Re: Culture War 1: Between Two Ages
that has been happening cyclically for centuries, as we experience successive waves of technological changes.
I researched a very interesting paper for a US history class in college, in which I described a strong correlation between periods of rapid technological change followed by an outbreak of widespread religious revivalism. I forget many of the details now and I'm sure the paper has been permanently "misplaced," but the first revivalism wave started while we were still colonials, the "First Great Awakening" of the 1730s and 1740s. There was the "Second Great Awakening" in the late 1700s / early 1800s; Orville Moody in the 1870s/1880s, Billy Sunday in the 1920s, and Billy Graham in the 1950s.
Generally, the same pattern: a society in which many people found nourishment and sustenance was rapidly torn asunder, introducing widespread uncertainty and disruption, forcing people to scramble to adjust. Most people eventually did....it's just human nature that a swath of people retained a strong yearning for the comfortably familiar, gone forever yet not quite forgotten.
Based on this cyclical theory, we are just about due for another widespread religious revival in response to the internet tech revolution we've been living through the past 25-30 years or so.
that has been happening cyclically for centuries, as we experience successive waves of technological changes.
I researched a very interesting paper for a US history class in college, in which I described a strong correlation between periods of rapid technological change followed by an outbreak of widespread religious revivalism. I forget many of the details now and I'm sure the paper has been permanently "misplaced," but the first revivalism wave started while we were still colonials, the "First Great Awakening" of the 1730s and 1740s. There was the "Second Great Awakening" in the late 1700s / early 1800s; Orville Moody in the 1870s/1880s, Billy Sunday in the 1920s, and Billy Graham in the 1950s.
Generally, the same pattern: a society in which many people found nourishment and sustenance was rapidly torn asunder, introducing widespread uncertainty and disruption, forcing people to scramble to adjust. Most people eventually did....it's just human nature that a swath of people retained a strong yearning for the comfortably familiar, gone forever yet not quite forgotten.
Based on this cyclical theory, we are just about due for another widespread religious revival in response to the internet tech revolution we've been living through the past 25-30 years or so.
