The Last 30 Years: Credit, Climate Change, Capitalist Nihilism.
As the muck hits the fan I cannot help thinking of the of the similarities and indeed the fundamental links between what are the two great examples of the modern perspective on life.
The credit crunch is an example, so far as I see it, of a system that enabled individuals to hedge short and medium term prosperity on often ill-considered and un-considered long term consequences. Climate change is another example, but the difference with climate change is active denial rather than active, conscious decision taking in face the of known consequences.
It seems to me to be ludicrious to deny the mentality we have lived within in the last 30 years, a mentality of "screw the future, live now". I get the impression that nearly every one of us know and knew this was how we were living, this was the mental social climate of our time. Now we seem faced with the prospect of having to honour our debts, economically and environmentally, while still hoping and praying with all our hearts that we can string out the status quo a few decades longer untill we are no longer around.
This to me seems near irrefutable. Despite the arguements that can and will be raised, this is the fundamental perception I have of the principles underlying our modern perspective of life in its entirety.
Like everyone else reading this thread, the cost of my basic living has increased, my utility bills have gone up, basic foodstuffs have increased in price, and despite living on a less than average income for my demographic situation, a part of me, and a large part at that, welcomes this credit crunch.
Don't get me wrong, I don't enjoy the idea of people suffering, and it is not something I would wish to occur, but there are a great many ills in life wrought by our own hand and it is my view that the worst of these ills are the products of our own, personal, short term gains in life.
I do not own a car, nor have any debt of any form to my name. I stayed away from these obvious economic traps, these means of enslavement of my days and years. What I earn I spend, no more no less, and by no rules that enable extravegance nor by any means that is detrimental my control of my own situation. I think it is fair to say that I live much differently to my peers, to the majority of people that find their debt increasing and their options decreasing. At 25 I am no wisened sage, but old enough to be responsible for what choices I face, and to know what they are.
It is my view therefore that the difficulties most of us face are difficulties of our own choosing. Most will look to blame others, some abstract entity, their government, the world at large, but the buck stops with the choices made. The troubles of today are the price of extravegance of yesterday, but it was not and is not only ourselves we condemn to these problems.
My food increases in price despite having no credit card, overdraft or bankloan. What I earn is less valuable than it was a year ago, because my money is rendered less valuable by those who lived off of its imaginary existence in the form of credit. The combined greed of all people has lead us here and we have no one to blame for our individual situation than ourselves.
This is how we have chosen to live for the last thirty years, and we all know this. This current "credit crunch" may resolve its self and move on, but it is a wake up call. It is an example of just what millions of "I am but one person" can achieve in their collective mentality, and it is a lesson in the denial and ignorance that the vast majority of humanity lives under.
This last decade is the proof of the illness that is your dreams. You have occasionally wondered at the consequences, had the rare moment of concern or doubt. Now you have been shown what you knew all along.
So yes I welcome the credit crunch, for sometimes to learn the hard way is the only way, and learning is something this race appears in great need of. The future you thought you were peddling away, the future of those you thought you would not live to meet, has turned out to be your own. The age of information turns out to be the time in which our denial is spurned.
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