But Brooks also says, "And yet for all its benefits, liberalism is ailing and in retreat in places like Turkey, India, Brazil, and, if Trump wins in 2024, America itself. Zakaria's book helped me develop a more powerful appreciation for the glories of liberalism, and also a better understanding of what's gone wrong."
Now, drawing on Ong's work, I have indicated that what Brooks refers to as liberalism emerged in our Western cultural history after the Gutenberg printing press emerged in Europe in the mid-1450s. So let me here also indicated that what Ong refers to as our contemporary secondary oral culture that is promoted by communications media that accentuate sound is also related to what Brooks refers to liberalism ailing and in retreat in the places he mentions.
Ah, but why would the deep resonances of secondary orality in the psyches of people somehow disturb certain people in our secondary oral culture in such ways and to such degrees that what Brooks refers to as liberalism is ailing and in retreat in the places he mentions? The only answer that I have to offer here is that secondary orality is prompting a deep psychological re-constellation of the deep psychological structures of print culture in our Western cultural history. It does not necessarily follow that all of the deep psychological structures of print culture are somehow going to be jettisoned. But it may mean that a revaluation is underway and may continue for the foreseeable future.
Well, what certain other authors today refer to as authoritarianism is a prominent tendency in what Ong refers to as primary oral cultures. No doubt the resonances of our contemporary secondary oral culture reverberate in our collective unconscious with memories of older tendencies of authoritarianism in our psyches. The implication is that on the level of ego-consciousness we need to renegotiate the achievements of liberalism in print culture.
For further reading about authoritarianism, see the following two books by Marc Hetherington and Jonathan Weiler; (1) Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2009); and (2) Prius or Pickup? How the Answers to Four Simple Questions Explain America's Great Divide (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018).
Now, the most efficient way for me to provide you with an overview of Zakaria's new 2024 book Age of Revolutions is to describe its parts:
"Introduction: A Multitude of Revolutions" (pp. 1-21).
Part I: "Revolutions Past" (p. 23).
Chapter 1: "The First Liberal Revolution: The Netherlands" (pp. 25-50).
Chapter 2: "The Glorious Revolution: England" (pp. 51-70).
Chapter 3 "The Failed Revolution: France" (pp. 71-106).
Chapter 4: "The Mother of All Revolutions: Industrial Britain" (pp. 107-141).
Chapter 5: "The Real American Revolution: Indistrial United States" (pp. 142-165).
Part II: "Revolutions Present" (p. 167).
Chapter 6: "Globalization in Overdrive: Economics" (pp. 169-202).
Chapter 7: "Information Unbound: Technology" (pp. 203-234).
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