Dually truck leads to thought on causation

[bill_schubert]

My day began as it nearly always does with my dog, Zoe, insisting I take her on her morning walk.  

On our way back to the car a dually pickup did a screeching acceleration past us.  I take great exception to that kind of behavior.  We live in a neighborhood and that is not acceptable.  He was clearly a worker so when I got to my car I followed intending to get the phone number of his company to report him to the builder that hired him.  But, of course, he did not have any markings on his truck.  He was a window installer with a huge Trump 2020 applique covering the back window of his pickup.  And he had sport wheels like some Friday Nights kid.  It all made sense.  It was a demonstration of American Exceptionalism in action.  

And as such things will happen, I ran across this from Rolling Stone today:

The Unraveling of America  

Anthropologist Wade Davis on how COVID-19 signals the end of the American era

www.rollingstone.com

The TLDR is that we're watching the end of the American century.  Not the end of the world any more than the British Empire ending brought it on.  But with the ascension of China we're seeing the start of their century while watching the end of American exceptionalism.

I do not think I've ever read an article with more quotable lines in it.  The author, an anthropologist has a few things to say about Trump but then:

Odious as he may be, Trump is less the cause of America’s decline than a product of its descent.

This, I think, is clear.  He is a symptom to which we are attaching unwarranted causation.

I'm not sure even how I feel about what appears to me to be the passing of the baton. Or the getting the baton ripped out of our hands.  No civilization gently relinquishes what they perceive to be their control of the universe.  But neither do they recognize it when it is happening.

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Comments

[anais-pf.livejournal.com]

I had to look up dually truck. I never knew there was a name for that. :)

I read that article a day or two ago and it was so relentlessly true and so very sad to read. On the other hand, I have a tiny bit of hope that after the election, things will turn around some and our country's descent into the primordial muck will be at least slowed.

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

Many of the dually trucks here have plastic testicles hanging from under the truck. Just a little compensation, I think.

I'm really not sure what I think about the end of the American era. The Scifi people have called the Asian domination long ago (think Bladerunner) and I suspect it is inevitable until their descent and the next group ascends. To think we would break the mold of civilizations march is more than a little naive. Much like those who see their religion, whatever it is, as the top of the pyramid never to be usurped.

I've only got at most 20 years so I'm not likely to see much of a change but so best I can do is read the tea leaves and project and wonder.

[susandennis]

That's quite the article. Geesh. And, again, grateful for being old already.

[susandennis]

I did the same thing! Dually Truck is a new one on me.

[msconduct.livejournal.com]

I agree with the quote about Trump. I'm not, however, so sure about the ascent of China. From my reading, while they like to project strength and are clearly attempting world domination, the government is in fact quite fragile.

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

So how does the power vacuum get filled? I don't see any other civilization ready to do it.

The China government has a lot of weakness but it is stronger than any other right now. The EU had some potential but could not get it together and all the U.S. has done is undermine it.

Interesting problem.

[msconduct.livejournal.com]

That's the thing, I tend to think aggression is the opposite of strength and if they were more confident in their own power they wouldn't need to be so aggressive. As my economist ex-husband used to say, to be longterm successful a government has to take the people with it. China's ability to do that is balanced on a knife edge of propaganda and repression. Especially in a world more connected every day, that can only last for so long. What's more, China's posturing can't cover its economic dependence on the US. I wouldn't give up on the US just yet. It wasn't so long ago that with changing demographics it seemed a reasonable assumption that we would never see a Republican President again. We could easily be back there and then America would just have taken a wrong turn rather than jumping the rails. (I hope this is coherent - these are my 2.30 a.m. thoughts.)

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

Pretty damn good for 2:30 in the morning. My 2:30 thoughts are invariably zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Interesting comment from your EX. I love economists. Totally useless, invariably wrong and nearly always fascinating theories about everything. Not to be disparaging about anyone who spends the time to actually think about the mechanics of change. It would be nice to have fewer reactors and more thinkers but no reason to thing that evolution will ever fix that.

I'm not so sure about the aggression being the opposite of strength but I'd love to debate the U.S. Manifest Destiny doctrine in that light with someone who had an opinion.

Economic interdependence is certainly a thing. Not a new thing (the trade triangles of the 17th century come to mind) but one that is much faster today and more fragile as a result. When a word on the Internet can swing international markets, we're in a new world and all kinds of things could happen.

I think a lot hinges on the election, on whether the BLM and Covid reactions are just fly by night or actual Bastille like movements.

Weirdly I think it might come down to how many women and minorities or minority women or sentient individuals to replace the white male monolithic wall that has run the government for 250 years.

Part of what we're seeing is the white population that is quickly becoming the minority in the U.S. fighting to retain that power. Obviously they are going to lose and we may be better for it. Eventually.

I hope you're reading this tomorrow and have slept well.

:-)

[msconduct.livejournal.com]

I'm normally a night owl but 2.30 is pushing it even for me. I agree that economists are utterly useless, and have thought so ever since I discovered the entire "science" is predicated on the assumption that people behave rationally and make rational choices. As we say in New Zealand, yeah, nah. As a psychologist my entire field is contained in the bit they just ignore/make silly assumptions about.

I think my saying aggression is the opposite of strength was a 2.30 a.m. victim as it's a wild overstatement, but I do think it has validity in many specific cases, often ones involving authoritarian governments. They think outward aggression will unite a populace they're not entirely sure they can keep controlling. As a result there's a certain man behind the curtain quality to them. I grew up being terrified of nuclear war and the Soviet Union, then I visited it three weeks before the fall of communism. We drove from Finland with its beautifully maintained roads into potholed broken roads with rusting tanks and other military equipment sitting abandoned in fields. At the time there was a severe food shortage and you would walk into a food shop to find the shelves completely bare. It was then I understood how much panic there was underlying the government in the Soviet Union constantly bragging about its strength. Visiting China was a similar experience: I was there for six weeks in 2008 and although I didn't expect it to be a first world country I was still shocked at the real situation behind its much-vaunted new prosperity. The Communist Party has made a bargain with its citizens to trade their freedoms for wealth: they've taken the freedoms but are far from delivering on their promises and they know it and so does the population.

Manifest Destiny's an interesting one - Monroe warning Europe off interfering in Westward expansion on the face of it has an awfully modern ring if you've heard China talking about its stake in the South China Sea. But it's complicated by the God's will part which I'm going to stay well away from.

Completely agree with your points about how things might go after the election and the impact of women and minorities. I was watching something about civil rights in the US the other day, and they were pointing out that the history of it is taught in US schools as if it's a smooth upward trend. Slavery was abolished, there was the civil rights movement in the 50s, and yay, all done! While I can understand the desire to show the overall shape of the moves the country has made on this issue, this kind of teaching obscures the two steps forward, one and a half steps back nature of real life, here being the periods of backlash about the gains that were made. As you say, white Americans fighting to hang onto power is one of those waves of backlash. However, the upward trend's still there and I try and keep that in mind rather than getting mired in the unpleasant details of the day to day.

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

“Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” quote by a President quoting a black Baptist minister quoting a white Unitarian transcendentalist minister.

Just read an interesting thought. By waiting so long to choose his running mate after saying it was going to be a woman Bidon raised the world awareness of a huge list of amazing women in leadership positions. He had them all vetted by the press and public opinion for future positions in his government and that of the successive governments.

Intentional or not (and I'll pretend it was) the affect is pretty powerful.

[msconduct.livejournal.com]

Intentional or not, good for him! And after all, we all know he had plenty to choose from - there are binders full of them:).

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

Binders full of them.... I'd forgotten all about that. Yeah, whew, been a long time.