No secret

  There is a push by long-standing American academics to better understand Fascism.  This will, no doubt, help keep talk of that particular kind of politics, out of the mudslinging.  The more we know, the less we have to engage in nonsensical, waste of time name-calling.  Yippee!

  There are important comparisons and contrasts between all the countries of the West's history and politics.  And, especially because so much of our humanism came to us via the Rennaissance and Reformation, "the humanities" are as important to our learning as historical facts to geopolitics and military/war studies.  It is again a great time to be asking people of all ages who "study" what we know about this contemporary world's past and streams of culture.

  Yes, there are.  Some parallels.  We were young and feeling really depressed about our own cultures.  The person we were talking to was older and had traveled the world and was well-read.  Not meek, but not in-your-face smart.  We sat on the sofa and declined tea, savoring more the time of day.

  She had us list our chief complaints and went through each with us, delineating how in theory America is different.  We kept our lists and added columns charting events like the world was water trapped in a glassed fulcrum.  Checking in with her on analysis and "reading" situation.

  We didn't want Israel to be doing to someone what was done to them.  Nor did we want the USA to be purely materialistic and so checked-out of thinking that popular could just gang-up and/or ignore.  But wanting for something isn't always the same as witnessing.

  And witnessing isn't activism.  Our powers of observation and empathy still needed honing into creating.

  To a large extent by the late 1990's Academia in the U.S. had found its happy place.  There had been some re-distinction between the sciences and arts with interdisciplinary being the avant garde.  It was taking critical thinking skills to mediate, and people owning then mediation skills rooted in critical thinking.  It felt "good" to people to critically think about self and world, and to be able to engage thus.  It was the "voice" that allowed more discussion without jealousy and over-aggressive-ego.  It was imbued with a general spirit of learning.  Opening learning, thinking, creating opened also being.  This "vibe" lent itself to the creation of business and technology as well as being a presence in administration and other oversight/management.  It went with the innovating and pioneering spirit of being American.  And it made the events of September 11th 2001 all the more shocking.

  We'd evolved on a national level through self-abuse and were making great progress in the space for every type of person to grow.  But in advancing ourselves, we were unprepared to confront "enemy".  We'd relegated enemy to the history pile in many ways.  And, discounted other ideologies as far away, not ours, so....

  This is why there is so much talk these days (2025) about AI/AGI.  And while we can continue to see it en masse as far away like the moon, it is one of the immediate concerns which requires critical thinking.

  In and of itself it is not "the enemy" just like communications of yore.  And, like with communications advances such as TV and phones beginning conversations can sound/feel like a person with no experience or training playing a cello.  But you never know what someone else will bring to your own growth unless you try.  We don't need to be "genius" to talk about stuff.