The Unraveling of America

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/covid-19-end-of-american-era-wade-davis-1038206/

by nouveaux • 6 years ago

52 71 6 years ago

zepto4• 6 years ago

Oh for god’s sake. “Failed state”? Seriously?

Rolling stone has done great reporting on serious problems, but this is just insane. If the US is a ‘failed state’ then so is every other state.

IntelMiner• 6 years ago

What points in the article do you specifically disagree with?

avs733• 6 years ago

that the facts lead to a conclusion he doesn't like.

pzone• 6 years ago

The UNESCO "wealth of the 1%" sloganeering is one pet peeve of mine. This is the data where the article derives the claim "the top 3 richest people owning more wealth than the bottom 160 million." The way they get this eye popping number is by summing up all financial debts and subtracting them from total financial assets. What this ends up doing is overwhelming the sum with the roughly $1.5 trillion in student debt. Unlike a mortgage or car loan, which trade financial debt for financial assets, student debt is an investment in human capital. According to this UNESCO data, the very poorest people in the world are American lawyers and doctors fresh out of medical school. These people have a great deal of non-financial wealth. But according to this methodology, such a person with $300k in debt plus 300 people with $1k in reported assets equals a total of zero. Running the numbers this way is great for shock value but it doesn't make any sense if you think about it.

spanhandler6• 6 years ago

I agree things are fairly bad in a lot of ways, and very bad in some ways, but "failed state" does have a specific meaning and applying it to the US is pretty hyperbolic. It's fuzzy like anything that describes human stuff, but the US is definitely on the not-failed side of that fuzzy line. Heading toward it? I dunno. Maybe. Probably not. But maybe. There now? Certainly not.

Our Federal government might be doing a piss-poor job but it has not stopped being able to assert sovereignty in meaningful ways, domestically and internationally, or to continue to deliver government services to a significant extent. If those things had happened we'd know it. "Governing very poorly"—even somewhat maliciously—is not what it means for a state to have failed. Maybe it's being used... I dunno, poetically? But that doesn't seem to be the case, in context.

Some of the stuff in the article's interesting but a lot of the rest is similarly overblown. Declaring China's ascendance (it sometimes explicitly says China but then other times seems to use Asia to mean "Asia, but mostly China") is fashionable and might end up being true but is far from settled history, to pick on another part, and I'm guessing the "D-Day versus gun deaths in 2019" stat is mostly suicides, which seems disingenuous to me, in this context—while of course it is interesting and meaningful in others, I think they're trying to mislead with it here.

I'm left-wing as hell and probably agree with most policy positions and general opinions the writer holds, so this should be right up my alley, but the piece isn't great. A better-written version of this with exactly the thesis and overall journey might even be something I'd really like!

It's a mix of a pretty good cataloguing of disparate bad-sounding stats and figures about the US, many bad/misleading instances of same (any time there's a bad-sounding—or good-sounding, for that matter—stat missing any frame of reference, I get twitchy, and this has plenty), some dull and overstated predictions about the future, and some lazy narrative-building. I hate these kinds of articles when the right does them, but I almost hate them more when "my" side does them. I know that's bad politics because people respond to this sort of thing, but I just can't stand writing this transparently manipulative, at great cost to honesty and accuracy.

The best parts are when the writer's focusing directly on the COVID response. Those are alright. A few other bits are OK for a few sentences in a row and could form the seed of good, if thoroughly unoriginal, articles on their own.

aww_dang5• 6 years ago

Both sides may be able to agree that the COVID crisis is being used to usher in new norms.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/07/covid-19-the-great-re...

booi• 6 years ago

Successfully trying to rig an election by killing a constitutionally guaranteed service that the government itself is responsible for? What would you call that

ojbyrne• 6 years ago

Assuming you’re talking about USPS, “successfully” seems premature.

donatj3• 6 years ago

Trying to do an election by mail, last minute, when we haven’t really any infrastructure in place to prevent mass mail-in fraud seems just as much a vector for rigging to me.

throwaw4y-plate• 6 years ago

Living in TN right now, it's looking pur-ty rough.

elefanten• 6 years ago

You are correct and it's disheartening to see multiple replies asserting non-arguments against your observation.

