Nothing’s For Free
Last night’s post about that supposed “Obama stash” got me thinking.
It reminded me of a passage I read in James Howard Kunstler’s The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century
Anyway, this is what Kunstler wrote:
Forty years ago, the consensus among adult Americans was that it was generally not possible to get something for nothing, and probably harmful for anyone to expect it, try it, or become accustomed to it. Today, with the Las Vegas-ization of our culture, getting something for nothing is a normal condition of life, something to be expected (or at least prayed for). This attitude ends up infecting virtually every other activity in our everyday world, from students who expect to be given automatic As just for showing up, to corporate CEOs who use their companies’ operating budgets as their own piggy banks, to ordinary citizens living wildly beyond their means on credit cards.
The particular example I’ve chosen- getting something for nothing- may illustrate something else, though: the unacknowledged collective drift in consciousness among a people who were once confident about progress and the role of honest effort in it, to a people now utterly cynical about progress and simply wishing for unearned beneficial outcomes in the absence of faith in honest efforts. These changes in collective thinking seem to anticipate the trauma of the Long Emergency now bearing down on us.
The circumstances of the Long Emergency will be the opposite of what we currently experience. There will be hunger instead of plenty, cold where there was once warmth, effort where there was once leisure, sickness where there was health, and violence where there was peace. We will have to adjust our attitudes, values, and ideas to accommodate these new circumstances and we may not recognize the people we will soon become or the people we once were. In a world where sheer survival dominates all other concerns, a tragic view of life is apt to reassert itself. This is another way of saying that we will become keenly aware of the limitations of human nature in general and its relation to ubiquitous morality in particular. Life will get much more real. The dilletantish luxury of relativism will be forgotten in the boneyards of the future. Irony, hipness, cutting-edge coolness will seem either quaint or utterly inexplicable to people struggling to produce enough food to get through the winter. In the Long Emergency, nobody will get anything for nothing…
“Dilletantish luxury of relativism.” The man sure has a way with words.
Sphere: Related Content
November 17th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Is there anything in the health care plan that would deny health insurence coverage to smokers?
Just askin’…
November 17th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
A few years ago, my father (now 83) complained to me. “Back when I was a young man, the ‘American Dream’ was that you work hard, you keep your nose to the grindstone, and that’s how you get ahead in this world.”
“But now, the “American Dream” is that you win the lottery and live happily ever after.”
I told him that these days the whole ’system’ is rigged and people feel that the only way to get ahead is by such a windfall. This seems to echo Kunstler’s theme.
-Mammoth
November 18th, 2009 at 7:10 am
Thanks for the question Mammoth.
“Is there anything in the health care plan that would deny health insurence coverage to smokers?”
Here’s some info regarding ObamaCare and smokers (I’ve never been to this site before, but the MSNBC link has expired and it looks like this has the full Washington Post article). Keep in mind, obviously, the legislative process is still taking place, so we can’t be sure what exactly will be included in the final product.
November 21st, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Thanks for the comment Mammoth. Somehow I’ve gotten out of order commenting on the comments. Weird.
“I told him that these days the whole ’system’ is rigged and people feel that the only way to get ahead is by such a windfall. This seems to echo Kunstler’s theme.”
You’re correct. It does echo Kunstler. I’m not sure if the whole ’system’ is rigged, but it does seem like we’re increasingly getting to that point. And what happens when people don’t get that windfall they had pinned all their hopes and dreams on? Obviously, it was never going to happen for most, but it’s still pretty sad, despite such aspirations not really being rooted in reality.