Honestly Kid

Monday, October 19th, 2009 | 2nd thoughts

Pompidou Centre Connections

I began the day with a not wholly orig­i­nal post on the dis­so­lu­tion of French iden­tity, this time slanted toward the destruc­tion of their revered fine food cul­ture. Let’s face it, the French have been decry­ing the dis­so­lu­tion of their cul­ture (and by exten­sion all the rest of Western cul­ture) due to American insan­ity pretty much since de Tocqueville. That said, the Reuters entry is a thought­ful and well writ­ten look at the way 21st cen­tury cor­po­rate, manic-consumption cul­ture destroys the very thing it claims to hold out in offer to its sub­jects: namely, the good life.

This after­noon I fol­lowed a friend’s FaceBook link to Howard Kunstler’s offer­ing of the day. A rant no doubt, but one worth the 3 minute read. It does feel like the world (and par­tic­u­larly the US) is going down the tubes fast (eco­nomic recov­er­ies with­out job or real value cre­ation, cli­mate change, costly ‘wars’ on a vari­ety of des­ig­nated UN crim­i­nals), but it seems that Kunstler holds out rev­o­lu­tion as the only hope in the face of a rather bleak set of alternatives.

So, two posts with few sur­prises, but Kunstler made me think of the Reuters piece. It seems to me that they’re talk­ing about a sin­gle cri­sis with many var­ied symp­toms. Sadly, the cri­sis does cen­ter here in the United States and more specif­i­cally in our phi­los­o­phy of unre­strained indi­vid­ual liberty.

The Reuters reporter laments the dis­ap­pear­ance of time when fam­i­lies stopped work­ing – stopped every­thing – in order to choose the very best foods, pre­pare them very well, and sit together over a long and rich meal. Yes, the nobil­ity of France took this to insane extremes, but every­one did it, because the inter­per­sonal con­nec­tions to be reaf­firmed at table each day were at least as impor­tant as any indi­vid­ual pur­suits. That is dis­ap­pear­ing in France, because their entire econ­omy (our econ­omy) puts value on money over time, the indi­vid­ual over the community.

Kunstler fin­gers the same prob­lem with the recent invest­ment bank bonuses. The bankers sim­ply can­not see what could be worth more than the time they’ve spent manip­u­lat­ing money, secu­ri­ties, bonds, and their mar­kets to appear valu­able. What com­mu­nity could be worth fore­go­ing a mil­lion dol­lar bonus? Why should destruc­tion of a fac­tory, jobs, a town, or even a planet be included as a neg­a­tive in the bal­ance sheet as long as you, the banker, can avoid harm and gain profit?

I don’t pro­fess to know the answer. I don’t think it’s some big Communist give away or bomb­ing Wall Street, but it might start with the wankers there putting their Ivy League heads together to under­stand the true costs of ignor­ing the value of com­mu­nal respon­si­bil­ity in favor of unbri­dled indi­vid­ual liberty.

Am I mak­ing any sense here?

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