A Sign of the Spiritual Anxiety of Our Times
I have an uncultivated Facebook page--I accept friendship requests from anyone who asks--so I see a great many videos and graphics, mostly of the trite self-motivation variety, from people of a wide spectrum of political opinions. I've seen quite a few OWS banners and slogans lately, but this one gave me pause:
What do you think it means? Getting a job, going to work, getting married, having children, obeying the law, saving for your old age--that, for most people, is a good life, a responsible life, a meaningful life. If we could persuade everyone to do it, I dare say our polity would be in a more robust state of health. So what is the implied complaint here? Why might she feel that the American dream is in fact a living death? What do you think this woman feels she's missing?
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Dec '10
Re: A Sign of the Spiritual Anxiety of Our Times
I am with you. Where is the evil in those aspects of life they decry. They are vilifying that which would fulfill them because it is more important, to them, to be anti-establishment.
May '11
Re: A Sign of the Spiritual Anxiety of Our Times
I walk on the grass not the pavement. That's how I stick it to the man. Society can't tame me!!
Sep '10
Re: A Sign of the Spiritual Anxiety of Our Times
I have friends who sort of shun and fear bourgeois, middle-class life, as though conforming to some version of those social norms is stifling and somehow impinges on their freedom. I think its a bit like the Luddites who decry modern technology because of climate change or over population or some other thing...its all bad until its time to take some antibiotics or sit in the air conditioned room. Petulant, spoiled children of many ages.
Nov '10
Re: A Sign of the Spiritual Anxiety of Our Times
Nihilism. Existential angst. We all suffer it to some degree.
The "Is that all there is?" syndrome.
Most of us muddle through, some of us exuberantly.
Re: A Sign of the Spiritual Anxiety of Our Times
What it means, Claire, is the return of the late 1960s -- with its angry rebellion against "bourgeois" life. The "freedom" the participants in Occupy Wall Street want is a freedom from responsibility, and they want those who do get jobs, work, get married, and have children to pay for those who refuse to do any of the above. And pay we do. My bet is that nearly everyone in these demonstrations are on food stamps.
Mar '11
Re: A Sign of the Spiritual Anxiety of Our Times
I'm guessing she's objecting to other people's expectations. With the exception of "follow fashion" and "watch TV," it sounds mostly like what my parents expect of me.
Running through her checklist:
Jun '10
Re: A Sign of the Spiritual Anxiety of Our Times
Where does get a divorce fit in?
May '10
Re: A Sign of the Spiritual Anxiety of Our Times
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same...
And on and on, but you get the idea.
Horrors! Mustn't be square and uncool, a fate worse than death!
And by the way, I'm happy to follow all of those suggestions, except watching TV.
Edited on Oct 17, 2011 at 6:34pmMar '11
Re: A Sign of the Spiritual Anxiety of Our Times
What do you want to bet that this non-conformist has tattoos and non-typical piercings, just like all the other non-conformists?
Sep '10
Re: A Sign of the Spiritual Anxiety of Our Times
I wouldn't be too concerned.
Every 19 year old boy has wrestled with these same unoriginal thoughts. Bristled at the bridle that was being foisted upon him by an uncaring society. It takes a while to develop the maturity to understand that life has pretty much been figured out and there is very little new ground to trod upon.
Think of the negative version of this sign.
Be unemployed, miss work (assuming you forgot the last step), stay single, don't procreate, wear clown clothes, be eccentric....
You get the idea.
For 19 this is ok, now if this was made by a 40 year old, I am depressed.
Nov '10
Re: A Sign of the Spiritual Anxiety of Our Times
Well to be fair - as much as I enjoy my middle class existence - and given that most of the OWS participants are early 20-somethings - I can see why they take a rather anarchistic line. After all, the generation that is now telling them to straighten up and fly right is the same one that took the inheritance left from the Depression/WWII era, blew it, and is now busily selling their future to China as well. On top of that they pretty much managed to destroy public education (especially in urban areas), won't give youngsters jobs without a degree while pushing university tuition out of sight, force fed them television while they were growing up, and drained what little creativity and social skills were left with electronic toys.
Well, now they are just beginning to come into their own, and I can guess why they a tad bothered by the current state of affairs (though I disagree with their proposed solutions).
May '10
Re: A Sign of the Spiritual Anxiety of Our Times
Here's a picture a liberal friend of mine posted on Facebook.
So much in life boils down to who you trust. Who, if anyone (even taken together with other reporters and pundits), is accurately representing these protests?
I've been ignoring these protests.
