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+---- Thread: America is a sick society (/thread-595.html)
RE: America is a sick society - Eric the Green - 01-06-2017
(01-06-2017, 06:37 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Sessions is going to be a brittle target for anti-racists.
I expect practically every Trump appointee to be rushed through the confirma5tion process and confirmed on partisan lines. Democrats are $crewed for at least the next four years in federal politics. About the only thing that Republicans will be unable to do is some egregious violation of the Constitution or to try to undo Supreme Court decisions directly. Stare decisis applies as a well-protected principle in jurisprudence.
I hope that his appointments can at least be delayed, and perhaps a few turned down. But I wouldn't disagree with your prediction.
Quote:I would not be surprised if Republicans tried to outlaw or 'merely' regulate the Democrats into irrelevance as Commies did in central Europe in the late 1940s. Such would indicate that they have no intention of losing any election.
If we do not have the White House or any meaningful power in Congress -- we have the streets. Most big cities have Democratic majorities with police chiefs who will not stop lawful protests. They will bust rioters, but tough luck to the rioters and especially any violent counter-protesters.
Agreed with the above.
Quote:I expect one-sided, hurtful politics from Republicans for the next four years. In the meantime we Democrats will be honing our rhetoric and learning activism. This is a Crisis Era, and the drift toward hostility to the classist ideology of Republicans will be slow. It is unlikely that Trump and the Hard Right Republican Party will ever have anything to offer liberals except fear. In the British colonies in the early 1770s America went from being resoundingly Tory (just think of John Adams' rightful defense of British soldiers) to pro-independence as George III tried to tighten his grip. By early 1776 George III lost his grip on Greater Boston -- before people who had recently had no cause to oppose the King could not think of any alternative to independence.
We will be ripe for such catalysts in a few years.
I am not even ready to predict that Trump won't be re-elected. If the Democrats do not nominate someone with a better horoscope score than Trump, or in non-astrological terms, someone who can appeal to the people (and that is largely proven to be the same thing), then if Trump runs for re-election he is quite likely to win.
RE: America is a sick society - pbrower2a - 01-06-2017
I heard a disruption in the Senate chambers.
RE: America is a sick society - radind - 01-06-2017
(01-06-2017, 06:37 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I would not be surprised if Republicans tried to outlaw or 'merely' regulate the Democrats into irrelevance as Commies did in central Europe in the late 1940s. Such would indicate that they have no intention of losing any election.I do not expect this to happen, but I do think that such action would be more likely from the Democrats than from the Republicans.
I hope that you are terribly surprised.
RE: America is a sick society - pbrower2a - 01-06-2017
(01-06-2017, 07:42 PM)radind Wrote:(01-06-2017, 06:37 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I would not be surprised if Republicans tried to outlaw or 'merely' regulate the Democrats into irrelevance as Commies did in central Europe in the late 1940s. Such would indicate that they have no intention of losing any election.
I do not expect this to happen, but I do think that such action would be more likely from the Democrats than from the Republicans.
I hope that you are terribly surprised.
It would certainly be made to look as if it were done by Democrats or by people associated with a cause inimical to the Republican Party. It could of course be done by a rogue snookered into doing something egregious who then is betrayed by those who sponsor his deed, or some simple-minded extremist.
We do not need or want any Reichstag fire.
RE: America is a sick society - Eric the Green - 01-06-2017
Study: racism and sexism predict support for Trump much more than economic dissatisfaction
The study comes with a chart to prove it.
Updated by German Lopez@germanrlopezgerman.lopez@vox.com Jan 4, 2017, 1:30pm EST
http://www.vox.com/identities/2017/1/4/14160956/trump-racism-sexism-economy-study
Following Donald Trump’s election, the media tried to identify several indicators for why he won. Was it the opioid painkiller and heroin epidemic? Poor health outcomes? The economy?
