Good stuff from the University Bookman
Friday December 28, 2007
Categories: Culture
The latest edition of The University Bookman, published by the Russell Kirk Center, has some good stuff that should interest readers of this blog and my book. The reviews and essays in this issue focus on economic man. 1. Jeremy...
Filed Under: Kirk Center, University Bookman
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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Kunstler writes: A simple example is Boomer finance. Boomer lending practices, especially in the realm of mortgages, has led to a credit fiasco
Kunstler goes hyperbolic again. Alan Greenspan, presided over the US economy during these lending practices, gave them his tacit and active support, and had more influence over lending practices than any other individual, and he's not exactly a boomer. Alan Greenspan and a relative handful of Wall Street thugs created the credit fiasco, not a whole generation. Granted, whole generations did become addicted to easy credit, but how can you blame Americans for borrowing, when their folksy president tells them that the most patriotic thing they can do is use a credit card to buy stuff they don't need just to keep the economy moving?
Kunstler is watching all the right issues, and making the occasional valid point, but he undermines his own credibility with statements like the boomer statement above, and his growing list of botched economic predictions. He's becoming a professional Cassandra whose every prediction must be more shocking and outrageous than the last to keep his book sales up.
The boomers managed to degrade all the standards and norms of behavior necessary to keep our civilization going
What an excellent line.
Regarding Kunstler:
1) His social commentary is first rate. I read him just for this, and I'm never disappointed. For example, his Dec 24 post "Sound of the Bubble Bursting" was classic. The picture made it complete: obese mother and daughter with a quarter mil of debt with the only income being child support ($300) and SS ($1300). This lays out the terrible truth about everything wrong with America (class division, debt, laziness, ascendancy of boomer immorality and said consequences) all in a single picture.
2) He is a really good writer.
3) His understanding of anything scientific or economic is so poor it's embarrassing (heck, he's was a Rolling Stone writer, not an engineer or finance guy, and so he has zero training or experience but is too slow to know it). This is best shown in his Y2K howler and his constant drumbeat of impending financial collapse during the largest creation of real wealth the world has ever seen. He happens to be right on peak oil, but just out of sheer luck.
Now, how are you able to come up with such good posts for your blog when many of us are still in turkey/roast beef/ham/sweets comas?
Heh. I give all credit to triple doses of Theraflu, and the Ham That Ruined Christmas (meaning I didn't sit around like a lazy lion, gnawing at the bone).
Oh, you haven't come even close to seeing what us boomers will do in our old age, as we use our political numbers to force medical research to make us virually immortal and those who think the young'uns will punish us will watch as we make them our spare parts.
Get used to us, we're gonna be around forever!
impending financial collapse during the largest creation of real wealth the world has ever seen
Largest creation of real wealth? What is the real wealth that we are talking about here?
He's not the only one talking about financial collapse, others (notably those of the Austrian school) do so as well.
It's kinda hard to take seriously all this stuff about Teh Eevil Boomerz being righteously abandoned, after spending the last week looking after my octogenarian parents and making sure they had a good Christmas, plus various interactions with my siblings and nieces and nephews, and now being immersed in all but one of our kids having followed us home for post-Christmas festivities. We've had three grown children, one spouse and two grandkids in the house for the last few days. And the fourth, who is overseas, phoned in to talk a couple of times--said she'd taken the bus across the city to attend Christmas Mass because it made her feel closer to us, and she imagined her dad, Mr. Sig, singing very loudly in the pew next to her, so she tried to sing louder in his honor. She sent all of us homemade cards that made everyone cry. Today we all went to the movies, and then I cooked them a yummy chicken dinner, and now son is doing dishes and son-in-law and daughter are giving the hooligans a bath. They all know this is home and will be whenever they need it. That's been true even though we've moved across four states. We re-create the homestead wherever we go. It's true we'd have more retirement money if we'd invested less of it in them . . . so maybe they will get fed up with us and our improvident hippie ways, and dump us out on our ancient bony patooties when we get feeble. That's not the way I'm betting, though.
