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 2)

OckhamsRazor

on Aug 18, 2007

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.

I see where you're coming from, but if China is immortal, it's because historically they've changed their government every couple hundred years. After numerous dynasties, the actual Republic of China wasn't formed until 1912. By a few years after WWII, circa 1948 or so, Mao Tse Tung and the Communist Party of China had the ball.

Granted, China is beginning to look like it can bid for Most Chosen Nation soon - something people in, say, 1930, probably wouldn't have believed after all their continual in-fighting century after century. There's nothing like a good civil war to breath new life into a country, though...at least for whoever it is that holds the ball after the rest are dead.

Maybe the article should have been more about governments than civilizations. I agree that has a greater ring of truth to it, and China is certainly the model for changing government...a LOT.

stubbyfinger

on Aug 18, 2007

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 think the fundamentals of human psychology would be stood on its head if something so defining to our psyche as our mortality were gone, don’t you?

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.

I don’t think your opinion of humanity has anywhere to go but up. We use the resources we have. Conservatives sure like to point out it’s better to just give money than participate in the cancer walk.

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.

Huh, believing something can be done is the first step you can’t skip it. You will not begin to do something that you think cannot be done. The belief humanity is doomed and nothing can change that is defeatism, it’s the very definition of the word. : An attitude of accepting, expecting, or being resigned to defeat. What do you call it?

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?

They’re not going to be able to stop this; they’re just too many people of means who want to drink from the fountain.

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.

I don’t think there going to get past the original article.

cactoblasta

on Aug 18, 2007

Sure, but when we consider the works of ancient thinkers like Han Fei Tzu they explain the actions of the modern communist elites in China much better than, say, Marx or Lenin ever will.

Governments are always window dressings, they're just a way of keeping the people entertained in between revolutions.

Cultural change rarely comes from government.

Granted, China is beginning to look like it can bid for Most Chosen Nation soon - something people in, say, 1930, probably wouldn't have believed after all their continual in-fighting century after century. There's nothing like a good civil war to breath new life into a country, though...at least for whoever it is that holds the ball after the rest are dead.

Well yes, but all countries go through that process. A successful state will always be renewed through internal conflict. China was lucky though for WWII, which gave it the breathing space to recover from its phoenix phase.

Maybe the article should have been more about governments than civilizations. I agree that has a greater ring of truth to it, and China is certainly the model for changing government...a LOT.

Sure. But we can see from the article you posted that there's more drama in claiming it's all about culture.

The clear evidence is that Americans are bored with being republican, not with being American. Your symbolism hasn't become any less potent to the American people - god knows people still weep to hear your insipid anthem - but your governments seem to be increasingly meaningless to them. The conclusion I'd draw from that is a drawing revolution that will repackage American identity without particularly changing it. Whether that will involve a reinvocation of Christian fundamentalism or something new and uniquely American is a question I could only answer flippantly.

stubbyfinger

on Aug 18, 2007

I'm beginning to think you're a shill for the place, stubby, as you always seem to relate every topic back to the possibility of immortality...in this flesh, on this earth.

Just happened to fit in the two articles, they both have the same no hope for humanity theme going and well me being such and optimistic fellow I thought I would try to brighten everyone’s day with a ray of hope, alas you’re a tough crowed.

And since you don’t believe in an afterlife, or at least hope there’s no afterlife, where else could we be immortal but here on this earth?

As you know, I find the idea horrific and repugnant, but hey, there's plenty of idiots on these forums to sell your modern-day equivalent of snake-oil to, so carry on. There's no shame in capitalism, and money made on frightened, (of death) gullible idiots is money they're too ignorant to know what to do with in the first place, so enjoy.

At the risk acting like a shill I have to say it would be hard to find a doctor or researcher in the field that doesn’t say we will eventually stop aging. The only thing they differ on is how soon. I know it takes a leap of faith to believe that medicine and our understanding of human physiology will continue to somehow advance even with all of us idiots around.

And I must say it takes a special kind of arrogance to say that just because this world is not going to contain your prodigy in it your going to enjoy watching it all go to hell. Bravo.