A new paper by political scientists Brian Schaffner, Matthew MacWilliams, and Tatishe Nteta puts the blame back on the same factors people pointed to before the election: racism and sexism. And the research has a very telling chart to prove it, showing that voters’ measures of sexism and racism correlated much more closely with support for Trump than economic dissatisfaction after controlling for factors like partisanship and political ideology:
As the paper acknowledges, clearly economic dissatisfaction was one factor — and in an election in which Trump essentially won by just 80,000 votes in three states, maybe that, along with issues like the opioid epidemic and poor health outcomes, was enough to put Trump over the top. But the analysis also shows that a bulk of support for Trump — perhaps what made him a contender to begin with — came from beliefs rooted in racism and sexism.
Specifically, the researchers conclude that racism and sexism explain most of Trump’s enormous electoral advantage with non-college-educated white Americans, the group that arguably gave Trump the election. “We find that while economic dissatisfaction was part of the story, racism and sexism were much more important and can explain about two-thirds of the education gap among whites in the 2016 presidential vote,” the researchers write.
Now, the researchers didn’t measure just any kind of racism and sexism. For racism, they evaluated the extent that someone acknowledges and empathizes with racism — acting as a proxy measure for actual racist beliefs. (Research shows that these kinds of measures correlate with actual racism, which is tricky to measure in a more direct way since people will do what they can to avoid looking racist.) For sexism, they evaluated someone’s hostile sexism — which, through several questions, gauges hostile attitudes toward women. (For more on how hostile sexism is typically measured and compares with other types of sexism, read Libby Nelson’s explanation for Vox.)
(RELATED
Research says there are ways to reduce racial bias. Calling people racist isn’t one of them.)
To gauge these measures, the researchers looked specifically at national survey data from the online polling firm YouGov, taken during the last week of October.
YouGov’s data for likely voters had Hillary Clinton up by 3 points, which isn’t far from her final 2.1-point victory in the popular vote — suggesting that it’s fairly accurate.
![[Image: Trump_support.png]](https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/a8sdbNIC8h6F7n1tlyNloUxIzDw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7747947/Trump_support.png)
Within this data, the researchers looked at respondents’ answers to various questions about the economy, racism, and sexism. The questions typically measured how much a respondent agreed with statements like, “I am angry that racism exists,” and, “Many women are actually seeking special favors, such as hiring policies that favor them over men, under the guise of asking for ‘equality.’” The researchers then matched responses to the scores shown in the chart above.
This isn’t the first study to produce these results. It’s been consistently demonstrated that racism and sexism played a big role in Trump’s Election Day victory. But knowing and proving the link between Trump and bigotry is crucial for anyone interested in defeating a candidate like him — or even Trump himself — in the future.
This isn’t the first study to link bigoted beliefs to support for Trump
By now, multiple analyses have found that support for Trump tightly correlates with racist and sexist beliefs.
Several polls found that Trump supporters were more likely to profess negative views of black people, Muslims, and Latinos, as well as concerns that immigrants threaten US values. One telling study, conducted by researchers at UC Santa Barbara and Stanford University shortly before the election, found that if people who strongly identified as white were told that nonwhite groups will outnumber white people in 2042, they became more likely to support Trump.
Another set of studies, conducted by researchers Carly Wayne, Nicholas Valentino, and Marzia Oceno, found that measures of benevolent sexism — meaning more traditional, chivalrous views of women and men’s proper roles in society — didn’t correlate closely with support for Trump. But measures of hostile sexism did, suggesting that sexism in support of Trump seems to be more about hostility toward women than old-fashioned views on gender roles.
None of this is too surprising — Trump, after all, ran a campaign in which he made explicit racist and sexist appeals. He characterized Mexican immigrants as criminals and “rapists.” He called for banning Muslims — an entire religious group — from the US. He said a US judge should recuse himself from a Trump University case due to his Mexican heritage. He referred to black and Latino people’s lives as hell, calling for police to adopt “stop and frisk” — a practice deemed unconstitutional in New York City because it was used in racist ways — to help protect “inner cities.” He suggested Fox News host Megyn Kelly was tough on him at a debate because she was menstruating. He was recorded on tape bragging he can sexually assault women (“grab ’em by the pussy”) because he’s a celebrity. And that’s far from all.
Why the racism and sexism behind Trump’s win matters
At some point, you might start to wonder why journalists keep writing about the link between Trump’s support and bigoted beliefs. The election is done. Do we really need to analyze what happened over and over again?
