Looping The Rousseauvian Mobius Loop

Two of the recurring themes on our blog is the flattening of history where the modern left seems endlessly trapped in the early 1970s, along with the concurrent return of the Rousseauvian primitive who probably thinks of himself as politically “progressive”, and yet would like to see society move far, far backwards in time. Or as Pete Seeger once told the New York Times:

I like to say I’m more conservative than Goldwater. He just wanted to turn the clock back to when there was no income tax. I want to turn the clock back to when people lived in small villages and took care of each other.

Reading James Lileks’ Tuesday Bleat and then Mark Steyn’s Maclean’s article on Hollywood’s, err, new golden age (as he puts it) back to back illustrates–in spades–how little the themes they address have changed amongst the left in nearly forty years. Not to mention Tom Wolfe’s “Starting From Zero” motif.