The End Of Excess
Kurt Andersen (Heyday
The ’80s spirit endured through the ’90s and the 2000s, all the way until the fall of 2008, like an awesome winning streak in Vegas that went on and on and on. American-style capitalism triumphed, and thanks to FedEx and the Web, delayed gratification itself came to seem quaint and unnecessary. So what if every year since the turn of the century the U.S. economy grew more slowly than the global economy? Stuff at Wal-Mart and Costco and money itself stayed supercheap! Even 9/11, which supposedly “changed everything,” and the resulting Iraqi debacle came to seem like mere bumps in the road. Even if deep down everyone knew that the spiral of overleveraging and overspending and the prices of stocks and houses were unsustainable, no one wanted to be a buzz kill.
But now everything really has changed. More than a year into the Great Recession, we still aren’t sure if there’s a bottom in sight, and six months after the financial system began imploding, it’s still iffy. The party is finally, definitely over. And the present decade, which we’ve never even agreed what to call — the 2000s? the aughts? — has acquired its permanent character as a historical pivot defined by the nightmares of 9/11 and the Panic of 2008-09. Those of us old enough to remember life before the 26-year-long spree began will probably spend the rest of our lives dealing with its consequences — in economics, foreign policy, culture, politics, the warp and woof of our daily lives. During the ’80s and ’90s, we were Wile E. Coyote racing heedlessly across the endless American landscape at maximum speed and then spent the beginning of the 21st century suspended in midair just past the end of the cliff; gravity reasserted itself, and we plummeted.
As I say to my class-”Read and discuss.”
As a founding member of the Wyle E. Coyote Society: Evil Geniuses for A Better Tomorrow, I must correct the spelling of the name of our Founder.
I realize for the money obsessed, the sociopaths, and the plain too ignorant to think and feel at the same time, this whole business is a disaster, but I have to say, I like what I see out there. Between the web social networks and the rise of the new web storytellers, a fresh spirit is coming around. It does have that Sixties feel of good vibes from people relocating and gathering up their tribes.
It won’t be THAT again because it can’t be. One difference is we are here, we lived it, and despite what Wavy Gravy claims, we remember what made it work when it worked even while we regret what we did when it didn’t. We are the sheepdogs. We can nip at the heels and we can cause brilliant patterns to be seen across the distance, only recognizable at a distance like all those LED sheep forming signs to the heavens on the sides of the Scottish highlands.
We’re not just going to survive this. We’re going to be better if poorer, but our children will be richer in ways that they wouldn’t be if this had not happened. As boomers, we have witnessed a fantastic emergence, and now we know we didn’t fail. It took a long time for our ship to come in.
“Peace and love and all good things have a price…”
“Ride Captain Ride, on your mystery ship…”
As a founding member of the Wyle E. Coyote Society: Evil Geniuses for A Better Tomorrow, I must correct the spelling of the name of our Founder.
I realize for the money obsessed, the sociopaths, and the plain too ignorant to think and feel at the same time, this whole business is a disaster, but I have to say, I like what I see out there. Between the web social networks and the rise of the new web storytellers, a fresh spirit is coming around. It does have that Sixties feel of good vibes from people relocating and gathering up their tribes.
It won’t be THAT again because it can’t be. One difference is we are here, we lived it, and despite what Wavy Gravy claims, we remember what made it work when it worked even while we regret what we did when it didn’t. We are the sheepdogs. We can nip at the heels and we can cause brilliant patterns to be seen across the distance, only recognizable at a distance like all those LED sheep forming signs to the heavens on the sides of the Scottish highlands.
We’re not just going to survive this. We’re going to be better if poorer, but our children will be richer in ways that they wouldn’t be if this had not happened. As boomers, we have witnessed a fantastic emergence, and now we know we didn’t fail. It took a long time for our ship to come in.
“Peace and love and all good things have a price…”
“Ride Captain Ride, on your mystery ship…”
Len,
I could not agree with you more. We have been on a collective bender for three decades and it’s time to face the hangover. Hopefully it will teach us something about ourselves and our goals. I really don’t need all this crap anyway! I choose to believe that the best is yet to be.
Len,
I could not agree with you more. We have been on a collective bender for three decades and it’s time to face the hangover. Hopefully it will teach us something about ourselves and our goals. I really don’t need all this crap anyway! I choose to believe that the best is yet to be.
Len,
I could not agree with you more. We have been on a collective bender for three decades and it’s time to face the hangover. Hopefully it will teach us something about ourselves and our goals. I really don’t need all this crap anyway! I choose to believe that the best is yet to be.