The point, at least for me, is not to demonize Trump voters. The point is to understand them in order to better grasp how they could vote for someone who ran a clearly bigoted campaign and who most voters agreed is unqualified for the nation’s highest office.
As Schaffner, MacWilliams, and Nteta write in their paper, there’s growing evidence that 2016 was unique — in that racism and sexism played a more powerful role than recent presidential elections. “Specifically, we find no statistically significant relationship between either the racism or sexism scales and favorability ratings of either [Republican candidate] John McCain or Mitt Romney,” they write. “However, the pattern is quite strong for favorability ratings of Donald Trump.”
The concern, then, is that this is the beginning of a modern trend in which politicians like Trump directly and explicitly play into people’s prejudices to win elections — and it works.
If that’s really what’s happening, it’s important for progressives and anyone interested in limiting the power of bigotry in US politics to know and demonstrate what’s going on. Studies like this put a bigger imperative on getting to the root of the problem and figuring out ways to reduce people’s racial or gendered biases.
To this end, the research also shows it’s possible to reach out to Trump voters — even those who are racist or sexist today — in an empathetic way without condoning their bigotries. The evidence suggests, in fact, that the best way to weaken people’s racial or other biases is through frank, empathetic dialogue. (Much more on that in my in-depth piece on the research.) Given that, the best approach to really combating racism and sexism may be empathy.
One study, for example, found that canvassing people’s homes and having a 10-minute, nonconfrontational conversation about transgender rights — in which people’s lived experiences were relayed so they could understand how prejudice feels personally — managed to reduce voters’ anti-transgender attitudes for at least three months. Perhaps a similar model could be adapted to reach out to people with racist, sexist, or other deplorable views, although this possibility needs more study.
But all of this involves a lot of legwork, outreach, and a kind of empathy that people may not be comfortable with in an era of highly polarized politics. Knowing what caused Trump’s win is crucial to gauging whether all of this work and effort is worth doing. And given the growing amount of research showing the major role of bigotry in Trump’s win, it certainly seems like the work and effort are needed.
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RE: America is a sick society - Eric the Green - 01-06-2017
(01-06-2017, 07:33 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I heard a disruption in the Senate chambers.
Democratic Senators fail to act on their convictions. None of them, even Bernie Sanders or Kamala Harris, objected to Trump's election, and Biden shouted down 6 objectors in the House.
RE: America is a sick society - radind - 01-06-2017
(01-06-2017, 08:03 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(01-06-2017, 07:42 PM)radind Wrote:(01-06-2017, 06:37 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I would not be surprised if Republicans tried to outlaw or 'merely' regulate the Democrats into irrelevance as Commies did in central Europe in the late 1940s. Such would indicate that they have no intention of losing any election.
I do not expect this to happen, but I do think that such action would be more likely from the Democrats than from the Republicans.
I hope that you are terribly surprised.
We do not need or want any Reichstag fire.
I agree with this.
RE: America is a sick society - Eric the Green - 01-06-2017
(01-06-2017, 01:49 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: American liberals would never collaborate with ISIS, an entity as undemocratic and illiberal as Stalinism or Nazism. They would easily collaborate with a democratic Japan, Indonesia, or India because of shared values even with great differences of culture; democracy is an internationalist ideal, much as German liberals who survived the Devil's Reich found it easy to collaborate with the British or Americans.
I can imagine American fascists collaborating with Islamofascism because for authoritarian types, culture is not so precious as is the desire to exploit and abuse people. Communism? Commies found that rank-and-file members of the fascist militias (Hlinka Guard in Slovakia, Arrow Cross in Hungary, Iron Guard in Romania, and Ustase in Croatia) would sell out their old bosses for their own gain -- and they would get to keep beating up political opponents such as liberals, conservatives, and democratic socialists as they did for fascist regimes.
Exactly. The Islamic State so-called is the most vile "institution" on the planet today, and needs to be wiped out quickly.
The problem now is, it hasn't been wiped out in time for Trump. His incompetent, criminal and imperialist proposals for dealing with the IS, if carried out, could very likely disrupt the military campaign being assisted by the United States, and encourage support for the IS again.
