A Review: The Degradation of The Democratic Dogma

I stumbled onto a fabulous book credited to Henry Adams and published by his brother Brooks Adams titled, "The Degradation of The Democratic Dogma". I found it in the References section on a paper discussing over-population. Henry Adams was the grandson of John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States.

What a beautiful book. Looks like I'm only 97 years late to the party. The grandsons of the forefathers of America, the most prominent thinkers of their time, predicted the phenomena I'm witnessing today: The (predictable and inevitable) Degradation of (a theoretical and near-impossible-to-implement) Democracy. This phenomenon, that is extremely hard to deny, seems to have been successfully denied by the masses. Accomplished by burying one's head in the sand while the planet progresses into its eventual deterioration, ostrich-people carry on with their lives as if nothing unconscionable were happening and that "democracy" is well and truly in action. Well, at least I can (metaphorically) stop screaming from the rooftops, because even the great thinkers from 1919 couldn't manage to convince anyone that this just isn't so. The gentle voice of progressive thinking is drowned out in the great din of misinformation birthed by the government and propagated by media. And though the forefathers made some optimistically accurate predictions (Brooks Adams predicted New York would be the commercial capital of the world), no one really takes them too seriously when it came to their slightly grim musings.

Ah, humanity! How tightly you hug your monstrously ugly child: Ignorance.

Cynicism and hopelessness aside, I found a few points very intriguing:

(1) George Washington saw the University as the future of America. He saw it as the main avenue through which great ideas would be propagated to the people of America. Would I be stretching my imagination too far to say that he would want most Americans to be educated at a University level?
But alas, this is not the case. False ideologies, canned-thoughts, pop psychology, misinformation, government issued dogma and bigotry masked as patriotism are now propagated at full speed by popular media. I hardly count news channels as propagators of "news" anymore. They are just slightly serious propagators of the mass narrative. Soap operas are the most light weight medium of communicating the same narrative. One need no longer think for oneself. Even popular modern-day autobiographies read like trashy novels... filled with god-like role models, eventual pitfalls and midlife crises and the eventual and dramatic emancipation at the end of it all. And most throw some form of God in there somewhere.

(2) If we are to believe Brooks Adams' narrative, then the loss of the concept of a benevolent God had already sprung roots in the heart of John Adams (6th President of USA). The chaotic nature of America's growth, rooted in two of man's base feelings: greed and fear, had made the Adam's family doubt that the path of America was paved by a kind and compassionate creature such as God.
Absolutely right. Let us not confuse any God or Great Universal Spirit (that may or may not exist) with the unabashed greed and fear that motivates nearly ALL our actions.

(3) The book predicts that the world would belong to money-lenders (i.e. Banks). It predicts that because of this, any concept of democracy would be left behind in the dust. I wish I could tell these great forefathers of America how right they were. How right they were.
Below is an excerpt from a letter John Quincy Adams wrote to Reverend Charles Upham, February 2nd, 1837:
"The great object of my life therefore, as applied to the administration of the government of the United States, has failed. The American Union, as a moral person in the family of nations, is to live from hand to mouth, and to cast away instead of using for the improvement of its own condition, the bounties of Providence.
But, after all, was there a Providence."
The 6th President reflects, without hope, on the privatization of public land by President Jackson.
 The author (Henry Adams) even claims that the president lost heart and lost his belief in God because the Almighty had allowed slavery.

This is so sad.