"We're all gonna die!"
Lenny Bruce would shock his audiences during the Cuban Missile Crisis with the above, interjected into his normal comedy routine. The irony is that I find it hilarious, while the effect at the time must have been anger and sweaty fear. But they really thought they were going to die.
Nowadays, we're all afraid of terrorism. No, not nuclear annihilation, but terrorism, which has killed a relatively small amount of people to date, and will probably not kill that many people in the end (well, there probably won't be an end, but that's another story). This is not a "We're so much weaker than the noble, 'greatest generation' crowd" post. We're not: terrorism is fucked up, and is quite well designed to have the effect that it does on our society. So what am I saying?
I believe that there is a strong chance that our society, culture, "The West", Christianity, Islam, China, Israel, Taiwan, etc. will all survive. I'm most sure our society will survive, the others, big deal. We've got plenty of time. If you're worried about Europe, go there; you can write a best-selling book on "How Europe Once Was" when you get older. If China tries to take Taiwan, it'll create another Cuban Missile Crisis (in reverse?) but I'm pretty sure no one is psycho enough to pull the trigger. Move to the East Coast if you'd like. Israel/Palestine is going to be a slog, but people have to get tired of this shit eventually. If it doesn't get better, let's be honest: these people represent less than 1% of the global population.
So: yes, we have problems, and yes, we should strive to deal with them in the best way possible, and yes, people are dying as I write this, but: we are dealing with the problems, we are dealing with them generally fairly well, and less people are dying than at any other time in human history. Jeremiads are useful for motivating people but let's remember that life is pretty damn good right now.
We got in the habit of thinking the world was going to end during the Cold War, or at least people frequently say that kind of thing. I'm not really sure how that could be possible, but fine. I wonder if it would be more shocking to say "We're all not gonna die". You have to plan for a long life now, which is responsibility, but hey: it's better than the alternative. One can always kill oneself if one would prefer.
Nowadays, we're all afraid of terrorism. No, not nuclear annihilation, but terrorism, which has killed a relatively small amount of people to date, and will probably not kill that many people in the end (well, there probably won't be an end, but that's another story). This is not a "We're so much weaker than the noble, 'greatest generation' crowd" post. We're not: terrorism is fucked up, and is quite well designed to have the effect that it does on our society. So what am I saying?
I believe that there is a strong chance that our society, culture, "The West", Christianity, Islam, China, Israel, Taiwan, etc. will all survive. I'm most sure our society will survive, the others, big deal. We've got plenty of time. If you're worried about Europe, go there; you can write a best-selling book on "How Europe Once Was" when you get older. If China tries to take Taiwan, it'll create another Cuban Missile Crisis (in reverse?) but I'm pretty sure no one is psycho enough to pull the trigger. Move to the East Coast if you'd like. Israel/Palestine is going to be a slog, but people have to get tired of this shit eventually. If it doesn't get better, let's be honest: these people represent less than 1% of the global population.
So: yes, we have problems, and yes, we should strive to deal with them in the best way possible, and yes, people are dying as I write this, but: we are dealing with the problems, we are dealing with them generally fairly well, and less people are dying than at any other time in human history. Jeremiads are useful for motivating people but let's remember that life is pretty damn good right now.
We got in the habit of thinking the world was going to end during the Cold War, or at least people frequently say that kind of thing. I'm not really sure how that could be possible, but fine. I wonder if it would be more shocking to say "We're all not gonna die". You have to plan for a long life now, which is responsibility, but hey: it's better than the alternative. One can always kill oneself if one would prefer.
posted by Austin 5-000 at 9:05 AM
15 Comments:
Austi-5000,
I am currently trying to google chat with you. Where you at boy?
What "could have been"? Are we now destined to some fate that we were not before? I don't buy that. And even if I did, it's sunk cost. So we might as well deal with things as we can.
All indicators of absolute welfare have increased in the last twenty years. Check the world bank website for that.
Those concerned with poverty often potray the issue as one of inequality: the difference between the richest and the poorest has grown and they think that's bad. I'm not so sure, because I believe that it is necessary for that gap to grow in order to progress. You see this phenomenon in the United States/Europe comparison. All of that is controversial.
