[brought over from the breaking news thread]
Issues as multifactorial, tightly coupled, and complex as societal ills don’t generally lend themselves to pith, but …
I’ve said for years that the US stands pretty much alone among advanced economies in the degree to which we profit from misery (ie, perverse incentives).
War, disease, crime and punishment, public safety, substance abuse, etc., etc.
Solutions must create profit (for the right people). They cannot diminish or collapse industries that do widespread societal harm. They must, instead, give rise to profitable band-aid solutions.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
To me, it is the truth that underlies the “American Exceptionalism” fig leaf. It’s the bumper sticker philosophy that enables the grift. That, and “Freedom !” give de facto license to promulgate policies that cause immeasurable pain – to the ‘right people.’
As long as they also create measurable profit – again: to the ‘right people.’
It isn’t new. I’ve often posted part of a famous speech given by RFK in 1968. In part:
And this is one of the great tasks of leadership for us, as individuals and citizens this year. But even if we act to erase material poverty, there is another greater task, it is to confront the poverty of satisfaction - purpose and dignity - that afflicts us all. Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product - if we judge the United States of America by that - that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.
Sick society, indeed.