There might be an explanation for our society’s massive disinterest in sanely talking about – yet alone tackling – any and all major issues. Our society is stuck on a broken status quo that needs a complete overhaul but too many of us are afraid of change. Thus a small minority among us continues their incredibly avaricious, greedy, nihilistic, out-in-the open fraudulent practices to amass more and more wealth and power as quickly as possible while the rest of us stare blankly at a myriad of distracting news items and entertainment sources unable or unwilling to make sense of anything and everything.
Some of us enjoy debating how the U.S. is falling apart and that our nation is being quickly overtaken economically, politically, socially, culturally and militarily by China and other nations that are planning for the future and are accomplishing many things. We make half-hearted plans on all types of topics but deep down we really don’t believe we’re going to accomplish anything about anything.
For objective proof of our nation’s quagmire, just look how little we care about doing anything of consequence: (1) Reforming our justice system to actually prosecute major crimes in high places; (2) Changing our financial system from a speculative gambling casino for the ultra-rich to one that serves the vast majority of citizens and businesses; (3) Addressing huge income and wealth inequalities; (4) Promoting industries and new jobs of the future; (5) Repairing, maintaining, and expanding our transportation, communication, energy and educational infrastructures; (6) Understanding our nation’s long-term interests and adjusting our foreign policy and military forces appropriately; or (7) reforming our political and election systems that have devolved into empty facades for our defunct representational democracy.
Instead we prefer debating (1) moronic and puny policy proposals from the right and left; (2) the birth location of our President and the characters that hope to entertain us in the upcoming elections; (3) whether to raise the federal debt limit or not; (4) the perpetually idiotic antics of our entertainment celebrities; and (5) the various worthless components of our many new electronic devices. “I can mindlessly talk while surfing the Internet on my new smart phone at 4G speed!”
The Federal Reserve is pursuing its own massive delusions and flights of fancy. By artificially inflating the dollar’s global money supply to the banks and the wealthiest among us, it is creating a false prosperity by causing inflation and speculation in oil, commodity, precious metals, corporate stocks and food prices that enriches a small group of well-connected wealthy investors at the expense of the vast majority of people in the U.S. and around the globe. Who cares how this plays out because…well…who will be around after 12/21/12 to pick up the pieces?
Too many Americans are without jobs, food, money, healthcare, homes, dignity, hope or tangible futures. They certainly cannot trade oil and corn futures, yet alone gold and silver bars. This realty has sadly become the new status quo that defies all efforts towards improvement. Our political and business leaders simply don’t even mention these facts and instead fixate upon maintaining a bankrupt status quo of wholly misplaced and corrupt national priorities to pursue policies that only benefit their selfish short-term interests.
We collectively deceive ourselves in order to believe our economy is improving; that good jobs may be coming back; food and gas prices will go down as housing prices go up; and that our households, businesses and governments are not drowning in debt we can never repay. Anyone who understands human history will note that such worsening social conditions never end well for everyone in that society – the rich, middle-class and poor. Perhaps the difference this time will be the global extent of the upcoming crash.
I shun simple explanations or silver bullet solutions for complex problems. However, I’ve given up understanding the complete gridlock and paralysis that overwhelms everyone and everything in our nation. We distract ourselves endlessly with trivialities and exaggerated emotional responses to them. We appear to go out of our ways to even think about everything that is rushing by us in a complete incomprehensible blur. It all seems so meaningless, pointless and hopeless – so why bother trying or even getting out of bed most mornings. No one in power appears to give a damn – and those who still do are roundly ignored.
We might subconsciously have some ancient Mayans to thank for our general ennui and malaise. Sometime during their classical period dating from 250 to 900 A.D. in Central America, a group of temple assistants were happily calculating calendars into the future when they just stopped out of boredom, a new project was assigned by the high priests, or some other better diversion presented itself in the form of a group of sexy young females. Thus their ancient calendar calculations abruptly and inexplicably stopped on December 21, 2012.
Some scholars argue it was the natural conclusion of their 5,125-year long-count calendar, which would simply start over again. Even though most Modern Mayans, educated scientists, scholars, and sane people completely reject this date as a potential apocalyptic moment, various cohorts of new-age spiritualists and mysticists still believe or even hope that this date will be the “end of time.”
Humans have chosen many other dates in the past as potential “Armageddons,” “Doomsdays” or “Apocalypses” – and they were all completely wrong. Nothing happened on or near those dates, life went on, and various people chose new dates to worry about based upon various religious texts or other questionable sources. But on a subconscious level, more people in the U.S. may harbor some 2012 end-times feelings that they are unwilling to admit publicly.
Just giving up is so easy – particularly if we are handed a convenient rationale. If we know we’ll be gone by a specific date, then we often lose all interest in the future. Even just knowing one is moving away from an existing city and starting over in a new one completely changes one’s perspective on life and daily activities in the city to be abandoned until the move is made. If we believe that our planet, humanity, or our nation and society will cease to exist by a date certain, then why bother with long-range plans? It’s arguably all out of our hands so there’s no point in changing ourselves, nor our relationships, society or environment if it would be all for naught.
Many other people do not subscribe to such doomsday predictions or think humans in the past were better at predicting the future than we are now. Since we really don’t know when and where our ends will come – whether it is a death of a planet, ecosystem, nation, species, family or just an individual – then we carry on and make plans for our futures and those of future generations. Knowing the actual expiration or termination date generally takes the life out of any person or endeavor causing life to be lived in completely different ways.
For individuals dying of incurable diseases, knowing the general limitation of their lives can be liberating. They can plan for a limited time to finish some important projects while abandoning less important ones. They enjoy the company of those they love, and even plan on making some positive contributions after they are gone. They don’t sweat the little stuff anymore but really seize the moment and the big picture.
However, when large groups of people or societies believe their collective deaths are imminent, then the reaction among individuals in those groups is completely different. If they have no meaningful stake in the future, they live hedonistically in the present. They are often liberated from all moral and ethical constraints since they now view their existences, individually and collectively, as having no meaning or purpose for future generations.
Whether or not there will be a larger demise of an entire ecosystem, species or society, the belief in such inevitable dissolution, significantly, negatively and often irreparably destroys the groups of people, individuals and societies that embrace these beliefs. When the end days were obviously near for the Roman, Spanish and British Empires, what consumed the minds of their populations and did they care about the future? Could there be some uneasy similarity with what is going on now in the U.S.?
American society might be dancing around that inflection point for several years. Deep down psychologically, we might believe that by the end of 2012, much of our nation, including our social, ecological, economic, political and military systems might finally collapse from over-complexity, internal rot that has been spreading for decades, a pervasive giving-up and interest in our collective future, and the weight of incomprehensibly lousy public policies for too many decades. Some may secretly wish for such a complete collapse as that would usher in some new age.
A few extreme pessimists believe the planet, our entire environment or at least all of humanity may be on the verge of extinction – which would make everything so simple for these nihilists and doomsday prophets. It’s all predestined and beyond our control (or we’re beyond the point of return) so let’s just give up now and hope that God or someone else will just take care of everything.
What a nice, convenient, and lazy delusion to absolve ourselves from the many duties we have to each other, our children, and for the future of our nation as a whole. Perhaps you’re correct that everything will end by 12/21/12, but on the outside chance it doesn’t, do you have any worthwhile plans for New Year’s Eve 2013, 2014, 2015 and thereafter? Will we finally be able to act like responsible mature adults working for a common future but only after 12/21/12 has come and gone? Or am I just deluding myself and should I be brushing up on my Spanish, Chinese and the entire global decimal measurement system?
Submitted 4/25/11 by Marc Pascal ranting from Phoenix, Arizona.