In political science, "failed state" has some commonly accepted definitions (eg- unable to project power and defend borders), none of which apply to the US even when accounting for the terrible mismanagement of COVID-19.

But like with some other terms, there's a group of theorists (usually not political scientists) who are diluting the word and throwing it around politically.

In terms of the underlying reality, the US very much a functioning state.

JKCalhoun3• 6 years ago

Yes, those two words appear in the article. Just once.

I feel like you are cherry picking when you call out those two words and dispense with the other 4000+

The author makes numerous excellent points.

zepto4• 6 years ago

I agree with this.

Most of the criticisms of the US have merit, and are serious.

The part I think is problematic is this piece of hyperbole.

I honestly believe that when people say things like this, they are contributing the problems we have as a world, even if they make a bunch of other good points.

The value of an argument is not judged by then number of good points that are made.

It is judged on the conclusions.

emerged• 6 years ago

I can't honestly make it through an article where every sentence is so optimized for maximum pessimism, fear mongering and politicality.

I actually love the United States and would like to see articles like this stop trying to "unravel" it.

yls2• 6 years ago

For me, it looks rather realistic. If you love the US, shouldn’t you embrace such articles in order to have some intellectual food to reflect on? If you don’t think so, the current admin provides more than enough good news anyway.

JoshuaDavid2• 6 years ago

If you love the US, you should embrace thoughtful articles that bring up neglected but valid points in insightful ways. This article is not that. This article is yet another "orange man bad" lamenting that America now isn't as great as it was from WWII through 1970.

The problem with articles like this is that the people who already agree with the author will think the article is insightful and focus on the parts that are obviously correct (social cohesion genuinely has decreased), and the people who disagree will focus on the parts that are obviously wrong (oh look it's that misleading statistic again about the top X Americans having more wealth than the combined wealth of the bottom 50% because the bottom 50% have a combined wealth of about $0 because debt exists).

The article gets shared by people who agree, who think everyone should read it for the author's "deep insight", and shared by people who disagree who say "look what the brainwashed people believe", and the article gets lots of clicks and ad impressions and everyone hates each other a little bit more.

nine_zeros• 6 years ago

I love the US. But I am not going to remain in denial of our decline into a third world country.

If we cannot even accept where we are headed, we cannot imagine why we need to steer the ship.

mondaygreens• 6 years ago

"As they stare into the mirror and perceive only the myth of their exceptionalism, Americans remain almost bizarrely incapable of seeing what has actually become of their country."

agustamir4• 6 years ago

The American cult of the individual denies not just community but the very idea of society. No one owes anything to anyone.

This crisis has really made me ponder the extent to which individualism has taken its toll on the American society. Really, large parts of the country don't seem to care about the collective good and are just turning a blind eye toward their fellow citizens in this moment of crisis.

tetrometal• 6 years ago

Piggybacking on your comment to respond to the quote, not your interpretation...

First, there's no cult. Western civilization protects the rights of the individual, as they should - it's immoral to use aggressive force against anyone, no matter how many people that aggression might benefit (or appeal to).

Second, protecting the rights of the individual denies neither community nor society, it only provides their operating principles. Communities and societies should absolutely work together and cooperate for the benefit of everyone - they should simply do it without using aggressive force against anyone.

whytaka• 6 years ago

First, there's no cult. Western civilization protects the rights of the individual, as they should - it's immoral to use aggressive force against anyone, no matter how many people that aggression might benefit (or appeal to).

In an ironically cult like absolutism, you dismiss the moral discussion that transpired within Western philosophical traditions that debate this very topic - of Judeo-Christianity, of consequentialism.

Second, protecting the rights of the individual denies neither community nor society, it only provides their operating principles. Communities and societies should absolutely work together and cooperate for the benefit of everyone - they should simply do it without using aggressive force against anyone.