Hmm, Len, Wiki has it as “Wile E. Coyote.” And I promise not to digress the conversation any further.
I’d have to agree with Mssrs. Andersen et al. It’s something I see quite frequently in covering environmental issues: how much wreckage is left behind by thoughtless consumerism. (See “The Story of Stuff” for a good, if alarming, 20-minute primer.)
The hard part in the US is that there’s a multi-billion dollar industrial-marketing complex telling us that we need new vacuum cleaners and coats and phones every year. Most people hear that often enough and start to believe it.
My pet hope is that the US wakes up to the fact that buying crap and moving money around (i.e., Wall St.) aren’t good life habits, and we’ll start to work towards and reward behaviors that make the world better … instead of making some people rich, or filling our garages with stuff that’s lost its shine.
Hmm, Len, Wiki has it as “Wile E. Coyote.” And I promise not to digress the conversation any further.
I’d have to agree with Mssrs. Andersen et al. It’s something I see quite frequently in covering environmental issues: how much wreckage is left behind by thoughtless consumerism. (See “The Story of Stuff” for a good, if alarming, 20-minute primer.)
The hard part in the US is that there’s a multi-billion dollar industrial-marketing complex telling us that we need new vacuum cleaners and coats and phones every year. Most people hear that often enough and start to believe it.
My pet hope is that the US wakes up to the fact that buying crap and moving money around (i.e., Wall St.) aren’t good life habits, and we’ll start to work towards and reward behaviors that make the world better … instead of making some people rich, or filling our garages with stuff that’s lost its shine.
Hmm, Len, Wiki has it as “Wile E. Coyote.” And I promise not to digress the conversation any further.
I’d have to agree with Mssrs. Andersen et al. It’s something I see quite frequently in covering environmental issues: how much wreckage is left behind by thoughtless consumerism. (See “The Story of Stuff” for a good, if alarming, 20-minute primer.)
The hard part in the US is that there’s a multi-billion dollar industrial-marketing complex telling us that we need new vacuum cleaners and coats and phones every year. Most people hear that often enough and start to believe it.
My pet hope is that the US wakes up to the fact that buying crap and moving money around (i.e., Wall St.) aren’t good life habits, and we’ll start to work towards and reward behaviors that make the world better … instead of making some people rich, or filling our garages with stuff that’s lost its shine.
It was an excellent essay and made many of the points many around here have been making for a while now. I didn’t agree with all of it (e.g., unfortunately there are many places in the country where it is still not OK to be gay and many households where women are not equals), but all in all it was a refreshing piece of optimism.
I’m hoping that Len is right about the masses learning to speak by sitting on our wallets. It seems like people are seeing a light at the end of the tunnel and (while whether or not it is a train remains to be seen) slowly releasing their death grip on their cash. I would LOVE it if every time some new government or corporate insanity (AIG bonuses, some new military boondogle, etc.) hits the news America at large just clamps the wallet shut again. Screw us and we’ll screw you by not spending. Get your acts together or we will not help you with our money. Seems like that and the internet are our only options these days…fortunately, it seems like those options are getting more effective.
It was an excellent essay and made many of the points many around here have been making for a while now. I didn’t agree with all of it (e.g., unfortunately there are many places in the country where it is still not OK to be gay and many households where women are not equals), but all in all it was a refreshing piece of optimism.
I’m hoping that Len is right about the masses learning to speak by sitting on our wallets. It seems like people are seeing a light at the end of the tunnel and (while whether or not it is a train remains to be seen) slowly releasing their death grip on their cash. I would LOVE it if every time some new government or corporate insanity (AIG bonuses, some new military boondogle, etc.) hits the news America at large just clamps the wallet shut again. Screw us and we’ll screw you by not spending. Get your acts together or we will not help you with our money. Seems like that and the internet are our only options these days…fortunately, it seems like those options are getting more effective.
It was an excellent essay and made many of the points many around here have been making for a while now. I didn’t agree with all of it (e.g., unfortunately there are many places in the country where it is still not OK to be gay and many households where women are not equals), but all in all it was a refreshing piece of optimism.
I’m hoping that Len is right about the masses learning to speak by sitting on our wallets. It seems like people are seeing a light at the end of the tunnel and (while whether or not it is a train remains to be seen) slowly releasing their death grip on their cash. I would LOVE it if every time some new government or corporate insanity (AIG bonuses, some new military boondogle, etc.) hits the news America at large just clamps the wallet shut again. Screw us and we’ll screw you by not spending. Get your acts together or we will not help you with our money. Seems like that and the internet are our only options these days…fortunately, it seems like those options are getting more effective.
