America

Sunday, July 6, 2014

Over this recent long weekend I spent some time reading a book I discovered at the home of a friend near Fergus Falls.  The book, entitled Crisis in American Institutions, contains a series of essays that explores various issues in American society.  The essays are grouped by topic and focus on a variety of issues including the capitalist model, the specter of inequality, racism, sexism, the family, the environment, the workplace, healthcare, and criminal justice.  I found myself unexpectedly engrossed by many of the essays.  Indeed, they gave me ample fodder to inspire my writing for the next many weeks.

The essays invite the reader to contemplate many questions.  Just how well is American society functioning today?  What institutions are fulfilling their declared missions?  What institutions are failing and for what reasons?  What type of meaningful reform is possible or even realistic for those institutions teetering on the brink of failure?  What are the consequences of our failure to attend to the deepest of our national issues?

Here are some instructive words taken directly from the Introduction:

Inflation.  Unemployment.  Energy crises.  Decline of the dollar.  Tax revolt.  Bankrupt cities.  Political corruption and business bribery as routine news items.  …it is no longer a secret that the American system has not worked the way we were taught it should.  When we first put this book together in the late sixties, most people who wrote about “social problems” still thought of the  United States as a society whose basic economic and political problems had been solved.  It is hard to find anyone who still seriously believes that – even among professional social scientists.  Americans express continuing dissatisfaction and mistrust about the major institutions that affect their lives.  The important question is no longer whether American institutions are in crisis, but why –and what can be done about it.

Theorists are no longer trying to pretend that there are no real problems; instead, they are seeking the causes in “human nature” or people’s genetic structure or the “population bomb”.  In the face of the deepening crises of the seventies, many people – both the “experts” and the public – lost fait in the possibilities of human cooperation, social equality and personal fulfillment.

Now I ask you to wager an educated guess regarding when this collection of essays was published.  I deliberately deleted a time reference included in the introduction I quoted above.  I am curious to learn what my dear readers of my blog might guess.  What time period in American history do you believe is well described by this introduction?  Doesn’t it sound as if it could describe the last many years in which the United States has endured ‘the Great Recession’? 

If you think these essays are that contemporary you would be wrong; the most recent copyright year of the book is 1979.  Take a moment to allow that to settle upon your mind.  I turned six years old in September of 1979.  Yes, it’s been a few years since these essays were written.  And yet they sound as timely as ever.  More than three decades have passed and yet the structural problems described in these essays seem as intransigent as ever.

Unemployment? The issue of employment and lack of decent opportunities for the American people has been a consistent theme in our discourse since the economy tanked in 2008.  And a person devoted to rigorous analysis must question how healthy the economy ever was during the two terms of former ‘President’ George W. Bush.  Bush’s foreign policy helped sustain the already mighty power of the often maligned ‘military-industrial complex’.  A recent news story crowed about how we have finally essentially regained back the number of jobs we lost during the recession.  But of course the real question to ask is what jobs have replaced the ones we lost?  If they are lower paying jobs with fewer benefits, fewer prospects for advancement built in and lower skill requirements how can we honestly proudly beat our chests in honor of our supposed economic recovery?

Energy Crises? The issue of energy in the current day is not quite the same as it was in the 1970s.  The lack of long-term sustainability of the energy policies of much of the First World in the present day is, in my opinion, the true crisis.  Despite the obvious harm now being caused to the Earth’s many systems (biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere) by the continued increase in greenhouse gases attributable directly to our predominantly fossil fuel powered global economy current and future economic development continues to plan for power derived primarily from dirty sources.  This path is simply not sustainable.  The costs our society is failing to quantify and internalize into the necessary analyses performed when long-term energy policy choices are made do not simply vanish because we do not truly account for them.  Someone, somewhere will ultimately pay the price for our (and by ‘our’ I mean to refer to the most developed, wealthy countries in the world) current energy policies.  The critique offered by the global South regarding the consequences their populations will face due to the energy choices of the global North is, in my opinion, a thoughtful, compelling and timely one.  I read such critiques while attending graduate school.  I also read some of them in my ‘off time’. 

In short, Americans, Chinese and the peoples of Western Europe consume a vast portion of the world’s global energy output and yet the waste byproducts of such energy production will inordinately harm, via the growing phenomenon of climate change, the peoples in the world’s poorest and most vulnerable nations.  People driving countless fuel inefficient SUVs are helping to drive up the water level in low-lying Bangladesh.  Life has never been fair but it seems to be as unfair as it ever was.

Bankrupt Cities? Detroit is the first present day example that comes to mind.  And Detroit is not alone.  Many cities are facing unbearable costs due to a variety of factors whose complex interaction defies simple policy responses.  The primary factors today are an aging demographic (with all the implications for different spheres of living this implies), climate change and fundamental transformations in the nature of our national economy.

