Death of America

From Instapunk

Published on August 17, 2007 By OckhamsRazor In Current Events

Over on the right in my "Go Here Now" section is a link to a place called "Instapunk." It's kind of a blog by some, what I consider great thinkers. I just read this article, and I'm going to copy and paste it here. LW, I'm pretty sure Laird wrote this. There's "foul" language in it. Don't like that? Don't read it

I post it here because it's worth the read.

OLD. I've been tracking the Mayans and the Easter Islanders for close on 40 years now. The theories about their downfalls change with each new fad in sociology. The current wisdom has it that they perished because of environmental catastrophe. The Mayans experienced too much climate change, and the Easter Islanders cut down too many trees. They could have been saved, we suspect, if they'd had Al Gore and Hillary Clinton to make their governments protect them with the right kinds of laws and programs. Not to mention the fact that religion was always their worst enemy, closely followed by foreign imperial powers bringing unfair trade and disease in their wake.

The problem is, no civilization lasts for 500 or 1,000 years without encountering crises aplenty. Long before they lost their trees, the Easter Islanders suffered from the crippling diseases of inbreeding. The Mayans battled the unforgiving jungles of Central America for over a thousand years before they suddenly shut the whole enterprise down -- well before the evil Spaniards came. The first crushing defeat of Rome occurred before 300 BC, but the Romans rallied to rule the known world until the middle of the fifth century A.D. The Minoans of 2500 BC had indoor plumbing, but we're asked to believe that a single volcanic eruption ended their whole culture because there was no Red Cross to descend on the disaster like FEMA and pull their irons from the fire.

But here's a contrary idea that's actually backed by science: Ontogeny recapitulates philogeny. The experience of the one mirrors the experience of the group. Civilizations are actually like individual people. They age. When they're young, they're resilient. When they grow old, they're not. The not very mysterious reason for the fall of advanced civilizations is that they die of boredom, unbelief, and a consequent loss of the survival instinct.

Europe has been dying to die for a century at least. Why? They're exhausted. They've thought all their thoughts, written all their books, painted all their pictures, sculpted all the fountains they ever imagined, and fought every war they could invent a reason for. Now, all they want is to sit in their air-conditioned room staring at a TV game show and please don't bother them with bills or other obligations.

The United States of America was an extraordinary attempt to break out of this pattern. The distinguishing idea was not democracy, which had already been tried repeatedly, but eternal youth. This was a country founded on the idea that people who were vital and resilient at heart could leave the dying places and come to a perennially new world where youthful ideals, energy, persistence, faith, desire, and dreams could hold boredom at bay forever. Such people came from everywhere -- Europe, Asia, Africa -- and traded their grandparents' cynical resignation for a new covenant with hope.

It worked for nearly 200 hundred years. Longer than most fountains of youth, to be sure. But old age has a way of catching up to everyone. Now the Baby Boomers are a perfect symbol of their nation, which continues to think (and speak) of itself as young even though it's actually the oldest old fart at the party. (Yes, technically, Britain is older, meaning they've lasted longer without the facelift represented by a brand new form of government, but Alzheimer's is a cruel taskmaster and its absolutist amnesia is not rejuvenating.) America is no longer young, though. Under the highlighted hair transplants and inside the juvenile tracksuit tailored to show off silicon breasts and lipo-ed hips, America has grown very very old.

I say this as one who has also grown old. Ontogeny recapitulates philogeny. When I was young I never thought of blood. I was from New Jersey. Now I play CDs of bagpipe music and imagine myself marching with Bonnie Prince Charlie. As if I were more Scottish than American. I've never been to Scotland... but I'm becoming what I used to jeer at in all the old cosmopoilitan Jews I saw, who mysteriously acquired Yiddish accents as they sank into dotage, kvetching about putzes where they used to scorn presumptuous fools. But I'm not alone. This country which was once about citizenship as a conceptual union among the like-minded has become a nursing home common room filled with phony nativists from all the nations their ancestors sacrificed everything to leave.

What else do we old codgers think about in the nursing home? We want our pills, dammit, and we don't much care who has to pay for them or how long they'll be paying for them. We just know we've lived long enough and worked hard enough that it's someone else's turn to take care of us now. By the way, don't ever talk to us about making sacrifices for the future. Our future is measured in sitcom units, meaning 22 minutes plus commercials. And if the show isn't funny or diverting or all wrapped up after the last laxative ad, we're not interested. We may not be interested even then. Truth is, we're bored.

