Weltanschauung

Published by

Clarissa

September 10, 2017

This is why the Left keeps losing:

Fear has become a defining characteristic of life in America since September 11, interrupted by the brief glimmers of hope declared by Shepard Fairey’s posters and Barack Obama’s inauguration.

If I ask my students whether this rings true for them, they’ll just think I’m crazy.

All of this alarmism that’s so popular on the left, all of the “we’re back to feudal times! Half of the country is starving! The younger generation is hopeless! The American dream is dead! There are no opportunities! Meritocracy is a joke!” are completely at odds with the Weltanschauung of the majority. And most damningly, it’s in discord with how the young feel. I don’t mean the rich spoiled young on private yachts and at Berkeley but the normal young, the majority.

I spend a lot of time with young people. They either don’t vote at all or vote Republican because they are repelled by moaning and negativity. Every poll shows that the young share the basic ideology of the Left, that they are into justice, fairness, social conscience. Yet the Left loses every election in sight because not enough people come out to vote.

It’s the framing that stinks, the delivery, the general mood surrounding good, valuable ideas. I don’t know what to do to get people to stop, to get their heads out of their asses and stop saying embarrassing stuff like the quote above.

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5 responses to “Weltanschauung”

Vic Crain

September 10, 2017

Humans are adaptable to a wide range of circumstances. Unlike their parents, the young haven’t witnessed a decline in standard of living (of expectations); instead their expectations are based on current conditions. And many (like their parents) are acutely uninformed about politics. Its traditional in many families for the young to vote the way their parents did, or not vote at all.

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Shakti

September 10, 2017

Fear has become a defining characteristic of life in America since September 11, interrupted by the brief glimmers of hope declared by Shepard Fairey’s posters and Barack Obama’s inauguration.

Hardly anyone that young is going to say that because “fear” to us is “normal” to them. I remember life before September 11th and a good number of these kids don’t. You will hardly describe something as “fear” if you’ve been bathing in it since you were very young.

Bernie described a lot of how things used to be and that was news to me. You mean you could pay for a good chunk of college working minimum wage jobs? You mean that steelworkers made the equivalent of what someone with a master’s degree makes in certain fields?

I would agree that “OMG the sky is going to fall down” is contra the Weltanschauung of young people. But the majority of voters? You and I watched an entire campaign and it’s a mistake to say Republicans are offering sunny optimism in their rhetoric. I saw nothing like “Morning in America” coming from Trump. Trump kept selling “We are Weimar Germany, terrible Weimar Germany! Everyone is laughing at us! Crime is rampant! Things are terrible!” What the fuck is optimistic about that?

Someone who for whom pessimism is a deal breaker would’ve stayed out of this election and not voted for anyone.

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1. Clarissa
  
  September 10, 2017
  
  That’s exactly what I’m saying. Most people don’t come out to vote and don’t follow the elections at all. And it’s a shame because they do have a party to represent their beliefs and their needs. It’s the mood, the tone of the narrative that turns them away.
  
  How are you doing? Are you safe?
  
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2. cliff arroyo
  
  September 10, 2017
  
  “Bernie described a lot of how things used to be and that was news to me. You mean you could pay for a good chunk of college working minimum wage jobs?”
  
  Or you mean it was once possible to start as a janitor and end up as an executive in the same company?
  
  Wh yes, yes it was.
  
  But we can’t even contemplate the return of that kind of system because it wasn’t profitable enough or something…..
  
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Tal Hartsfeld

September 10, 2017

I, myself, have NEVER been comfortable with life or with society.
Then again, I’ve also always been a “social leper” outcast/misfit, and you know how people like me are routinely oppressed, deprived, domestically harassed and even occasionally “terrorized” par-for-the-course, so it kind of makes sense that “I was ‘9-11’ before ‘9-11’ was cool” (or in-vogue, so to speak).

BTW: I’ve always been jealous of anyone who states how “normal” life was before this whole “mass collective insecurity and vulnerability” dilemma came about “due to the September 11 2001 incidents”.

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