A New World

In an ever changing and uncertain world we are facing a stark new possibility. This is that the Generations Z and Y, those born between 1982-2010 will be so culturally different from preceding groups as to create a rift in American society. This is no academic essay. It is simply the ramblings of one who sees changes in our generational culture that are not quite for the better.

The older members of the so-called Generation X are in some ways the last vessels of memory for many cultural constants in America. That will come as a shock too many over 50 who view Xer’s as too young to understand the post-WWII world. Yet we are the threshold generation for a technological revolution. We are the last to know a world before cable and satellite TV became common. We are the last to know unairconditioned schools, no microwave ovens, no cell phones, no home computers and no internet. For the average 18-year-old American now lacking all these things would be as alien as living in a Franciscan monastery.

We remember the world of Cronkite, Nixon, Ford, Carter and most dear to many of us, Reagan. Many of our parents were of the Silent Generation from 1925-45. My own grandparents were born on the front end of the Greatest Generation 1901-1924. One grandfather was born before the Wright brothers flew. Many Generation Xers learned our life lessons from these earlier groups whose daily lives are as far removed from what most of us now know as to make them unrecognizable.

Growing up I thought everyone’s grandparents had an outhouse. Conveying that thought to a 25-year-old brought me a blank stare.

I venture that most Generation X members have embraced the technology that surrounds us now and use it daily. The very forum for this writing is evidence of that. We staff IT departments, run communications, man the military, and develop new technologies daily. We do all these things that younger generations take for granted yet many of us keep a foot in the past.

I know such generalizations do not take in everyone but they do mark larger trends. For instance I know several people in my own age group that grow a vegetable garden at their home. This may seem a small thing but it is a link with the past because our parents and grandparents and ancestors immemorial did it. We learned it as children by helping and so it became second nature. This is a small thing in some ways. Yet it is indicative that for the most part only those of Generations Y and Z who live in rural settings or on farms still uphold this practice.

Growing a garden does not alone set a group apart. Many other things apply as well. From what I can tell Generation X adults tend to be more conservative socially than younger groups. They also seem to be better able to solve problems without reliance on the newest technology.

This is not a condemnation of Y and Z generations. They can no more control the world they are brought into than any other generation could. Yet it is disturbing that they have less and less contact daily with an American past that was more self-reliant, less globalist and more in tune with things larger than ourselves. A quick look through personal postings on YouTube will reveal a grinding self-centeredness that glares in many people of these generations. Much of this is encouraged or enabled by overindulgent parents who themselves were already loosing touch with the past.

I wonder where we will be when only those of Generation X will be able to recall those lessons of the Greatest Generation. What are we loosing as a culture and country when we break our ties to a past that though not perfect, seems so much more in tune with reality and with sustainability than what we have now?

von Rum

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Behind Closed Doors No More

In an age in which celebrity reigns and private life is all but abolished there seem to to be few sacrosanct areas left. In fact privacy while being hailed as a right by all is in fact ignored or shunned by many.

Take for example the recent death of John Travolta’s son. The press swarmed to the Bahamas like bee’s to honey. They could not wait to exploit this time of grief for ratings. I don’t know the family nor will I. Yet I could not help but feel nothing but sympathy for them and nothing but bottomless contempt for the media. The harping about the Travolta’s religious beliefs made it even more insipid. Whether you agree with their beliefs or not, prime time news is not the place to have a discussion about its effects (or lack of) on their son’s health before he has even been buried. It was sickening.

People who place themselves in a media driven profession, such as actors, or a public profession such as politicians should expect some scrutiny of their lives. Yet they also ought to be afforded some level of decency by those who have touted themselves as the fourth branch of government. How can the media be the conscience of America if it has no conscience or morals itself?

As a society we all share some guilt in this. The media sell a product and there has to be a market. We are it. If there were no desire to see trailer trash fight on stage there would be precious little on network television in the afternoon. If there were no abiding and perverse interest in the personal lives of stars there would be nothing but game shows on after the 6:30 news.

