This is the first of hopefully many guest posts by my friends and acquaintances — basically anyone who wants to submit something, if I like it, I’ll post it! — Pete
One Step Forward, Two Hundred and Thirty Two Years Back…
Has anyone noticed the gradual degeneration of civility that’s taken place over the past decade? I took a sociology course a couple of years ago in which we discussed the ramifications of post-industrialization. This is the first time in human history that a country has moved passed being agricultural or industrial based. I think that this shift in paradigms paired with the massive technological growth in the past fifty years has created a state of upheaval. People are always running to catch up. In addition, the emergence of personal cell phones equipped with more technology than the first vessels in space, text messaging, and ipods have created a schism in personal, intimate connections. There was a study conducted in Japan in 2006 that showed how language was actually breaking down into a rudimentary form more closely related to hieroglyphics than to a contemporary language. The students involved in the study also showed signs of an inability to recognize emotions in real time — meaning that they could tell if someone was happy or sad when using emoticons, but were completely at a loss when confronted with a live human being.
As I began thinking about this further, I realized its a combination of far more factors than simply technology and the type of economic structure into which the U.S. has evolved. We have such limitless options when it comes to information gathering. We can read twenty different newspapers, watch any number of local, national, and international news programs, and search any website in the world from our couches with the click of a button. Furthermore, we inundate ourselves with fabulous and over-glamorized celebrities who are a minute portion of the population, yet every 13 year old kid thinks that he has to be rich in order to be someone. “Cribs” has effectively created a socially acceptable pop-culture form of keeping up with the Jones’. When money becomes God who do people turn to when there is none? Self-perpetuating cycles of overspending, going into debt, and living lives far beyond financial means becomes the norm, and whole subsections of the population grow up on welfare and in poverty — and they accept it. There are women in this country unable to care for children they already have, and continue to get pregnant because they know the government will give them more money if they do. Those kids then grow up in an environment where it is reinforced, maybe not by words, but definitely by actions that it’s ok not to work. Just have more kids and at least you’ll be at this level of poverty that’s familiar. All the while there’s MTV saying here’s what living is — driving a Bentley and living on the beach in Miami. Things that most people will never achieve. So I ask, what makes that possible?
The government. I’ve placed a lot of blame on pop-culture, but our government is just as much to blame — perhaps more so. Politicians have essentially become actors, and have access to the same wealth as those celebrities featured on “Cribs.” The difference is that rather than setting an example for how to not just survive but thrive through their actions in office, they are teaching people how to exploit every resource until there are none. The U.S. national deficit as of right now is almost $9.5 trillion. What I want to know is if we have been the wealthiest most powerful nation in the world at least since WWII if not longer, why would we let our deficit get so high? Is our government setting an example for responsible financial planning? No. They are showing people that you can borrow as much as you possibly can and just let someone else worry about it because when the time comes to bite the bullet you won’t be around — either because you’re no longer in office or you’re dead. There’s a significant lack of personal responsibility. My sister has used an analogy any time I’ve really wanted to help or possibly over-extend myself because she knows I have a tendency toward this — I’ve had trouble saying no to people in the past. She says, “When you’re on an airplane what does the flight attendant say to do in case of an emergency? She says that oxygen masks will deploy and that YOU need to put yours on before you can help anyone else. YOU can’t help anyone else if you can’t breathe or are dead.” That’s how I feel about our country right now. How are we going to help third world countries if we can’t handle our own economic problems here?
Well, we’ve put ourselves in the precarious position of policing the entire world, taking out loans from almost anyone who wants to be a lender, and we already have or are outsourcing anything tangible economically that we can sell. This is where our post-industrialization comes into play. We have a predominantly service economy meaning that we don’t make many goods any more. So, what would we do were we suddenly at war with China? My point is that we need to step back from our over-extension and reign in our global policing. Part of the reason why we were able to thrive after the Great Depression in the 30s is that we made our own goods. There were American jobs to be had and WWII solidified that. We also practiced this little thing called isolationism. Perhaps we as a nation should try to increase our GDP by making and buying our own goods rather than importing them from China, Japan, Taiwan, and India. At the same time place those things we can sell in other countries just as they have here. Such as Toyota building plants in the U.S. and selling enough of their cars here to become the top auto manufacturer. That should feel like the Cowboys getting beaten on their home turf — our home team is losing. Instead we welcome it — globalization! I do believe that globalization will be good for everyone eventually, but I think we’ve too readily and quickly sent all of our safety net away from our borders. So, if we can reclaim the notion that American made products are good, and become self-sufficient, meaning we stop taking out loans for trillions of dollars, we could start to improve the quality of life here. As that takes place, a portion of our GDP could be devoted to providing foreign aid for countries truly in poverty — not for political ideologies close to no one’s values except those of the politicians profiting from them. We then begin the long arduous task of repaying nearly $10 trillion in debt, but at least we could support ourselves by buying and selling goods in our own country. That would also help with the afore mentioned welfare problems because having industry in the U.S. would create new jobs. Also, we might be able to show the younger generations by example that appearances aren’t everything. Sometimes you have to live in reality and not where you wish you were. I yearn for a public official who’s bold and respectable enough to be a role model. I look back throughout our nation’s history and wonder what it must have been like to live when George Washington and our forefathers were founding this country. What it would feel like to have someone in a position to change things who you can actually look up to. Someone not controlled by partisan politics, but by his or her own principles. A true desire to make things better. I know this is me being idealistic, but I want to think that the world is still capable of change — otherwise what’s the point?
Back to my original thought, we have so many options I don’t think a lot of people know what to choose. I recently read a statistic, which I don’t know how they gathered their data, but it said that 16% of Americans said they were “Non-Religious.” Just from my personal experience I’ve spoken to more atheistic and agnostic people in the past few years than any other time in my life. The basis of religion isn’t my point, but that we don’t have guidance from our government, we don’t have guidance from religion, our schools are underfunded, and parents are too busy trying to keep up. So what do the new generations of kids have to look forward to? It looks like they have depression, ADD and ADHD, anxiety and a myriad of other medications to help them cope with the constant state of flux. That is if they don’t turn to illegal drugs and self-medicate. A life without meaning is quite an empty one. Money, cars, houses, and fame look great until you suddenly realize that you don’t know who you are or what you stand for. I think it all goes back to personal responsibility and stepping up to make a difference in people’s lives. The degeneration of civility I spoke of ranges from people flipping one another off — I was shot the bird by a 70 year old woman last week — to things as simple as not having the time or inclination to acknowledge another person on the street, or hold a door for a stranger. Try having a conversation in which you make eye contact with the other person 90% of the time. Most people I’ve spoken to in recent times avoid eye contact at all costs. Our public fronts are so frail that we fear anyone looking into our eyes and seeing past the facade. No wonder people have so many problems when they feel isolated all the time. That lack of interconnectedness makes it easy to be mean to someone else because they don’t matter. If you figure you don’t know them or have to deal with them to get what you want — your paycheck, car, house, clothes, etc. — why deal with them? Why bother going out your way to be nice? Well, just like Randal in Clerks II I’m taking it back, not his racial slur, but being nice to people. Hopefully it’ll catch on.
Anyway, it’s definitely a strange time in the world, and I think that either we as a nation will evolve and grow to create a new paradigm encompassing post-industrialization in a changing global economy, or we’ll revert back to industrialization because it’s familiar and something we can have a handle on. Either way I feel a major world change is coming and I hope someone comes along to help lead us through it.