"Boomers" do not really exist, you know. No class of people, as such, exists as a homogenous abstraction. People over fifty are just people. Some of them no doubt are irresponsible, selfish, and short-sighted. Still, it would be charitable to hope that their children will be kind to them anyway.
I quote Mr. Bob Cratchit, that good Christian man, who responded thus when his wife scorned to drink a toast to the "odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling" Mr. Scrooge:
`My dear,' said Bob, `the children. Christmas Day.'
And I venture to wish you all, both my unregenerate agemates and today's righteous young (or semi-young), what Mrs. Cratchit finally allowed: Long life to [you]. A merry Christmas and a happy new year.
There's a helluva lot to read out there, and you have to decide what's worth your time. This historically nonsensical singling out of "the boomers" as a bolt of lightning that came from out of nowhere and fried Western Civ has become a "don't bother to read any further" indicator for me. As when Christopher Hitchens talks about religion, there's so much wrong with it that you don't even know where to start. Boomer lending practices?!? Good grief. That's really almost funny.
pb, Largest creation of real wealth? What is the real wealth that we are talking about here?
Mankind has become wealthier every decade of Knunster's life. We are talking advances in material science, planes, trains, autos, satellites, biotechnology, computers, internet, medical technology, even Bob Dylan! Life has never been easier. This is REAL WEALTH.
The cost of nearly every natural resource has been dropping like a stone as well (factored for inflation). Copper, gas, coal, wood, wheat, corn...just continue with the next thousand commodities youself. We now eat foods from every corner of the globe, live in houses twice or three times as big, fly whereever we want, you name it. This is not paper money, it's real live wealth.
And if you didn't have your cash invested in the companies who have created and distributed this wealth, and buried it under your pillow, you blundered big-time.
Peak oil won't stop this growth in wealth; we were growing in wealth long before we drilled our first oil well. But the largest threat to all this wealth creation is the decline of human capital from the lack of stable families, lack of morality, and lack of rule of law. And while the libs have done their best to make this happen, it hasn't occured yet, so Knunster has been wrong, wrong, wrong.
But I understand how he can be mistaken so badly, in that while he knows nothing about economics he focuses on the social decay that is all around him day after day. If I did that, I would probably freak out as well.
Kunstler is a fan of Strauss and Howe?
I'll have to give him a second look. Strauss and Howe pretty much predicted 9/11 years before, among their other remarkable writings.
Mr. Dreher,
In his penetrating review, Stegall admits, "...The story itself is not very interesting."
(I blame George Eastman for enabling those who would document the harsh realities they witnessed.)
As you correctly infer, enchantment is but vain imagination.
Ever notice how it's the geezers born between 1946 and 1964 who want to whine and moan when anyone criticises boomers? To the point of denying their own existence?
Flipping amazing!
Hey, Franklin Jennings, maybe everybody should have to tag themselves with their birthdate each time they post. That way, we'd all know whose opinions to dismiss right off the bat. You, for instance . . . how old are you? Want to share?
Maybe we should go farther and have everyone also label themselves with their race, ethnic origin, part of the country they come from, social class, income level, education, marital/parenthood status, and any other descriptors that would help others place them in the appropriate file drawer.
Ever notice how it's the geezers born between 1946 and 1964 who want to whine and moan when anyone criticises boomers? To the point of denying their own existence?
Who's denying their own existence? I'm a boomer and proud of it! What I notice is post-boomer generations, the Millennials in particular, so obsessed with gadgets and video games that they couldn't articulate a good whine if they had one. Unless of course they could text it while driving.
Granted, Kunstler is a boomer, but he whines, moans and criticizes almost everyone and everything. Kunstler has staked out uncharted regions of self-hatred and nihilism. "We are wicked and deserve to be punished!" In a lot of ways, Kunstler is just like Pat Robertson.
But like a stopped clock, Kunstler is right twice a day. Peak oil is real, even if its arrival might not be imminent or evident. Oil and gas depletion will eventually smack us all around, regardless of the generation we were born into.
Kunstler deserve one of Sullivan's "Poseur Awards." What fatuous nonsense he spouts just to be provocative. He's Camille Paglia in boxer shorts.