Jythier

on Aug 18, 2007

"I just read this article, and I'm going to copy and paste it here."

Think for yourself.

Champas Socialist

on Aug 19, 2007

This article promised at the start to be an inteligently written, well-researched article. Unfortunately, it simply degenerated into an overly long rant with no evidence to back up any of its claims. It is not evident if there is a jot of evidence to support any of these claims. It's just a bunch of disconnected leaps of logic with no coherent structure tying it all together (a bit like your type of jazz :>). But most importantly, I'll say it again, no evidence.

America is not at all old. In fact, its main weakness, looking at it from the outside is its youthful brashness. It believes it has all the answers to the world's problems, but, like a 19 year old, has only just begun to listen to the opinions of wiser, more experienced nations. Australia is often criticised by New Zealanders in the same way, and I think the Kiwis have a point. We talk more than we listen. That is not to say that we youthful, brash nations have nothing to offer. Our youth is our weakness and our strength. If we only ever listened to the older nations, we'd never try anything different, and we'd always have the same problems. That's why youth often come up with the most inventive and radical ideas. They are still creative. New ideas must be tried, and then refined by older, wiser people. The same applies to countries as a whole (which are just large assemblages of people).

OckhamsRazor

on Aug 19, 2007

Jythier:

Think for yourself.

Cute...this article was "service" provided. To folks not likely to visit a site like Instapunk, but who might want to once in a while. For some reason.

stubbyfinger:

I don't recall LW OR myself saying there is no afterlife nor that she/I hope there isn't one. Can you quote either of us as saying that? Just because I don't believe in the fairytale versions pandered by fear mongers doesn't mean I believe there isn't one.

Champas Socialist:

Something I think everyone should have been let in on, is that the Instapunk site is owned and operated by the author of a book. If you go to that site, you'll find many of the links (which appear in bold green) link to passages of something looks sort of like a bible. This bible, 800 or so pages long, begins with an in depth look at the history of man citing pattern after repeating pattern of human behavior covering the beginning of time up until the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima. That part is called The Past Testament.

The Present Testament takes up from there and is an account of the lives of the Baby Boomers - hippies become yuppies - and how they, determined to make sure their kids had a better life than they had, ruined them by spoiling them. It's an account of a fake Messiah, "Harry", whose answer to everything is to stop thinking. Desire what you desire, be Certain of your desire, and Blame others before they can blame you. Desire, Certainty, and Blame is Harry's Holy Trinity.

After an included prayer book and hymnal, complete with iconography, the Punk Testament wraps up the book. The stupid punk bands from South Street, Philadelphia, wake up wondering why it is they have no hope, and why they don't know anything, so they hire a bunch of "intellectuals" from every aspect of human life to tell them the whole story, so they can write it all down. It ends with a rekindling of hope for man, but that hope rides in on anger and destruction of the ones who so complacently watched their homes fall into disrepair, and their own selves into abject incompetency.

So is it "evidence?" Well, you can argue that history can't be used as evidence, but if you want evidence of the current things, call customer support for something. Buy something off of TV that has a money back guarantee, and then try and get your money back. Talk to strangers on a large city street - tell them you have a flat tire 2 blocks away and say you need help. (Talking America here - don't know what Oz is like) Perhaps you'll find some evidence in there, and in many other things you could try of a similar nature. See if you can't find in this very thread an incidence of someone whose vision of fixing the future is to insure his own prolongation.

Champas Socialist:

disconnected leaps of logic with no coherent structure tying it all together (a bit like your type of jazz :>).

Jazz isn't disconnected at all. It's just most people don't understand it. Probably because it's "too hard to" and there's no money in it, not to mention ridicule from peers who also don't want to think about it. At all. It's ok...I don't fault your opinion, as it, just like most other human opinions have happened before. It's just human nature. Riots occurred the night Stravinsky's Rite of Spring debuted for the same reasons. It was "disconnected leaps of logic with no coherent structure tieing it all together" to the French.