It was an excellent essay and made many of the points many around here have been making for a while now. I didn’t agree with all of it (e.g., unfortunately there are many places in the country where it is still not OK to be gay and many households where women are not equals), but all in all it was a refreshing piece of optimism.
I’m hoping that Len is right about the masses learning to speak by sitting on our wallets. It seems like people are seeing a light at the end of the tunnel and (while whether or not it is a train remains to be seen) slowly releasing their death grip on their cash. I would LOVE it if every time some new government or corporate insanity (AIG bonuses, some new military boondogle, etc.) hits the news America at large just clamps the wallet shut again. Screw us and we’ll screw you by not spending. Get your acts together or we will not help you with our money. Seems like that and the internet are our only options these days…fortunately, it seems like those options are getting more effective.
But if we don’t buy a lot of crap, we’re putting people the people who make it out of work!
Oh, you think they should go work on infrastructure and alternative energy, hunh?
Communist!
But if we don’t buy a lot of crap, we’re putting people the people who make it out of work!
Oh, you think they should go work on infrastructure and alternative energy, hunh?
Communist!
But if we don’t buy a lot of crap, we’re putting people the people who make it out of work!
Oh, you think they should go work on infrastructure and alternative energy, hunh?
Communist!
“The hard part in the US is that there’s a multi-billion dollar industrial-marketing complex telling us that we need new vacuum cleaners and coats and phones every year. Most people hear that often enough and start to believe it.”
True. But their eyeballs are on their social network pages. They find themselves more entertaining like a table at a club. Artists go there to entertain. The services that make that possible are non-invasive. Some rely on ad revenue. Others on direct sales. All of the pages are dashboards enabling rapid feedback on all of the transactions.
At the heart of it, is Friends.
And that means a new dynamic or a much more strongly coupled one has emerged as a force over that giant marketing machine: interactive choice. Not simply changing channels, but more actively directing what is on them by the choices of who and what one befriends.
The old isn’t dieing. It’s rising like a phoenix.
“The hard part in the US is that there’s a multi-billion dollar industrial-marketing complex telling us that we need new vacuum cleaners and coats and phones every year. Most people hear that often enough and start to believe it.”
True. But their eyeballs are on their social network pages. They find themselves more entertaining like a table at a club. Artists go there to entertain. The services that make that possible are non-invasive. Some rely on ad revenue. Others on direct sales. All of the pages are dashboards enabling rapid feedback on all of the transactions.
At the heart of it, is Friends.
And that means a new dynamic or a much more strongly coupled one has emerged as a force over that giant marketing machine: interactive choice. Not simply changing channels, but more actively directing what is on them by the choices of who and what one befriends.
The old isn’t dieing. It’s rising like a phoenix.
“The hard part in the US is that there’s a multi-billion dollar industrial-marketing complex telling us that we need new vacuum cleaners and coats and phones every year. Most people hear that often enough and start to believe it.”
True. But their eyeballs are on their social network pages. They find themselves more entertaining like a table at a club. Artists go there to entertain. The services that make that possible are non-invasive. Some rely on ad revenue. Others on direct sales. All of the pages are dashboards enabling rapid feedback on all of the transactions.
At the heart of it, is Friends.
And that means a new dynamic or a much more strongly coupled one has emerged as a force over that giant marketing machine: interactive choice. Not simply changing channels, but more actively directing what is on them by the choices of who and what one befriends.
The old isn’t dieing. It’s rising like a phoenix.
I wonder what the Chinese think of when someone uses the word ‘excess’?
I wonder what the Chinese think of when someone uses the word ‘excess’?
I find it hard to believe that, in truth, ‘it’s over’ when the financial guys still own both parties, Goldman guys rule the Treasury department under Republican and Democratic administrations alike, and, as the former head of the IMF wrote in the May issue of the Atlantic, ‘the oligarchs are not being squeezed at all.’
Yes there is a lot of talk. But I don’t see any action; I don’t see the current administration acting in any serious way to reign in the oligarchs of Wall Street; and it looks like we are on an expressway to bankruptcy so that the rich can end up with ALL the marbles.
For one thing, it’s widely accepted that the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act was one of the chief contributors to the whole shameful debacle. And yet there is no talk in Washington about reinstating Glass-Steagall!
I find it hard to believe that, in truth, ‘it’s over’ when the financial guys still own both parties, Goldman guys rule the Treasury department under Republican and Democratic administrations alike, and, as the former head of the IMF wrote in the May issue of the Atlantic, ‘the oligarchs are not being squeezed at all.’