Franklin Jennings, Ever notice how it's the geezers born between 1946 and 1964 who want to whine and moan when anyone criticises boomers? To the point of denying their own existence? Flipping amazing!
Until, natch, it's time for boasting about the civil rights movement, or the woman's rights movement, or their great music. Then the story changes, and the boomers are suddenly very real to themselves.
All this from the generation who coined, "Don't trust anyone over thirty." Which of course is now morphing into "Don't trust anyone under thirty" as they get old. I actually heard this exact line from a boomer recently. No joke.
And I expect to hear a lot more whining and guilt-tripping as they hit old age and being to get worried about their own mortality. You know, boasting about how well they cared for their own parents, etc. One minute they are smirking at Gen-X with the largest transfer of wealth from the young to the old in world history (the boomers are the first generation richer and better educated than their own kids, great job guys), and the next they are crying the blues about how worried they are Gen-X will not help out enough in their old age. They should be worried; we all reap what we sow.
My personal fave is when divorced boomers who have wrecked their own families (and pretty much revamped an entire culture into a divorce culture in a single generation; divorce rates tripled from 1960 to 1980) now have the nerve to try and spin the guilt trip on the kids. No shame. You're right, flipping amazing!
My, the Christmas season doesn't seem to have sweetened some people's dispositions very much. Perhaps M_David walked five miles through the snow to make his own fun with a stick and a piece of string, then celebrated with a little dilute vinegar and an extra dollop of gruel. I'm going to follow up on Daniel's excellent idea and have a little statue made, a la Rocky, of Camille Paglia in boxer shorts, and send it to him. Maybe that will make up for the coal he got in his stocking, and put him in a better frame of mind.
Maclin Horton, This historically nonsensical singling out of "the boomers" as a bolt of lightning that came from out of nowhere and fried Western Civ has become a "don't bother to read any further" indicator for me.
Sorry, I just noticed this post I missed above. It's a fair point and deserves an answer (and I agree Kunstler's "boomer lending practices" is a bit much). I would respond,
First, a heck of a lot of things changed big-time after the boomers came into power. It was pretty sudden, and it cannot be denied. Sure, the roots were planted much earlier, but we can see from the data that it was the boomers, not their parents, who acted out liberalism in living color. Go over any social stat you want, and you can see how the decline of the family and the explosion of shameless materialism matches right up with the boomers.
Second, boomers from '46-'64 do generally make up a certain mindset. To explain, here's a quote from (boomer) Joe Queenan (after Tipper Gore's dance at the 2000 DNC pushed him over the edge) explaining how boomers, like porn, are tough to define but very easy to spot:
When I speak of Baby Boomers, I am speaking of the Platonic, archetypal Baby Boomer, the person we all have in our head, or, in my case, in our body...
I know one when I see one. Sierra Club T-shirt. New Balance running shoes. Overpriced shoulder bag with thirteen pockets. Grand Cherokee. Range Rover, Siena or Explorer (before the tire recall). "Rhythm of the Saints" on the CD player. "Snow Falling on Cedars" in the side compartment. Children named Scott and Erika. Still can't believe the Equal Rights Amendment didn't pass. Anguishes over gun control. Genuinely fears people named Jeb. Never forgave Yoko for the Beatles breakup. Never, never will.
Thanks for notiving the Bookman issue, Rod. We think there is a lot of good stuff in it. As for Kunstler's comments on the Boomers, whileI agree they were not a bolt of lightning - no social movement is - I do think (some of them) represent a cultural and ideological force that is different form preceding generation. The combination of self-righteous do-gooding with an unconscious consumerism is, I think, something new.
Gerald Russello (Editor)
Boomer bashing seems to be pretty popular on the internet by people who need someone to step all over to feel big themselves. They look for a "legitimate" victim to abuse and all hell breaks loose. People have done this all along, the face of the group changes, but it's all the same sick bull.
Blame everyone else for your own stupid mistakes? Is that what you're offering? I've never been divorced or wrecked anything in my life and as far as I know, nobody held a gun to your head and forced you to sign a mortgage for a house you can't afford to pay for. So far, you don't seem to be doing too well in your generalizations. You watch too much tv, go outside and exercise. And while you're at it, grow up.
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