08-10-2019, 09:57 AM
(08-01-2019, 04:34 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: 1. an omnibus culture that can unite people across lines of age, region, ethnicity, religion, and level of formal education. Cinema seems headed that way (we are in the 80th anniversary of the most admired year in American cinema), but there is no obvious equivalent of the Big Band Era.
2. more reliance upon thrift, instead of upon printing money, to facilitate investment and the formation of businesses -- and consumer spending. Thrift of course depends upon people making real money for their efforts, which implies...
3. a return to at the least the real wages that people knew in the 1970s. Technology and productivity support such, but monopolists and bureaucratic elites take even more than the economic growth since then.
4. more reliance upon the liberal arts in education as a means of improving the lives of adults who might get something out of them other than vocational opportunity. The tragedy is not the welder who has a liberal arts degree; the tragedy is an accountant or engineer who sees the world only as economic metrics even if those metrics are people.
On item 1, we still have not moved beyond excessive divisiveness, and in fact I feel it has increased. Following the Big Band Era (which was preceded by the Jazz Age), there was the rock 'n roll era headed by Elvis, Buddy Holly, etc. Then along came solo dance crazes led by the twist, followed by the psychedelic era led by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin, et al. After that was the disco era which, although short-lived created its share of backlash, followed then by the even shorter-lived Urban Cowboy crazes which spawned such classics as Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places. Not many cultural institutions of that nature have come along ever since, the closest probably being the country line dance crazed led by Brooks and Dunn.
On item 2, the PTB have been leading us away from thrift for many years now. Part of the reason I believe was that Boomers in their growing up years soundly rejected anything GI, and that includes thrift. The earlier generation lived through the Great Depression which helped them to practice that. But there is irony here too in that it was this generation that paved the way for the ever increasing fetish for ever increasing convenience and also the trend of eating more and more of their food away from home. Some here have forecasted that when this crisis reached the serious stage there will be immense sacrifices asked of many of us, far beyond, say, giving up chocolate for Lent.
On item 3, there are other issues here such as wages alone. And while you are seeing higher wages offered at fast food and other similar businesses, that all does have to go into the price of the product, and one must wonder whether in due time that could translate to less business and also increasing automation in much the same way that union wages in industry eventually pushed it out of the country.
On item 4, the issue you describe is today affecting all levels of the society, not only those heavily involved in the STEM disciplines. Which in turn made liars out of a lot of futurists who were almost certain that all the advanced technology that almost all of us now kneel at the feet of would produce a society of ever increasing leisure. Not only do most people no longer take vacations, they don't participate that much in meaningful hobbies either. As an example many bowling alleys have closed and traditional service organizations such as the Rotary have been on the wane for years.