This of course necessitates an elaboration on the word “should” in the context of a group of individualist agents where one chooses to not cooperate.

agustamir4• 6 years ago

Communities and societies should absolutely work together and cooperate for the benefit of everyone

I'm interested in exploring how/why or if at all, the zealous pursuit of one's individual rights have made us lose sight of working together for the benefit of everyone.

AnthonyMouse2• 6 years ago

It's interesting how the costs of collectivism are consistently pinned on individualism.

We get to this place because people see obvious wrong being done and say "it's such a shame the government hasn't done anything about this" instead of doing anything about it themselves. It's a complete abdication of the role of the individual in being a force for good in the world, i.e. the opposite of individualism.

And on the other side, individuals as members of large organizations are denied the ability to make positive change, because anyone close enough to the ground to see the problems is too far from the top to have the authority to do anything about them. Whereas if we actually had individual autonomy then people who see problems could fix them instead of standing around wishing somebody else would do what they would do if they were allowed to do it.

joe_the_user3• 6 years ago

We get to this place because people see obvious wrong being done and say "it's such a shame the government hasn't done anything about this" instead of doing anything about it themselves.

There hasn't been a time when "the individual" handled problems like a war or a massive pandemic. You "as an individual" haven't solved this mess and neither you nor I are going. I mean, I stop and help people broken down by the side of the road, I tell people what I think and what I think needs to be done. But that's individual initiative and it's not going to fix large problems.

Large questions have always been handled by groups, informal groups or formal, either coming from society. When a society was too small scale to produce a large collective response to a problem, well it failed. Why large nations have replaced small tribes.

It's true that today a lot of people view the government as a thing outside of themselves rather than a thing they create. But that's a slightly different problem.

eecc• 6 years ago

You’re severely underestimating the benefits of collective coordinated action. You just need to look at today’s plutocrats and the decades of relentless lobbying and investment in promoting the most self-serving policies and politicians willing to execute them. You can’t find a better example of how effective it can be.

donatj3• 6 years ago

I personally see collectivism as a vestigial trait some people are left with from a time when it actually mattered for survival. Studies have even shown it to be a largely genetic trait. When we lived in small tribes, the fate of the collective directly affected my ability to reproduce. Today, it makes very little difference, and is largely illogical.

Call me a nihilist, but I don’t particularly care about people I don’t personally know. I honestly think it’s unhealthy to do so, particularly in the age of mass media. If you’re worried about 7 billion people you will never find happiness.

nouveaux4• 6 years ago

Why not embrace both individualism and collectivism?

Entrepreneurship and the military completely embodies this. We allow the individual to prosper and the collective pays to be protect us and our right to individually prosper.

Arguing which one is better seems like arguing if the hammer or the screwdriver is bet. Why not treat individualism and collectivism as tools?

badrabbit4• 6 years ago

Let me ask you and the HN crowd this: Would it honestly be incorrect to blame secularism for this? If it inconveniences me, why should I care at all if my actions negatively affect absolutley anyone given my belief is that my existence has no purpose outside of what I conveniently define, life is meaningless outside of my self-defined meaning and there is no authority that can define what is a correct or incorrect way of living.

In other words, like you observed I also think the moral foundations are failing. Why should groups of people accept each other as equally created and endowed with equal rights? Why should young people be inconvenienced to maybe save lives of older people by wearing masks? Empathy? Life has no meaning, they're gonna die anyway. Why emphatize with others at all? Why not focus on whatever leads to the best experience in this life for each individual, where there are conflicts let the strongest win. Nature has no mercy on the weak.

Of course I don't believe any of that but am I wrong to think secularism plays a big role in the lack of empathy?

Now before anyone reaches for their pitchforks, I am not saying religion is the solution or somehow all those religious people supporting terrible people to advance their agenda don't exist. I am saying, what a society finds correct and acceptable sets the tone. Even religious people act secular when it is convenient because society is secular and the ones that want popularity over authenticity will always be mallable enough to adopt to what society thinks is normal (consider how the nazis claimed to be Christians and killed jews, their actions override their claims).

