The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.
I then read an interesting story at the end of the magazine, which ended up being an excerpt from a book. Combined with the quote above, I decided to get my hands on this book: Why We Hate Us. Luckily, it was readily available at the Library.
In the second page of the preface, the author states, "I make no claims to originality..." A man after my own heart! I was hooked. About every other page of this book has some thought or idea I'd love to take and make a blog post about. (and in some small ways, have tried to)
Needless to say, I find myself agreeing with a lot of what Dick Meyer has to say about American culture, values, and why we hate us. I even agree with how he clearly states look, there are tons of people so bad off in society they don't have the luxury of the kinds of things I think (worry?) about. As he puts it, "They can't afford to indulge in social self-loathing."
But I can. And for no other reason then why a dog licks himself.
At one point, he quotes the book The Progress Paradox which basically states how all measurements of typical "standard of living" have increased since the end of World War II. "... just about every objective indicator of social welfare has trended upward on a pretty much uninterrupted basis for two generations."
What's the opposite of that? Just this:
But graphs would lose their skyward direction when the topics turn to the inner self. The trend line for happiness has been flat for fifty years. The trend line is negative for the number of people who consider themselves "very happy," that percentage gradually declining since the 1940s.
Am I looking to a very specific place to find validation of my own beliefs and thoughts about what happiness means? Maybe... But maybe that's exactly what *I* needed to be happier. Just confirmation that other people out there believe what I do. That see the fake, bullshit, and materialistic aspects of our culture for what they are. And that it's okay to hate the system you are part of.
On the last page of the preface, he also states, "I don't have answers." That sums it up right there. I never said I had answers either, or did I ever think there were any. But not having any answers shouldn't stop one from asking the questions or engaging in intellectual discourse about the things that, quite frankly, "make me hate us."
1 comment:
I always say, everything is better than it was. I think Republicans tend to think in terms of golden ages - I can't bring myself to believe that it's not better than it was. But personal relationships to the current state of the world - I don't see how those would change. They should remain static over time unless there's someone from the government individually going door to door and ensuring you're having a nice day. As a person who wrote their dissertation on dystopias, part of my interest was that no matter how good the system, or how bad the system (where they try to make you believe all is well), there is still disatisfaction (hope I spelled that right). Materialism is a personal choice for the most part and you can get by on very little if you choose to, and everyone can afford to question their status via society. Almost everyone. If they didn't, how do you explain things like the communist revolution in Russia? Or anything that happened prior to consumer-centric now? Uncle Tom's cabin is full of self-introspection, and if anyone didn't have time to think about their social condition, it was slaves. And yet they did. They chose to fight on both sides of the Civil War, for their own reasons, and they choose to stay or flee.
I think the benefit of our current society is that for most people, at least the decision to indulge in social introspection doesn't mean a life or death situation.
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