There are prophets of hope. There are those who try avoid preconceptions, reading events as they happen. And there are the prophets of schadenfreude, that joy that only arises when someone else is suffering. These prophets have political handmaidens, too - cynics who would let the country fail to further their own political interests.
Then there's Homer Simpson, who agreed with his daughter Lisa that sometimes events have no point, no "moral," that sometimes they're "just a bunch of stuff that happened." I don't accept the Simpson Model of History, but I prefer it to that of those who seem to take pleasure in our rising tide of economic misery. Futurist Jamais Cascio calls this perspective "aspirational apocaphilia" and cited James Howard Kunstler as one of its leading proponents.
Here's the thing: I'm not convinced that Kunstler's "long emergency" scenario is wrong. So I reviewed his predictions for 2009. After some partisan comments about the Middle East (replete with ad hominem attacks on anyone who disagrees with him), there was this piece of aspirational apocaphilia:
"My hope for the year, at least for my own society, is that we will transition away from being a nation of complacent, distracted, over-fed clowns, to become a purposeful and responsible people willing to put their shoulders to the wheel to get some things done. My motto for the new year: 'no more crybabies!'"
Got it? If you're suffering it's your fault. Why? Apparently because you're afraid of a little good old-fashioned elbow grease.
The problem with this sort of rhetoric is that there is real suffering going on here, and it's going to affect the least-fed the hardest. "Overfeeding" didn't contribute to an African-American infant mortality rate in the U.S. that's 2.5 times that of non-Hispanic whites, nor did it cause 1\18,000 deaths in 2006 because people didn't have health insurance. Then there's the "Tiny Tim effect": 13 million kids in poverty. 8 million without health insurance. 14 million unsupervised after school. And the economic crisis could cause more states to cut welfare programs, as California is voted to do earlier this week. Overall, those at the low end of the economic ladder are likely to suffer most during this downturn.
Or is this just "crybaby" stuff?
Some of the points Kunstler makes are valid: We should consume less. We should consider the long-term effects of peak oil. And some of his comments resemble, in harsher form, a point made by Fareed Zakaria and others: That "we" as a nation borrow, consume, and waste too much capital and resources. But, as with Zakaria's comments, it seems to me we can present these ideas without the implicit judgment of the people-as-sheep. "It serves you right" isn't a rallying cry for change, and it unfairly overlooks the underlying forces driving individual behaviors.
For contrast, John Robb makes points about the need for societal change in his thought-provoking blog Global Guerrillas, yet manages to avoid condemnation and self-righteousness. There's a lesson in these two differing styles - and in Josh Marshall's observation that "we all, and I don't exclude myself, must be ever wary of the way our own egos and excessive regard for our own short moment in history" can lead us to potentially overstate both the crisis and its impact.
That's important because, while this may not be the end of civilization as we know it, things could still get very bad. Lawrence Mishel and Heidi Shierholz have done the analysis and here's what they predict (warning: pdf) if nothing is done: One out of every three working Americans would experience unemployment or underemployment in 2010. Nearly one in five African Americans would be out of work. Middle-income families would lose $4,700 per year in income. Aspirational apocaphilia looks like bad taste at best in the face of these figures.
Apocalyptics aside, who wouldn't do everything in their power to prevent this kind of pain? Some Republicans, apparently. From Rush Limbaugh to Kenneth Blackwell, conservatives are openly voicing their hope that the government will fail to address the downturn (which led Steve Benen to wonder whatever happened to that "country first" slogan.) Limbaugh's comments finally led Bill Bennett to object - not to Limbaugh's unpatriotic sentiment, but to his "locution" and "rhetoric."
In other words, Bennett thinks it's acceptable to hope Americans suffer for partisan political gain - but for God's sake don't say so. The apocalyptics seem like a breath of fresh air compared to that kind of cynicism. These partisans would rejoice in the failure of Democratic policies, no matter how many Americans suffered as a result.
There's another link between the partisans and the apocalyptics, as seen in this comment from Bennett: "Of course, if you're talking about policies with which you disagree you don't want them to succeed." In other words, ideology trumps effectiveness. In their minds a successful policy is still bad, despite its proven success, if it doesn't conform to their preconceived ideas of how the world works. Both sets of doomwishers want to see their own ideas survive, it seems, no matter what the human cost.
I'll take Homer Simpson over that kind of thinking anytime. But even if these schadenfreudistas fail, don't worry: I, for one, will refuse to rejoice.
nice work
Posted by: Lallyjmf@comcast.net | January 29, 2009 at 07:34 AM