The Future’s So Bright I Gotta Wear Schadenfreude

There are prophets of hope. There are those who try avoid preconceptions, reading events as they happen. And there are the prophets of schadenfreude, that joy that only arises when someone else is suffering. These prophets have political handmaidens, too – cynics who would let the country fail to further their own political interests.

Then there’s Homer Simpson, who agreed with his daughter Lisa that sometimes events have no point, no “moral,” that sometimes they’re “just a bunch of stuff that happened.” I don’t accept the Simpson Model of History, but I prefer it to that of those who seem to take pleasure in our rising tide of economic misery. Futurist Jamais Cascio calls this perspective “aspirational apocaphilia” and cited James Howard Kunstler as one of its leading proponents.


Here’s the thing: I’m not convinced that Kunstler’s “long emergency” scenario is wrong. So I reviewed his predictions for 2009. After some partisan comments about the Middle East (replete with ad hominem attacks on anyone who disagrees with him), there was this piece of aspirational apocaphilia:

“My hope for the year, at least for my own society, is that we will transition away from being a nation of complacent, distracted, over-fed clowns, to become a purposeful and responsible people willing to put their shoulders to the wheel to get some things done. My motto for the new year: ‘no more crybabies!’”

Got it? If you’re suffering it’s your fault. Why? Apparently because you’re afraid of a little good old-fashioned elbow grease.

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