[spudbuddy]

Actually my first time posting a new topic:

I've been doing a lot of reading about PO/economic ramifications over the past year - and how an oil economy basically tilts from rising energy production prices. Add to this the radiating effects around the planet from corporate globalization (downsizing, offshoring, outsourcing, etc) my question is this:
What is our response to this last desperate mega-shopping party?

A lot of Neros out there fiddling while Rome burns:

While our middle classes shrink (except for S.E. Asia) here in middle America I notice some alarming trends:

A college friend of mine was telling me of a high school she knows, where students drive the kind of vehicles their teachers can only dream of being able to afford to buy - Jags, Hummers, Porches, etc.
She tells of a fellow college student on a recent shopping spree buying a purse - for $1700. A purse...
They don't want to know that the $300 designer jeans they buy have labor costs of perhaps $8. They refuse to contemplate what that kind of corporate profit margin actually means.

These are the young people whose lives will wind up being radically different from mine. When they are my age, (if they live that long) the world they will have inherited will not be able to provide them with what it provided me.

I ponder - what are they actually being taught? And by whom?
As tuition costs soar, will it mean one day that a majority of students who can even afford higher education are so wealthy that they become a (so-called) well educated elite capable of ignoring what is going on in the world around them?
Insulated and isolated / ears attached to corporate Ipod squawk / eyes glued to a palmed cellphone message screen?

If the youth of a nation are going to continue to move and shake (in ways more meaningful than those of the all night dance halls) then where is their guidance? (provided how and by whom?)

[diogenes]

I have lurked here for some time, but felt no need to post: my areas of expertise are not in geology or political science. This post makes me want to talk, though.

I am not a religious moralist—I don't think it's a good idea to outlaw everything mentioned as a sin in the Bible, the Koran, or what-have-you—but I must say that our society has inverted and perverted every moral system ever created. Christianity condemns greed; our every ambition violates this precept, especially in the God-fearing USA. Pride is the original sin, but our children are indoctrinated to accept and enhance their own pride. Humility is never mentioned. Neither are thrift, chastity, or honor. These concepts have no relevance, it would seem, to a world hurtling head-long towards its own suicide.

I'm not saying you have to be religious, or that we should be, but it's odd that every prophet from Abraham to Zoroaster taught a strict moral creed, and we feel that, through the omnipresent influence of purely quantitative science, we have surpassed any qualitative wisdom the ancients, as well as more recent moral philosophers, might have to offer. It is ridiculous. Of course, in a society built around consumption on a massive scale, it is to the "benefit" of the powers that be to generate a civilization in which judgment is impaired and is seen as the only sin worthy of condemnation.

The children you notice today are, by historical standards, incapable of critical thought. They may have been born intelligent, but they have probably had that educated out of them. They have no moral compass; they have no true personal beliefs beyond, perhaps, an insipid "Jesus loves you" mentality—which is generally expressed through a bumper sticker on a truck or SUV. When everything goes wrong, these are the people who will fill the ranks of the authoritarian armies. These are the people who will die by the millions in war and famine. These are the people who will laugh at you, or at best look at you quizzically, if you mention peak oil, criticize American policy, and so on.

TV—video games—movies—music—drugs—sex—all of these seem more important to most young people than any questions of morality, philosophy, politics, and so on.

Edit: I misplaced a comma...

[RacerJace]

I blame the materialistic ways of the youth today on the bling bling gangster rap and hip hop MTV culture, at least as a major influence anyway. It's like an over hyped status thing to have all of the latest designer labels and ridiculous accessories and flaunt the ridiculous price tags as part of the elitist attitude. It makes me grimace with genuine regret for these people.

[UIUCstudent01]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') college friend of mine was telling me of a high school she knows, where students drive the kind of vehicles their teachers can only dream of being able to afford to buy - Jags, Hummers, Porches, etc.

[backstop]

Spudbuddy,

fine post!

As a dissenting member of the nero generation I have to say that it appears to be followed by a generation of suckers -
that is, utterly gullible fools, trained only to consume and to the delusion of a right to consume many many times their fair share of the planet's bounty -
they are plainly in for some serious disillusionment.



Diogenes,

Welcome to the site.

I well agree with your premis regarding the central need for a moral code, which appears to be ignored by an increasingly materialist society.
I heard the other day a clear time-line for America's moral decline, which was :

1903: US army major court-marshalled and jaoled for 10 years for "water-board" torture of a Panamanian POW.
1968: US army marine court-marshalled and dishonourably discharged within one month for "water-board" torture of a Vietnamese POW.
2003 : US army regs redefine torture-methods to de facto permit water-boarding.