Political corruption and bribery? One only need conduct a cursory review of current and recent news stories to understand this issue is alive and well.  Names that have become (or are rapidly becoming) synonymous with corruption include Chris Christie of New Jersey and Scott Walker of Wisconsin.  And then of course there is John Boehner’s recent declaration of his intent to possibly attempt to sue President Obama.  Never mind that Boehner is a typical whiny Republican determined only to serve the interests of his own party even at the expense of the rest of America.

Even where corruption itself is minimal there abound many examples of ample political and financial power being used on issues that possess only minor significance in our nation’s daily life.  One example is the ongoing hysteria regarding gay marriage that a shrinking portion of those on the political Right continues to stir up.  As the gay marriage bans in states throughout the nation continue to be deemed unconstitutional time and time again it appears fairly clear that this ‘issue’ will eventually (in a few decades?) become a non-issue.

Outside the realm of social policy there are plenty of examples of political problems.  Gun violence is a good example.  Another is the veritable impotence of our current Congress to get anything substantive done in any timely way.  Public approval of Congress has been at all-time record lows for some time now.  And yet the American people’s vehement disapproval of Congress’s performance seems to do nothing to change our current course.  The depth of Congress’s insulation from the most pressing needs of many Americans is truly appalling.  And many Americans feel powerless to reform the system.  Indeed, what can one person do?  As if on cue I found an excellent article today that examines the dysfunction of the American political system.

It sometimes seems (to me at least) that the entire structure of our society will have to utterly and completely collapse before something new and much more functional could potentially take its place.  Will this happen?  I believe it will at some point.  But when?  And how much damage will occur in the meantime?  Will our system ultimately produce a whole collection of people who, by being born ‘at the wrong time’, will find their professional lives and prospects permanently scarred by the depth of the ‘Great Recession’?  Will we eventually have our own lost generation like what happened in Japan in the 1990s?  Speaking from my own perspective I wonder just how easily I will be able to escape the ravages of the Great Recession.

To summarize, it appears life in America isn’t much better than it was in 1979.  By major metrics such as wage growth, job security, healthcare affordability and the like it seems life in America isn’t all that exciting and rewarding.  There have been some changes…but are they good changes?  We have experienced incredible advances in technology which have created notable improvements in the fields of medicine, weather forecasting, commerce and communications.  We now have mobile devices that can assist us in connecting to anyone, anywhere at any time.  And yet some people look at their mobile phones as they walk into the street and then get struck by cars.  Technology is no catch all panacea.  Technology solves some problems.  And then it creates new ones.  For excellent critiques regarding the wonders and horrors of technology explore the writings of Jerry Mander.

Since 1979 we have experienced the explosive destruction of the unexpected AIDS epidemic, the self-absorption of the 1980s in which greed was exalted as an inherently good individual and collective quality and the surprising collapse of the Soviet Union. 

The 1990s seemed to be a better decade.  Germany was reunified in 1990.  The former Communist countries of Eastern Europe embarked on a new course that tantalized its peoples with the appeal of greater prosperity and enhanced personal freedom as compared to what they had known during their time behind the Iron Curtain.  Here in America greed was exalted as a quality to cultivate in your personal and professional relations…or at least so it appeared.  I was coming into adulthood in the 1990s and, like many young men, I was still discovering who I was in a world increasingly defined by incredibly rapid change.

Then came the 2000s.  Despite how clichéd it may now sound to many the events of September 11, 2001 radically changed the global geopolitical environment.  Despite the fact that many (both domestically and abroad) challenged the United States government to respond to the events of that day in a way that did not primarily emphasize the use of the military the United States nonetheless later did invade Afghanistan. 

Our nation’s emphasis on ‘might making right’ as a primary response to terrorism seems to now be creating many undesirable consequences.  On the top of the list of undesirable results is the population of veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq who deeply need an extensive array of services to reintegrate into society.  Veterans themselves are not undesirables; I have spoken in support of the needs of veterans previously in my blog as well as elsewhere.  But sick, broken people do not make for a vibrant healthy populace and strong economy.  Sick people may be a boon to the healthcare economy in the short term but long term disability, unemployment and illness ultimately exert significant drag on a society.  Who wants to be sick?

In my opinion the last approximate decade of time has very much mirrored the 1970s.  I was born in the 1970s and, given the early life trauma I experienced, I have few memories of that time.  I can nonetheless make an educated comparison of our present time to the 1970s using informed opinions such as the essays I read through this weekend.

As a result of what has and has not happened these last ten years I have been left wondering just what exactly are reasonable expectations to hold…about most everything.  As America has become a deeply polarized nation according to criteria such as wealth, access to opportunity and political positions on varied issues I have felt a growing concern that the unsustainable aspects of this nation will interact synergistically in the not too distant future to unleash a degree of instability that will cause widespread chaos and suffering.  Yes, this grim concern may be at least somewhat unfounded and overly pessimistic but I wonder nonetheless.

……

Over the coming weeks I plan to continue writing my ongoing documentary of my recovery process and simultaneously intersperse my writings with some reflections inspired by the essays I read during this weekend.