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Patrick O'Neil's avatar

My placeholder comment about Lenin's supposed statement about capitalists and rope; the difference between a cold war against an autarky versus one built on globalization; the loyalties of a national elite in a period of post nationalism and political decay. Probably I should throw in janissaries but it's Friday.

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Patrick O'Neil's avatar

Thanks for pointing me toward Freddie deBoer.

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MarkS's avatar

He's a national treasure.

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Patrick O'Neil's avatar

I was just commenting to a friend that both of us are completely out of the loop; gen-xers who are completely oblivious to him. I've spent a fair amount of my time cutting myself off from the various threads and battles over the past years, and I abandoned Twitter a long time ago.

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J.Patterson's avatar

What is your assessment of the United States relationship to happiness?

I ask as someone who grew up in the shuffling's of the Emergent Church back in the early 2000's and now finds friends engaging more in stoicism of a sort and even an Indigenous Wisdom Inc you could call it. But the underlying conversation is around a sense of aimlessness and uncertainty. The go to distractions the marketing gurus created are wearing off and no longer fill the belly. Maybe ambivalence is the growing shadow over the West?

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N.S. Lyons's avatar

Well that's a big question. I guess the simple answer would be that the American conception of happiness has long been tied up with material prosperity and liberty (the American Dream), but the hedonistic treadmill and resentment over relative inequality makes material prosperity impossible to enjoy for long, even as the baseline for material success (e.g. property ownership) becomes more and more difficult for the average person to achieve. Meanwhile the relentless pursuit of liberation has helped break any alternative societal sources of meaning and connection (families, community associations, churches, neighborhoods, nation) in life, leaving, as you say, only aimlessness and uncertainty. Into this meaning gap has rushed politics and the ever-growing state, creating more rage and alienation. And here we are.

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