Yes there is a lot of talk. But I don’t see any action; I don’t see the current administration acting in any serious way to reign in the oligarchs of Wall Street; and it looks like we are on an expressway to bankruptcy so that the rich can end up with ALL the marbles.
For one thing, it’s widely accepted that the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act was one of the chief contributors to the whole shameful debacle. And yet there is no talk in Washington about reinstating Glass-Steagall!
@ Rick Turner “I know you are, but what am I?” (don’t answer that!)
35,000 people are marching in London. That’s a good sign, right? And the media there is actually supporting it, unlike the United States media.
Says Yogi Berra, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.”
I’m wondering about labels. Is this an interregnum, some painful but productive birthing process, or is it more like disseminated intravascular coagulation, where hemostasis and homeostasis have fallen off the cliff and the body bleeds out at the same time big nasty clots are forming in vital organs, choking off the flows of nutrition and oxygen?
Hey, I guess I should be happy that half the AIG FP dudes “gave back” half of their “bone-us-es,” right? Half an ass is better than none? In the meantime, we’re bleeding out through the million little cuts that the Oligarchic Kleptocracy has opened in the ol’ Body Politic to satisfy their “excessive” blood-lust, and the desperate little platelets scrambling around to seal off the bleeding finally just run out of gas.
How much is flowing into the MIC and the War Effort every day, these days? Here’s one (slightly dated) figure for the latter, and maybe I just don’t know where to look, but there’s damn-all little up-to-date reporting on this one particular spurting artery.
Ou sont les platelets d’antan?
Just a thought.
Len- I thought your first post on this string was just spot on. As to the other great thoughts here, I think we are all headed in the same direction. The great thing about an interregnum is that there are no experts. Nobody alive has been here before. This is not 1931. It’s more like, as Andersen suggests Britain in 1906 (even though he disavows the connection). We have Imperial Overstretch, combined with wrenching technological disruption (electricity, radio, auto, phonograph, airplane, etc).
And in case you don’t have enough to worry about……
Anybdy know if the infrastructure mavens who will be plotting the New Grid have given this any thought?
It strikes me as more than a coincidence…that as the outward manifestations of our way of life seem to be declining….. the seeds of progressive thought seem to be blooming…It’s an eternal tug of war between the 2 americas..(and it’s never black and white)…. but at least there is mainstream discussion and consideration of science… environmental responsibility… diplomacy… education… may be a starry eyed optimist… but it seems like a positive new era is a’borning (now we just have to survive the birthing process)
jeremiah:
” the mother and child reunion is only a moment away” – Paul Simon
But I’m watching tornado storms and thinking about the people in North Dakota tonight sitting in all that freezing water. To heck with the government; the north wind and the trolls are at it again.
Jon: Yes, it comes at the confluence of the expansion of interactive communication choices and structural implosions.
Just at that point, the new generation of 30 year old talents are joining the ranks of the boomers to reshape not the American myth, but the Earth myth, the global world society.
This is not a new order hatched in elite rooms, but a bottom-up befriending across generations, communities and cultures.
This is the real deal, the human be in.
It is as if we were swimmers who swam down to the very source of a spring and are now ascending with the tiny bubbles emerging from th earth becoming larger and larger around us as we swin to the surface. Some of them become real; some don’t.
They all are escaping to the clear air. Breathe.
Jon and len:
On the other hand,,. Some say in the words of the old hymn, “It’s gonna be a great day dawning, yes it will!”. Death to the MSM? What’s going to fill that functional void?
We are.
One more on WRETCHED EXCESS. This kind of thing,, if it dies at all, will die a long, prolonged struggle of a death.
As reported of Jeter elsewhere (including various business sections in the MSM), “He earns $21.6 million annually for total career earnings of $161.2 million through 2008. Court records show he didn’t obtain a mortgage to build the home.”
Cry me a river, but write me a check.
And len, anybody among “we” gonna be able to hang around the courthouse or places like the Mayor’s Row restaurant in Chicago and link up with various State’s and US Attorneys and po-lice and their informants and track the contracting antics of our “infrastructure providers?” In among the need to earn a living doing Green stuff, that is?
