What Will Come of This 4T?

[pbrower2a]

(04-16-2020, 06:27 PM)sbarrera Wrote:

(04-16-2020, 04:07 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: People are now obliged to confront not so much how much they have been spending money as how they have been spending it. Some habits will be missed, and some won't. Some people will discover new interests and talents that they never thought that they had.  Some people will find that much that they have been doing is a joyless waste.  

I see it as an extended Lent, so to speak. No casual dining. No bar-hopping. No night clubs. No sporting events. No golf. No late-season skiing. No bowling.

Also no trips to casinos, galleries, movie houses, concert halls, museums... What was fading will likely die.  What is necessary to a fulfilling life will return, quite possibly bigger and better. People will surely want to expand their social lives. People will be changing their dietary habits.

On the other hand much that was dying will die. People will have bills in arrears to pay off, so that should slow any economic recovery. But do we need a swift recovery or do we need as a people to set new priorities in life?

But what about the millions of people who make a living off all those activities??

I'm not trying to be excessively specific. People have lost jobs in dislocations, and they have typically gone on to something else -- a surviving former competitor, a new growth business... I am not going to say what is a joyless waste, as such says more about my values than about economic reality. For example, I have never found a casino gambling an attractive experience. Some people love it. What people most miss they will go back to with relish, and if that is pumping coins or their equivalents into slot machines in expectation of a big payout that solves all their problems, then such they will do again when they get the chance. 

This is a nasty time -- boring, lonely, depressing, scary, and regimented. It requires people to tolerate much of what they dislike so that they do not end up dead. The death toll is characteristic of a war going badly, and if one is a soldier (we are all in barracks, so to speak, and we all are at risk of pointless death) one puts up with dreary accommodations, bad food, mobility restrictions but having to uproot frequently with little warning, danger, and regimentation. I look at the veterans of World War II, and they seem to have sought once out of war a world very different from the war. Many may have become unimaginative, unreflective conformists (or were they like that before the war as well)... but the suburban ranch house with a picket fence, a television with three channels of commercial broadcasting, well-stocked supermarkets and department stores that offer much choice suggest that GI's were able to break the patterns that military life demanded. 

By now most of us know what we miss and what we don't miss. I would like to be involved with women other than my brother's demanding and oppressive girlfriend. The dog that I lost last summer is irreplaceable due to the individuality of all dogs -- they are all as individual as we are -- and guess what I am getting with my stimulus check! I live in a rural area in which nature is nothing more than weather (a farming area is just as unnatural as a big city)... and rural America is a cultural desert. Country music is the norm, and few expressions of pop culture are lower in intellectual and philosophical content. 

What used to be permitted will be permitted again after the COVID-19 Crisis is over... the question is of what will be left. I expect people to want real experiences instead of virtual experiences. People will be on the go again. On the other hand, I suspect that telecommuting will be more the norm than it once was. To be sure there are people who need the rigid structure of the boss breathing down his neck -- but there are plenty of people who can work under minimal supervision. The more protracted the crisis, the more things will fail after it. 

There will be changes. Working while sick, once a demonstration of loyalty to the only people who matter in a plutocratic society in which everyone else is expendable, has proved in itself a disaster waiting to happen. COVID-19 made that habit about as dangerous as reckless sexuality as AIDS  became an unwelcome guest in habitual fornication.  This said, human nature has changed little enough that such people as Moses, Confucius, Plato, and Gautama Buddha remain relevant, and Greek dramas remain presentable. I'll take medieval vocal counterpoint any day (it at least gives me the illusion that I believe something) to 'modern' country music.

Children will be back in school. People will be back to work. Religious people will be attending religious services again. People will be dating again.  Maybe the biggest difference is that some recent assumptions (like trickle-down economics and in-your-face materialism) will be shown as failures.