Let me rephrase a bit, foudnationally the social majority in america,despite all the terrible things that went on believed there is a purpose to life and you have to seek it. They also believed people have an origin and destination and that correct behavior in this life is critical, living incorrectly means failure in realizing the purpose of your existence or worse , regardless of popularity humans have limited and finite authority over other humans, that morality was not a suggestion but an implicit realization of the creator's will (or of the "universe" or whatever intelligent origin people believed in) ,a human's life is precious because it has meaning and purpose, and others' experience of pain morally bounds all other humans to apply emphatetic reasoning in their reaction.

I am not neccesarily saying lack of religion is the cause. I am asking, given the facts, is it far fetched to consider embracing of secular individualism as the root cause? And I don't mean by any end of the political spectrum(left/right). I mean across the board,anyone that effectively beliefs they define their own morality as they see it fit to benefit themselves. And as the saying goes "a thief thinks everyone else is also a thief", they have all these conspiracies that the media or the deepstate is out to get them because that's exactly what they would do to advance their self-centered ideology.

I am emploring you to critically consider that perhaps effective secualrim (even among those that don't claim to be secular) that puts individuals at the center of their own universe might be the cause.

Humans are interesting creatures, weirdly with the exception of the vocal minority, people that are secular by default have in my experience been very emphatetic, I am not sure if they will remain the same but I think initially most mentally healthy people want to stop the pain of others because they experienced pain themselves and they wanted someone to help them, therefore doing to others what you would want done to you is implicitly a correct way of living. I suspect secular-individualism contradicts that reasoning when helping others entails inconvenience or having to pay a sacrifice.

This is an important question because much of democracy and america assume the majority will have empathy for the minority (which is how slavery ended and civil rights laws that benefited the minority were passed).

Another contributor might be how rapid advance of technology might be the driver of self-centered ideologies that lack empathy. But I hope people continue to appreciate peace and be open to any truth.

michaelchisari2• 6 years ago

am I wrong to think secularism plays a big role in the lack of empathy

America is by far the most religious country in the first world.

cmurf• 6 years ago

Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists.

Who were the Danbury Baptists worried about? The Danbury Congregationalists.

Secularism is the only ethical standard by which religions coexist.

Yetanfou• 6 years ago

Secularism - or rather the declining role of theistic religions - seems to have given rise to a number of problems which the likes of "Gott ist tod" Jung seem to have had premonitions of. It now seems that the hole left behind by "traditional" religions is being filled with other belief systems which are just as irrational as the ones they replaced but which have not been cleared of their warts and bumps by a few centuries of use. The meteoric rise of 'wokeism' (for lack of a better word) is a good example of such, the movement has all the tenets of a religion together with the fervour of a cult. Given a few centuries of being battered by opponents and different cultures it would end up resembling a "traditional" religion - probably something like a non-theistic Catholicism with its complex structures, martyrs, saints, catechism and above all hierarchy. I don't think it will survive that long though since it is far too divisive and does not provide redemption.

I still have hopes that the gains of the enlightenment can be presented in such as way as to fill that hole left by the decline of religion - the "belief" in the scientific method, the sanctity of the individual, the concept of "natural rights" which form the basis of the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and more. Maybe I'm foolhardy, maybe this is my own replacement for traditional religion but given the alternatives - the results of which have become very visible in recent months - I'll just keep on believing.

ilaksh• 6 years ago

I think that people do sometimes underestimate the valuable ethical effects of religious institutions in society. So I will give you that.

But I disagree in general with that you are saying because religion, individualism, and other issues you talk about are not actually bound together the way that you claim.

For example, there are plenty of people who are strongly individualistic in their worldview but also highly religious.

And there are secular worldviews that de-emphasize individualism or include strong community-oriented morals.

Also you try to pin this on technology, but actually technocratic thought is very popular and is a very socialist ideology (in fact I think too much so, but that is a different question).

joe_the_user3• 6 years ago

America has entered into a strange category of it's own. It's looking similar to Brazil in some measures (inequality) and similar to Europe in other measures (average wealth, some levels of development) and it's somewhat to Turkey or India in yet other ways (dominated by ruthless religious parties that haven't, yet, eliminated Democratic processes entirely).