We invite these shows because they are widely viewed. If not they could not exist because they could not market advertising. They are a symptom, not the disease. Television gets blamed for many things, often rightly, but we cut them on.

This is all tied in I think to a devaluing of privacy. The evidence for this is abundant. The very rise of websites like myspace and facebook in which people of all ages and groups pour out their private lives for the whole world to view is an obvious example. Websites with video of peoples most private thoughts and moments in the home are everywhere. The rise of reality TV in which people are monitored twenty four hours a day also shows this diminishing respect for privacy.

There was a time when it was the norm for statements in the home or among close friends to be given the same level of respectful secrecy as those given to a priest or doctor. No more. Now anything anyone says anywhere is subject to be on youtube. The strange thing though is that we seem to be largely complacent about it. In fact most are participants in it.

You often hear cries of 1984 or Big Brother when a security camera goes up at a public place or identification is required for some service. The fact though is that many Americans have beat Uncle Sam to the punch and freely posted most of their private lives for the whole world without coercion but with glee. The government has little to do to eradicate private lives. We have largely done the work for them.

von Rum

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Vision, Or Lack Thereof

Day by day as we travel through our current economic crisis it seems to me that very few who’s voices are heard are pointing out the glaring faults in the current reasoning.

Of course we have all heard the endless and loud debates about whether or not to bail out the auto industry. We have also heard the near universal (justly) criticism of the already approved financial industry bailout. Most of the debate centers on whether or not we should bail out a particular industry and if so by how much. While not unimportant this question misses some deeper questions.

Most of all there is the question of how did we get here? I know the oft trumpeted sub prime mortgage failures are singled out as the reason. They are a component yes, no doubt. Yet they are not alone, not at all. The origins of this crisis are far deeper and more widespread than a mortgage issue.

There is much to suggest that the current crisis has been long fermenting in the stew of the credit system on which First World countries base their entire economies. It is a system designed to create wealth by inducing consumers to buy that which they do not need with money they do not have and to defer the payment indefinitely with interest on the debt accumulating. It is a system geared for massive short term gain with massive long term consequences. We are beginning to learn the cost of our ways.

Whole economic systems are based on this credit scheme and have largely been successful for many decades. Yet there has always been the glaring flaw that the credit could outrun the commodities it proported to represent. This has happened. As property values soared the loans against them equally increased in inflated value until the whole thing was a numbers game run on the back of the credit markets. These same markets had long been absorbing our credit card debt and national debt and could no longer take in the massive real estate debt. It was not the cause but rather the straw that broke the camel’s back.

We had long been buying more than we could afford both as a society and as a government. Just as individuals have had to cut back their spending so too should government. Many so called entitlements must be scaled back for the simple reason that the real cash does not exist to fund them. To continue to fund them on credit only deepens our crisis and creates a larger problem for future generations. The accepted fact that each generation would be better off and more affluent than the previous is now dead. The clearing up of this will be long even with a clear picture of how we got here. Without it the recovery will be indefinite.

This is the situation we find ourselves in. The election of Barack Obama while perhaps culturally significant is not at all economically significant. No call from he or his team has made clear the glaring fact that we must change the way our economy operates and bases value. Without this we are doomed to more spending on that which we do not need in ways we cannot afford.
Stock up on Rum.

von Rum

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Cynical in America

Over the course of many conversations with a good friend I have come not only to realize the often disturbing trend of my own cynicism but also the ingrained cynical attitude of much of America. This manifests itself in a number of ways. Some of them though, you have to search for.

A common way it shows up is in everyday conversations. In the middle of many a talk before the election someone would interject, “Well they are going to put whoever they want in the White House anyway.” Who the “they” are is left unsaid. The same resigned attitude shows up in discussing the current economic crisis. In this setting it is often said that the rich get richer and the poor poorer. It is a timeless addage and unlikely to ever change.

