Post: #1

Quote:A friend said to me in response that the young have made their choice. “The world always changes because the young have new ideas. The younger generation is in power now. They make the decisions and the cultural choices.” Reflecting for a moment, I retorted, “but where are the young? They are not in the West. The youth in statistical terms is in the Third World. We don’t even know what they think. What we take as ‘youth culture’ and the voice of to-morrow are the attitudes of a shrinking cohort cohabiting with the geriatric majority. In that case, it’s the Western old choosing for the global young.”
[…]
The Western Left’s biggest lie is that it represents a movement of the young, but it really represents the very old. Their very concerns are geriatric: Marxism, trash recycling, health and safety, public transportation and gossip.

The big giveaway is we as a civilization don’t want to go to the planets any more, because the old don’t want to go anywhere. Imagine clambering into spaceships! The very idea gives us the shivers. Only the young and immortal travel to places where they may never be able to get Ibuprofen.

The only place the Western young are found in abundance is movies where they are paid to play the average man. The movies are the fake mirror of the elderly West. In that mirror we remain young though in reality — like the Belgian Army — we are really more worried about lumbago than fighting off the depredations of Loki.

Collectively the old codgers have put their hope in the hands of that nice young man, Barack Obama, who tells us what we want to hear. Although he calls himself president, his real position is as the director of the Shady Rest Retirement Home. He keeps the geezers happy and even pretends to know how to work an Iphone during balloon play-catch sessions. But though the West likes to affect the idealism of youth, deep in its ancient hearts its know the truth: the guys running the retirement home are probably raiding the till. A recent poll reports that Americans believe 75% of politicians are corrupted and 70% use political power to hurt enemies.
[…]
And in consequence the future, rather than beckoning to us, envelops us like a shroud. America which was famous for optimism, has sold its birthright for a mess of Obamacare and Obamaphones, like an old couple that have given up sweeping and tending a house that grew too big now that the kids have left. And the general consensus it seems is that the Mexicans can inherit what’s left if only would they promise to bury us when we’re done.
[…]
If any nation might be considered “old” in years, it is Israel and China. Both go back almost to the dawn of civilization. Untold generations of Chinese and Jews have died. But their culture remains young in that it looks forward to posterity; at least they have not yet turned everything over to some nice young man with the big smile and the natty creases. Maybe the secret of ancient cultures which survive is that they can continue to care about the future.

And so the Chinese and the Jews still do canals. They do space exploration. The West does Facebook because you don’t have to get up from the chair to work it. Maybe what we call “youth culture” is just the culture of people who need a remote. The West lives in the memory of abundance, because that is the reality its old people remember. They can’t see things from the real viewpoint of those who have to pay the National Debt and the ‘Young Invincibles’ who must fund the subsidies for Obamacare. If we there were really a youth culture it would look like the Wild Hunt rather than one in which people in kaftans recycled garbage in eco-communities. You’re no longer young when you’ve forgotten how to dream and how to be angry.

It would be almost impossible to convince the West that only a few years ago their ancestors conceived and built the Suez, the Panama or the Moonship though it’s the truth. The West was truly young once.

http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2014...epage=true

Post: #2

I started to talk about this in our thread about there being no consequences for women: /thread-34097-...#pid679705

I'm glad to see someone writing a lengthy article about how dated the issues in mainstream American politics are. I remember all the Republican candidates in the 2012 election talking about overturning Roe v. Wade, which is a case from the fucking 70s. Then on the other side you have politicians acting like the gender wage gap is still a reality and discrimination against women is still some kind of widespread systematic problem, even when they're outperforming men.

I think the U.S. is pretty much doomed in the next couple of generations, but if there is any hope we need more of a mainstream political consensus that issues of the 50-80s are no longer relevant and don't need to be re-addressed for another decade.

Post: #3

In the spirit of 'enjoy the decline' I have been looking for non-corporate 'jobs' like scuba dive instructor, fly fishing guide, boat captain. I figure, "hey, I'm single and can do this cheap and have fun."

People I know are borderline psycho when they hear this.

Yet the shocking fact is that every time I go to a dive shop or guide service company, I see 40 year old deckhands/helpers and 50+ year old owners/operators! Can't f***in believe that shit.

I grew up around the personality type and should have expected it. The boomer generation had this exact line of thinking:

"Well, (insert fun activity) isn't a real career. But I want it to be! So I will do whatever hustling it takes to do that as a career."

I respect the hustle mentality. But seriously, draw the line: now you want to put two kids through college, have a wife, have a mortgage, etc. ALL ON THE SALARY OF A JOB TEENAGERS USED TO DO???

I was just discussing this with a friend: the concept of a paperboy doesn't even exist for kids anymore because some fat spinster or public worker needs that mail-man pension. No more bicycle paper delivery; its Rosie O'donnell with a bag of cheewees on her lap flinging the papers indiscriminately out the rolled down window.

Or how about apprenticeships? Nah, couldn't happen because (old) people would fight for the apprentice role expecting that the master would do all the work. "You mean, all I have to do as an apprentice welder is to load/unload the truck and carry stuff to the weld site? Meanwhile you are doing all of the welding? Sign me up for forty years worth!"

Post: #4

Interesting article/post some real truth there.