During the Error of Modernity (1875-1965) : only life that was modern was life worthy of life

What 'passed' (successfully) for intellectual activity during the Era of Modernity was mostly about sharply separating, dividing and classifying : in/out , normal/deviant , worthy/unworthy , fit/unfit.

It presumed everything in the universe should be able to be put in distinct boxes ---- and that it could remain there.

One box was good stuff - the other stuff was junk , to be tossed and binned.

(Ultimately found in the rubbish bin of Modernity were such as the entire Jewish,Roma and Slavic 'races'.  Along with rest of us who might be in anyway physically, mentally, emotionally or morally 'handicapped' and lacking in powerful friends).


Sometimes Modernity's supporters acted as if reality had once been sharply and separated - back in some earlier golden age.

Mostly they acted as if the current complexity of existence was but a temporary affair, only apparent on the mere surface level and not really indicative of a much simpler , more potentially order-able , reality at the basic levels of atomic structure (sic) .

(Ultimately this led to WWII :  High School Science and a machine gun -  always a terrifying combo.)

Commensal Plentitude

Our current era ,the post 1945 or post 1965 era , the Era of Commensality , accepts that there will always be a confusing and complex plentitude of objects and activities.

Further, it accepts that they all are capable of connecting and interacting : adding many more levels of complexity to what is already potentially hugely confusing by weight of sheer numbers alone.

If my portrait of life today rings unconvincing (climate deniers anyone ?) that is because , in fact, Modernity and Commensality currently co-exist.

And often in the same person....

rise of THINK TANKs closely followed rise of rigorous PEER-REVIEW

Junk Science is the Think Tank's raison d'etre

If you got away with JUNK SCIENCE before 1945 - and many academics did because rigorous peer-review before publication was not actually all that common back then - increasingly you couldn't so after 1945.

Second rate and lazy scientists and academics who couldn't cut the mustard, cut classes - bailed out of academic life after they had established a few credentials and swam - like rats - to the rising ships of the anti-peer-review-oriented think tanks.

The post-1945 rise of the think tanks were also industry's and the wealthiest families's response to that fact it was getting harder and harder to find real university professors willing to be their denier-liars  for hire.

The two trends met in the middle : both needed each other.

Think tanks thus do serve an useful role for society after all ; providing the first rate sort of home for the second rate sort of scholar....