But that doesn't matter because that is not what I'm talking about here. In terms of the amount of shit they can buy, the kinds of food they can etc. people are better off today than at any other time in history. If it's not going fast enough, well, we can talk about that. But things are pretty good.
Things are pretty good, and if a terrorist plants a nuclear bomb in New York and kills a million or so people, we will look back at this time as really really good.
Putting the "world situation" in perspective is always important. The gains the human race in some areas are substantial, and should be noted.
But I think Fishtix is right to point to factors that suggest otherwise. The fact is we're not really "dealing with" a lot of things that we should deal with. No, I'm not talking about the impending social security crisis. I'm talking about how this administration has done nothing regarding global warming, nothing regarding energy consumption and oil dependency.
Domestically, I see much to suggest things are getting worse, not better. Of the economically productive years 1966-2001, only the "top 10 percent of the income distribtuion enjoyed a growth rate of real wage and salary income equal to or above the average rate of economy-wide productivity growth" according to a new paper. But even this top percent only made modest gains of approximately one percent per year. The real gains was for the top one percent, and .1 percent. In terms of general standard of living, I am unconvinced that "it is necessary for that gap to grow in order to progress." As Fishtix pointed out, when income inequality and social mobility (this article from The Economist of all places is the most helpful http://www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3518560) are rising, not falling, it's a sign of things getting worse.
Our foreign policy, moreover, is failing. We are failing in Iraq, we are failing in Iran, and we have failed in Palestine. Our government has tortured to death innocent people. These failings, it seems to me, are a lot worse than the small gains made in Libya, Ukraine, Georgia, and Egypt.
And this is just America. Looking at European unemployment rates and immigrant relations, African poverty and genocide, Middle East extremism and poverty, Russian and Chinese civil liberties, Indian and Chinese energy consumption--all of these things make me truly and profoundly nervous. We are at a critical point in history, and while you're right to point out that at least we don't have nuclear missiles ready to be launched at any second on our Eastern seaboard, there are many things which we need to work on that we're not working on, or not working on well enough. In America, I hope it will begin this year with the midterm elections. We really need the Republicans to lose big.
It turns out, by the way, that "Take that Hippy" is one of the better blog titles I have ever heard. Well done Will.
You know what I've never understood... those Jehovah's Witnesses that predict the end of the world on a specific date (my mom used to tell me how they would knock on her door and tell her family this shit when she was a young girl).
The JW's have nothing to gain. Either the world ends, and its not like anyone get to congratulate the JWs; errone’s dead. And in the more likely case that the world doesn’t end on that date, everyone is still alive and thinks that the JW date-predictor is an idiot. It’s like playing Dungeons and Dragons: even if you win you’re a loser.
That being said, the world is gonna end on November 2, 1978.
But as Witnesses of Jehova, aren't they warning the unconverted in hopes they will do whatever they need to do (accept God in their hearts) to get saved. The world ending is small potatoes compared to eternal damnation, I'd imagine.
If I could change gears I'd like to talk a little more about Austi's post. The issue for me is what role is there for the citizen-intellectual in today's world. As Austi himself would say, it's one thing to complain about the world, and quite another to do something about it. Complaining, of course, is not inaction. It may rouse people to act, it might frame issues in attackable ways, and it might present theories of solutions. But I take the point that "we're doing things about" this or that problem seriously. I think the genius of the American experiment, and of the European social-democratic model, is that people are always thinking about how to progress from where we are. No one really, Republican or Democratic, is simply complacent to stick with the status quo. The whole David Brooks "progressive conservatism" ideal, along with Bush's attempt to reform social security and whatever other ideas come from Grover Norquist or the Cato Institute, or the Hoover Institute, are honest attempts at making things better. By better, I mean to say more equitable, and more democratic. While I don't think their reforms are the way to go about acheiving these ends, I assume their ends are genuine, and there is not some giant conspiracy.
The 21st citizen-intellectual must be her own think tank. Her traditional role as skeptic and scalpal-wielder (in the Nietzschian sense) persists, but at some point she must take a stand. She must involve herself in policy in addition to acheiving a critical distance. Each time she asks herself whether America has a soul; whether we are to be defined by multiculturalism or some universalism; whether we are subjects of a dominating culture industry--she must also ask how our immigration laws need to be reformed; whether we need taxs or not, and how should the tax cuts be structured.