Yet in reality there is a moral code operating under official promotion, (its high priests wear very dark very smart suits), namely that of Urison,
where interest can be charged on lending money, and greed for personal wealth and indulgence are considered virtues.

I'm particularly concerned that the rising generation that seem, as you say, largely incapable of critical thought,
are near-ideal fodder for populist politicians playing to their training to externalize blame for any interruptions to their consumption-habits.

For this reason my own aspiration is not to any kind of bolt-hole, nor to merely being part of a rural community,
but rather to helping establish a rural studies centre where young people can discover the older values of respect for creation
and for a simple honourable way of life, and can learn of the practical skills that will be in very short supply.


UIUC - with regard to the neo-economist you write of, maybe the logical tactic is to use his printed propaganda against him ?

If we could but get him into a libel court, say by persuading Matt Savinar (lawyer) to accuse him publicly of "Reckless Endangerment" for personal gain,
his arguments could be formally shredded by a spread of expert professionals, and the whole delusion of eternal growth opened up for public debate.

So how do we persuade Matt ?

regards,

Backstop

[Heineken]

Blaming the children in any way for our civilization's woes is a cheap shot. Today's kids merely reflect the values (or lack thereof) that were taught to them beginning in infancy.

I blame the parents, the school system, the political "leaders," and above all the electorate.

[spudbuddy]

wow.
This topic could get touchy pretty fast, couldn't it?
I've noticed how many youthful posters show up in the psychology forum
(often reacting, as well they should - to the idea that the big bright best of all possible worlds they've been promised, is as substantially sustainable as cotton candy...)

-read a book last year, can't remember by whom...about this strange trend going on in N. America - seems youth is not loved, somehow.
The author was quick to point out all the social rhetoric about family values and blah blah...young parents with young children that dote on their kids, as well they should...
but this weird phenom was along the lines of an aging and touchy bunch of investors, property owners (people who've played the system for the last 40,50,60 years)...who really don't like young people.

Well, this book made me sit back and think:
The social economic order I inhabited between the ages of 16-25 allowed me to survive and get along quite nicely as a free-thinking independent.
I didn't have to kowtow to old farts to get along, so I didn't. I respected the elders that I figured deserved such, ignored the rest of the blathering bunch, and thrived.
The cost of education, housing, food, transportation - required nothing more than a little hard work. (not a crippling debt-load!)

The idea that modern music plays any essential role in moral decrepitude? oh lord -
One can have just a wonderful time examining old clips - first watch the young teens and twenty-somethings throwing each other about on the dance floor ( circa 1942 as America geared up for war)...and they called it jive. And moralists went nuts.
Fast forward to a 1962 sock hop and watch their kids doing the same thing. Their parents were jivin' to swing jazz -(and promptly forgot all about it) - then their kids were rockin' to R&R.
And the moralists went nuts.

Where the hell are the spokespeople for youth today? Who combines a bit of common sense with all that raging hormonal energy?
Who comes on the radio anymore and croons the latest outrageous howls of dissent, hurls salvos of contempt at the "guessers" (as Kurt Vonnegut calls them?)
A strange aquiesence pervades the land.
Let us not forget that youth are often prone to imitate their elders.
(as mentioned by Heineken)
Ah - I remember that charming old lament of Harry Chapin's about a cat's cradle ---I also remember how enormously popular that song was many years later when I knew a crowd of youngsters growing up without fathers in a housing development.

I always though it was indeed the way of the world, that elders had the power (political sway, money, property, ownership) and that youth shook the bloody foundations, rocked them good (to see how strong they really were.)
As a test, don't you see.
Who does that anymore?

Blaming children?
I'm not talking about children!
Children stop being such at about the age of ten. (listen hard to the cries and whispers in any schoolyard)
after that, they're adolescents (teen wannabes) after which, well, they become that -
after which they very quickly (quicker every decade) become something akin to a young adult.
They are challenged, often encouraged to become just that.
Responsibilities, encouragements, but most especially acknowledgement of the simple fact they are often smart enough to clue in to the game that's going on out there in the world...leads us to ponder what do we do with this coming enlightenment?

