07-23-2020, 11:53 AM
After Donald Trump, boring and bland (really, like his predecessor) looks very good. Populism is anything but boring and bland. At this point, Americans would vote for a conservative version of Barack Obama over Donald Trump -- easily. Indeed, the next effective conservative as President will act far more like Barack Obama than like Donald Trump. The generational cycle suggests that we are roughly ten years away from the next Eisenhower-style President.
I try to take the long view, and we typically have alternations between conservatism and liberalism, ideally on the bland and boring side. It is tough luck for people who want political life to be entertaining; the three most deprecated of the Emperors of Rome were Nero, Caligula, and Commodus; there Emperors were quite good at entertaining the crowds by the standards of their times with gladiatorial games and such spectacles as feeding Christians to the bears and Big Cats. To this I say "if you want to be entertained, then pay for it or expect ads to go with it!"
Donald Trump exemplifies much of what is wrong with America, beginning with an education lacking in any moral influences. Maybe he did get a legacy admission, but we need remember that a college education is still something of an elite opportunity and achievement, and people who get something that gets them the potential for entry into above-average achievement and resulting material indulgence need to be very good morally when entering or get significant improvement. Our college graduates need to recognize that there is more to life than material gain and indulgence, easy access to entertainment far cheaper to themselves than to 'proles', bureaucratic power, and "sex&drugs&rock-n-roll"... because any amoral dimwit can cherish those. Good people recognize that they must sacrifice those on occasion for something better for themselves, their families, and for Humanity as a whole. We need accountants who don't embezzle, college professors who do not seduce their students, bureaucrats and elected officials who do not abuse power (including by bribery and official oppression), attorneys who would never consider becoming complicit in the misdeeds of their clients, engineers who do not cut corners on safety, and clergy who do not fleece their flock. If we educate so many people that we can't have enough desirable positions that can make use of an advanced degree... well we might have some very good bartenders, wait staff, retail clerks, and factory workers. The tragedy isn't a wasted education; the tragedy is an unjust social order in which people get rewarded very well for treating others badly. And, yes, we need good cops (cops used to not need college degrees, but having a good education aids in making one a better cop), county agents, K-12 teachers, nurses, medical technicians, etc.
So someone gets an expensive degree and decides to be a diesel mechanic or a machinist instead of a glorified clerk. Fine!
The dignity of human existence must take precedence over class privilege, bureaucratic power, and even GDP. In the most advanced economies, people have gone beyond the facile assumption that making and using more stuff brings more happiness. Just visit Goodwill and see all the cast-off stuff (to be sure, much of it is technologically obsolete) that used to be expressions of prosperity. Now it would be clutter.
I try to take the long view, and we typically have alternations between conservatism and liberalism, ideally on the bland and boring side. It is tough luck for people who want political life to be entertaining; the three most deprecated of the Emperors of Rome were Nero, Caligula, and Commodus; there Emperors were quite good at entertaining the crowds by the standards of their times with gladiatorial games and such spectacles as feeding Christians to the bears and Big Cats. To this I say "if you want to be entertained, then pay for it or expect ads to go with it!"
Donald Trump exemplifies much of what is wrong with America, beginning with an education lacking in any moral influences. Maybe he did get a legacy admission, but we need remember that a college education is still something of an elite opportunity and achievement, and people who get something that gets them the potential for entry into above-average achievement and resulting material indulgence need to be very good morally when entering or get significant improvement. Our college graduates need to recognize that there is more to life than material gain and indulgence, easy access to entertainment far cheaper to themselves than to 'proles', bureaucratic power, and "sex&drugs&rock-n-roll"... because any amoral dimwit can cherish those. Good people recognize that they must sacrifice those on occasion for something better for themselves, their families, and for Humanity as a whole. We need accountants who don't embezzle, college professors who do not seduce their students, bureaucrats and elected officials who do not abuse power (including by bribery and official oppression), attorneys who would never consider becoming complicit in the misdeeds of their clients, engineers who do not cut corners on safety, and clergy who do not fleece their flock. If we educate so many people that we can't have enough desirable positions that can make use of an advanced degree... well we might have some very good bartenders, wait staff, retail clerks, and factory workers. The tragedy isn't a wasted education; the tragedy is an unjust social order in which people get rewarded very well for treating others badly. And, yes, we need good cops (cops used to not need college degrees, but having a good education aids in making one a better cop), county agents, K-12 teachers, nurses, medical technicians, etc.
So someone gets an expensive degree and decides to be a diesel mechanic or a machinist instead of a glorified clerk. Fine!
The dignity of human existence must take precedence over class privilege, bureaucratic power, and even GDP. In the most advanced economies, people have gone beyond the facile assumption that making and using more stuff brings more happiness. Just visit Goodwill and see all the cast-off stuff (to be sure, much of it is technologically obsolete) that used to be expressions of prosperity. Now it would be clutter.
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.
