Beyond the gate of experience flows the Way, Which is ever greater and more subtle than the world. - Tao Te Ching

Friday, September 24, 2010

Democracy in America?

You know a culture has gone full circle when 100 square-foot houses become news simply because they’re small.


Imagine walking into a small town in a remote village in South America and trying to explain to the villagers the resurgence of tiny homes in the U.S. I’m sure you’d draw some hefty laughs and quite a bit of confused stares. As they invite you into their 50 square-foot shanty you tell them that their house design is in high demand in the liberalized cities of the northeast and western U.S. We’ve got billions of house designers in developing countries just waiting to be discovered. Pay attention Bravo network, this could be your next big deal!


The micro-home phenomenon is another instance of Americans doing what they are supposed to do and reveling in it. Sorry, but a vast majority of the world live in tiny homes and have been since the dawn of humanity. At one time, so did most Americans. Micro-homes are not news, they’re olds.


It’s wonderful that this happening, don’t get me wrong. But it’s not an invention. It’s a resurgence. Necessity was the mother of invention until the industrial revolution orphaned the notion and invention was adopted by laziness. Is there really, truly a need for a remote control for a car stereo? Or automatic windows on cars? Or the Segway? Let’s look at industry, do we really need barber shops and hair salons and spas and gyms? Can’t we cut our own hair, give each other massages and exercise on our own? Do we need fast food? Can’t we cook ourselves? Do we really need grocery stores that sell food from countries that are 10,000 miles away? Is cable television our only connection to the world and is the Internet our lifeline to social interaction? Do we really need cheese puffs and pork rinds and dippin dots? Why do we have napkins and paper towels, don't we need one or the other? Are all these inventions necessities?


Naturally, there are arguments to be made on behalf of all these things. Safety. Fear of being hurt. Convenience. Help people. Pleasure. These days, the number one argument for inventions is that people don’t have the time to do it themselves. And lack of time creates the "necessity." Ironically people don’t have the time because they’re spending most of their time doing things that feed the system. I can’t cook because I have to go to work, doing something that is a service. Eighty percent of the jobs in the United States are service-oriented, meaning that they provide a service for people who don’t have the time or ability or inclination to do it themselves.


For some odd reason, do-it-yourself is also some kind of newsworthy phenomenon. It’s as if we never could do anything ourselves and now that we can’t afford services anymore we have to figure out how to fix that leaky pipe on our own. People wonder why the economy is still shit but the stock market is bull-strong? I suggest two reasons. First, companies are exploiting volunteer labor and internships given the market is flooded with extremely valuable talent – and these people are willing to do anything to get their foot in the door. Second, people are saving more money, doing more things themselves and hurting the small businesses that provide most of these services. Walmart is doing wonderful, and why not? Where else can you buy items for odd-numbered prices like $2.41 or $1.27 that are designed to fuck with our minds?


That’s what happens to a foundation built of sand, eventually it falls into the sea. A consumption-based economy cannot and will never sustain itself.


So laziness and greed are now the adopted parents of invention. It’s amazing how we create a “need” for material things that are useless. iPhones. Don’t even get me started on the iPhones. Useful, absolutely, but so is a toilet. That doesn’t mean I want to carry a crapper with me everywhere I go. Or the iPad. The Kindle. The Nook. WTF? The only good thing is that it’s saving paper. That’s it. Other than that it is killing the essence of literary culture. In some extreme cases, I can see the need for it. But for everyone? I sure as hell hope not.


Sooner or later if we keep on the path we’re on, we’ll all find it necessary to have nuclear reactors in our homes. Why? Because the Joneses have one, of course! Plus Walmart is having this awesome sale, if you buy 100 pounds of enriched uranium they’ll throw in a 5-year-old Indonesian servant girl free of charge. You can’t lose! (My love for Walmart runs deep)


To paraphrase Chilean economist Manfred Max-Neef, we need to readjust our definition of growth and development. Growth is quantitative and has limits. Development is qualitative and has no limits. The U.S., as Max-Neef opines, is underdeveloping, meaning that the quality of life is diminishing as growth has surpassed the threshold of sustainability.


