Of Two Minds

When nobody cares that systems have broken down and there is no will or interest in fixing essential systems, there is no happy ending. Who fixes systems when they break down? The answer appears to be: nobody. Here are three everyday examples from my own life, breakdowns which may be random and rare but which the odds suggest are systemic.

Only those societies which still have a functional public interest / common good will survive; those ruled by the tyranny of self-interest discussed the moral rot consuming the American Project in blog posts and my books. This moral rot–perhaps better described as civic decay–is so pervasive and ubiquitous that we are forgiven for assuming “this is the way it’s always been.”

Thank you very much for considering this beggar’s banquet. OK, I get it: money’s tight. A great many bets and certainties have turned to dust. 401K accounts have been decimated and the level of uncertainty about the future is pegged to 11.

The sooner we start preparing for degrowth, the better off we’ll be. A Chinese proverb captures this succinctly: By the time you’re thirsty, it’s too late to dig a well. Let’s consider livelihood options in an unsustainable economy of extremes that are unraveling, an economy that is being forced to transition to Degrowth.

The realization that we’re not actually being represented at the federal level has eroded the consent of the governed for the national government. The foundation of any government is the consent of the governed. Democracies and republics are founded on the consent of the governed earned via representational or direct democracy: those who have a say and a stake in the system will give their consent to the government, even if an opposing view is in the majority because their opinion is part of the governance structure.