Why Nothing Works

Curt and Ran have both been exploring the same theme, which is why our civilization seems incapable of getting even the simple things right.

Though we may seem particularly incompetent in preparing for resource depletion, Americans aren't all that different from other cultures. Where we differ is that we've been shaped and molded for longer any other society in an environment in which maladaptive traits have been rewarded. As a culture, we haven't really had our teeth kicked in since the 1860s. We've lived in a nation of material goods excess within the living memory of everyone under the age of 75, where the American Dream meant things were just going to keep getting better and better. There's really been no one to take us aside and perform an intervention: "America, dude, you're fat and out of shape ... you're gonna have a heart attack if you keep this up."

Ran identified propaganda (public relations) as a major source of our stupidity, but I'd argue that it runs deeper than that. Modern propaganda techniques are adapted to work on broken or compliant people; they don't work very well on content and self-willed adults.

I'd argue that education is more fundamental to explaining why things are as screwed up as they are today, as children educated in modern schools are taught to be receptive to modern propaganda techniques. (This thought will be picked up in later posts).

It takes a generation for major changes to work their way into a society, as the children educated under the new system come of age. These children are more accepting of new moralities and values ... and they lack the memory of verdant forests, the quiet joy of lazy afternoons of fishing and skipping stones across the lake, and the ability to find contentment in simple tasks and trades.

What will happen to these people when reality begins smacking them in the face? Well, I expect that it will look something like this:

Section quoted from John Talyor Gatto:

"When they come of age, they are certain they must know something because their degrees and licenses say they do. They remain so convinced until an unexpectedly brutal divorce, a corporate downsizing in midlife, or panic attacks of meaninglessness upset the precarious balance of their incomplete humanity, their stillborn adult lives. Alan Bullock, the English historian, said Evil was a state of incompetence. If true, our school adventure has filled the twentieth century with evil.

Ellul puts it this way:

The individual has no chance to exercise his judgment either on principal questions or on their implication; this leads to the atrophy of a faculty not comfortably exercised under [the best of] conditions...Once personal judgment and critical faculties have disappeared or have atrophied, they will not simply reappear when propaganda is suppressed...years of intellectual and spiritual education would be needed to restore such faculties. The propagandee, if deprived of one propaganda, will immediately adopt another, this will spare him the agony of finding himself vis a vis some event without a ready-made opinion."