(no subject)

[degringolade]

 
Fall Ground Cover
 

 

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I suppose that one of the oddest aspects of current societal thought here in ‘Murca is that history doesn’t apply to us, or more accurately, it shouldn’t.  

I tend to sneer at rich kids whose parents left them things.  I suppose that is the way that I look at ‘Murca as a whole.  Things are there and have always been there, but now they have passed from the realm of luxury to the realm of entitlement.  

We talk about entitlement, but we just look at the surface phenomenon of the expectations that grow from the unnatural idea that material comforts are necessities.  This phenomenon is most evident in the American Middle Class.  The expectations there are just plain ridiculous and get close to insanity as you move up the line toward the rich.

We are proceeding apace toward a reckoning for this sort of thing, but it is 

going to be hard.  Because the wretched excess of the middle class is built around status symbols  and a memory of the past that is far from accurate.  I keep hearing about all the benefits that even the lower middle class held during the time of this boomer's youth (through 1975) and to be honest with you, I didn’t see all that much of it.  Neither did the others in my middle class neighborhood and town.  But somehow, the idea that the middle class had a new car every couple of years, a house, and vacations has become a fantasy barely flavored by the truth and held up as what it means to be an American.

We owned Henry (a 1953 Buick Special) until the late sixties.  That was normal in my world.  Mom, Dad, two daughters, and your’s truly shared a 1300 sq. ft. house.  In the words of Randy (One of my high school buddies) we had steaks at the first of the month, meatloaf in the middle and the last one or two days were pancakes and polenta.  That was normal.

Oh granted, there were folks out there who lived in bigger houses, had a new car every year, and went on vacations other than camping.  But they were thin on the ground.  

Nope, we simply have made what the advertising agencies want, a nation of consumers who demand more, well past the realm of needs and well into the land of status symbols.  There looks to be an adjustment coming down the pike.  I think that the most important thing you can do is calibrate your expectations.