Did I mention that we're bored? I did? Well, it bears repeating. We're b-o-o-o-o-o-r-ed. So b-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-r-ed. We've already done it all, you see. All the eating and drinking and buying and working and fucking and child-rearing and sacrificing and paying and paying and watching and believing and getting the mail and getting fucked and getting watched and getting told what to do and getting fucked again and getting audited by our great democracy and getting screwed by ungrateful children and getting lied to by everyone and getting fucked again and again and again, so that all we want now is our chocolate pudding and possession of the remote control. And some nice big checks from the government.

Is God in the nursing home? No. We no longer care about the toughest question youngsters ask of God -- Why do bad things happen to good people? -- because we've lived long enough to realize that we are not good people, and given what we deserve, it would be better by far if He weren't there at all and life just ended when it looks like it does, with a stopped heart and a stone-cold brain.

Do we love "the kids" as much as we say we do? No. We don't. There are too many kids. When you're as old as we are they're all kids, and they're all assholes.

The little ones make too much noise all the time, which is why we endorse the idea of giving them sedatives for made-up disorders that are really synonymous with being young. We also chuckle to ourselves at the one great innovation of the last twenty years, binding them hand and foot in car seats and prams, so they'll learn what it's like to be us without all the intervening fun of invincible childhood.

The bigger ones are even worse. No one likes to be reminded that they're way past sex. And sex is the only thing they remind us of. The boys wear their pants below their cocks. The girls wear their skirts above their twats and do everything a girl's limited imagination can conceive of to flaunt their naked breasts. B-o-o-o-o-o-ring. Europeans have stopped having children because they're bored by sex, which is why they used to lispingly disapprove of Hollywood's naively unsexual sex comedies. Now our teenage and twentyish kids have acquired the vaunted European sophistication about sex, and we oldsters are even more bored than they are because sex was only fun for us when it was forbidden, dirty, unmentionable, and delicious. It's become the exact opposite of all those things, which means that not only are we incapable of it, we're also no longer interested in it. And as with so many things, the kids are following our example without being aware of it.

There are other kids too. Much older kids. Just as idiotic. Kids who are entering their fifth and sixth decades with lips still firmly locked on the government nipple, unmindful of the enormous pleasures to be had by running recklessly through life without asking for permission or an allowance. Mexican kids who think it's better to be a juvenile delinquent than a neophyte citizen. "Native American" kids who pretend that their ancestors weren't murderous short-lived savages but PhDs from the school of hard knocks who were true-green environmentalists when they were still moving on to build a new town whenever the privies got filled to overflowing. Black kids who still prefer the aliases and thievery of their fugitive great-grandparents to the capitalist responsibiliies and educational requirements that accompany life in the wealthiest nation on earth. Female kids who think the unfairness of life has to do with being female. Perverted kids who insist that everyone not only tolerate their most disgusting sexual practices but admire them as well and instruct all children in the praiseworthiness of the obsession to fit a square peg into a square peg and a round hole into a round hole. Atheist kids who annoy everyone with the proposition that the belief system which invented morality can't hold a candle to the unbelief system which claims that it has a monopoly on morality. Kids of every age who demand everything from their fellow man while acknowledging no debt or allegiance to any nation, people, or way of life.

Nope. We don't much care about the kids. But like all old people everywhere, throughout the history of human life on earth, we do enjoy fretting about bullshit. We like to see the mighty humbled. We like to rant and rave about possible future crises that will never affect us. Did we mention that we like our TV? And the movies? Okay then. We like disasters because they remind us that even people who aren't old can be suddenly killed, and we like it better if there's someone to blame. We like conspiracy theories because if there isn't a conspiracy, how did our life wind up so empty and meaningless? We like to pretend that we care about children, so keep the saccharine sob stories about abused, missing, and murdered kids coming. We like sports, because what else is there? And we like our pills. No, we love our pills. We want more pills. MORE, MORE, MORE pills. For free. And we don't like wars unless they're short, spectacular, and picturesque. Like a good war movie. Anything else exhausts our attention span. Unless you're talking higher taxes on all the people who are richer than we are. We can pay attention to that. Did you forget about the more pills part?