RE: America is a sick society - Eric the Green - 01-06-2017
Many Trump voters seem to feel that a progressive approach to improving the economy is a zero-sun game. They seem to be more concerned that blacks or women or Mexicans might compete with them for their job, rather than that the CEO or the boss won't pay them or hire them in order to protect their profits and stockholders.
Clearly, the problem with our economy is the latter. All of us of whatever race or group face the same challenge of the 1% owning and controlling too much of the economy. I don't see that putting your fellow victims of this injustice into an arbitrary group competing with you for the crumbs left over after the trickle down fails to trickle, solves any problems.
And that goes for generational grouping too, as if Boomers are the problem instead of Xers or Millennials.
RE: America is a sick society - pbrower2a - 01-07-2017
The world is safe enough with the USA as a benign superpower. It is in mortal danger with the USA as an Evil Empire. So what is the difference between a benign superpower and an Evil Empire? A moral or at least cautious leader... and an evil, reckless one.
Much that was unthinkable two years ago or unlikely two months ago stares us in the face. A benign republic becomes an Evil Empire in two weeks.
RE: America is a sick society - radind - 01-07-2017
(01-07-2017, 05:51 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The world is safe enough with the USA as a benign superpower. It is in mortal danger with the USA as an Evil Empire. So what is the difference between a benign superpower and an Evil Empire? A moral or at least cautious leader... and an evil, reckless one.
Much that was unthinkable two years ago or unlikely two months ago stares us in the face. A benign republic becomes an Evil Empire in two weeks.
You see the USA becoming Evil. I see the USA becoming better.
-We must wait for results to see what actually happens.
For now , all we have is speculation.
RE: America is a sick society - pbrower2a - 01-07-2017
(01-07-2017, 09:31 AM)radind Wrote:(01-07-2017, 05:51 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The world is safe enough with the USA as a benign superpower. It is in mortal danger with the USA as an Evil Empire. So what is the difference between a benign superpower and an Evil Empire? A moral or at least cautious leader... and an evil, reckless one.
Much that was unthinkable two years ago or unlikely two months ago stares us in the face. A benign republic becomes an Evil Empire in two weeks.
You see the USA becoming Evil. I see the USA becoming better.
-We must wait for results to see what actually happens.
For now , all we have is speculation.
How does it get better? We get for all practical practical purposes a single-Party system.We have a ruling elite which believes that no human suffering is in excess so long as there is a profit to be had from it. The President-Elect is a demagogue and a sociopath. Corporate lobbyists wield the real power in the legislative branch. We will have an economic order with no mercy.
I do not see Donald Trump becoming a good person. He acts like a juvenile delinquent who never grew up. Had he been brought up poor he would be a gangster -- and still dangerous. If he were middle class he would be the sort of businessman who operates a sleazy business -- maybe some real-estate dealer who sells troubled properties and tells gulled customers "Sorry, I can;t do anything more", or the operator of a bait-and-switch outfit.
It is as if Gilded-Age politicians of the 1920s and earlier and southern racist agrarians have joined in establishing an anti-worker system. Sure, there will be work -- but it will be paid far less.
RE: America is a sick society - radind - 01-07-2017
(01-07-2017, 05:54 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(01-07-2017, 09:31 AM)radind Wrote:(01-07-2017, 05:51 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The world is safe enough with the USA as a benign superpower. It is in mortal danger with the USA as an Evil Empire. So what is the difference between a benign superpower and an Evil Empire? A moral or at least cautious leader... and an evil, reckless one.
Much that was unthinkable two years ago or unlikely two months ago stares us in the face. A benign republic becomes an Evil Empire in two weeks.
You see the USA becoming Evil. I see the USA becoming better.
-We must wait for results to see what actually happens.
For now , all we have is speculation.
How does it get better? We get for all practical practical purposes a single-Party system.We have a ruling elite which believes that no human suffering is in excess so long as there is a profit to be had from it. The President-Elect is a demagogue and a sociopath. Corporate lobbyists wield the real power in the legislative branch. We will have an economic order with no mercy.