This jaded view of America is far more widespread than you might think. It is also not the property of any lower class or uneducated groups either. It is almost universal. From our literature to our music a cynicism pervades everything. We have learned how the world works, and were not surprised by what we found. We are becoming used to a world in which there are fewer and fewer who are dedicated to doing good for others. There are those remain who do so but they are becoming the exception rather than the rule.

As the newest generation rises there is a jaded edge to them that we have not seen in past groups. They have grown up quickly and cruelly with a knowledge of the world that young people would be better off without. Any cursory scan of the internet would display the terrible things available to them quickly.

It leaves me to wonder if the future can posses the things which were valued in the past. Can honor, virtue, honesty, duty, and culture survive in a world in which youth is jaded by far too much reality far too soon? I wonder.

von Rum

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Diminishing Standards

A good friend of mine recently commented on the terrible service that she had received at a well known restaurant. She described that upon entrance she and her dining partner could not determine the gender of the hostess nor of the wait staff. This was followed by a long wait in and empty section and very poor service that seemed designed to take their money as quickly as possible and usher them out the door. She then told me that a day or two later the same scenario played out at a different but equally well known establishment in another city. She was very irritated with the service and wondered why it was not better.

I asked her if I might wax cynical for a moment and told her the following. If you lower your standards for what it is to be a human being how can you expect to maintain high standards for service. Being unable to determine the gender of those waiting on you or noticing the runway model level of makeup on your male waiter is a pretty sure sign that the bar has been lowered.

In the interest of clarity my family and I have been in a public service business for over 50 years. That being said when it comes to what constitutes good service I know of what I speak. We too have noticed the decline not only in the standards of service in restaurants but also in hotels, stores, and even banks. I suspect that as society at large has become tolerant of a dehumanizing culture on public display many have also decided that tastes are all the same.

I will be honest here, I am by and large disgusted by and disdainful of the human race. Yet I have enough pride in what I do to forget about what I think about these vermin and do my job and treat them according to standards that are higher than I really think they deserve. It is this ability to put aside self to accomplish something as it should be done that I think is increasingly lacking. You don’t have to like people to realize that to treat them and yourself like animals betters nothing.

If this article has a point (sometimes they don’t) it is that we seemed to have reached a cultural critical mass. We have become so over civilized that the only thing left to desire is barbarism. We see evidences of this all around. It manifests itself as gender bending transsexuals and self mutilating goths. It shows up as negligent single parent homes and on college campuses where students dive into a four year orgy of over consumption of just about everything. Moderation is not in these people’s vocabulary. The popularity of extremely violent video games and a nihilistic attitude toward the world that we see in the rising generation are very disturbing.

Do not think thought that I am picking only on those of generation Y (born 1982-2001) it is just as true for those of my generation X (1961-1981) and even many of the baby boomers (1943-1960). Perhaps most of what we are now witnessing is directly attributable to the awful 1960’s and the “counterculture” movement that ripped down much of what was good and decent. Make no mistake, I am no prude. Every day I personally fall short of the standards and ideals that I hold to. It is the fact though that the standards don’t change that I believe makes my view different. Just because someone does not like the game does not mean we alter the rules to soothe their ego. Human beings are basically bad and cannot be good on their own. This being true we must hold ourselves to higher standards if we are to maintain civilization. If we cannot be good we can at least behave.

If you enter a nice restaurant only to be seated by a purple haired Marilyn Manson lookalike and are waited on by a set of junkyard chains wearing a human being and wonder about our future you wonder correctly. It has often been stated of young people that these things were passing fads. Perhaps once but no more. No more and more we see the same lack of regard for self and culture in people in their late 20’s through their 30’s in increasingly into their 40’s. Many older baby boomers at least outgrew their ways if not their opinions. I am not sure if that is going to be the case for the generations we see now.

von Rum

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