Regarding your points on the youth of America, you can read above what I believe has happened to them. They grew up in a world where if they held their breath and stamped their feet long enough they'd get what they want. Parents actually saying "No" and disciplining their screaming kid with a swift smack on the ass are dwindling in numbers. Parents, in large part, end their parenting with a long groan, and then they roll over and go to sleep dreaming that in 9 months they'll have a brand new bouncing baby tax break.

They play games where it's cool to pick up a whore, fuck her, and then beat her to death afterwards.

They watch shows that teach them that the hero always wins, and the bad guy always gets shot, and that all of life's problems can be resolved in "22 minutes plus commercials."

They watch a polarized government swing back and forth at each other with fists made of words, and they see through it - mostly. Both sides are exactly the same. They DESIRE, their office, they are CERTAIN that they are the right person for it, and they BLAME the other guy with great ferocity. But then they grow up, and through either parental or peer pressure, they pick a side to pull for - like it's a sport. Very few even understand the game, but by god they DESIRE their candidate to win, and they are CERTAIN that they are right, and they join the BLAME with great ferocity.

If there is hope, it very well likely will come in the form of the rebellion of Punks, who suddenly wake up and say "Why is it we don't know anything?" and then, with a vengeance, and probably a few weapons, seek out to destroy the lie that's been sold to them. And even this is nothing unlike the behavior of all the civilizations that have gone before.

Ways

Chapter 40

Now, as we set out,
2 We're loaded for bear,
3 And we're armed to the teeth for a fight,
4 Because we suspect that others will try,
5 To keep us from getting our light.
6 And so our supplies include two pointed sticks,
7 Lashed together in shape of a cross:
8 And if one Harry should stand in our way,
9 We'll nail him,
10 And leave him for lost.

Shammadamma

(c) 1991 R.F. Laird

OckhamsRazor

on Aug 19, 2007

cactoblasta

The clear evidence is that Americans are bored with being republican, not with being American. Your symbolism hasn't become any less potent to the American people - god knows people still weep to hear your insipid anthem

Insipid? Well it probably wasn't insipid to the people pouring their guts on the ground for a freedom they didn't know whether they'd achieve or not. But nice attempt at an insult. Unfortunately, it only bounces off the mirror revealing a greater description of yourself (which some probably didn't need any further evidence of)

your governments seem to be increasingly meaningless to them.

It's meaningless because many of them have never had to die for something they believed. It's so liberating to not have to die for your beliefs - so liberating you do not have to die for yours, neh? Yet.

The conclusion I'd draw from that is a drawing revolution that will repackage American identity without particularly changing it. Whether that will involve a reinvocation of Christian fundamentalism or something new and uniquely American is a question I could only answer flippantly

Flippancy seems to ride a huge wave just beneath the surface of every word you write. Too bad. It diminishes what might be some illustrative points. I can overlook it - others might not, but that's your loss, not mine. As for Christian fundamentalists, I imagine they'll be the first to go...in an appropriately stupid way - on crosses. The irony will be too good to pass up for the angry masses that are sick to death of hearing how their very existence is fucked up from the beginning. Today's American, granted some more than others, aren't any more trustful of priests than they are of politicians. On a scandal to scandal basis, I think the Politicians are ahead, but the Priests aren't far behind. Churches largely disintegrate into social clubs - aka enabling clubs - where groups of like minded religious individuals pray for and discuss methods of saving the poor misguided fools who haven't "seen" things clearly for themselves. The problem is, the "poor misguided fools" are sick to death of them. I'm thinking that a Christian fundamentalist rebellion would breed an even larger rebellion of people that come crawling out of the woodwork saying "Oh HELL no...we'll change. But not THAT way."

cactoblasta

on Aug 19, 2007

The tragedy of sacrificing your life for an ideal is that you end up achieving neither. The American revolution merely transferred the suffering from white Americans to native ones and foreign imports. Where's the lofty ideal in that? It's hardly a blow for freedom when you gain your own and immediately enslave another in your place.

So yeah, you're right, I don't have much tolerance for people who laud those who die for ideals or indulge in pointless patriotism.

Patriotism exists, but it's still a refuge for scoundrels.