I do not see Donald Trump becoming a good person. He acts like a juvenile delinquent who never grew up. Had he been brought up poor he would be a gangster -- and still dangerous. If he were middle class he would be the sort of businessman who operates a sleazy business -- maybe some real-estate dealer who sells troubled properties and tells gulled customers "Sorry, I can;t do anything more", or the operator of a bait-and-switch outfit.
It is as if Gilded-Age politicians of the 1920s and earlier and southern racist agrarians have joined in establishing an anti-worker system. Sure, there will be work -- but it will be paid far less.
We have totally different views of the situation. I was concerned about the future of the USA if Clinton had been elected.
I expect reforms to help US business and jobs. We will know later.
RE: America is a sick society - pbrower2a - 01-08-2017
I expect Donald Trump to suggest a "Bill of Tights for Business" -- no need to deal with unions, lax regulation on employee safety, soft rules on environmental protection, and ability of employers to control ever aspect of employees' rights. In the public sector, such people as teachers will be 0obliged to expound corporate propaganda if they are to keep teaching. Thus global warming is a hoax because Corporate America says that it is a hoax -- or start working in a fast-food place tomorrow.
I expect reproductive rights to be curtailed so that Americans will have large families to provide copious cheap labor to be most fully exploited. Yes, I see a nightmare -- just what one can expect in a single-Party system. I expect to hate life. My greatest risk will be suici9de out of despair.
I no longer believe in American politics, not so much because my side lost (that happens to everyone) but because the system will be thoroughly evil - worse than the usual dictatorship because it will insist that we see ourselves as a free people even as people live in abject fear and subjection. Profit will be sacred and people will be expendable. I hope that I am wrong -- but the President is a sociopath, the Congressional majorities are puppets of corporate lobbyists responsible only to their paymasters, and most state legislatures are at least as bad as the US Congress.
RE: America is a sick society - Eric the Green - 01-09-2017
(01-07-2017, 07:52 PM)radind Wrote:(01-07-2017, 05:54 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(01-07-2017, 09:31 AM)radind Wrote:(01-07-2017, 05:51 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The world is safe enough with the USA as a benign superpower. It is in mortal danger with the USA as an Evil Empire. So what is the difference between a benign superpower and an Evil Empire? A moral or at least cautious leader... and an evil, reckless one.
Much that was unthinkable two years ago or unlikely two months ago stares us in the face. A benign republic becomes an Evil Empire in two weeks.
You see the USA becoming Evil. I see the USA becoming better.
-We must wait for results to see what actually happens.
For now , all we have is speculation.
How does it get better? We get for all practical practical purposes a single-Party system.We have a ruling elite which believes that no human suffering is in excess so long as there is a profit to be had from it. The President-Elect is a demagogue and a sociopath. Corporate lobbyists wield the real power in the legislative branch. We will have an economic order with no mercy.
I do not see Donald Trump becoming a good person. He acts like a juvenile delinquent who never grew up. Had he been brought up poor he would be a gangster -- and still dangerous. If he were middle class he would be the sort of businessman who operates a sleazy business -- maybe some real-estate dealer who sells troubled properties and tells gulled customers "Sorry, I can;t do anything more", or the operator of a bait-and-switch outfit.
It is as if Gilded-Age politicians of the 1920s and earlier and southern racist agrarians have joined in establishing an anti-worker system. Sure, there will be work -- but it will be paid far less.
We have totally different views of the situation. I was concerned about the future of the USA if Clinton had been elected.
I expect reforms to help US business and jobs. We will know later.
You said much the same after the 2014 election. You said the GOP would cooperate with the president for the public good. What results did you see from the Republican Congress in 2015 and 2016?
There was no basis for concern for the future if Clinton had been elected. That concern belongs to Donald Trump. If you expected Clinton to bring trouble, you'd have to say that the last 8 years have been trouble. What is your basis for such an idea? That people can't use "religious freedom" as an excuse to discriminate against gays? Is there substantial basis for you saying the last 8 years have been horrible?
Quote:You see the USA becoming Evil. I see the USA becoming better.
-We must wait for results to see what actually happens.
For now , all we have is speculation.
