07-12-2023, 06:58 AM
HIV/AIDS may have done as much to bring the last Awakening Era to an end as any political (rise of Reagan) or economic cause (the then new neoliberal order depending upon super-cheap, but still competent labor in services and retailing, especially as American Big Business chose to become importers instead of manufacturers). Prosperity may have been delusional, as it was mostly in rising housing prices that created a wealth effect for those who had already (sort of) Made It and real hardship for those consigned indefinitely to cheap-labor roles. Because HIV/AIDS largely hit drug addicts (seemingly eternal pariahs in American life) and male homosexuals, such served the Schadenfreude inherent in the Religious Right.
Such hedonism that develops in a 3T is often divorced from any semblance of intellectualism or self-discovery, intense, short-lived -- and costly and often destructive. That is exactly what one expects in a grim world of severe inequality, economic insecurity, harsh management, and lengthened work hours.
(Hey, worker in the post-industrial economy! Do you hate your mind-numbing, soul-crushing work that falls short of meeting your economic needs? Work another such odious job so that you can pay more rent!)
Such hedonism that develops in a 3T is often divorced from any semblance of intellectualism or self-discovery, intense, short-lived -- and costly and often destructive. That is exactly what one expects in a grim world of severe inequality, economic insecurity, harsh management, and lengthened work hours.
(Hey, worker in the post-industrial economy! Do you hate your mind-numbing, soul-crushing work that falls short of meeting your economic needs? Work another such odious job so that you can pay more rent!)
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.