Die to protect and/or save others? Sure. For an idea? Never. That way lies tyranny and callousness. All ideologies encourage humans to think of others as things. And everyone should know that's the first step on the road to evil.

So no, I do make an attempt not to demand blood sacrifice for my beliefs.

Flippancy seems to ride a huge wave just beneath the surface of every word you write.

Seriousness is slavery, Mr Razor.

As for Christian fundamentalists, I imagine they'll be the first to go...in an appropriately stupid way - on crosses. The irony will be too good to pass up for the angry masses that are sick to death of hearing how their very existence is fucked up from the beginning.

I hope not. The experience would damn them. I would not wish such a fate on either the Christians crucified or the crucifiers. We should not be so quick to demand the loss of innocence just to get a new government, no matter how good its prophets tell us it will be.

Governments are always awful, it's just a matter of how awful and whether they're less awful than the alternatives.

I'm thinking that a Christian fundamentalist rebellion would breed an even larger rebellion of people that come crawling out of the woodwork saying "Oh HELL no...we'll change. But not THAT way."

Of course. Entropy in a society is death.

EDITED to insert a significant 'not'.

OckhamsRazor

on Aug 19, 2007

Die to protect and/or save others? Sure. For an idea? Never

I'm guessing that when you're in it, the line between protecting/saving others and an idea is pretty wavery. But I don't claim to know. I've never had to die for either.

cactoblasta

on Aug 19, 2007

I'm guessing that when you're in it, the line between protecting/saving others and an idea is pretty wavery. But I don't claim to know. I've never had to die for either.

I can't speak for it myself, but my grandfather was in world war two, and he always used to say that his mates didn't fight to save democracy, or to end tyranny. They enlisted for the adventure and, when they saw what war was really like, they fought for each other.

Of course that's just one man's view. There's some vets on here, they might be able to shed a little light as well.

EmperorofIceCream

on Aug 21, 2007

"Immortality Institute"? There are people who actually want to live forever?

That's very nearly as funny as suicide.

or do we just say fuck’em they’re all doomed anyways?

Yes. That's exactly what we say. The more of humanity that dies, and the faster they do it, the happier I will be. We are a disease, and it's about time we were cauterized.

stubbyfinger

on Aug 21, 2007

Yea I’m not buying it, at least not as far as your better half. I’ve seen her show genuine concern for her fellow humans here many times, and she’s also had a consistent pro-life stance.

Why would someone who longs for the death of all humanity give a shit if another one wasn't brought into the world?

If memory serves you’ve expressed a pro-life stance as well so no I’m not buying it with you either, I think you two are playing a little game.

Sigmazrn

on Aug 27, 2007

Interesting.

Ock, I appreciate the compliment, but it's not generally considered kosher to copy an entire blog post. I'll forgive it this time, though.

Your commenters are mostly as tiresome as mine. Funny how they tend to fall so neatly into stereotypical voices: the young know-it-all who has more answers than education; the liberal snob who doesn't know the difference between an historical treatise and a pesonal essay; the superior Brit (in this case, Aussie) who believes the announcement of his nationality confers automatic superiority over the Yank trogs...

I'll add just a few points of clarification. First, culture and government are not separate issues. The U.S. is old in technical terms because it has the oldest and least changed surviving government in the world. Since 1789, only the U.K. has not started over, but in that year George III still had more power than the prime minister. Second, China is not nearly the historical exception that the U.S. is. The dynastic cycle lasted so long because it contented itself with mere repetition, which is itself a sign of old age. For close to 2,000 years Chinese government retained the same serendipitous blend of Ch'in authoritarianism and Han values, the same technology, the same bureaucracy, and even the same census strategy: until the turmoil of the twentieth century, no Chinese census counted more than 60 million Chinese. That was the ideal and prosperous number. Some of your commenters would call that a victory, I suppose, but it did not really exceed the accomplishments of the Egyptians or the Maya, and it did not create the kind of individuated consciousness that enables your Aussie, for example, to prize his own mentality over yours or mine.