I don't see that as "we" waiting for results, if by "results" you mean an overturning of gay rights. If that's your definition of "results," then we will not agree with you regardless of what happens.
RE: America is a sick society - pbrower2a - 01-09-2017
(01-07-2017, 07:52 PM)radind Wrote:(01-07-2017, 05:54 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(01-07-2017, 09:31 AM)radind Wrote:(01-07-2017, 05:51 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The world is safe enough with the USA as a benign superpower. It is in mortal danger with the USA as an Evil Empire. So what is the difference between a benign superpower and an Evil Empire? A moral or at least cautious leader... and an evil, reckless one.
Much that was unthinkable two years ago or unlikely two months ago stares us in the face. A benign republic becomes an Evil Empire in two weeks.
You see the USA becoming Evil. I see the USA becoming better.
-We must wait for results to see what actually happens.
For now , all we have is speculation.
How does it get better? We get for all practical practical purposes a single-Party system.We have a ruling elite which believes that no human suffering is in excess so long as there is a profit to be had from it. The President-Elect is a demagogue and a sociopath. Corporate lobbyists wield the real power in the legislative branch. We will have an economic order with no mercy.
I do not see Donald Trump becoming a good person. He acts like a juvenile delinquent who never grew up. Had he been brought up poor he would be a gangster -- and still dangerous. If he were middle class he would be the sort of businessman who operates a sleazy business -- maybe some real-estate dealer who sells troubled properties and tells gulled customers "Sorry, I can't do anything more", or the operator of a bait-and-switch outfit.
It is as if Gilded-Age politicians of the 1920s and earlier and southern racist agrarians have joined in establishing an anti-worker system. Sure, there will be work -- but it will be paid far less.
We have totally different views of the situation. I was concerned about the future of the USA if Clinton had been elected.
I expect reforms to help US business and jobs. We will know later.
Hitler got more jobs (with huge pay cuts, of course) and made Big Business more profitable by unleashing the profiteering drive of would-be monopolists. Germany may have had full employment, but it still had the lowest industrial wages in Europe except perhaps in the Soviet Union. Germany had a labor shortage because it severely underpaid workers -- a labor shortage so severe that it had to kidnap foreigners to be slaves in German industry.
Will Trump be that bad? Probably not. But he will be awful.
You get a job -- but it comes with a 40% pay cut, and you get to face monopoly prices. What a raw deal! More work, but less pay. Is that "Making America Great Again", or is that making America great for only a small part of the overall population?
I expect the worst because Donald Trump is a horrible person -- maybe slightly better than the late John Gotti, but not by enough of a difference..
RE: America is a sick society - pbrower2a - 01-09-2017
(01-09-2017, 02:23 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:(01-07-2017, 09:31 AM)radind Wrote:(01-07-2017, 05:51 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The world is safe enough with the USA as a benign superpower. It is in mortal danger with the USA as an Evil Empire. So what is the difference between a benign superpower and an Evil Empire? A moral or at least cautious leader... and an evil, reckless one.
Much that was unthinkable two years ago or unlikely two months ago stares us in the face. A benign republic becomes an Evil Empire in two weeks.
You see the USA becoming Evil. I see the USA becoming better.
-We must wait for results to see what actually happens.
For now , all we have is speculation.
I see the US becoming what all the so called "America Firsters" and fans of Fr. Coughlin wanted. A withdrawn, tin foil clad, racist, nobody.
Kewel!!!!!
True. Insanity and cruelty are not survival values.
RE: America is a sick society - Eric the Green - 01-25-2017
Even Late in Her Career, Jane Jacobs Made Predictions That Are Coming True Today
Her widely panned last book, Dark Age Ahead, cautioned against social and economic decay and the rise of demagogues like Donald Trump.
RICHARD FLORIDA @Richard_Florida May 4, 2016
http://www.citylab.com/politics/2016/05/jane-jacobs-100th-birthday-cities-predictions-dark-age/481077/
The documentary Jane Jacobs: Parting Words shows Jacobs (1916-2006) in her final public appearance in Portland, Oregon.
