All Over Again

These past few weeks I have begun to get the feeling that we are repeating the 1970's all over again. With the events of the past few days and the terrible aftermath and barbaric depravity of a portion of our citizenry, the ones we would normally call "victims" of society, I have become even more fixed in my opinion. Fear of rising gas prices (whether valid or drummed up), terrorism around the world, screaming fanatics in the Middle East, general malaise, cultural decline, hippies and leftist activists seemingly taking over our cultural discourse, all of them take everything bad about the 1970's but this time we see them compressed into a few weeks.

I cannot muster any other feeling than disgust and a sense of defeat. Everywhere you look we are being attacked and our institutions torn down by both nature and man. With every setback or tragedy we face, a larger and larger portion of our society is intent not on fixing things or moving forward, but rather tearing down and setting a flame. What we see the looters doing in New Orleans is only a more physical form of what many on the extreme (and moving mainstream) Left would like to do across the country to many of our most cherished institutions and values.

When they talk about fighting big business, fighting Big Oil, fighting Traditionalist Christians, fighting Bush and the Republicans, do they mean this? Is this a valid manifestation of the appropriate response to them evils of American Society? If not, why not? Is a soldier's death more or less meaningful when it comes at the hand of an American looter or an Islamist terrorist? Why should our sons and daughters die for New Orleans? To protect Wal*Marts and CostCos and Best Buys and jewelry stores? To protect oil rigs and natural gas lines? How about to protect hospitals and relief centers?

We may win elections, but those only come around every so often. We must not forget that we still have little influence over the news and agenda setting in between elections and that no matter how little could have been done to prevent or to limit the aftereffects of the hurricaine by the federal government or the President, there are those whose entire goal is to bring the Administration down and shame America and they will stop at nothing to promote and demagogue this tragedy for their own ideological gains. I am just sad and tired of it all. This is not a time for either Democrats or Republicans to play politics.

UPDATE: David Brooks agrees with me.

Comments

[Bleak Mouse]

There are many explanations: the continuing evolution of the boomer demographic, as it rants and cries through its tiny moment of history; the human temptation to self-destruction; the reveling in self-hatred of the well-off; the triumph of seductive abstraction over experience; the egotism that finds intoxication in denunciation and high moralism; the siren call of the abyss; the parrotting compulsion, by which the intellectually upwardly-mobile seek admission to circles of "sophistication;" the perverse desire to light that match in the dynamite factory.

If it's any comfort, it's hardly new: I still recall the stab of recognition when in the 70s I first read Conrad's "Under Western Eyes" and Dostoevsky's "The Possessed." I had seen these faces, not in prisons or riots, but in classrooms.

The news tells me that the world is mad. But daily experience tells me that most people -- whatever their political persuasions, which usually take up a quite small portion of their lives -- are sane, sensible, possessed of a modicum of common sense. They form a massive counterweight to the vain hysterics. And those who make the most noise are, by definition, the noisiest -- though it's hard not to pay attention when they're in full cry.

If that doesn't help, try this, which has helped me through a few rough passages: "This too shall pass."

[stephenesque]

We are indeed repeating the 70s, well spotted. But it is much, much worse this time around: I mean, surely you would have thought we'd have seen the 70s coming this time around. But no.

[Misspent]

I should say that the one area that I would rather repeat of the 1970's is the clothing and style, however awful, it did possess a certain disregard for high-falutin' ultra-mod hipsterism. While part of me would like to see the continued prevelance of low rise jeans, thongs, and mini tube tops on some of our finer females, on the whole I'd rather see them return to orange corderoy pants with aquamarine blouses and big, feathered hair.

Perhaps the hip mimicking of new wave and the 80's sound in some up and coming bands is a sign that as quickly as we decended into the 70's there is some Reagan or Thatcher-esque figure out there waiting to sock us in the nuts and get us our of our Carterian malaise, if not politically (the state of which is dreadfully pathetic and frivolous) then at least culturally.

[Misspent]

Stephen, I'm surprised you'd still been reading my site, given that I have an amazon search bar on the left and a list of music and books. Granted the search bar is provided for ease of customer use, like when I'm too bored to post the link to something. A certainly don't have enough readers to make any kind of money from pimping my sidebars.

[Misspent]

Bleak, I'd agree with you re: the normalcy of most people. Unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily ring true when one spends one's days wandering around a University. I feel like it is such a tired trope that I can't even find myself repeating why that is. I will say, though, that my place doesn't seem as "whack" and out of touch with reality as some other places.

[Bleak Mouse]

University is a rarefied, self-contained environment at the best of times, and it's hard in the daily grind of sheer perversity and outright madness to retain a sense of perspective. Students intoxicated by abstract notions and a sense of power tend to tear away at the most readily available, and vulnerable, institution -- the university itself. In recent decades, as boomer radicals move into offices, and traditional faculty become increasingly unsure of themselves, the university is only too glad to assist. But one never knows how many academicians and students keep their heads down, and try to get through it all in one piece; the fear of tumbrils and guillotines, however symbolic, tends to keep moderates well-behaved. I'd suspect that the vast majority of students, including raving radicals, move on to fairly sensible views in later years -- providing they don't get tenure in Revolutionary Studies, or start getting grants for bad behavior.

However that may be, it doesn't make daily life at the university any easier. But hang in there. There are signs that sane people are recouping losses bit by bit; and the institution itself won't improve as long as it's left to the lunatics. Besides, the boomers -- despite mass protests and public denunciations -- are in fact getting older, and their influence will inevitably decline. I like to think of the current noise as the last howl of my generation. You can count on the noise increasing as we become increasingly irrelevant.

That's the hopeful view, at least. The current 1970s oughtn't to last as long as the original (please!)

[Inkling]

I was planning to post a riposte on my blog to Brooks' column, but it seems more apt here.

Basically I disagree with the premise. The chief difference is that the presidency and other reins of political power are in much different hands than Carter's. It's easy to forget the sheer dominance of liberal ideology in the halls of Congress and other power centers during the '70s. The Reagan presidency swept away the smug assumption on the part of liberals that their way was not only the right way, but the only way. This assumption, of course, persists in academia and the "mainstream" media. But it doesn't anymore among the general public and those who need their support, e.g., politicians.

Remember that politicians were proud to be called liberals in the '70s. Now anyone who seeks national office, whether Democrat or Republican, will do anything to avoid the "L" label.

What this means, practically speaking, is that people are more willing to listen to conservative and free-market arguments than they were in the '70s. Conservative think tanks didn't have nearly the influence then that they do now. There also wasn't a Fox News or Rush Limbaugh then (however they may make you wince from time to time). The playing field may seem more tilted than ever in the halls of academe, but in the public square it is more level now than during that dismal decade.

Besides, I thought it was time for the '80s revival. I was so looking forward to the Smiths reunion concert tour.

[stephenesque]

Why wouldn't I read your site, Le Mis? All I wrote is that those who solicit money for their blogs deserve to receive lots of comment spam. Doesn't mean that I don't enjoy the contents of those sites.

[Misspent]

Ha!