There used to be a whole country dedicated to youth and its potentialities. For the first and only time. It was called the United States of America. The youth thing was mis-labelled 'American Exceptionalism.' It was a place of unbounded hopes, new starts, second chances, naive optimism, sacrifice, hard work, opportunity, approximate equality, and belief in the purpose and meaning of life. But it's dead now because the people who lived there got old and they stopped believing in anything, and when that happened the sheer boredom of just existing made them start yearning for death. Not just their own, but everybody's. Because catastrophe is more exciting than a chair in the waiting room. That's how Rome fell. Although some of the know-it-alls here at the home are still blaming it all on the Little Ice Age. After all, you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Comments (Page 1)

OckhamsRazor

on Aug 17, 2007

I removed the adult tag and put a warning at the top.

And yes, Laird is definitely a bee. You should check out Instapunk more often....it's worth visiting.

In other news, Mari is home...yay! We're going to dinner, and then....see ya later

Jythier

on Aug 17, 2007

Wow.

That was a really good article.

OckhamsRazor

on Aug 17, 2007

Wow.

That was a really good article.

The guy that wrote it graduated Harvard at age 19. He also wrote one of the best works I've ever read.

EmperorofIceCream

on Aug 17, 2007

I just read the original, and left a comment there under my own name. I t read something to this effect:

"I wish I'd written this. Every American - everyone who has ever aspired to be American - should be made to read this with the barrel of a gun pressed firmly to the base of their skulls. Anyone not immediately laughing hysterically in fits of delighted recognition should be removed from their self-satisfaction via a bullet to the brain. I wish I'd written this."

as any truly excellent piece of writing should, this one immediately began forming connections in my head to other writings I've read - particular to George Steiner's In Bluebeard's Castle Some Notes Towards the Redefinition of Culture. In it he talks about the role of boredom in the generation of the Great War (WWI).

The great difference between le grande ennui (I think it's 'le' but my French sucks and I might well be wrong) of Europe prior to WWI and the boredom of the contemporary American is this: the Europeans of that day were not possessed by guilt over the past nor by a sense that the future was out of their control.

In other words, the boredom of Europe really was boredom (which is why it was relieved by war - contemporary records detail the way in which entire populations became hysterical with relief at the news of the outbreak of hostilities), whereas what's occurring in America today is merely affectation. America isn't bored: America is hopelessly passive in the face of circumstances it has no control over.

Where's Manifest Destiny when you need it? Would Teddy Roosevelt have sat with his thumb up his ass while uncountable hordes of illegal immigrants poured across a national border? No. He would have invaded Mexico and kicked the living shit out of the Mexicans.

Will contemporary America do anything like that? No. Why? Because every politician in America has his or her eye on the votes of the 11 million or so Mexicans who are already here - and god knows, the only point to being in power anymore is to remain in power for as long as possible despite (or because of) the fact that no one has any idea what to do with it, except to piss it away propping up Saudi Arabia and the Israelis.

Which of course you can't do, if you piss off the Mexicans.

I talked with a co-worker today. She's of the firm conviction that something is very wrong with America today. She looks forward to the lives her grand-children will lead with actual dread. And she is equally convinced that nothing can be done. Nothing further from the Revolutionary spirit that ended British rule in America can be imagined.

And I don't think she's alone.

Moderateman

on Aug 17, 2007

I too almost missed this, Whatta great piece of writing! nothing else needs be said.

stubbyfinger

on Aug 17, 2007

I guess the only cure to boredom and the rotting of civilizations are to keep everyone young forever.

OckhamsRazor

on Aug 18, 2007

I just read the original, and left a comment there under my own name. I t read something to this effect:

I actually saw your comment there before I saw this one here. For some reason it made me smile that you dropped by over there.

I'm not a regular visitor to Instapunk. A little hard to explain why, but there are certain musicians that when I listen to them, they are SO incredibly good, that it makes me want to stop playing. Writers like Laird affect me the same way...I suddenly feel that all my life when I thought I've been writing something insightful, the truth is, I've been scratching meaningless lines on paper with a crayon; a tendril of drool dropping slowly to the floor.

And she is equally convinced that nothing can be done. Nothing further from the Revolutionary spirit that ended British rule in America can be imagined.

And I don't think she's alone.

She's not. That's about where I am, too. I'm fairly convinced our political system is diseased beyond the point of recall, and it isn't just the politicians that are diseased - it's all the people, too. If I knew what to change, I'd suggest it, but at this point, just give me my chocolate pudding and the goddamn remote.

