leaders will be gone within 20 years and their various organizations will morph to less deadly variants -- to be replaced, as you say, by a totally new batch of nut cases with a different agenda to cause minor panic and showcase the general failure of the west to rapidly adapt. :eek:
Schmedlap also suspects that you're correct. I certainly could be wrong and he and you correct. He says the religiously fervent types will outlast the current generation. He correctly ascribes it to a generation rather than my 20 years, picked as a number because these guys are really at the end of their generation which came to the fore after the Six Day war and the War of Attrition embarrassed them and gave them a 'cause' (thus my 20 years was a very conservative estimate -- I suspect it will be somewhat sooner).
To be sure they will have followers and successors, religion has great staying power -- but it changes with the times or slightly behind them. Some religions are further behind the times but today rapid global communications will put put significant pressure on them.
Regardless, history, I think is generally on my side with respect to the extreme ideologies and religious zealots -- the ideology and the religion stay, however the zealotry and / or fanatacism tend to be countered, seen as excessive, annoy a great many potential supporters and turn off many nominally disinterested observers. Their excesses hurt them and their cause and thus as the hard core die, the movement usually dissipates and morphs to either underground or less rabid manifestations. Y'all check it out in 2029 and send me a wire... ;)
Zealotry from any source is counterproductive and dangerous, thus you'd think we'd be smart enough to avoid it. Not so, each new generation brings a fresh crop -- usually with different agendas than their predecessors. Can't emulate the preceding generation...