Declining Morals

I think part of your problem here is your age. You are coming at this from the vantage of a particular time in American history. After WWII, the country boomed and could do no wrong. Houses were cheap, jobs were plentiful, and everyone was on a rising curve. That set your expectations.

The 60's generation grew up on tales of idealism and self-fulfillment. They grew up with a sense of entitlement, raised by parents who thought their kids would have everything. It's not the "Me generation" for nothing. They then ran up against reality of the cold war and possible nuclear annihilation. The results were drop-outs, hippies, protestors (any cause will do) and greenies -- anything that made people feel idealistic and worthwhile. And that continues today, in what seems to me, very tired (and tiresome) liberal politics. Global Warming and recycling your trash has replaced the Civil Rights Act and the ERA. Iraq instead of Vietnam.

I'm a bit younger than you, so I've seen some of the reaction. Everyone was so shocked in the 1970's when I was a teenager -- high oil prices and stagflation and Jimmy Carter. Instead of men on the moon, we had Skylab falling out of orbit. Even the music was horrible -- Rock had died and turned into Disco. Women's lib gave us Studio 54. It was all so depressing and tacky and not at all what they had expected! And the 60's generation has just become more bitter and wistful since then. Maybe they'll even elect Hillary as one last gesture to show how enlightened they are!

I had to roll my eyes numerous times while reading your rant. I'm sure you've read Babbit, published in 1922, and it complains about conspicuous consumption and middle-class conformity in terms not much different than yours. People have been making fools of themselves for public exposure since radio was mass entertainment. Beauty contests and talent shows and idiot celebrities go back at least 100 years. If I remember my history, people were also upset about declining morals ("flappers" and the excesses of "The Great Gatsby" era.) And of course, there was a massive real estate bubble in Florida.

People are status conscious, no doubt about it, and always have been. It's built into us as social animals, no different than any other primate. Whether the status symbol is a house in the suburbs, a color TV, or a giant SUV, some percentage of people will have to have it, even if they overextend themselves financially, or work slave hours, to get it. There's absolutely no point in complaining about this. If people wanted to live like the Amish, they would.

There's another deeper reason for all this -- when times are good, people expect to be able to earn more money, and so carry more debt. This isn't just a fault of shallow suburbanites -- governments and corporations do exactly the same thing. That explains the massive debts levels and poor savings, not some lack of integrity. People just don't think the times will really change. The mortgage mess was par for the course. Borrow more than you can afford because housing is going through the roof! You can always refinance later when you have a huge pile of equity. It's simple optimism based on lack of perspective. And with a big helping of mob psychology!

And when the tide turns and money isn't so easy to come by, they get burnt. There's a crash and a cautious generation (1940's) that practices thrift and wants nothing more than security. They naturally get rich, and tell their kids that it's a world of opportunity. They also regret all the time they spent working, and tell the kids to find their ideal job, ideal mate, to make the world a better place and not just work. Those kids try to do that (1960's), but inevitably lose touch with the work ethic and thrift it takes to pay for it all. They leave their kids a rotten legacy of high taxes, high debts, inflated pension and government benefits. Their kids (children of divorce, with uncertain prospects) are a mess (1980's.) They try to match the affluence of their parents, but the economy no longer supports it. They are the ones running flat out just to keep up appearances. They can't back off because they think the affluence they grew up with is "normal."

I've seen the same thing in my family -- my father (born 1934) once said he was amazed that he had two houses and three cars and a boat. Growing up in a one-bedroom flat in NYC, that's what he associated with rich people, and yet all he had done to earn it was work at an engineering job with IBM for 30 years. Mom didn't have to take a job at any time during their marriage. He retired with a pension and full health insurance at age 55.

It's been nearly impossible for his kids to match that. Real estate is out of sight, so no 4 bedroom/2 bath house. We switch jobs every few years, so no pension or automatic salary increases. And no one wants to get married at 23 like my parents did! After all, the person you meet at that age might not be "the right one!" No one wants to work at the same company for 30 years either. That's not fulfilling! We wanted what they had, but didn't think we had to do it the way they did it (early marriage, savings, a career.)

You've talked about a "Great Awakening" as a response to coming hard times. I think this is just more 60's nostalgia, a yearning for an idealistic, shared vision. It's the religious impulse that 60's liberals never indulged when they were young. It's what has powered the green movement and leftist politics for a generation. The right wing thinks their faith makes them better people. The left wing thinks their activism and desire to improve the world make them better people! Neither group is particularly interested in figuring out what works. Neither group is too interested in looking at the results of their actions.

The population is older, larger and more settled than it was in the 1930's. There's a generation of boomers who will be in their late 50's and early 60's when this hits. They expected Social Security, Medicare and a long, leisurely, healthy retirement. A generation of 40-something's that have been burning both ends for all their working lives and just barely keeping up appearances. And a generation of 20-somethings that, when not oblivious, are cynics who think the future will be one disaster after another.

The 1930's "greatest generation" supposedly knuckled down and coped with depression and war. I suspect it was not quite that simple. I don't know what the current population will do, but I doubt it will be any kind of "Great Awakening" (it wasn't in the 1930's!). We've been too used to prosperity for too long to just grin and bear it. We're too used to depending on government to just rely on our own efforts (we didn't do that in the 1930's!) And our elites and "opinion makers" spend so much time pissing on American institutions like capitalism, self-reliance and skepticism that I wonder if the foundations of this country are still intact.

I guess we'll find out. Let's hope we do better than the 1940's.

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