Policy is important because policiticans make concrete differences in the lives of the citizens they represent. These are not questions to run away from, unless of course you see the revolution (or the event) as the only way real change happens.
note Robot's judicious use of the third person singular feminine(!) pronoun. It speaks volumes about who he's been doing his thesis under / what he's been doing it on.
(Much love, Robot. Just Playing)
"Of the economically productive years 1966-2001, only the 'top 10 percent of the income distribtuion enjoyed a growth rate of real wage and salary income equal to or above the average rate of economy-wide productivity growth' according to a new paper".
I went to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Website to see what the productivity increase was: 86%. So what your statistic means is that only the top 10% increased their wages more than 86% since 1966. I'm sorry, but that just doesn't mean anything. What it shows was that we made a fairly decent increase in productivity even with pretty huge government spending.
The Economist article you quoted gives us a better indication of a potential problem: The average income of the worker in the lowest quintile "grew by 6.4%, while that of households in the top fifth grew by 70%. The family income of the top 1% grew by 184%—and that of the top 0.1% or 0.01% grew even faster". This doesn't mean anything without a good reason to think that it will hurt us in the long run. I tend to think it is not great, but perhaps the nature of recent advances in technology mean that the "rich get richerer". It would be reasonable to suspect that a faster-changing economy would benefit those who can change fastest, the rich and knowledgeable.
Inequality is only bad when it makes us worse off, correct? If you are assuming it is bad, please give an account of why this assumption is fair.
Note that all of these statistics are in terms of "real dollars", i.e. they are equal in terms of spending power. Usually this is underestimated: even though we try to build product enhancements into the numbers, there is no way of predicting wholly new products, e.g. computers, the internet, dvd porn, menthol cigs.
Not all of these statistics are in "real dollars;" some are in monopoly money.
"Inequality is only bad when it makes us worse off, correct?"
I will give an account of why I think inequality is bad when you explain what this means. Do you mean that so long as everyone gets slightly richer, it doesn't matter if the top one percent get super-duper richer?
I should add that I don't really care to take a position on inequality as such. My point is this: liberal thought on the economy, conservative thought on Europe, foreign policy considerations, etc. are all just too pessimistic to be helpful. I'm sick of being screamed at by people telling me life as I know it is going to end. It's not, especially because I'm not sure that I am burdened with a lot of assumptions about "life as I know it". Even if, for some strange reason, something really horrible happens, I think everyone will be a lot better off than we were say, 2000, 500, 100, 50, or 25 years ago.
That is to say, who is "us?" Is it the average American worker? The worker with median income? etc.
Ah, I was writing before I saw your comment. The point is that you are treating income as if it were a zero-sum game, which is patently false given any understanding of economics. There are reasons for preferring equality to inequality and vice versa.
Austi and I just had a conversation in the flesh, which brought up in my mind a whole new set of problems (with my earlier comment, in particular). His displeasure for scare-tactics in debate (such as ohmygod
lookattheinequality
andlookatafrica!!) is grounded in the belief that we can't solve the problems of these countries, ours included, without being rational--that is, realizing the gains we've made and considering the feasibility of reform over the long-run. Not doing something sudden and drastic, in other words. In my mind, this is exactly right, and if it was the purpose for the rather relaxed, complacent tone of the original post, I understand what he was up to.
The problem still, however, regards us. What do those who don't work at the World Bank, the IMF, or the United States Senate do? Do we just sit back and hope the people in power are taking care of things, and taking care of it the right way. When it comes to Bush and tax cuts, for example, it's pretty clear to me that this is not the best way to fix things. I have in mind a tax policy that does see the effective teax rate for the top 1 percent of taxpayers drop from 33 percent to 26.7 percent while the middle 20 percent of taxpayers see declines of only 4 percent.
When it comes to larger, more complicated problems however, such as debt relief in Africa, what am I supposed to do? To some extent with these complex problems, don't we just have to shout to someone until they seem to get better?
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