I guess the only cure to boredom and the rotting of civilizations are to keep everyone young forever.

I think the point was that that is like saying "well, I guess all we need to do is sprout wings and fly." Growing old is an inevitability in humans, and an inevitability in civilizations as well.

This is just my intuition talking, probably based on some facts that are rolling around in the logical bed of my brain and conceiving children that then spring forth as ideas, so I can't cite anything, but it seems to me that human beings and their associated civilizations seek points of repose. They struggle and bleed so they can get to a point where they can lay backk and say "Ah...there we are. Let's watch TV." And then the complacency and stagnation set in. It's like we're fighting our hardest to become lazy - our ultimate goal. To rest on laurels, and strut in front of other civilizations with our new found superiority. But it's faux superiority. If we were truly superior, laziness would not become the goal.

Jythier

on Aug 18, 2007

Laziness is always the goal. People in the working classes certainly work hard so that they don't have to work hard later, or they're lazy now. People who succeed in building wealth tend to want to keep building more wealth, and instead of being lazy they continue to work, harder than ever, because even their passive investments are now so many they take time to review. Nobody really gets to that point where they can BE lazy until their bodies can no longer work - and then they can't be too lazy, because they have to worry about going to the doctor instead of their jobs.

Remember - they're only watching TV so they have something else to complain about. TV sucks.

stubbyfinger

on Aug 18, 2007

The catalyst to everything you and author are speaking of is the physically and mentally tiredness that comes from the effects of aging and the day-to-day pace of our lives. Not because we’ve done everything there is to do. Every day is a race because we feel time is chasing us. Whether or not you believe that in the future death will be optional, and IMO that’s becoming as big a truth as death itself, you have to admit, it would completely change humanity and civilization.

Many of us get tired of working because we don’t like what we’re doing, and have been for one reason or another forced to do it. If we had more time, more of us would find what we love to do. There are people who wake every day up exited to go to work. Also the idea that we’ve created all the art there is to create is stupid, there’re infinite directions artistic expression can take. We get tired of fucking because it becomes fucking tiring. Doing it like we did when we were young would never get old.

I think the point was that that is like saying "well, I guess all we need to do is sprout wings and fly." Growing old is an inevitability in humans, and an inevitability in civilizations as well.

When I read shit like this I see some old faux intellectual from the past arrogantly proclaiming that man will never do this or that because if he can’t comprehend it, no one ever will, you’ll join all the rest of these shortsighted prognosticators in history.

If you could at least admit its possible someday this may not be the case, that would be fine, but this chicken shit defeatist attitude, I mean talk about useless. Oh life is pain, everything dies, what lives is going to hell and there’s nothing we can do about it. Nice, well I guess its always been up to the can do’s of the world to fix things.

LW states that people have forgotten that there are goals worth suffering and sacrificing for other than materialistic needs. Really, what would those goals be if you believe everything is all going to hell? Which is it LW do we sacrifice for the future of humanity or do we just say fuck’em they’re all doomed anyways?

OckhamsRazor

on Aug 18, 2007

Stubbyfinger, I really think you should pop on over to Instapunk and put a comment to this effect on the article itself. Make sure you use that faux intellectual line, too. He'll like that. Let me know when you're done...I wanna watch.

stubbyfinger

on Aug 18, 2007

Make sure you use that faux intellectual line, too. He'll like that.

How does a response to a sentence you wrote, relate to anything Instapunk wrote?

I don’t see where he wrote that this would always be the true of civilizations do you?

OckhamsRazor

on Aug 18, 2007

Are you blind or something?

Civilizations are actually like individual people. They age. When they're young, they're resilient. When they grow old, they're not. The not very mysterious reason for the fall of advanced civilizations is that they die of boredom, unbelief, and a consequent loss of the survival instinct.

It was called the United States of America. The youth thing was mis-labelled 'American Exceptionalism.' It was a place of unbounded hopes, new starts, second chances, naive optimism, sacrifice, hard work, opportunity, approximate equality, and belief in the purpose and meaning of life. But it's dead now because the people who lived there got old and they stopped believing in anything, and when that happened the sheer boredom of just existing made them start yearning for death. Not just their own, but everybody's.

And by your response, I assume you believe *I* am the faux intellectual, then?

