It is important to remember that as this epoch sours, it comes naturally to cast the whole state of affairs in an acrid tone. I know I do it.
But within this horrific system are countless individuals working and sweating and breathing within the framework of the system, laboring to make the system a more humane and dignified place for its inhabitants.
There is a tender side to capital even as it churns and burns.
One should take care not to exert too much weight on the ideological pendulum - though certainly a good push is required.
The Christians for example witnessed all sorts of hedonistic and sexual perversions taking place within the falling Empire, and instead of locating these perversions within a spatio-temporal set of relations, they placed taboos and curses on the acts themselves, which embedded itself into the ideological code.
And over time you have a whole civilization that grows with a profound alienation to some of life's natural and sublime pleasures, such as intercourse and various other material satisfactions, and of course this creates all sorts of problems.
I think I've mentioned before that Wilhelm Reich has made the case that this ideological sexual repulsion contributed heavily to the explosive character of pre-Fascist Germany. It is entirely possible that this sexual repression also contributed to the explosive growth of industrial empires in general.
And as countless thinkers have found, the more forcefully you repress something, or make forbidden and hidden away from society, the more forcefully it eventually returns, and the more society finds it irresistible, even if it is something natural and generally banal.
