But first, some music. Links for hearing what's posted are provided:
A love
Ballad for Millennials (born after 2000)
STAY
(excerpt)
I do the
same thing, I told you that I never would
I told you I changed, even when I knew I never could
I know that I can't find nobody else as good as you
I need you to stay, need you to stay, hey
I get drunk,
wake up, I'm wasted still
I realize the time that I wasted here
I feel like you can't feel the way I feel
I'll be fucked up if you can't be right here
Oh-whoa
(oh-whoa, whoa)
Oh-whoa (oh-whoa, whoa)
Oh-whoa (oh-whoa, whoa)
I'll be fucked up if you can't be right here.
A love
ballad for Baby Boomers (born in the 1950s)
I'll
Never Find Another You (excerpt)
There's a
new world somewhere
They call the promised land
And I'll be there someday
If you will hold my hand
I still need you there beside me
No matter what I do
For I know I'll never find another you
There is
always someone
For each of us, they say
And you'll be my someone
Forever and a day
I could search the whole world over
Until my life is through
But I know I'll never find another you
Try
on this explanation for the “culture war” as we are seeing it unfold in the USA:
Seeing the
world in hindsight invariably results in a nostalgia reaction, the donning of
rose-coloured glasses as we leaf through old photo albums. The nostalgia
reaction exaggerates the good we remember as compared to the much-changed world
we’re living in. This phenomenon is older than ravens (Hi, Doug!) and any
historian will tell you that it has the power to paint mind pictures of WWII (for
instance) that are heroic, glorious even. Nostalgia revises history.
Have you
ever heard a senior say things like, “Kids these days have no respect,” or “Why
is there no good music anymore?” These sentiments understandably magnify in
proportion to the speed and extent of change and are subject to the rose-coloured-glasses
nostalgia, the corollary being that kids were respectful once upon a time, and
music was melodious and meaningful “when I was a kid.”
Again, the
speed and extent of change exaggerates the dislocation of values in our minds. What
characterizes our age (mine for instance, 1941 to today) is warp-speed change,
ergo, our age is bound to experience unprecedented chaos, driven mostly by rage
at the imagined loss of a world … that never really was. The disappointment at
what appears to the large older-middle-aged group and seniors to be a burglary
of an age made golden through nostalgia, easily turns to a collective rage and
a search for the villains who are blindly ruining everything! It’s the right-wing
“fascists” for some, the “woke” neo-Marxists for others; you might as well say
“any crook will do in a storm.”
None of this
is meant to say that the losses that come with change are all imaginary. The
internet gave us texting, video conversation and email, but it also opened the
door to a loss of privacy, scam opportunities and virulent trolling, plus being
complex enough to leave all but a few of the oldest generation frustrated. I
certainly feel nostalgic sometimes for the days of letters, postage stamps,
wall phones and paper newspapers. I’m a proud curmudgeon.
It follows
that the personality with a decidedly conservative bent will feel the burglary
of the past the most. It might explain, for instance, why Republicans in the
USA are as militantly angry as they are while Democrats
are characterized as suffering from a lack of unity around a cohesive plan.
Expectation of change that can’t be avoided should engender creativity in riding
the changes in the best way possible; American Republicanism in its rage is
focused firstly on preventing unliked change and, secondly, rolling public
social policy back to an imagined earlier “golden” age.
The two
“love songs” with which I opened this post were intended to illustrate the
typical intergenerational frustration that’s at the heart of this thesis. I
listen to music by my contemporaries: Neil Young, Paul Simon, the Carpenters, Carly
Simon, Joan Baez, Don Maclean, Eric Clapton, etc. I shudder to imagine the
clientele in a seniors’ housing project attending an Avril Lavigne concert, painfully
enduring the Girlfriend
song, perhaps.
A more
salient illustration can be had by following court decisions on abortion, on
gender dysphoria and the pronouns that have emerged as a result, even on the
sanctity of keeping Mens’ and Women’s washrooms “as they’ve always been.” And
we remember that a combination of factors have over more than a century made universal
metrification
of measurement in the USA impossible. Further, we’re well aware of the dynamics
that led to a pro-choice ruling in Roe v. Wade, and what gigantic effort was
put into turning the clock back on abortion.
We want to
escape the hardship of change: global warming, national debt, social
disruption, pandemics, artificial intelligence, population dislocation, etc. We
want it to be like it was before the shifts became apparent. We want solutions
without pain, without sacrifice, “like it used to be.” It’s natural. Trouble
is, reality will assert itself despite mountains of wishful thinking, and it’s
liberal (arguably),
logical thinkers like Jesus Christ who will do what they can to point us toward
our best future, but not without pain or sacrifice.
Seems to me that
summarizing the “culture wars” by hating Donald Trump is both illogical and
futile. Reaction—including rage—against change will happen and will seek out
its justification and its heroes. If not Trump, then some other person who
knows how to manipulate, magnify popular frustration into money and power will
worm his/her/their way into the White House or other seat of authority.
Possibly you
have a brother or sister who rails against the limiting measures being taken to
slow climate change, while you’re frustrated by people who won’t “get with the
program” like you’re trying desperately to do. Your sibling probably will
attach politically to Poilievre or Bernier while you support the Liberals
and/or New Democrats. Thanksgiving dinners at your house are probably interesting.
You’ve no
doubt noticed that arguing our half-facts, conspiracy theories and social media
pronouncements isn’t getting us anywhere, so you may have decided to avoid the
touchiest subjects.
A couple of
things in conclusion: 1) Scientific assessment is nearly unanimous that global
warming is broadly dangerous to humanity’s future, and 2) Your brother is
objecting out of a very real psychological syndrome, a panic over changes he
doesn’t understand fully, plus nostalgia for a time when climate change wasn’t talked
about. And 3), it’s important that your sibling change his/her/their actions,
if not their mind, at least if the future suffering and dying of people is
important.
How that’s
done is an even more urgent topic than this one.
