Tuesday, May 31, 2005
(7:37 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Sloterdijk
I took Critique of Cynical Reason with me today, for the train, for a meeting that was cancelled. I did manage to get my Regenstein access back, and I am even in discussions with one of my temp agencies about a potential part-time indefinite gig that would cover my basic living expenses. I have unconsciously made it my goal to have only those living expenses that can be covered by a part-time job.Anyway, there are many other aspects of today that made it seem somehow appropriate that I was hanging out in Hyde Park for no particular reason -- and that I just happened to pick up the Sloterdijk because none of the stuff I "need" to read felt like good public transit reading. This is a good book. Tomorrow, if there are no objections, I may post a generous chunk of the introduction. Already, it's wonderful, disturbing book -- absolutely true, in a way that will change absolutely nothing. It will allow me to savor the exquisite asceticism of declining to congratulate myself.
UPDATE: But honestly, I am increasingly convinced that things are going to collapse. I got to the party called "America" about a generation too late. The God of Capital, who led us out of England, is punishing us for gutting our manufacturing base by sending out money into exile in China. Pension funds, like those of the State of Illinois, are as good as garbage -- thank God someone had the foresight to use some of that fake money to keep CTA from doubling rates and halving service! T-Bonds, once the securest of all securities, are going to become junk bonds. Europe was Greece to our Rome for a while; now, how pathetic, we're going to be Greece to the Asian Rome (not pathetic that Asia will be Rome, but that we're going to be the old defeated land, good only for adding a veneer of "culture" to the proceedings of Empire). Within my lifetime? Well, why not? And why am I upset? Don't I believe that America is an evil hegemon (a tautology if there ever was one)? Yes, but by Jove -- America is my evil hegemon. All my money was printed by America, for example. I'm not going to try some stupid rearguard action to shore up American power, like invading Iraq to keep the Chinese from getting the oil they need to drive us into the ground, or putting some kind of bumper sticker on my car. It's just hard, you know? You get used to things being a certain way, then by the time you get to the point where you're thinking about the future, you realize that all our stocks of "future" have already been exhausted -- that every possible future outcome has bets attached to it, which every single person is going to lose.
The solution? Or at least the response? I think I know, actually. I think. There is a guidebook for what you do when the whole thing is coming down. But that stuff's scary -- it's easier to just pretend that the people in charge (in this case G. W. F. Bush -- the end of history if ever there was one) will figure out a way to put off the end by another fifty years. That's all I need, really. If they can buy me another fifty years, time enough to save up some money and put myself behind a good sturdy wall, then maybe I can close my eyes and pretend that things will be "this way" forever.