When bidding wars drive up real estate prices in a fine old Phildelphia neighborhood, because the local elementary school has a fine academic reputation for standards of excellence, and the local social elite has been driven frantically mad by obsessive worry that if the little darling isn't in that particular institution, then they are doomed to failure in their academic career...well, is the horse not now driving the cart, I wonder?
Which wonderment leads to simply this: where and how did a sensible social order of democratic common sense turn into a corporate-branded jungle fever resembling a snake devouring its own tail?
I mean, what can a poor boy do? "cept sing for a rock and roll band?" (as the song said) - I'm still wating to hear it!

jeez - America was urged to go shopping - shop til it dropped (after 9/11).
There's our moral guidance? Lets for Godsake preserve the shareholders' dividend value!
When my son was 14, I used to point vaguely out the window and mutter in an abstracted sort of way about the jungle fever (having not a clue, other than a disturbing disquiet, some speck of instinctive mistrust) about the secrets of a harsh world. The warped misguided loaded rules of someone's self-serving greedy game.)
Now I know better.
Which is why I applaud his higher education. How it guides his fortunes in life is beyond my guesses.
He's no fool, is all. (and good sense is still a marketable asset in today's economy, thankfully.)

To UIUC 01:

I actually refer to a particular community west of Toronto in southern Ontario, Canada.
Oakville has thrived much on its auto industry of late (ironically) and its affluence is astounding. This of course, is not the average norm throughout the entire region.
An interesting book for you (unfortunately not that easy to find - but should be obtainable in any decent post-secondary institution library.)
The Energy Bubble co-authored by Stewart Udall.
-in 1974.
Yep, a well-written response to the first energy crisis.
Udall moved within inner circles during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

And finally, before I sign off - back to Heineken -

I agree, that rich greedy parents that prop up the system that serves their selfish interests...can shoulder some of the blame.
(the vast majority of parents out there are so wired to the treadmill, they haven't got time or energy to look past the mortgage payment and this week's grocery bill.)
The school system? In truth - that should be an entirely hot new topic all in itself!
(I mean, what do they teach, really? And why? And serving whose interests?)
The electorate? Aw shucks. Be it red or blue (Rep/Dem or Tory/Lib) it's all the same flamin' lame shame game.
Political leadership - takes us back to a public will firing a political will.
We're constantly told what can't work, what can't change, and supposedly why - (until the horse escapes the barn) but really, drive thru any strip mall sprawl of your choice and ponder who really owns America.
You know those "adopt-a-highway" signs?
How about "adopt-a-Constitution"?
Can someone somewhere buy the very air you breathe?

"We're working on it!"

All I can tell kids today is, they're in for one helluva adventure!

[coyote]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'B')laming the children in any way for our civilization's woes is a cheap shot. Today's kids merely reflect the values (or lack thereof) that were taught to them beginning in infancy.

I blame the parents, the school system, the political "leaders," and above all the electorate.

[diogenes]

It is a mistake to assign the blame to any "sub-culture" in particular. RacerJake, your ascription of the phenomenon to the "rap and MTV" sub-group is a misunderstanding. A rap and MTV culture does not exist; the sub-group which subscribes to "urban" fashion is merely a category of the larger culture. I don't think there is anything like a "sub-culture." A culture is a large group with shared values and outlook, often with a shared philosophy; sub-cultures are merely marketing tools. The consumerist society which now occupies most of the world is one culture. Within that culture are contained some radical regionalists who wish for seperation from the larger world, and some who feel that the culture is a poor one from various standpoints---but all are still part of the culture.

"Sub-cultures," which are often defined in America by musical taste, are not significant groups. They are demographic marketing categories. Those who buy "urban" fashion are often middle-class white kids shopping at the mall stores which cater to them. Same for faux-cowboy chic, or the ridiculous slashed-jeans-and-bleached-hair look of the Abercrombie set. If you mentioned any idea of philosophical or political importance to them, they would all have very similar outlooks, except for the philosophies marketers find it interesting to assign to the sub-groups. So-called "anarchists" are often Marxists, for instance, without ever having read Marx. They name-drop Nietzsche and Schopenhauer and on and on--and couldn't name anything they wrote. It's thinking by fashion. They listen to their pop star of choice, go to Hot Topic and buy a black tee-shirt with a tear on it, and consider it a bold individual statement.

If a sub-group has a mall store catering to its style, it's an artificial division manipulated by the overwhelming marketing culture, and it's a mistake to assign any sort of intention to it.

Edit: Typo. I'm 0 for 2 so far.

[Revi]

These kids may be smarter than you think. This generation doesn't seem surprised in the least when presented with the facts of peak oil. They know that the party is almost over. Sure, it's a bit scary for them. They are going to be living in the resource limited future. Shopping and consuming is just a way of living vicariously in our world for a few more years. Our cheap energy world is going to come crashing down in the next 5 years. They know that. What would you do? What if you were 17 and someone told you that you can have a car now or you can wait and maybe have one when you are 40. I think I'd take the car now. By the year 2029 there won't be enough gasoline to run a car, unless you are a member of the super-rich.

