Trapped by the Three Dustbins of History

January 30, 2005 8:51 AM

Fred Halliday sets out an alternative thesis on the forces behind our historical era. Are we trapped by ‘Three Dustbins’ left over from the Cold War: Deep-frozen dictatorships and ethic conflicts, an arrogant and unreflective West and finally a disorganised and sometimes ill informed opposition to all this? I don’t know – but it’s an interesting idea.
posted by The Salaryman (6 comments total)

The truth is out there.

The power of nightmares, eh!

Doesn't sound like he actually went to the Social Summit himself.

Single link op-ed posts not well received usually. With good reason.
posted by asok at 10:55 AM on January 30, 2005

Sorry, asok - I should have included supporting links and explained why I thought it was worthy of debate. I felt that it was much more than an op-ed given its length, depth and counter-intuitive stance (as people often have gone on about how the Cold War is over therefore, etc, insert statement here). I just thought it was interesting and in a giddy moment wanted to pass it on to see what the MeFi community thought of the article and the idea of three unnoticed, malign ghosts hanging around modern history. Also, I meant to cite 'ethnically challenged regimes and ethnic conflicts' but it came out with excessive brevity...I always am suspicious of macro-historical narratives, but Halliday’s perspective intrigued me.
posted by The Salaryman at 11:13 AM on January 30, 2005

Single link op-ed posts not well received usually. With good reason.

I don't understand this comment, what would the good reason be?

The link is to a long, thoughtful article which seeks to shed some light upon the world in which we currently live, and I am extremely grateful to The Salaryman for alerting us all to it.
posted by Fat Buddha at 2:51 PM on January 30, 2005

I found his first dustbin intriguing, his second dustbin shaky and his third dustbin completely correct.
posted by Captaintripps at 3:29 PM on January 30, 2005

I think if it couldn't be applied to the 8 Clinton years (and it doesn't hold true for the 90s i don't think), then there are problems with his theory. Interesting tho, but ignores the real progress that's been made, even if some current actors on the world stage are repeating past mistakes, and following old models.
posted by amberglow at 5:37 PM on January 30, 2005

Marx remarked that the legacy of past generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.

nice.
posted by stbalbach at 12:49 AM on January 31, 2005