One of the smartest guys in America died a few weeks ago. Joe wasn't just "book smart", although he was. He didn't just have "folk wisdom", although he had it, plenty of it. He was one of those rare birds who came from humble beginnings, got an education, but never forgot or even lost his respect for where he came from while at the same time having no illusions that it sucks to be trapped in the underclass in America. I've read his book, "Deer Hunting With Jesus" and am of the opinion that if you don't both laugh and cry while reading it you aren't human. It ought to be required reading of everyone in America.
This is one of his last essays:
AMERICA: Y UR PEEPS B SO DUM?
By Joe Bageant
Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexico
If you hang out much with thinking people, conversation eventually turns to the serious political and cultural questions of our times. Such as: How can the Americans remain so consistently brain-f****d? Much of the world, including plenty of Americans, asks that question as they watch U.S. culture go down like a thrashing mastodon giving itself up to some Pleistocene tar pit.
One explanation might be the effect of 40 years of deep fried industrial chicken pulp, and 44 ounce Big Gulp soft drinks. Another might be pop culture, which is not culture at all of course, but marketing. Or we could blame it on digital autism: Ever watch commuter monkeys on the subway poking at digital devices, stroking the touch screen for hours on end? That wrinkled Neolithic brows above the squinting red eyes?
But a more reasonable explanation is that, (A) we don't even know we are doing it, and ( we cling to institutions dedicated to making sure we never find out.
As William Edwards Deming famously demonstrated, no system can understand itself, and why it does what it does, including the American social system. Not knowing sh*t about why your society does what it makes for a pretty nasty case of existential unease. So we create institutions whose function is to pretend to know, which makes everyone feel better. Unfortunately, it also makes the savviest among us -- those elites who run the institutions -- very rich, or safe from the vicissitudes that buffet the rest of us.
Directly or indirectly, they understand that the real function of American social institutions is to justify, rationalize and hide the true purpose of cultural behavior from the lumpenproletariat, and to shape that behavior to the benefit of the institution's members. "Hey, they're a lump. Whaddya expect us to do?"
What America really needs is a wall-to-wall people's insurrection, preferably based on force and fear of force, the only thing oligarchs understand. And even then the odds are not good. The oligarchs have all the legal power, police, jails and prisons, surveillance and firepower. Not to mention a docile populace.
What form of people's insurrection do you think he is speaking of here? The one that our founders engaged in, or the one that the "workers of the world unite" unions staged in Wisconsin?
Do we need a wall-to-wall insurrection that says Warren Buffet will get more bang for his buck deciding for himself who is a worthy recipient of his charitable distributions or one that says more of his money should be taken by force and charitably distributed according to the principles of collective salvation.
What America really needs is a wall-to-wall people's insurrection, preferably based on force and fear of force, the only thing oligarchs understand. And even then the odds are not good. The oligarchs have all the legal power, police, jails and prisons, surveillance and firepower. Not to mention a docile populace.
What form of people's insurrection do you think he is speaking of here? The one that our founders engaged in, or the one that the "workers of the world unite" unions staged in Wisconsin?
Do we need a wall-to-wall insurrection that says Warren Buffet will get more bang for his buck deciding for himself who is a worthy recipient of his charitable distributions or one that says more of his money should be taken by force and charitably distributed according to the principles of collective salvation.
He's no Communist, if that's what you're asking. And he's not much of a partisan although I think it's safe to say he loathes what "globalism" has done to this country, from shipping jobs overseas to sending the sons and daughters of his neighbors and family to fight and die for Haliburton.
He doesn't give either conservatives or liberals a pass. He has the rare gift of seeing right through the blind spots of each. And doesn't give a hoot for political correctness OR sacred cows.
I didn't always agree with him, but damned if he didn't make me think he had a point even when I didn't. I would have loved to have had the chance to have a beer with him. I'd bet you'd think the same if you read his book.
we cling to institutions dedicated to making sure we never find out.
