<Charlie Hall's New Book, Udall and Bartlett on the NPC Report, and a New FAQ The Oil Drum DrumBeat: July 30, 2007>
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187 comments on DrumBeat: July 29, 2007

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GreyZone on July 29, 2007 - 1:15pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

In my opinion (for all those cornucopians out there), this sort of living arrangement is so bizarre that it demonstrates that culture in the United States is completely psychotic, and further, that the majority of participants in that culture are therefore equally psychotic. They completely believe this is normal and can continue forever, never questioning it and always just accepting it. This is not to say that the rest of the world is mentally healthy just disturbed in slightly different ways but the US is mentally ill in ways that may be unique. And worse, and of even greater danger (again in my opinion), is that China and India apparently believes that their 2.3+ billion people can live the same way.

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Dr. Albert Bartlett
Into the Grey Zone

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expat on July 29, 2007 - 1:32pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I think anyone with a perspective from New England has a hard time imagining this - coming from Virginia, I certainly do - the pictures are incredible for me, and I have even visited some of those places - it is just I can't believe that so many people now live there.

And expect to live the way they do into the indefinite future. I think Yankee ingenuity shakes its head at plain lunacy, but that is just my opinion.

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wideblacksky on July 29, 2007 - 5:50pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I grew up here in New England and I concur- the extremes of overdevelopment seem to have bypassed us to some extent. But I wonder if it only seems that way since we have a better sense of aesthetics here and can build in a more visually pleasing manner-

I have seen statistics documenting the selling of and eventual development of historical farmland, and what has happened here is truly no less disastrous than any other part of the nation- maybe worse in some sense because much of the land we have built on here is fertile as opposed to the scrub and desert being consumed in the southwest...

On an off-topic point, I had a post deleted here wherein I made a defensive post in response to some blatantly anti-American crap about how wasteful our bathroom habits are- if we are not allowed to criticize European lifestyles here, there should be a warning posted somewhere. Don't tell me it was because I used the word "shit" in the context of defecating, because I have seen others use that term and worse here in posts which have been allowed to persist. The moderators' apparent hero Kuntsler constantly uses worse language and is seen as a hero around here- is it too much to hope for impartial moderation?

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Leanan on July 29, 2007 - 6:16pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I don't recall the post you are talking about, and I don't think I deleted it. Mostly I delete duplicates and spam.

However, I would like to ask you and everyone else not to use vulgar language. Such words can get sites blocked by the filters used as schools, offices, and libraries.

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Dryki on July 29, 2007 - 10:57pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

New England is grossly overdeveloped. While we do have some good agricultural land, were it all in production it would produce nowhere near what we consume. Thinking that we are somehow better because we are not as bad is silly.

Our economy is way bigger than our environment; that only works for now because we depend on distant resources and sinks.

cfm in Gray, ME

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WNC Observer on July 29, 2007 - 6:58pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Interesting question: Would Americans considered "normal" in a US cultural contect be considered to be suffering from a personality disorder were they to be living in a different country? Is the normal American really a psychopath?

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ResponsibleAccountable on July 29, 2007 - 11:07pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I think coming to the US from another culture - one that is supposedly so close to the US - it is quite shocking the sort of behaviour considered normal and acceptable here.

But the thing I think is most apparent - and with all the usual caveats about the non-validity of generalizations on an individual case-by-case basis, while still finding them useful as a marker - is the psychological framework in which most Americans live their lives.

I don't think psychopath nails it - the way I've always described it to friends (in a way that captures both the positives and the negatives) is that Americans seem to mature/grow up to about a sort of early-to-mid teens level but seem to sort of freeze there... and live the rest of their lives as a teenager... compared to Europe - less so my native UK but certainly most other parts of Europe - let's face it, is there anyone more grown up than the Germans or the Scandinavians? :-)

I know some people may be offended by that - but of course not EVERYONE is exactly the same... but it is certainly a trend I have noticed...
--
When no-one around you understands
start your own revolution
and cut out the middle man

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john macklin on July 30, 2007 - 1:28am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

According to the DSM psychopaths are no more:

"Antisocial personality disorder (APD) is a personality disorder which is often characterised by antisocial and impulsive behaviour. APD is generally (if controversially) considered to be the same as, or similar to, the disorder that was previously known as psychopathic or sociopathic personality disorder. Approximately 3% of men and 1% of women have some form of antisocial personality disorder (source: DSM-IV)." From Google.

APD is the new normal...I mean, old psychopath...

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which_dan on July 30, 2007 - 5:38am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I have been thinking about writing an article about this for one of our local news sites - Australia has a similar kind of social shift.