I don’t know the answer, I just feel compelled to ask the questions. My guess is that smug recycling of tales via blogs and such is not going to result in interception of anti-Good Government missiles very often. Not that anything other than the old investigative-reporter MSM activities, which were pretty poor public-immune-system bits too. Are we headed for long rows of heads on pikes, with maybe strings of hands and noses hung behind? Of course, the Chinese do what they do, making show executions of their homegrown corruptniks (maybe just to harvest body parts to prolong the lives of the old shits who run that ancient culture), but it appears from the leaks in the Great Wall that now that Confucianism has been replaced by rapacious capitalism, corruption is wider-spread and worse than ever.
Hope the Harmonic Convergence will cure all. And Change the human heart.
JTM, hold on there partner. I think, at this point, not falling off the planet is the most pressing of Green stuff. “Antics” be damned, but actually working on (and accomplishing) a New Urbanism takes whatever it takes, I imagine. I get your point and concern. It is likely warranted. But the game aint changing overnight.
Cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face can be looked at from many perspectives in this birthing process. What’s most important at this stage in the playa vs. game with regards to the precipice of anything remotely ecologically sustainable? Which highly-valued prize is most important? Should we sit back and wait for some with even an iota of positive interest in the shifting tides to be “outed” or focus all on that power to really change the one thing that we’ve ALL really contributed to fucking up? Aim your sights on the right targets. Keep your nose clean AND your eyes on the prize.
The human condition towards excess is what it is. The masses have been halted. Good. Less resource depletion. Sort of. The fat cats might have lost a few pounds, but they’re still chunkers. Influence and position to persuade the truly elite with the power to still be gluttonous pigs to their heart’s content that doing good while doing well is the focus in some arenas.
Wile E. Coyote, that silly, easily manipulated creature. Bugs was the one to watch.
The real bumpin’ post-Interregnum party has yet to begin. Full-of-heart progress is happening. Have no doubt.
I can only imagine the macro-Power struggles behind closed doors. All I know is that I’d hate to lose sight of the forest and start chopping down trees.
Just sayin’.
http://www.slate.com/id/2213740/pagenum/all/
Know the enemy.
I’ll add this….
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/03/inside-abu-dhabi-carbon-capture-and-storage.php
….as an example of a less than ideal – cough, cough – partner in the fight, but they are, at least, paying attention (to their wallets).
Whatever works.
Is the Fed blowing one last bubble – buying 1 Trillion in US Govt. bonds. (And maybe more). Mr. Market sure thought so.
On another note the majority of people on a day to day basis are not as effected by the new depression as Time Inc might think. The rich, the boomers with it all in the market, the poor, the housing lust buyers, and the entire New York based financial world has been turned upside down.
But if you are 25 with say a job in health care it is not likely you are very much effected. Maybe 10% are – but unemployment going from 5% to 9% effects 4% of the population.
While I share the optimism that things are going to change, Obama’s not making it too easy on us when he keeps guys like Geithner and Summers around. When people talking about “fixing” the problems, don’t they just mean a return to the old way of consumerism and easy-credit?
For Christ’s sake, Newsweek had a cover story urging Americans to stop saving their money.
Late to the table (as usual), but just wanted to give a hat-tip, Jon. Great article, and the conversation it spawned.
“Bugs was the one to watch.”
Wise guys and Tweety Birds alike.
People are looking for some sudden shift. This isn’t an arc in a sitcom. It is slow, gradual, coming as naturally as breathing. It is made of a small but persistent need for each person to do just a little better by the persons nearest them. It is bottom up. It creeps like kudzu. Those self-obsessed out there one day look around and notice that we are only paying attention to them when they are doing something worth paying attention to. We can’t stop their scheming or their conspiracies. We can not go along with them.
Two minds: the first one is very aware and measures befort it thinks about things. The second is very to change but reacts and knows instantly what it thinks. Frequency and amplitude program the second mind. The first uses to symbols to program the second.
It is the human be in. This time it takes years not a day or a week. If we blow slowly on this flame, it will set their McMansions ablaze with our indifference to their directions.
@ len: You’re right, I, at least, do want all the changes to come at once. Chalk it up to youthful idealism.
Your last line is nothing short of inspirational (if not also an incitement to arson in suburbia)
Take it from the old sheepdogs, Daniel. Treat life like love: slow, persistent, and everyone gets a cookie.
Don’t burn them out. Wait. They’ll be eating Big Macs too. Smile at them in line.
Living well is the best revenge.
@ len: not to get tangential — or sexist — but that reminds me of a lesson my father once taught me about two bulls standing on top of a hill …
i want to print out your last couple of comments and put ‘em on my bathroom mirror as daily affirmations. Right next to that Newsweek cover with Uncle Sam telling me to buy more crap
I have grown nostalgic for the days when Enron was considered the nadir of financial mismanagement.