2020 has been crazy and 2021 doesn’t seem to be breaking the trend. The LFP New Year Special is traditionally an occasion to looks back to the prior year and forward to the next. However given the seismic changes in Governments Governance of the people and the ongoing cultural revolution I thought we should take a look at what historical authorities said that would go some way to understanding the roots of our current situation. If we don’t understand the causes of our current predicaments we will not be able to develop a regular antidote.

Thus the 2001 New Year Special is a very special episode that steps out of the usual Fintech stream and instead goes off to the library to see what we can learn from prior centuries.

So if you want to hear details of Fintech tune in to the rest of this years shows and skip this one.

If however you are interested in the future of your society and civilisation then you might be interested in particular in three themes I will cover.

First Oswald Spengler’s the Decline of the West written a century ago. Without a doubt the centuries long rise of Europe and European ways has utterly changed the whole world. In the same way the decline – in absolute or relative terms – or even some revival that we cant currently see of the west will be the major factor over the coming century.

Second all successful civilisations as the first historiographer Ibn Khaldun describes need a centripetal principle. What happens when this disappears? In the 19thC Friedrich Nietzsche accurately foresaw that the Decline of Christianity would inevitably unravel European society with problematic consequences.

Thirdly I will talk about an under-rated and not so widely-known 20thC thinker Christopher Lasch who wrote on many topics but I focus on two of his books in which he outlined problematic major cultural trends in America – the rise of emotionalism and elitism – which so dominate current discourse on all topics.

By zooming out from the short-term noise and stresses to three meta-topics I hope I can enable you to visit some deeper ideas that you can pick and choose from and incorporate in your own maps of the world.

I also announce at the end of the show a giveaway for those with the stamina and interest to listen that far

Links to articles mentioned:

Lord Sumption on the definition and actuality of a Police State

Telegraph article on population adjusted deaths for over a century

Covid19 and the world of work – ILO

Oxfam “The Inequality Virus” Report

John Grey “The Woke Have No Vision Of The Future”

Delingpole w/Patrick Wood – Technocracy and the Great Reset

Ed West “The Book That Predicted 2020”

Christopher Lasch “The Revolt Of The Elites Have they cancelled their allegiance to America?”