03-20-2021, 10:37 AM
Joe Biden is old. At age 78 he is one year younger than Dwight Eisenhower was when he died. Of course, what was considered "old" when the Lost were around in big numbers and what is "old" when the middle-to-late waves of the Silent and the early-wave Boomers are the bulk of the people in their seventies. This is the point: Joe Biden seems to know what he is doing to a greater extent than any President that we have had in the last few decades. Obama has FDR-style brilliance, but he still made some mistakes.
Having four active adult generations is one way of ensuring that all generational types get some roles in public life and commerce. With the Silent around, the full ferocity of a Crisis may not emerge. Sure, the Progressive Generation would have despised the Axis gangsters, but they might have not been so quick to use an atomic bomb on Japan. The lack of Missionary creativity ensured a cultural staleness in the following American High that caused youth to chafe. The lack of Lost realism allowed adults of all ages to go into "swinging" lifestyles or to extend childhood that must end when one starts having children... and the Boom Awakening was not safe for children even if it promoted druid-like attitudes toward nature.
The GI's really did take care of themselves, which ensured that the recent 3T would still have some solid organization, if only in local life. Boomers never fully accepted the need for community as did the GI's, and the worst Boomers became t he worst executives in American history for demanding the most and offering the least to workers (unless you want to call "pie in the sky when you die" a sort of generosity. So did the slave-master on the plantation).
The contributions that people in their 70's can make are very different from those of people in their 20's. Twenty-somethings are still mostly laborers, clerks, and servants whose influences upon society are largely their consumer choices in style and culture. Yes, we need more people to milk cows, change the oil on vehicles, drive trucks, and run cash registers. More people in the entertainment industry work in the theaters where movies are shown than in the writing, direction, or production of the movies whether live or animated. Elderly people are mostly retired or doing some sort of light work if at all, although creative activities, law, medicine, and to some extent academia are well suited with appropriate adaptations to those who lack the athleticism necessary to do warehouse work.
We can all expect that the biggest influence that a new generation of adults can have is their vote. Change the demographics of 1984, when Ronald Reagan won a landslide, and transmute those to those of today, and someone like Reagan would lose.
So what is Joe Biden? The most experienced politician that America has had as President since James Buchanan, who was also an elderly Adaptive. Obviously that is not the analogue that one wants, although I can imagine some people in one part of the political spectrum seeing him that way, with its version of Abraham Lincoln "emancipating" America from liberal follies and directing America toward the alleged great wisdom that comes from greed and hard management that punishes laziness and ensures that the Right People get whatever they claim to need.
(OK, my record of disdain for Donald Judas Iscariot Trump is well-known here, and you know where I am going). We are entering that economic age in which surfeit is more of a threat than is shortage. Much will be sorted out, and that will not be a political decision. I look at those once-magnificent shrines to consumerism, the shopping mall, and recognize that the thrill is gone. Environmental concerns alone require Humanity to do more with less, and the natural constraints of time mandate that we be more selective of how we use time. Even if we were to reduce the requirement of work to five hours a week we would find much time-consuming stuff (bad art, bad books, bad movies, bad music, inapt conversation, and other dreadful wastes of time) that does nothing for us. This may say much about me, but gambling casinos, amusement parks, and strip clubs turn me cold. For those who love those, I at the least recognize your contributions to the strength and solidity of our economy, some that I could never make.
Having four active adult generations is one way of ensuring that all generational types get some roles in public life and commerce. With the Silent around, the full ferocity of a Crisis may not emerge. Sure, the Progressive Generation would have despised the Axis gangsters, but they might have not been so quick to use an atomic bomb on Japan. The lack of Missionary creativity ensured a cultural staleness in the following American High that caused youth to chafe. The lack of Lost realism allowed adults of all ages to go into "swinging" lifestyles or to extend childhood that must end when one starts having children... and the Boom Awakening was not safe for children even if it promoted druid-like attitudes toward nature.
The GI's really did take care of themselves, which ensured that the recent 3T would still have some solid organization, if only in local life. Boomers never fully accepted the need for community as did the GI's, and the worst Boomers became t he worst executives in American history for demanding the most and offering the least to workers (unless you want to call "pie in the sky when you die" a sort of generosity. So did the slave-master on the plantation).
The contributions that people in their 70's can make are very different from those of people in their 20's. Twenty-somethings are still mostly laborers, clerks, and servants whose influences upon society are largely their consumer choices in style and culture. Yes, we need more people to milk cows, change the oil on vehicles, drive trucks, and run cash registers. More people in the entertainment industry work in the theaters where movies are shown than in the writing, direction, or production of the movies whether live or animated. Elderly people are mostly retired or doing some sort of light work if at all, although creative activities, law, medicine, and to some extent academia are well suited with appropriate adaptations to those who lack the athleticism necessary to do warehouse work.
We can all expect that the biggest influence that a new generation of adults can have is their vote. Change the demographics of 1984, when Ronald Reagan won a landslide, and transmute those to those of today, and someone like Reagan would lose.
So what is Joe Biden? The most experienced politician that America has had as President since James Buchanan, who was also an elderly Adaptive. Obviously that is not the analogue that one wants, although I can imagine some people in one part of the political spectrum seeing him that way, with its version of Abraham Lincoln "emancipating" America from liberal follies and directing America toward the alleged great wisdom that comes from greed and hard management that punishes laziness and ensures that the Right People get whatever they claim to need.
(OK, my record of disdain for Donald Judas Iscariot Trump is well-known here, and you know where I am going). We are entering that economic age in which surfeit is more of a threat than is shortage. Much will be sorted out, and that will not be a political decision. I look at those once-magnificent shrines to consumerism, the shopping mall, and recognize that the thrill is gone. Environmental concerns alone require Humanity to do more with less, and the natural constraints of time mandate that we be more selective of how we use time. Even if we were to reduce the requirement of work to five hours a week we would find much time-consuming stuff (bad art, bad books, bad movies, bad music, inapt conversation, and other dreadful wastes of time) that does nothing for us. This may say much about me, but gambling casinos, amusement parks, and strip clubs turn me cold. For those who love those, I at the least recognize your contributions to the strength and solidity of our economy, some that I could never make.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.