[Heineken]

Today's affluent youth (only a small part of the world's youth, by the way) are the inevitable product of the Age of Cheap Oil. There will never be another generation like it (and maybe that's a good thing, even though there are some things about today's youth---particularly their honesty---that I admire and respect).

The biggest problem with today's youth is their astounding lack of political activism. They are, as they might admit, apathetic to the max. This is ironic, given that the full weight of the older generation's crimes will soon be dumped on them.

I will not (from the grave) miss rap music or hip-hop. Remember how music used to change? No more. The rap noise goes on, and on, and on, and on. It will still be playing in our collective ear when the nuclear bombs start dropping. I guess the Mu$ic establishment finally hit on the most profitable way to spin a disc and then engineered a campaign to hook a whole generation to it.

[spudbuddy]

That is my point.
We need to hear more from 17 year-olds.
All the conjecture in the world can't replace what they say for themselves.
Thanks for your input, Revi.
refreshing.

And Heineken, as to that astounding lack of political activism:

I would challenge anyone at least 20 years older to have gone up against what they're facing.
The smartest, shrewdest brains in the world - the most courageous of us all, the most gifted, golden heroes imaginable...can't hardly challenge, let alone undo what we're up against. (Remember Jack London's Iron Heel?)
I imagine good ol' Jack is spinning in his grave about now.

It's true they're not raising the hell that my generation did...they're too damned busy trying to keep up with the race (to the bottom?)

It's also true that the affluent ones are a small percentage - about the same size as that same cohort of their elders.
I would imagine that about the population of California (32 million?) are the real winners in today's global economy.
What percentage of our world population is that? About .3%?

(hehe) I don't necessarily disagree with you on the rap thing - (although I was quite a fan of the Last Poets when I was 17)........but then again, the Last Poets couldn't make it in today's music industry - they were too damned good.
But I still say blaming anything on anybody because of the music they listen to is kinda silly.

And Diogenes,
Your post causes me to ponder something that just struck me, something I find rather interesting:
How globalized are young people nowadays? Are they that radically different from one region to another? Is corporate branding threading a morphed culture (or lack thereof) through all the continents?
I mean - a coke is a coke is a coke.

[diogenes]

The youth are the most globalized of any group, spudbuddy. They are prime targets for merchandising: many of them were raised with no real understanding of "value." (Assigning relative values to relationships, products, and so on is a minor example of judgment. This, as I said in my first post, is condemned.) The youth are more likely to be familiar with the Internet and to communicate internationally. They are also more likely to own a cell phone and to use it extensively. My fifteen year old niece recently ran up a $450 cell phone bill, after her mother got text messaging added to her phone. Quite a costly misjudgment of her responsibility!

If you doubt that regionalism and nationalism have been discarded in favor of these artificial cliques, compare a teenaged girl in Japan to a teenaged girl in the U.S. to a teenaged girl in Europe. They will be quite similar, apart from the language they speak; and they will all probably speak English, at least as a second language. The culture encourages us to ignore national differences, social differences, religious differences, and gender differences, while also claiming to celebrate "diversity." This is an oxymoron on par with the economics of infinite growth.

Sometimes it's useful to the government to stir up a bit of nationalism here and there of course. The reaction to 9/11 is an example, with its subsequent stigmatization of Islam and Arabs. (I think that if Finland sat upon the world's largest oil fields, Americans would have been taught to distrust Finns---and to accept the government's rhetoric listing Finland, Sweden, and North Korea as the Axis of Evil.)

Have you noticed that the "War on Terror" is framed as a conflict in which the Arabs are almost inhuman? They fight against Freedom, and Democracy. Islamic objections to consumerism---to alcohol---to public sexuality---are ignored. Those areas of the Arab world which conform to the Western, globalized standards of consumerism are never mentioned. How often have you seen Dubai on American television, or even Tehran? Most Americans are probably under the impression that all of Iraq is desert, that Iran has always been considered an antagonist state, and that there has never been a significant world power in the region.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('spudbuddy', '
')How globalized are young people nowadays? Are they that radically different from one region to another? Is corporate branding threading a morphed culture (or lack thereof) through all the continents?
I mean - a coke is a coke is a coke.

[Raxozanne]

The children are despairing and suffering from our society as well:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Epidemic of self-harm grips pupils
Some studies estimate that as many as one in 10 children will harm themselves at some point and anecdotal evidence suggests the problem is increasing. The charity Childline says that over the past two years there has been a 65 per cent increase in phone calls to its helpline from children concerned about it.

