Individualism without group purpose

What follows is a my own assessment of our politics, our society, and our economy. It is probably short-sighted in a number of areas, and certainly dark. I hope that you all can pick it apart so that you can give me hope.

Politics: This begins with the current state of affairs in Washington. The vast majority of the politicians seem to have no overall compass guiding them, and so when they find themselves lost in partisan rhetoric they can't find their way out and they don't even seem to realize that their statements are irrational. I believe that the Peggy Noonan article (The Divider vs. the Thinker) that was posted awhile back contained a compass for them and for us all, and I wish that Washington and the country were introspective enough and honest enough to read an article like that and take some guidance from it. Unfortunately they are neither. Our pendulum (between the individual and the collective) has swung so far to the individual side, that too many people don't consider anything but what they consider to be their own ideal state. Four years ago, I thought that Obama had the charisma to pull a critical mass of people together to work for a common good, but he wilted. Now the next person to come along to lead has to overcome not just the problems we have but also disillusionment over what happened with the promise of Obama.


Society: Why should we expect much of our politicians: they are only a reflection of ourselves, since they sculpt what they say so as to get us to vote for them. We're without a compass ourselves. We know something is lacking, but we can't quite put a finger on it. We do seem to remember that our country seems to hold the individual as important, and so we take a certain part of that to an extreme. We now seem to be a country of individuals who are concerned with others mostly to the extent that it affects *me*. Moreover, for some reason many people seem to need to express their status/importance by getting the newest-greatest thing that money can buy or by standing out in some other way. I have a theory that so many people do things just to be 'in' and attract notice (including multiple earrings-and-tattoos-who-knows-where) because they do not invest enough effort anywhere to stand out by achieving something...anything. I think we all have a need to have something to be proud of, and being able to plumb a house well is something to be proud of; however that requires substantial effort and time investment which won't pay off for years. In my father's generation, that was what it meant to 'discover who you are', although he remarked that he didn't understand the phrase. Did you ever notice that the intersection of the crowd that accomplishes things and the crowd that shocks others is mighty small?


Economy: Globalization might have its advantages, but I think that some disadvantages are: (i) the resource waste by shipping things across the world that could have been produced a few hundred miles away, (ii) we've given up so much manufacturing in this country that (a) we'll be in a fix if we have to pull another WW II-like armament build-up and (b) a lot of the good blue-collar jobs are gone and replaced by jobs like serving coffee and lattes [not only do they not earn much, but at the end of the day, what do you have to show for your day's work]. Our economy and the world economy are built on spending. From media accounts, it seems that the economy has to grow at close to 2% a year or we feel that something is wrong and that our standard of living is dropping. Various events of the last decade have put a real strain on the economy, but even if these events had not happened I think that things would have faltered sooner or later. In order to continue to grow the economy at this rate (or to continue to bolster our standard of living with the new and trendy), we would have to burn through resources faster and faster; faster than can be maintained for long. Once the economy couldn't keep pace any longer, then all the rest of the toothpicks we were using to balance our elephant would no longer be able support its weight and it would come crashing down. We're burning not only our grandchildren's money, but their natural resources as well.


I think that the real individualism of this country was tied to self-actualization. We all need to be able to pursue certain occupations such as meet this need and simultaneously support ourselves and contribute back to society. Globalization for the sake of the economic engine has made it difficult for many to realize their potential, a compass that used to be a good guide. Without this, we are a society that lacks group purpose or direction...except to keep earning more and buying more. However, now our economic future looks dark and we need statesmanship to lead us out of this difficulty. Unfortunately, the society fractured by a hollow and extreme individualism seems incapable of either following or rewarding such statesmanship.