It has been noted that antisocial personality disorder (see john maklin's entry - also not sociopathy is another synonym) is indistiguishable from the personality of a teenager except for one criterion in the DSMIV for APD: the individual must be above 18 years of age.

So ResponsibleAccountable's comment that "Americans seem to mature/grow up to about a sort of early-to-mid teens level but seem to sort of freeze there," which is something that I've noticed in Australia too is entirely consistent with the culture being sociopathic.

Quite a lot of commentators have noted the increasing extended adolescence in Australia, and I imagine it's pretty similar in the US - characters that support this are: leisure orientation, consumerism and increased debt. The social consequences of this are, among other things: lack of concern for others and undirected rage (any one here ever had to deal with a road rager?).

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NZSanctuary on July 30, 2007 - 12:14am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Hi GZ. Questioning the status quo is forbidden. Did you not receive the memo?

Seriously though, we are not educated (in general) to question authority or ourselves. That is disturbing. Education in our society seems to revolve around stuffing your head with "facts".

"You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."
Albert Einstein

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Cid Yama on July 30, 2007 - 12:42am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Americans are not exposed to logic or epistomology until college if then. The ability to reason, I believe, is intentionally neglected. The 1960's taught TPTB alot, with regards to what an educated(thinking and questioning) underclass can mean. I doubt they will make that mistake again. The current propaganda against the Baby Boom generation we occasionally hear on this site is probably intended to isolate them from the younger generation to prevent 'contamination'.

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ResponsibleAccountable on July 30, 2007 - 1:27am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

You see that sounds plausible until you think it through and realise that the Baby Boom generation is the one that voted for the bozos that created the crappy education system we have today...

...as I think goes unrecognized, not every boomer was walking civil rights marches, protesting Vietnam, grooving to the new pop music or smoking weed... those are just the more colorful images by which the generation chooses to define itself... an awful lot of them must have voted for Reagan & Bush...

...and no that isn't boomer hating - just pointing out that just as there is valid criticism of lumping the Boomers all together in bad ways it is certainly invalid to paint them all in pretty colours
--
When no-one around you understands
start your own revolution
and cut out the middle man

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GLT149 on July 30, 2007 - 2:43am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Cid: What birth years would you place in the baby boom generation category? Wikipedia has it from 1946 to 1960. Would you agree? What is TPTB?

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Cid Yama on July 30, 2007 - 6:16am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

TPTB - The Powers That Be

I would say those years are pretty close although many of the icons were born earlier.(Bob Dylan is a good example) I have younger sisters, twins born in 1960. One I would place clearly in the earlier generation while the other went Yuppie all the way, so the dates aren't hard and fast. I would say the division is best defined by politics. The Boomer Generation was a time when most were liberal and consevatives were at a definite Nadir. A good example is that, while I was at college in the early 70's, the office of the Young Republicans or whatever they called themselves was relegated to a closet. There just were'nt many of them and they were looked at as aberant. This shifted for those who attended college in the 80's as Reagan took office and the balance shifted towards more who considered themselves conservatives and aspired to a 'Yuppie' lifestyle. You can clearly see where the number of liberals on college campuses began to rise in the early 60's reaching a peak in the early 70s and their decline by the early 80's.

PS - My father's generation(he was born in 1932), saw a Conservative peak when he was 20 in 1952. He's as Republican as you can get. Did we get another Conservative peak in 1992? If so we could see another Liberal peak in 2012 if the cycle holds.

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Samsara on July 30, 2007 - 3:56pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Cid

Your point;

Americans are not exposed to logic or epistomology until college if then. The ability to reason, I believe, is intentionally neglected. The 1960's taught TPTB alot, with regards to what an educated(thinking and questioning) underclass can mean. I doubt they will make that mistake again.

I think after the 60-70's marches in the street, etc TPTB said "Never again".

They won't see body bags on the nightly news, if there is a demonstation, you won't see it on TV, and by golly, that's how it is.

Your point was actually verified by G.Gordon Liddy when talking to Timothy Leary. (Yes they actually debated once and Joe Bageant was there to record it)

Listen to Gordon's retort back to Leary.

Leary "...During the Sixties an undeclared civil war took place and the right side won."

"Yeah, my side," says Liddy. "And we're not about to let it happen again."

THAT'S when the start of the control of all media to a few companies became an objective of the people who Liddy was talking about, The people HE always wanted to protect.

Ghosts of Tim Leary and Hunter Thompson

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2007/05/ghosts_of_tim_l.html

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187 comments on DrumBeat: July 29, 2007

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