Normal ?
Look at how many changes have occurred in only 100 years: the family structure is completely different (especially in the EU and JAPAN!), many have only one child, others have none at all, many couples can’t even conceive, sometimes the only child has so many aunts and uncles (so to say) that never had kids, so they grow up in such a special - particular environment: compare this to 100 years ago when the families (mostly farmers) were way larger, mom stayed at home, babies died earlier, moms died fast when expecting and so many other changes in just the family structure, such as so many divorces, or many people marry many times in a lifetime, or don’t marry at all, and then some kids may have many moms, 2 dads, queer dads, no moms and dads, and all kinds of crazy combinations and so forth, all changing, all a flux, nothing stable, single parents, everything out of control or unknown or like a continuous experiment, how to experiment with all kinds of “family” structures, if the word “family” can even be used and such.
BUt even this was due to that very “Not Normal” time when technology and the modern era started kicking in and changing everything, eveything got changed very quickly, in only a few decades, people went from farming to office jobs and such, studying became common place, so many changes in such a short time is not normal, entire industries hiring millions in cars and jets and TVs and so forth, all of a sudden in such a short time along with all the other corresponding changes, we went from backwards to forwards in a jiffy: and this is not normal. We are still trying to catch up psychologically with all of these rapid changes (and JHK and his freinds are still fighting TV and cars, still fighting technologies that came out 60 years ago), we still can’t even figure out what happened, work disappearing and we still use the factory model of 8 hours a day, something totally ridiculous, the entire idea of steady marriage and family and normal mom and dad is no longer even present - sure, it is always being criticized by all of the queers and such.
And don’t even get me started on all of the other deep changes, atom bombs, relativity, quantum mechanics discovered, freud, a never ending array of theories, science, ideas, research in so many areas, the information society (or age ?) with a glut of never ending information and so forth (and then the counterculture, rock, hippies, drugs), everyone had to get a college degree, the past was done and over with, now we were all headed towards the future, space exploration and so forth. And at the same time the parents of kids expected and expecting them to follow their same path, go to college, get married, have two kids, work for a large company at a steady job, mom at home and so forth, when this model only lasted at most 30 years and was due to such a particular moment in history when the USA was a manufacturing giant, mom could stay at home since dad got paid enough to support them and so on: compare that to today, when jobs are not only unsecure, but no one even knows what jobs must be done, the future is all uncertain, the 1950s and 1960s model broke forever and so forth.
The mistake is that of thinking that changes are normal (hence all the emphasis on innovation and research, they expect a constant stream of life changing technologies to keep on coming online forever, hiring millions when this was a truly unique, exceptional time in history, a one time quirk that has expired is finished, has lost its drive and can’t happen again all over): it was not normal, it is not normal, it was a one time quirk with all of the changes happening simultaneously, changing everything, the very first time a consumerist cvilization and society appeared on earth, the USA was and still is the only real consumerist society, and the model of the USA was supposed to be imitated by other countries, but no one ever really matched and imitated the USA, other countries all ended up wanting to export their goods instead of consuming them, and then the USA was a new experiment, the first time factory workers and normal workers were actually paid a decent salary exactly to make them consume all the goods being produced, and the entire structure of the USA was (and still is) geared to consuming and buying, big box stores, malls, large homes, 2 car garages, wide open spaces and so forth, all things that no other country could ever create: but especially the USA was the very first society to completely change the culture and pyschology and mentality of millions of people away from a scarcity, poverty, save your cash and poverty - insecurity model (still operating in most of the world - and why home prices are so high in the rest of the world, all insecure people saving and loading up home prices as a storage for money instead of consuming, just look at how little JAPAN and Germany consume, they all want to export, they all have puny little homes and don’t want to consume like crazy with 2 car garages, big box stores, malls and so forth) to a happy go lucky, the future will always be better consumption model.
BUt none of this was and is normal, it was just a lucky break, an exception: and now we are at the end of the road of this great illusion, now we are at the end of this growth model, but there never was a model in the first place, something that has happened in only the last few decades can’t be considered a model at all, can’t be expected in the future, a past play of forces - configuration of forces and effects can’t be expected to keep on playing out in the future, you can’t invent “economic laws” based on such a short period of time, especially considering how many effects and changes occured in that period, the mistake and idea that that short time was normal, was a given, the taking for granted that modern was achieved, is achieved forever, can only keep on going up, the entire idea of GDP as a new law, a fundamental law, when the entire phenomea the economists were looking at was a one time experiment, that never happened in the past and will never happen again the future: it is not normal to live in workless societies and rich societies, none of this is normal, and it is all something that has been around for only a few decades.
Stagnation is normal, poverty is normal, or very slow and little changes is normal, and in fact most of humanity and civilization has lived in slowly changing stagnating societies (but the mistake is calling something normal “stagnating”, when in all truth it is growth that is not normal and stagnation is just the normal ways of things, slow changes and little changes is the normal way of things, bored societies that need some action every now in then in the form of wars, or dictators or violence o whatever to break the monotony).
We will probably enter a long period of Stagnation, slow changes, some places will keep on getting richer up to a certain point (like China) but only up to the point that they can change their mentality into a consumerist mentality which I doubt will happen, these are deep cultural - psychological changes needed, only happened once in history and in the USA from 1930 to 1970, I doubt that it can happen again anywhere else, other places like Southern Europe will become poor again, India will remain the crap it is, and so forth, this expectation and hope that the emerging BRICS can really pull off a society like the USA is doomed, won’t happen, they will increasingly buy cell phone and cars and other things, but they won’t get any further than Spain and will find themselves as Spain is today in the end.
Although this is an ongoing experiment of worldwide industrialization, no one knows what climate change effects all the pollution and activity can have and will have (along with antibiotics, viruses and so forth), no one is sure of anything like peak oil and such, I don’t expect extremes, I don’t expect neither collapse like JHK hopes or rockets to mars either, we will probably have something in the middle, some places going up some going down, the statistical flukes will average out to a middle ground of low middle class life across most of the world, like 700 dollars a month salary, most jobs will disappear, most people won’t be in pain but won’t be in great pleasure either, most of the world will “stagnate” even though this concept is wrong: most of the world will return to normal again, and we better hope so otherwise probably more crazy and worst things could happen: wars, dictators, violence, who knows. Technology may or may not go forward, I am not at all sure of this.
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