Rolling Stones, of course, Ruby Tuesday.
As I think about it, a big part of the appeal of Sybaritic Leftism–and really even Cultural Sadeism to some extent–is that it puts up a big happy facade in front of the future. If you are worried about the way things are going, about what is going to happen, about economic downturns, nuclear or biologic attack, robots, gray goo, environmental catastrophe, whatever, if you just vote for the people who your friends are voting for, it will all be OK. Everything is fine. Nothing to worry about. No thought needed: it is already being done by the “experts”, the people much smarter than you, who are paid to worry, not you.
This was more or less the attitude of the “futurist” David Brin, when he refused to engage with me in an actual fact-based debate. He does the future for a living, but literally feels that if we just keep electing Democrats things will muddle along. But when pressed, he is completely unable to defend this view. “We are going bankrupt” is met with “Medicare Part D”. Tax collection is at historic highs is met with “tax rates are at historic lows”, as if any money was ever collected at the 90% rates or whatever we have seen in past decades, and as if we did not go from $2 trillion in spending under Clinton and the Republican Congress, to $3 trillion under Obama and a Democrat Senate that refuses to pass a budget. 50% increase in a little over a decade, and OF COURSE Bush deserves much of the blame, but Obama has made things much much worse.
Once one grants the possibility and desirability of a happy billboard painted on the future, it can be filled with ANYTHING, including free healthcare for all, global peace at no cost to us, and ongoing economic prosperity fueled by taxes on the rich.
You read sometimes that you should have your head in the clouds and your feet on the earth. This may be good advice. I was thinking about this concept of grounding, of being grounded. To be grounded is contrasted with pie in the sky, magical thinking of the sort I am describing.
If you think about it, though, every wire in every house that complies with code is grounded, despite the fact that they transmit large quantities of energy. If energy flows properly there is no need for the ground. It is only needed when something short circuits.
Likewise, as humans our job is to transmit energy. If we do it intelligently, then we need not be grounded. We need to be grounded when we enter trance states of the sort that has captured large segments of our intelligentsia (Ignorentia? I hate to get to noon without inventing a new word). All that energy then leaves us, and we wake up, to realize we have been wandering at random, and generally in the wrong direction.
The task is to put the next brick in the road in the right place. This requires a clear view of the horizon, to see which direction we are going, and which looks ahead as far as possible to work around any bumps or obstacles that can be foreseen. If you just keep walking, holding a magic banner in front of you, you have no idea what direction you are going, and will sooner or later fall in a ditch.
I will add as a postcript that in my view the thus-far most accurate dystopian movie I have seen is Terry Gilliam’s excellent “Brazil”, which contains the memorable line “don’t hold out too long: it will affect your credit rating”. If you haven’t seen it, do. In that movie, the billboards covering devastation theme is prominent at the end, at least if memory serves. The image is vivid in my mind.