So much propaganda exists in the information ether, so much misinformation and disinformation it’s impossible to know what’s really going on. For some reason I cannot fathom, we still do not have universal health care in this country. It’s as if we don’t give a shit about the 20,000 people who die every year from lack of access to health care. Sure they can get treated, and live their life with a six-figure debt over their heads, maybe lose their house because they can’t pay their medical bills, but hey, it’s better to be alive and homeless than dead, right? What kind of choice is that to offer citizens of a “free nation?” Even under Obama-care, health care experts estimate that thousands will still die because of lack of access.


I’m just frustrated with our culture, or lack of culture. I see so much ignorance around me, and it’s the people who consider themselves knowledgeable who are the scariest and most in the dark. I admit, I don’t know a damn thing. All I know is that what we got ain’t working, and it’s a shame our president did not take the fire from his campaign and use it to create real change. He tried to appease the right, he tried to pander to them, to find a middle ground, and admirably so. But in the end he just made himself look incompetent. The right will block him to their graves, as that is “good politics.”


Our country needs a drastic and deep upheaval. This two-party democratic republic is a farce. It’s not a democracy, it is a oligarchy dressed up in blue collar clothes. We are a nation of hypocrites. Homosexuals can die for their country as long as nobody knows they’re gay. We want our military might but we don’t want to pay for it. We want a strong economy but we’re not willing to eradicate the disease. We want our neighbors to have access to health care but we’re not willing to help them get it. We want immigrants to leave but we don’t want to wash dishes or cut grass or hang drywall for cheap. We want China to slow down but we can’t stop buying shit from Walmart. We want our children to get a good education but we’re not willing to understand what a good education is. We want our own cars, our own houses, our own pets, our own hobbies, our own lives but we don’t want to deal with our own share of the problems. We want the world to listen but we don’t know what to say. We want our independence and our freedom but we also long for connections and security.


In his book Democracy in America, Alexis de Toequeville states this dualistic phenomenon most succinctly: “Man alone, of all created beings, displays a natural contempt for existence, and yet a boundless desire to exist, he scorns life, but he dreads annihilation.”


Do you ever get the feeling that our leaders are making it up as they go along? I saw a Craigslist post for a government writing position, and it was the longest, most asinine and convoluted post I’d ever seen. After taking 15 minutes of my life and losing five of my 10 brain cells I finished reading the post. I had to pause and gather myself. There were so many unnecessary words in the ad I couldn’t begin to imagine what the hell they were actually looking for. I decided to risk a second read. After recharging my eyes with several doses of hand rubbing I reengaged the advertisement. After reading two sentences my brain registered something. As if my subconscious figured it out while my conscious mind scrambled in vain to determine the meaning. I realized something, and it blew my mind. It was one of those eureka moments that I will always remember, and it perfectly summarizes my feelings regarding American culture.


The federal government agency was looking for someone to write roughly 15 reports to tell them what the hell was going on in the agency. They had no idea what they were doing, and they needed someone to come in, observe what they were doing, and then write a report telling them what they were doing. Operational procedures I think it was called.


All they wanted to know was what the heck was going on. It was truly amazing. I swear to you, I can’t make this up. And I know why they had to make the ad so convoluted, they had to appear somewhat professional and word the ad in a way that would entice academics and make them feel less incompetent. It’s like writing a 1,000-page treatise on the physiology of the back left leg of a carpenter bee.


So I applied for the job. They asked me if I had any experience with operational procedures and I told them I had no idea what that was. Needless to say they hired me on the spot. I wrote them one sentence in my report. “I don’t have a fucking clue what the fuck is going on. Ask Sarah Palin.” (Okay, I guess it was two sentences)


I was immediately promoted to senior executive account assistant managing editor. Gotta love fed gigs.