The Way We Live Now

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
 

Maybe this is just youthful nostalgia on my part, but I think the best period in recent times was the mid to late 1970s. 

The wild political activities of the 1960s, including political assassinations and campus unrest, which were partly a reaction to the Vietnam War, were over. 

The Cold War was in remission: there was détente with the Soviet Union, and China was recovering from the lunacies of the Cultural Revolution.

Keynesian economics, the welfare state, and strong unions were the norm. Whatever their faults, they did provide a sense of security. Perhaps the “soft folk rock” sound of the Eagles summed up the era musically.

An unprepossessing and decent president, Jimmy Carter, occupied the White House. And, whatever you may think of his politics, a serious person, Pierre Trudeau, governed Canada. 

But a number of concerns have led to our current zeitgeist. 

First, we now have to confront the absurd oversensitivity and competitive “victimology” on the part of every conceivable group in society. What we call “political correctness” has almost made free speech a thing of the past.

Ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation have become the preoccupations of today’s left. People can now lose their livelihoods with one unguarded comment on Twitter or Facebook, never mind a lecture or article. Maybe we should call them “anti-social media.”

Second, we have witnessed the rise of Islamist terrorism, which would only really come to the fore with the coming to power of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran and the mujahideen in Afghanistan. Who back then could have, even in their worst nightmares, imagined 9/11?

And, finally, in the United States, there has emerged a witch’s brew of hyper-capitalism and ultra-nationalism run amok, it began in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan, and continued with the two Bushes and Bill Clinton. 

The new neoliberalist ideology advocated massive tax cuts for the rich, the crushing of trade unions, deregulation, privatisation, outsourcing and competition in public services, and the virtual end of antitrust enforcement.

It has led to the terribly deformed plutocratic political system of today, with an increasingly unequal distribution of wealth and income, especially since the financial crash of 2008.

Millions live in what is now called the “precarious economy” while the super-rich have appropriated the lion’s share of the country’s wealth. 

I might also throw in as a negative factor 24/7 cable television, which magnifies and hypes every little political issue. Rational political discourse gives way to polarization and vilification, and everything becomes spectacle.

Cable serves as an irritating background noise, like the sound of a buzz saw or the screaming of spectators at a wrestling match.

What do we face in this new century?  Cultural fragmentation, terrorism, environmental anxiety, and economic inequality.

The latter half of the 1970s, by comparison with what came both before and after, was a rather soothing time. I now remember it wistfully, but we won’t see it again.