Jane Jacobs was always ahead of her time. In her trilogy of urban works, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Economy of Cities, and Cities and the Wealth of Nations, written in the 1960s and mid-1980s, she not only outlined the key elements of great neighborhoods and effective urbanism, but also predicted the back-to-the city movement. Early on, Jacobs identified the increasingly important role of cities in innovation and economic development. But urbanism was not the only subject on which she proved prescient. In her last book, Dark Age Ahead, she also predicted some of the more negative and destructive trends of modern society—rising inequality, the erosion and decay of key social institutions, the downsides of globalization—that have paved the way for demagogues like Donald Trump.
In a field dominated by men, Jacobs broke through with groundbreaking, decidedly female ideas about how cities should work.
Released in 2004 when she was 88 years old, Dark Age Ahead is hardly talked about among urbanists and fans of Jacobs’ earlier works. In fact, it was widely panned as the work of an aging crank whose best days and smartest commentary were behind her. The New York Times called it an “extremely sloppy” and “haphazard” book. Such reactions were par for the course with her later works. The MIT economist Robert Solow wrote that her 2000 book The Nature of Economies “[does not tell] us much about the nature of economies, beyond the pun itself.” For these reviewers, Jacobs should have long since retired from writing. But like early critics of Death and Life, these reviews missed the incredible prescience and foresight of her thought.
Back in 2004, before the economic crisis, urbanists were celebrating the resurgence of the city. We didn’t think much about the rise of conservative populists like Trump or the late Rob Ford. But there was Jane Jacobs, arguing “caution” against a new dark age lurking right around the corner.
In Dark Age, Jacobs focused on the erosion of the key pillars of stable, democratic societies—the decline of the family, the rise of consumerism and hyper-materialism, the transformation of education into credentialism, the undermining of scientific norms, and the take-over of politics by powerful special interest groups, among others. Persistent racism, worsening crime and violence, the growing gap between the rich and poor, and increasing divides between the winners and losers of globalization provided growing evidence of the decay of society, she argued.
“Her voice was prophetic,” says Mary Rowe, the vice president of New York’s Municipal Art Society, who was quite close to Jacobs during her lifetime. “The last book, Dark Age Ahead, is the most sobering—and now even more so as it all continues to be borne out.”
I received a firsthand glimpse of Jacobs’ thinking on these darker trends in our society when I sat down with her in October 2003 for “A Conversation with Dick and Jane,” organized by Artscape’s Creative Spaces + Places Conference in Toronto. I wanted to hear her talk about cities as the motor force for innovation and economic progress by harnessing human knowledge and creativity. She was encouraging of my work, saying that she was “joyful" to hear my remarks on the “importance of ingenuity and creativity.” But, as was her style, she also pointed out that the age of knowledge and creativity was itself under threat. Creativity is fragile, she noted, and cities need to cultivate and nurture their very structures for harnessing the diversity that propels it. She drew attention to the powerful counter-tendencies that act against creativity, especially the role of what she termed “squelchers”—individuals like Robert Moses and large bureaucracies like corporations or top-down city planning agencies. Squelching happens when society somehow forgets that diversity in cities is its most important economic and social asset.
She then went on to talk about the long legacy and imprint of the plantation economy, and the troubling “standardization of creativity” by corporations, universities, and other bureaucratic institutions. According to Jacobs, these historical tendencies were reasserting themselves in ways that could undermine the modern economy and society. The diversity that makes cities innovative and creative was being threatened by increased homogeneity in neighborhoods brought on by extreme gentrification, the replacement of unique shops with franchises, and the transformation of local styles and fashions with luxury goods. As cities collapse, fashion and luxury goods are the last things to disappear, she added, predicting the rise of the uber-rich neighborhoods that we see in New York and London today. Standardization is the greatest squelcher of all, she argued, because it means that the city will be unable to generate new innovations and replace exports.
At the very center of Jacobs’ work, I have come to believe, lies a great concern over the darker, more pessimistic forces of standardization, top-down planning, bureaucracy, and globalization that have acted against diversity and human progress. This was the same kind of concern evident in the work of great thinkers such as Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Joseph Schumpeter, who saw capitalism, bureaucracy, and large corporations as draining the humanity out of modern society.
