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Six Decades of Leisurely Deterioration for the U.S. Masses in a Mess

http://www.culturechange.org/cms/content/view/775/65/
by Jan Lundberg

Greetings from Oklahoma City, where I came to speak at the University  
of Oklahoma on "Natural Gas: a Bridge to Nowhere?" More on that in a  
later post.

My reflection this evening is on the transformation of modern  
USAmericans into a leisure society of individuals. It began in the  
1950s and flowered in the '60s and early '70s. It developed into  
guitar playing rebels, surfers -- "Baw dip da dip dip" -- and, above  
all, television watchers, as prominent types among the new affluent  
generation. Institutions such as school and church weren't offering  
much cohesion. So the new generation of young people were  
distinguished sharply from their parents who had experienced the Great  
Depression, worked rather hard, endured World War II, and had  
witnessed their own parents' having more skills and tradition than  
they did.

The importance of this change between generations was ultimately not  
so much the luminescence of the Counterculture, but instead a  
weakening of the population. The direction of the population was not  
toward liberation and enlightenment or a return to more natural living  
(except for some hippies). Instead, as has become clear over the  
decades since, the population was becoming less healthy, more  
alienated, possessing fewer skills, controlled by the top of the  
pyramid, and losing knowledge of elders' traditions and sense of  
community.

I believe the above explains how a modern middle aged person in the  
U.S. today is little more than a graying replica of previous  
generations' resilient, wiry-strong citizens. While a factory job of  
yesteryear may not make more sense or be more healthful than a service- 
job today at a corporate chain store, the factory worker nevertheless  
used his hands and made something, and knew intimately of his parents'  
or grandparents' rural roots and simple values. One can deride the  
ignorance or lack of imagination of the generation of the 1920s, '30s  
and '40s, but minimizing the strength of that generation -- because it  
may not have been as technologically sophisticated or able to stop the  
corporatization of the nation -- as we applaud women's liberation and  
the slackening of church going, misses the overall change for the  
worse in the population during the last several decades. (Growth in  
population did not help anyone but the few profiting off growth, nor  
did reliance on ever-more-expensive, dwindling petroleum give us more  
than a short-term jolt of energy.)

For it is the mass denial today of our ecological plight and the  
increasingly obvious domination by unworthy, greedy masters that  
raises the question, "What accounts for the current generation's  
putting up with the imbalanced economy and total lack of connection to  
the life-giving land?" As I have a look at Oklahoma this week, I see  
the cloned, exacerbated sprawl development, automobile dependence, and  
acquiescence to ever more costly, senseless militarism. Simultaneously  
there is little acknowledgment of climate change when the state is  
experiencing the hottest summer in history. The people, as with almost  
USAmericans, are more dependent than ever on technology and being  
dictated to by government in more and more areas of daily living.   
Perhaps, though, the kindness and directness of the people of Oklahoma  
will be the biggest local resource -- beyond the vaunted petroleum  
industries and cattle ranching.  And the famous Oklahoma Food Coop is  
the envy of the nation.

Where is this societal trend -- six decades of leisurely deterioration  
for the U.S. masses -- going? Times are tougher and tougher for more  
people, as the system shows itself to be failing. Eventually the  
number of people that the system is rewarding will be so small that  
they will be dealt with harshly by a hungry, landless mass of  
frustrated, mostly confused people who also had led soft, often empty  
lives. One can hope for a good outcome when things settle down, but we  
are running out of Mother Nature's patience.