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February 28, 2021: updated commentary: Notes on Between Two Ages by Zbigniew Brzezinski: PDF, EPUB/PDF/HTML

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Commentary on Between Two Ages by Zbigniew Brzezinski
(From Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era, 1971, Viking Press, New York)

Series Contents
Continued from Part 7

Part II of the book is called “The Age of Volatile Belief” (pg. 62).

Brzezinski acknowledges that the old system of entrenched religions and national identities “provided a stable framework and firm moorings”, but the “new global unity” has not yet found its own structure (62).

He refers to “the new post-industrial age” (p. 65) with its increased “differentiation in skills” leading to increased “disparities”.

What makes it “post-industrial”? Why have we become “post-industrial” in the decades since he wrote this book?

Is it a coincidence that the Green agenda and UN Agenda 21 advocate the shutting down of the consumer society and the reduction of “carbon emissions” in the name of “climate change” (equals population reduction)?

Is it a coincidence that massive international “free trade” agreements have contributed to the deindustrialization of North America?

Is it a coincidence that the banking crises of recent years and the huge bail-outs to the banks have led to more calls for “austerity” policies such as increasing the age of retirement?

I think, in retrospect, it’s clear that “post-industrial” is more than a prediction. We might think of it as a natural progression only because we’re trained to see it that way. But really it looks like the result of a series of planned and forced policies.

Marxism and Beyond

Brzezinski’s historical discussions about sovereignty, religion and nationalism are very interesting (p. 70, 71).

Brzezinski, a man at the top of the American power structure (not Ron Paul) – praises Marxism:

“Marxism represents a further vital and creative stage in the maturing of man’s universal vision. Marxism is simultaneously a victory of the external, active man over the inner, passive man and a victory of reason over belief: it stresses man’s capacity to shape his material destiny …” (p. 72)

He says Marxism appealed to “man’s ethical, rational, and PROMETHEAN instincts.” (p. 73)

In reality, it’s only the “instincts” of some people who want to make man collectively into a type of “God” using science and technology.

By the way, he sounds a lot like H. G. Wells on some points. Wells advocated humanity becoming a kind of godlike powerful collective. Wells had both praise and criticism for Marxism, but was full of enthusiasm for aspects of big business capitalism in his version of scientific socialism. If you combine Brzezinski and Wells who are not so different, you get a pretty good idea of where the elites want to take us.

Brzezinski writes that the Promethean represented

“man’s faith in his power, for the notion that history is made by the people [“the people”?] and that nothing can hem in their advance to perfection.” (73)

Marxism, he writes, has served as a “mechanism of human ‘progress’” even though in practice it has “fallen short of its ideals.” (73)

He quotes Teilhard de Chardin:

“monstrous as it is, is not modern totalitarianism really the distortion of something magnificent, and thus quite near to the truth?” (73)

The “truth” of an elitist “utopia”.

Brzezinski writes that for many outside of Christianity

“… it has been Marxism that has served to stir the mind and to mobilize human energies purposefully.” (73)

This reminds me of Ellul’s observations in Propaganda.

Brzezinski continues:

“Marxism … has provoked a series of subordinate questions, all helpful in forcing recognition of change and in compelling adjustments to it … Who are our present principal foes – subjectively and objectively? Who are now our allies? …” (73)

So it’s interesting. Who are the “foes” and who are the “allies” of the Marxist “liberals” (or Marxist neocons) who run America?

However, he criticizes (other) communists for being dogmatic and oversimplifying. They haven’t accurately perceived “the meaning of new international phenomena.” (74)

He says Marxism has a “revolutionary and broadening influence, which opened man’s mind to previously ignored perspectives”, so it wasn’t just “a phase of the painful marriage of man and technique.” (74) And that’s not to ignore how it was enslaving people, he says.

He says “in the gradual evolution of man’s universal vision [as if there is any such thing] Marxism represents as important and progressive a stage as the appearance of nationalism and of the great religions.” (74)

He makes an interesting observation that the three phases became perverted in practice:
Religion -> brutality.
Nationalism -> brutality.
Marxism or humanism -> brutality.

But he says man’s “intellectual horizons” were “widened” in all three cases. Each helped “to enlarge man’s political and social consciousness”. (75)

He quotes Marx:

“…The daily press and the telegraph … fabricate more myths (and the bourgeois cattle believe and enlarge upon them) in one day than could have formerly been done in a century.”

Brzezinski acknowledges that it’s even worse with the addition of radio and television (76)

He mentions the pace of “technologically induced social change.”

He claims that

“institutionalized religion’s concentration on the inner man has prompted social passivity and de facto indifference to concrete human dilemmas…” (77)

In contrast,

“more contemporary ideological preoccupation with mobilizing the external man has resulted in political systems whose practice refutes the moral significance of their often proclaimed humanitarian objectives.”

In the one case we have “spiritual elevation” leading to “social deprivation”, according to him, but the “assertion of man’s social primacy” leads to his “spiritual degradation” (77).

A materialistic outlook at the expense of spiritual and moral principles is going to lead to that.

He criticizes “institutional Marxism” (77) He’s basically saying that Marxism is not working out. Marxism is not good enough, because of “the neglect of the spiritual element”. And because of “scientific developments concerning the nature of the human brain and personality”, the “limitations of Marxism” have been exposed. (77)

So the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet and American systems were merged together as planned all along according to the Reece committee.

George Bush Sr. announced a communitarian New World Order. And Agenda 21 was signed.

The individualist freedom-loving version of America has been pushed aside gradually after years of Cold War growth in government. And the old Soviet Union was phased out.

America was much more successful than Russia at taxing its people and much more successful at science and technology to be used in a totalitarian surveillance society.

Who is more revolutionary than America? Who is more “progressive”? Who is more Trotskyite and internationalist?

Continued: Part 9
Series Contents