The Wreckage of the Age of the Idiot

Imagine History’s Biggest Wrecking Balls, in the Hands of Its Greatest Idiots. Welcome to the World of Today.

Image Credit: British Columbia Wildfire Service

Our civilization has a problem. And it’s time we begin to say it loud. But before I name it, let me sketch you a portrait of…not all of it, but a beginning, to trace through the strange, complex, bedevilling contours it has.

Americans are in such dire straits that they’re cutting back on…what? Luxury cars? Designer handbags? Sumptuous vacations? Nope. Toothpaste and toilet paper. To anyone vaguely thoughtful — you hardly have to be an economist — that’s… tragically desperate. You don’t cut back on toilet paper and toothpaste — hello, dear, good morning, ewww, get away from me — unless times are really tough.

And yet meanwhile, politicians and pundits — remember them? — are out there, shouting a single line, in triumphant unison. “The economy’s great!! It’s morning in America!!” LOL. Why are they doing it? Politics, of course — hopefully, they can claim some sort of victory over the cost-of-living crisis that’s swept the world. Never mind people are too poor to afford toilet paper and toothpaste these days.

Never mind reality. Here, politicians and pundits are engaging in a particular form of…idiocy. They are being willfully ignorant. The signs are all around us that the cost of living crisis, such as it’s called, is hardly going anywhere. See food prices coming down? How about housing costs? Or what about healthcare? This — the cost of living crisis — is just a prelude. In what sense?

You don’t have to be an economist to see what comes next. In fact, maybe it helps not to be, because most of them aren’t talking about it at all. What’s that?

The northeast United States is experiencing historic, catastrophic floods. Take a look at some of the pictures, and tell me that this is…LOL…normal.

Image: Reuters

Meanwhile, the south is about to bake under another heat dome. The water off the coast of Florida are hitting close to 100 degrees. Meanwhile, of course, the fires in Canada haven’t gone out. Heat domes hit across the globe now. Cities from Beijing to Karachi to Miami are scorching.

What happens as a consequence of all this? I’ve talked about it often, and so have plenty of scientists, who are by now tearing their hair out. Our basic systems begin to fail. Agriculture, food, water. Think about, suddenly, just this summer, the air in many American cities became unbreathable. Pundits liken that to to the smog that lingers over industrialized cities in China and Asia, but it’s not remotely the same thing. Smog we can do something about. But go ahead and tell me how to put out…Canada burning. How to quell mega fires that stretch the breadth of a continent.

And yet the average person’s responded to all this…in just the way…that economics predicted they would. As basic systems have begun to fail, a wave of sudden, crushing poverty’s spread around the globe. Americans can’t afford toothpaste and toilet paper. Think about how much worse it is elsewhere. This is the “cost of living crisis” — and it hasn’t spared a nation on earth. It’s merciless for a reason. It’s civilizational.