The contribution of the European enlightenment was that it accelerated the cycles of history quite dramatically, precisely because it made individuals more important and therefore created a sense of urgency absent in antiquity. This also aligned the individual fates of nations more closely with the mentality of their citizens. Was this good or bad? You tell me. All I know is that the American experience has affected more people, places, and cultures on the planet than any previous culture. Including Australia. Which wouldn't be able to enjoy its current reckless rebelliousness without our far more successful precedent. The Aussie who scorns America is pissing on the most important source of his own identity. But that's how it goes. To some extent, governments always mirror their people. Soviet communism was czarist (as is Putin). Chinese communism is imperial dynastic. And Australia is still a nation of convicts with a big chip on their shoulder. Plus ca change...

The only interesting question in all this is -- given the unique speed of cultural change in the era of post-enlightenment high technology -- what constitutes rejuvenation? Does technological velocity transform age into youth by sheer momentum and the inevitability of adrenalin-inducing crises? Possibly. Or is there a kind of trans-generational fatigue that sets in, a weariness with speed itself, that finally commands a halt in the race to the future? Possibly.

My essay was a personal expression of weariness, which we all feel from time to time. Tomorrow I may feel differently. But today I see young people behaving like old people and old people behaving like children. I'm not without hope. (See the latest Instapunk entry about the Little League World Series, titled Remembering Sport.) But I'm also not without a deep sense of foreboding.

You're always welcome to visit InstaPunk with your insights and questions. I'm too old to have the answers anymore, but I don't mind kicking the questions around.

cactoblasta

on Aug 27, 2007

the superior Brit (in this case, Aussie) who believes the announcement of his nationality confers automatic superiority over the Yank trogs...

We all need something to believe in.

For close to 2,000 years Chinese government retained the same serendipitous blend of Ch'in authoritarianism and Han values, the same technology, the same bureaucracy, and even the same census strategy: until the turmoil of the twentieth century, no Chinese census counted more than 60 million Chinese.

Which 2,000 years? The one where the strength of the Chinese culture was sufficient to swallow up the Mongols? The one where the territorial integrity of China was maintained in the face of a number of expanding empires in Southeast Asia, Japan and South Asia? The one where they secured and expanded trade routes throughout the Pacific?

I think it's a little too easy to say China retained the same government for 2,000 years simply out of old-age induced laziness rather than because it was an effective way to rule.

but it did not really exceed the accomplishments of the Egyptians or the Maya, and it did not create the kind of individuated consciousness that enables your Aussie, for example, to prize his own mentality over yours or mine.

It was a different culture, certainly - China was a collectivist, not an individualist culture. But I think if you asked a Chinese person of that time they would clearly answer that the Chinese in the Middle Kingdom are vastly superior in mentality to anyone else. So it's clear that individuated consciousness is unnecessary for prizing a mentality over others. It's an analysis that a group can make just as easily as an individual.

The contribution of the European enlightenment was that it accelerated the cycles of history quite dramatically, precisely because it made individuals more important and therefore created a sense of urgency absent in antiquity.

Certain individuals, maybe, but I would say it was the invention of first paper, then universities, and then the printing press which really drove development. Faster communication of ideas is the key to accelerating the cycles of history. Mere ideas alone are no good when they are thought in isolation. As an example Kautilya argued much the same path as Machiavelli did in the Prince, but did it nearly 2000 years earlier; nevertheless Macca had better PR and publishing techniques, so he gets the glory.

All I know is that the American experience has affected more people, places, and cultures on the planet than any previous culture.

You think that; you don't know it. I'd still say it was probably Rome, if just for Roman script and philosophy. Or the Chinese for their invention of the wheelbarrow (most people throughout history have been farmers). If America pulls off the victory it's probably because there are more people around these days than there ever has been.

Which wouldn't be able to enjoy its current reckless rebelliousness without our far more successful precedent.

Australia's never been recklessly rebellious. I don't think it's ever even been rebellious bar one isolated incident which may well have been because the pub ran out of beer. There is no more content and peaceable place on earth than Australia, and only one fatter. I'm flippant, but you should never extrapolate from a single specimen.

The Aussie who scorns America is pissing on the most important source of his own identity.

I imagine that depends on your views on the place/space debate. Personally I've always fallen on the side of place.

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