At the time of her death, Jacobs was working on two books that reflected this deep-seated tension between the deadening tendencies of large organizations and squelchers, and the humanizing tendencies of great cities and urban neighborhoods. The first book was titled Uncovering the Economy, where she planned to bring together a lifetime of thinking to help us understand cities as the underlying engines of innovation and economic growth. The second was portentously titled A Sad But Short Biography of the Human Race. Here she would expand on the enduring legacy of the plantation economy, standardization, inequality, globalization, and domination. In her last interview with the Montreal writer Robin Philpot, she gave us important clues about this work: “It’s not my anticipation that we’re into evolution for a short run,” she said. “We’re much closer to our beginnings than we realize. … Our economies haven’t changed since the beginning and certainly globalization is not a new phenomenon.”
“The last book, Dark Age Ahead, is the most sobering—and now even more so as it all continues to be borne out.”
She went on to worry about the eventual decline of the United States, noting that “the collapse will come about as a banal thing.” One can only imagine how unsurprised Jacobs would be by the evolution of America’s economy and society in the decade since her death—particularly the hyper-gentrification of great cities, the growing social and economic divides, the continuing erosion of scientific norms, burgeoning celebrity culture, and, most recently, the rise of Donald Trump—in many ways the symbol of it all.
And yet, for Jacobs, the one optimistic force remained the city itself, which harnesses human diversity and propels our economy, culture, and politics forward in a more progressive, human-centric direction. Our cities, she argued, were our main line of defense between the over-powering forces of darkness and an impending dark age. Just one week after publishing Dark Age, Jacobs wrote an article for The New York Times magazine in which she argued that “perhaps it will be the city that reawakens our understanding and appreciation of nature, in all its teeming, unpredictable complexity.” These words take on an even greater importance today, a century after she was born.
RE: America is a sick society - Odin - 01-25-2017
I read that book when it first came out. I'll need to read it, again.
RE: America is a sick society - Marypoza - 01-26-2017
(01-09-2017, 04:47 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:(01-07-2017, 07:52 PM)radind Wrote:(01-07-2017, 05:54 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(01-07-2017, 09:31 AM)radind Wrote:(01-07-2017, 05:51 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The world is safe enough with the USA as a benign superpower. It is in mortal danger with the USA as an Evil Empire. So what is the difference between a benign superpower and an Evil Empire? A moral or at least cautious leader... and an evil, reckless one.
Much that was unthinkable two years ago or unlikely two months ago stares us in the face. A benign republic becomes an Evil Empire in two weeks.
You see the USA becoming Evil. I see the USA becoming better.
-We must wait for results to see what actually happens.
For now , all we have is speculation.
How does it get better? We get for all practical practical purposes a single-Party system.We have a ruling elite which believes that no human suffering is in excess so long as there is a profit to be had from it. The President-Elect is a demagogue and a sociopath. Corporate lobbyists wield the real power in the legislative branch. We will have an economic order with no mercy.
I do not see Donald Trump becoming a good person. He acts like a juvenile delinquent who never grew up. Had he been brought up poor he would be a gangster -- and still dangerous. If he were middle class he would be the sort of businessman who operates a sleazy business -- maybe some real-estate dealer who sells troubled properties and tells gulled customers "Sorry, I can;t do anything more", or the operator of a bait-and-switch outfit.
It is as if Gilded-Age politicians of the 1920s and earlier and southern racist agrarians have joined in establishing an anti-worker system. Sure, there will be work -- but it will be paid far less.
We have totally different views of the situation. I was concerned about the future of the USA if Clinton had been elected.
I expect reforms to help US business and jobs. We will know later.
There was no basis for concern for the future if Clinton had been elected.
-- wtf??!!!!??????? Eric, the bitch was trying to start a war with Russia. Not some pisspot on the other side of the world, but Russia.. on the other side of the Bering Strait. If you slap a bridge across that sukkah it only takes around an hr to get there. Or for them to get here. I'm guessing boats can cross it in pretty much the same amt of time. Do you (& the other $hillbots around here) honestly think that if she had droned Russia (or whatever hostile act) they wouldn't have invaded us? If so, then y'all are nuttier than she is