[RacerJace]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RacerJace', 'I') blame the materialistic ways of the youth today on the bling bling gangster rap and hip hop MTV culture, at least as a major influence anyway. It's like an over hyped status thing to have all of the latest designer labels and ridiculous accessories and flaunt the ridiculous price tags as part of the elitist attitude. It makes me grimace with genuine regret for these people.

[shady28]

Wow some good posts in this thread.

I completely disagree with the analysis of the original poster. Whatever school you are talking about, it is the exception not the rule. There are certainly a lot of upper middle class kids in this country, but the fact is that the middle class is shrinking. Moreover, the poorer you are the more likely you are to have kids.

Someone posted that the biggest problem with kids today is lack of political activism. That actually should be levelled squarely at college students - those in the 17 - 23 year old bracket.

I think the explanation for that is the type of education that has been emphasized over the last 20 years. Increasingly there is disdain for learning history, literature, sociology, archaeology etc. There is more and more emphasis put on 'pure' sciences like math, physics, chemistry, biolgoy. I can see why this happens, much of it due to the way many liberal arts classes are politicized into benches for 'teachers' to push their own agendas onto people and tell them how to think. I saw quite a bit of that in my college classes.

I've read before that a high school graduate in the 19th century knew far more of literature, history, politics, and art than a modern high school graduate. I believe it. What we wind up with today is a bunch of college students who know more about how to solve a linear equation than they do about how their government works, what the implication of policies the government passes are, or the history and background that has made the world the place that it is. Most disturbing, they don't care, and are convinced that they are the smartest generation ever merely because they know how to use the PC that their ancestors never saw.

[spudbuddy]

gratified by all this response/
back to the original anecdote: of course the high rollers are a tiny minority. Good point. Perhaps it's the visibility thing - the results of such a "youth-worshipping" culture...(strange - worshipping them, but perhaps not liking them so much) - and so much of that having to do with image....
image of course being the thing that can be manipulated (audio, visual, airbrushed, etc.)
-once knew a young actor called out to do a video part - was perfect for the part of a North American Native shaman - actually had family background, hereditery knowledge, etc.
Failed the audition, showed up at his agent's office....didn't look "Indian" enough.
Yeah, it's my impression that middle class teens all over the world wear the same clothes, drink the same soda, listen to the same (style) of music, use the same electronic toys, etc.
This isn't such a bad thing if they actually are able to communicate past nationalistic barriers, and find out what's on each others' minds.
That is probably a ridiculously idealistic conjecture.

I agree completely about the "demonizing" the enemy thing: the latest in a long line for domestic use by the military industrial complex.

Interesting (I work in a university library) I read a lot of current political / economic analysis...it's a huge library (Canada's largest) in the largest university here...and most of this stuff is always available. Which means it's not being checked out.
The focus is entirely on course subject matter most regarded to provide successful employment upon graduation - exactly that - the sciences.
Business admin lecture halls bursting at the seams.

Back to the original post:
It's all about wasted wealth, really, isn't it? Fiddling and burning.
Be it dollars, Euros, yen, yuan, pesos or whatever, the message is make your equivalent quarter million USD, and you will be all right. Knock yourself out doing just that (however you can) and that's the solution.
(But - solution to what?)

Last year my son complained about a silly little phenom cropping up in his university - meeting co-eds window shopping for wealth, sure enough...but as much, intentions of matrimony straight off the bat.
Struck me as a pretty defined and narrowed down agenda. The object - is the double income. Most sacred of Holy Grails.

The majority of these college students will remain at home for the duration of their college career...and possibly beyond. Inflated costs of living have removed the independence that used to accompany this time of life.

-academic "standards"? Oh hell. I was an average high school student. Nothing special at all. I originally dropped out of high school in grade 10.
(eventually earned a degree as a mature student)...
the point is - I had a better literary background, and fundamental language skills from a grade ten education, than much of what I find at college level now.
That perhaps, is an outrageously sweeping statement, but the point is, I think, that the reading habits of my era have radically disappeared.
I don't believe anything really replaces what an inquiring mind can do.
However well trained, (or completely untrained) I think it all starts from there.
Ha! I admit - I google everything! (but then go looking for the books.)
There's nothing like hard copy. It requires no microchips, no electricity (other than a decent reading lamp,)....binding technology that hasn't been much improved upon for a century or so.

I think Peak Oil (the price at the pump) is just the very tip of an iceberg
that is entirely the creation and logical conclusion of the absolute loss of control our society ever had over its future.
Youth need to know exactly that (among other things) and address that knee-jerk reaction to grab while the going's good, I got mine and I'm all right Jack.

I must admit, I've had my share of righteous anger every time I think about what kind of world my grandchildren will inherit, and why.