Since you say you're one of the can-dos, tell me. Because I'm curious. What are you doing to fix it?

stubbyfinger

on Aug 18, 2007

Are you blind or something?

Everything you quoted speaks of past and present civilizations, it says nothing about the future of civilization.

And by your response, I assume you believe *I* am the faux intellectual, then?

I’m equating your statement to the statements of past intellectuals who claimed with absolute certainty that man would never be able accomplish something he later accomplished. Many of them were intellectuals and like many other intellectuals they can sometimes be a little too sure of themselves I apologize for generalizing.

Since you say you're one of the can-dos, tell me. Because I'm curious. What are you doing to fix it?

The only thing I can see that would change this is to defeat ageing, which is what I said in my original reply to Instapunks article.

Having a “can do” attitude doesn’t mean you can do everything. So I’m not going to say nothing can ever be done about it, and I’m going to instill that attitude in my kids. I also give a little cash to the immortality Institute, though I admit I have some selfish reasons for that. That’s about all I can do now. The point is that if you don’t even think it’s possible to fix a problem, it has no chance of ever being fixed.

Link

OckhamsRazor

on Aug 18, 2007

Everything you quoted speaks of past and present civilizations, it says nothing about the future of civilization.

I think history can go along way to predicting the future if you add in human psychology. I'm not saying this in a defeatist way, but an objective realistic one. Do I want us to all just become idiots to the degree that we self destruct once and for all? Nah. But if you made me bet my next paycheck on whether we'd all become immortal or that we'll all die...yeah, I'm going with die. I don't have the faith that you seem to have in human beings. Been watching them fuck each other with increasing apathy for too long.

I also give a little cash to the immortality Institute, though I admit I have some selfish reasons for that. That’s about all I can do now.

With that statement, you haven't increased my hope any. In fact, you've spoken exactly as I would expect a member of the Most Chosen Nation to speak.

The point is that if you don’t even think it’s possible to fix a problem, it has no chance of ever being fixed.

Just thinking a thing doesn't make it happen. Action is required, and you've taken yours. You've put money into an organization with the hopes that it will, selfishly, you admit, help you live forever. That all you got? Probably ought not throw those 'chicken-shit defeatist' and 'useless' epithets around so freely.

So I’m not going to say nothing can ever be done about it, and I’m going to instill that attitude in my kids.

How? So far all you've given me as an example of what you're doing to fix things is what I mentioned earlier. Trying to live forever. Do you think this will be enough to have your children grow up with a profound sense of home? One that will give them a willingness to die for their beliefs in the way our forefathers were willing to die for theirs? Do you see in this culture a whole lot of people willing to die for their beliefs? Are you willing to die for yours?

Immortality will not cause wings to sprout. It will cause chaos. Yes, I know - you disagree, but don't you think the religious zealots of the world will fight this thing if it occurs? They'll fight twice as hard...they've been dying and killing each other in droves for century after century to insure THEMSELVES an eternal life. Making man immortal is the equivalent of killing their Gods. You think those religious freaks in the middle east are going to take kindly to it? Or the religious freaks we have here?

I'd love for one of my favorite Christians to pop in at this point and discuss God given eternal life vs. man made eternal life with you. In fact, I kinda wish you'd write a blog about this aging thing. I DID go to your site but there's nothing there on it.

Edit: I should admit that I want it for my own amusement. Popcorn, LW?

cactoblasta

on Aug 18, 2007

From the sounds of it what you're waiting for is a revolution and a new form of government. It'll probably come in the next few generations, and will most likely be christian fundamentalist in nature, considering they're probably the only group whose likelihood of voting and involvement in politics is increasing.

So there you, go, you have something to look forward to and get excited about.

The first crushing defeat of Rome occurred before 300 BC, but the Romans rallied to rule the known world until the middle of the fifth century A.D.

Hmmm, the 'known world'. I've never really liked that term, especially when used to describe Rome. Where do people think the barbarian hordes came from? Do they not realise that Chinese expansion during a similar time period started the domino effect of dislodged tribes that eventually sacked Rome? If you're looking for a mighty world power who's lasted for a very, very long time as a single cultural entity you need only look at China.

It's been conquered once or twice but has always sprung back or subsumed its conquerors. If any nation is immortal it's China, and if you need an exception to the theory that all nations disappear and die then China is it.

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