I run hot and cold on Kunstler -- hot because he recognizes the way in which our basic economic arrangements themselves are not only unsustainable in the long run, but because they quite often undermine the better angels of our nature; cold because too many of his columns are essentially excuses for him to engage in the same repetitive rant. However, I think in his latest piece, he really hits one something deep and meaningful in this paragraph:
This monster we call the economy is not just an endless series of charts and graphs -- it's how we live, and that has to change, whether we like it or not. Now, it is obviously a huge problem that a majority of Americans don't like the idea. If they were true patriots, instead of overfed cowards and sado-masochists, they'd be inspired by the prospect. But something terrible has happened to our national character since the triumphal glow of World War Two wore off. I just hope that the Palinites and the myrmidons of Glen Beck don't destroy what's left of this country in a WWF-style "revolution." In the best societies, such idiots are marginalized by a kinder and sturdier consensus about justice. In America today, the center is not holding because there is no center.From my perspective, this paragraph resonates because it can also be found in Arnold Toynbee's
A Study of History. Basically, Toynbee says that in all major civilizations throughout history, a small group of "cultural creatives" become the elites by offering new and fresh ways of doing things, and much of the masses are inspired by these elites and seek to emulate their behaviors. However, over time, these elites cease to be inspiring and then must increasingly resort to coercion to maintain their hold on power. One of the ways that a good many people respond to this phenomenon is to much less seek to identify themselves with those cultural creatives, and instead embrace the culture and social norms of the repressed sections of the proletariat (I mean proletariat in a persecuted minority sense, for example the early Christians of the Roman Empire, not a Marxist sense).
Our "center" can no longer inspire people because it has become ossified, decadent, and corrupt. Therefore, people seek their inspiration from other areas. On the one hand, there is the opportunity for new "cultural creatives" to emerge, proposing a new way of living that can appeal to increasing numbers of people as the existing order continues its inevitable decline. That is the positive option. The negative option is a desire to return to a golden age that is largely a work of myth and fiction, resorting to demagoguery and violent coercion to do so. This was the path taken by the Germans under Hitler, after their last real attempt at empire had failed. And it's the path being taken by those who subscribe to the rantings of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin.
Note, I'm not saying that Beck and Palin are equivalent to Hitler -- that would be patently absurd and a descent into hyperbole. Rather, I am saying that there are broad historical and sociological trends at work here, and the people mentioned are simply players in those trends repeating themselves.
Anyway, enough commentary. Here's the link to the article:
http://kunstler.com/blog/2009/09/reality-receding.html#more