Jul '10
Re: A Sign of the Spiritual Anxiety of Our Times
So in other words...if you enjoy the mundane things systematically denied to 100s of millions of people through death and torture in the last century...then you're a rube? Ok.... The moment you realize how cruel, nasty, brutish and short life has been for the billions of souls that came before you, is the same moment you will begin to achieve happiness.
Jul '10
Re: A Sign of the Spiritual Anxiety of Our Times
There's 'narrow' and then there's 'pointless'.
So the obverse is:
Don't Get a Job
Don't Go to Work
Don't Get Married
Don't Have Children
Don't Follow Fashion
Don't Act Normal
Don't Walk on the Pavement
Don't Watch TV
Don't Obey the Law
Don't Save for Your Old Age
Basically Don't Contribute to Anything Worthwhile in Life. So the point of having this life is what.. to do nothing?
Dec '10
Re: A Sign of the Spiritual Anxiety of Our Times
Claire, nothing could be clearer then the cartoon you have shown. The motivation is not ideological at all. It is psychotically sociopathic. This is not angst being expressed. It is the hatred of the good and the glorification of evil Rand's Moral Inversion.
I differ from Rand in my interpertation of the source of this phenomenon. She thinks it is only collectivism. At the root I believe that modern man's incapacity to have a relationship with Gd leaves him with a deep distrust of Morality itself. The desire to escape Morality is similar to the desire to escape Gd. It can't be done. Gd and Morality whether you are a believer or not are apriori ideas which can't be avoided. The escape from responsibility that Paul Rahe talks about is a symptom not a cause. Desperate to escape something that can't be escaped they find a scapegoat to focus their anxiety. Jews or religious Christians might be the scapegoat but in this case it is the dutiful businessman who produces the society of plenty and safety we all enjoy. It is not wrong to treat them as small children throwing a tantrum.
Jul '10
Re: A Sign of the Spiritual Anxiety of Our Times
Life is just so dreary if it follows a script. Improv! Now there's the ticket to authenticity and originality.
Some folks see a successful model and instead of either adapting it to their circumstances, designing a better one, or ignoring it altogether, prefer to run down those who utilize it.
I suspect it makes them proud to pretend that rejecting a suggestion is the same as asserting independence.
Re: A Sign of the Spiritual Anxiety of Our Times
Yeah I love that song! Weeds is an awesome show. At least when they used that song as the intro.
By the way, I agree with Ross C. who says this isn't that new of a phenomenon. However... however. If this is one of the values of OWS, then that's hilarious. A group of people who say that obeying the law and going to work is bad while complaining about their poor economic condition...
Edited on Oct 17, 2011 at 7:01pmMay '10
Re: A Sign of the Spiritual Anxiety of Our Times
And meanwhile, there are you tube videos galore showing the OWS crowd repeating in unison whatever their speakers say.
Aug '11
Re: A Sign of the Spiritual Anxiety of Our Times
Recently, some internet idiot attempted to hit me with his version of a deeply cutting insult. He accused me of driving a mini-van.
Guilty as charged.
Well, actually, it's mostly my wife who drives the mini-van. I drive my seventeen-year-old Chevy Corsica. But then, she's usually the one hauling the kids around or gathering groceries, so it make sense.
Anyway, I guess I'm supposed to be embarrassed and cowed to be a man who has a mini-van, because having a mini-van means that I probably have (gasp!) children! A mortgage! A job (two, actually)! What a square!
Dec '10
Re: A Sign of the Spiritual Anxiety of Our Times
Conversely, numerous egregiously subversive and politicized behaviors now elicit reproach when one of the adherents is… criticized. Forget about offenses to the decorum of tradition or to basic dignity and decency; open any grade school primer and one notices that the only thing more conspicuously absent from school than grownups acting as adults is common sense in the lessons taught.
This is not by any means new. For all of the feigned provocation arousing the anguish of the supposedly small-minded comforts of the middle bourgeoisie by their studied effort to commit lèse-majesté, Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, weren’t they finally discredited for lacking in imagination? Like the lamely sophisticated nihilism in waiting for Princip? Why isn’t anyone waiting for Leon—Czolgosz?
Obviously, dredging the depths of depravity for a dose of good humor is always a good substitute when no immediate cause is available for schadenfreude.
“...for when they are not being suppressed or mutilated by Liberals, they are being ignored or humiliated by a great many of those of the well-fed Right, whose ignorance and amorality have never been exaggerated for the same reason that one cannot exaggerate infinity”?
Nothing to see here. Move along.