I suspect that in every third world nation, and now here, people ask themselves "how does a nation so filled with competent, intelligent people allow itself to be dominated by corrupt, delusional people." Especially here in the nation that once and maybe still does have more competent people than anywhere else in the world. The answer is that the corruptly delusional ideologues and the competent technocrats are mixed together with no way of unraveling them. Look at Dr. Ben Carson, brilliant surgeon.

eric4smith• 6 years ago

While there is some significant loss of "value" of holdings, the main thing is to understand where the jobs and money are going, not where they were.

Take a water balloon, and squeeze one end of it. It does not lose water, instead, the water goes to the other end of the balloon. That illustrates where the "money" is going.

I've said elsewhere there is a sea-change in education happening right under our noses. I believe that a lot of the education money may very well flow to more vocational training, distance learning, tech and lessons for home school and smaller classes. Old-school group classes were inefficient anyway -- and people are just beginning to realize that.

Doctors will do more old-timey house calls. Even to just survive!

The restaurants and businesses that you frequent during your commute, like diners, etc, will also adapt. More deliveries instead.

It will be easier to schedule a haircut from your barber for your home or office. I don't really want to go to a salon and sit in a chair there.

Store owners will have to start doing more list building and email marketing, you can no longer just watch a customer walk-in and walk-out without trying to build your email or contact list.

Yes, America is unravelling, but we are humans and we always adapt. It's just the stubborn ones or the hard to change industries that will suffer the longest and the slowest.

I do not believe that things are just going to go back to "normal" as they were. There will be some significant change in the way how we conduct business, education, entertainment and living.

The people who adapt to that change will be the winners.

dmje• 6 years ago

Nodding Brit nods

8bitsrule• 6 years ago

Never have I seen a post go from page 2 to page 7 so quickly. Particularly one so insightful.

Edit: But maybe it'll get back to where it belongs, so I'll add this. Davis' insights only go skin deep. I've been around long enough to see a slow but steady movement in the US toward more positive values and appreciation and respect for individual differences. While our leadership has become more addled and directionless, real and affirming values have been on the rise, displacing those created by institutions.

I could spend an hour disputing much of what Davis says, but I just hope this page isn't buried even further. We really need to have this discussion.

spanhandler6• 6 years ago

This kind of column's a venerable cliché in left-leaning political writing in the US. Very good instances of it are still valuable, but this isn't really one of those and doesn't add much that anyone who pays attention to political writing hasn't already seen many times over. Better-argued and better-framed versions of the more historical and contextual bits of this are essentially the air that much of the left breathes. I've (repeatedly) seen forum posts cover the recent-events portions of this better, over the last few months, let alone professional writing.

(for the record, I'm writing this from a pretty damn "left" perspective, having read just... so many of these sorts of columns, or whole books, over the years. This ain't a notable or particularly good one.)

throwaway_pdp09• 6 years ago

I'm a brit, so speaking from the outside.

I'm getting sick of this downtalking of everything. People have various fuels, and optimism is one (cautious, realistic, measured optimism, together with appropriate self-belief). This is not reflection, it's putting a hole in that tank to drain it out.

It was incompetence that got the US into the mess it is, but if the US is sick, I have full confidence it will get well again. USA'ians putting down the US unrealistically will hurt your country as much as any other factor, draining your confidence - and to be clear, there are sate actors out there who are happy to chip in.

This is bad and it's going to get worse. Consider yourself in a war and now try to see how to survive it and contribute to it instead of wallowing in apathy and fear. Of course the faults in the US are there and they are deep and must be acknowledged before they can be fixed, but they will be fixed and the US will be stronger (and just maybe smarter) for it afterwards.

Destroy a person's hope is the most effective way of destroying them, and you're doing it to yourselves (with, I'm sure, a little help from others who want the US shrunken).

(I'm normally on the negative side of things but watching people sink themselves into blackness over it all isn't realistic, as much as believing that 'hope is enough' or 'god will fix it' isn't realistic).

The Unraveling of America

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