How did the Masons become so irrelevant so quickly?
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  How did the Masons become so irrelevant so quickly?
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Author Topic: How did the Masons become so irrelevant so quickly?  (Read 2057 times)
Skill and Chance
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« on: October 02, 2022, 01:28:37 PM »

They were once so influential they elected more presidents than Harvard.  And it wasn't just an early republic phenomenon.  They grew their membership steadily up until the Depression, reversed a brief decline during and immediately after WWII, but then went into total free fall after 1960 and never recovered.  Their last president was Gerald Ford.  Young people generally don't even think about joining them today.  What happened? 
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Diabolical Materialism
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« Reply #1 on: October 02, 2022, 03:36:00 PM »

I think television, suburbanization, and mass communication all have a role to play in this. In person social activities and attendance at social clubs of all kinds seem to have drop massively all around the same time. The Masons aren't unique in this read, it seems the Kiwanis club, the Elks, Rotary etc. are all having the same problem. Declining and rapidly aging membership with very few young members joining.

Life in the age of television, and later the internet is far lonelier. It would be considered highly abnormal to go a whole day without speaking to someone in generations past. I know several young people who do that almost every day.
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Aurelius
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« Reply #2 on: October 02, 2022, 11:38:01 PM »

Bowling Alone
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Agonized-Statism
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« Reply #3 on: October 06, 2022, 01:59:28 PM »

Industrialization. Fraternal orders' primary function was to protect and care for their members at a time when there was no welfare state, which itself was won by industrial unions with comparable solidarity among members but more focus on bargaining as a collective with those who came to own all the capital and land.
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Statilius the Epicurean
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« Reply #4 on: October 06, 2022, 07:19:43 PM »
« Edited: October 06, 2022, 07:47:40 PM by Statilius the Epicurean »

Industrialization. Fraternal orders' primary function was to protect and care for their members at a time when there was no welfare state, which itself was won by industrial unions with comparable solidarity among members but more focus on bargaining as a collective with those who came to own all the capital and land.

Wut? This is completely wrong. Literally the opposite is the case. Fraternal orders were a central part of industrial working class life for most of the 20th century, alongside and complimentary with trade unions. My shipyard welder grandad was a big Freemason, and my other grandad went to his grave bitter that he was screwed out of a promotion to chief engineer because (so he claimed decades later) he was one of the few people in the colliery who wasn't a Freemason. And from what they told me Freemasonry's primary function was to be a drinking club, not some proto-welfare state lol. Fraternal orders declined with deindustrialisation exactly for the reasons SlamDunk outlined above.
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Diabolical Materialism
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« Reply #5 on: October 06, 2022, 09:20:04 PM »
« Edited: October 06, 2022, 10:42:59 PM by Brandonton, FL »

Groups like the Freemasons and Elks did not function like a proto-welfare state but others like the Knights of Columbus and Tammany Hall certainly did.

They are fundamentally different kinds of groups of course, but they're both facing a similar fate these days.
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darklordoftech
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« Reply #6 on: November 06, 2022, 11:19:43 PM »

Preventing Tammany Hall corruption was one of the arguments used for creating a welfare state.
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Skill and Chance
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« Reply #7 on: November 07, 2022, 08:15:33 PM »

Preventing Tammany Hall corruption was one of the arguments used for creating a welfare state.

Yes, but some of these groups did have a substantial mutual insurance arm.  For Knights of Columbus, I believe the insurance part is most  of what they do nowadays.
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PSOL
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« Reply #8 on: November 07, 2022, 08:39:17 PM »

The Mason’s were responsible for ushering in the current liberal era, out of around two centuries of conflict from the 1700s-early 1900s and remaining somewhat influential in politics under the table in Europe and the North Americas till about the Red Scare. The reason for the lack of appeal as a political force instead of a glorified frat remains clear, they pretty much succeeded in ushering capitalism as we now know it and in areas of heavy influence create a liberal regime to rule the rest of the world. Secondly, is because at that point people wanted something new as they became the new worldwide establishment after a bloody transitional period.

The prospective laymembers and grassroots want something else now, or else don’t exist as a loser class/caste anymore.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #9 on: November 08, 2022, 07:29:54 AM »

As anyone familiar with the police in Britain could tell you, the Masons are certainly not irrelevant.
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PSOL
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« Reply #10 on: November 08, 2022, 09:51:41 AM »

As anyone familiar with the police in Britain could tell you, the Masons are certainly not irrelevant.
They don’t have majority control the ebbs and flow of capitalism anymore, or the largest market cap per other gangs of capitalism.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #11 on: November 08, 2022, 10:10:21 AM »

As anyone familiar with the police in Britain could tell you, the Masons are certainly not irrelevant.
They don’t have majority control the ebbs and flow of capitalism anymore, or the largest market cap per other gangs of capitalism.

They never did, that was only a conspiracy theory.
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PSOL
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« Reply #12 on: November 08, 2022, 11:50:25 AM »

As anyone familiar with the police in Britain could tell you, the Masons are certainly not irrelevant.
They don’t have majority control the ebbs and flow of capitalism anymore, or the largest market cap per other gangs of capitalism.

They never did, that was only a conspiracy theory.
They did, and they haven't had it worldwide since the early 1800s and the latter till the 1870s.
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Orwell
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« Reply #13 on: November 09, 2022, 03:01:20 PM »

As anyone familiar with the police in Britain could tell you, the Masons are certainly not irrelevant.
They don’t have majority control the ebbs and flow of capitalism anymore, or the largest market cap per other gangs of capitalism.

They never did, that was only a conspiracy theory.
They did, and they haven't had it worldwide since the early 1800s and the latter till the 1870s.

They want you to think that
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PSOL
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« Reply #14 on: November 09, 2022, 03:36:07 PM »

As anyone familiar with the police in Britain could tell you, the Masons are certainly not irrelevant.
They don’t have majority control the ebbs and flow of capitalism anymore, or the largest market cap per other gangs of capitalism.

They never did, that was only a conspiracy theory.
They did, and they haven't had it worldwide since the early 1800s and the latter till the 1870s.

They want you to think that
No, they are legitimately irrelevant as nothing more than for rich geezers to get rich. The times for expansion are done.

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CrabCake
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« Reply #15 on: November 10, 2022, 10:30:47 AM »

They have followed a lot of similar organizations: workingman's clubs, fraternity and sorority houses, trade unions, political parties, church groups, PTAs, local resident associations, gentlemen's clubs,  Rotary style groups, Scouts; in general many such membership groups have declined for the last few years.
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