03-02-2020, 09:58 AM
We may be approaching the end of an era, the Reagan-Trump era, in which the only purpose in life for most people is to make someone else already filthy-rich even more filthy-rich in return for survival. It has been a glorious time in which to be a tycoon, landlord (where the economic opportunity is, as such places have increasingly concentrated in a few favored areas), loan-shark, or executive. It was an ethos both intellectually and morally impaired, one that could only hurt the common man. We became a nation of hustlers by necessity, most hustlers failing and a few who had all the advantages to begin with being sure winners. The absurdity of it all culminates in Donald Trump, an exemplar of moral and intellectual failure but a master of self-promotion.
Many of us are good at things other than hustling but not at hustling -- and it will be better that we get rewarded for doing other things again. We need to rediscover the virtues of kindness and community if we are not to live in an enduring nightmare. Being a good person with a solid work ethic and modest expectations in life should be enough to achieve happiness. All in all, happiness depends more upon liking what one gets than upon getting what one wants.
As Boomers approach the end of such influence as they have (or perhaps demonstrate too late that they were the wrong people to ignore), it is the Millennial Generation that will shape the political and social norms -- and establish the economic expectations of most people. Civic generations have seen America at its worst while young adults, and I could make the case that they experience even more severe deprivation (unless born into the elites) in early childhood than do Reactive kids. They grow up seeing what does not work for its absurdity and inequity.
Take the trend since about 1980 to its logical conclusion and we get The Hunger Games -- or the First Galactic Empire introduced in the prequel Star Wars III. Roman Republic becoming the Empire, Boyar Republic to the Russia of Ivan the Terrible, Mussolini's takeover of Italy, Weimar Republic to Nazi Germany... human kindness, including economic justice, is essential to a decent and workable social order. Any booty that one gets from economic and administrative cruelty is tainted and easily lost.
Many of us are good at things other than hustling but not at hustling -- and it will be better that we get rewarded for doing other things again. We need to rediscover the virtues of kindness and community if we are not to live in an enduring nightmare. Being a good person with a solid work ethic and modest expectations in life should be enough to achieve happiness. All in all, happiness depends more upon liking what one gets than upon getting what one wants.
As Boomers approach the end of such influence as they have (or perhaps demonstrate too late that they were the wrong people to ignore), it is the Millennial Generation that will shape the political and social norms -- and establish the economic expectations of most people. Civic generations have seen America at its worst while young adults, and I could make the case that they experience even more severe deprivation (unless born into the elites) in early childhood than do Reactive kids. They grow up seeing what does not work for its absurdity and inequity.
Take the trend since about 1980 to its logical conclusion and we get The Hunger Games -- or the First Galactic Empire introduced in the prequel Star Wars III. Roman Republic becoming the Empire, Boyar Republic to the Russia of Ivan the Terrible, Mussolini's takeover of Italy, Weimar Republic to Nazi Germany... human kindness, including economic justice, is essential to a decent and workable social order. Any booty that one gets from economic and administrative cruelty is tainted and easily lost.
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.