The American lifestyle frankly sucks. The media is generally shit. The food stinks. We spend too much time in traffic and too much time taking care of a badly built McHouse that has the ergonomics of a coach seat on a discount airline. Add to that the lack of health care (just listened to a Stanford lecture about the American Couple that cited a study that determined that the single biggest predictor of long-term marital happiness is whether both partners have health care), the enormous wealth-gap between the rich and poor, blisteringly expensive tertiary education, an infant mortality rate that's straight out of Victorian England, and a national security apparat that shoves its fist up my asshole every time I get on an airplane, and I don't think that this country is much of a paragon of quality living.
(Via Beyond the Beyond.)
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Cory Doctorow nails it:
5 comments:
It is not like I am some patriotic fanatic, but I am very happy to be living in America. I can choose the lifestyle I want. I choose not to eat generic Captain Crunch. Others eat the stuff and get sick. Their prerogative.
As for getting on planes, I have seen where enemies of America have blown entire planes out of the sky, killing everyone on board. I have never had a fist shoved up my asshole when getting on a plane. However, I would prefer even that to free falling from 30 thousand feet.
Many people have embraced America's enemies as a show of contempt (which I share) for this administration. I have seen signs at peace demonstrations like "Gays for Palestine" (a gay in Palestine would probably be executed), or "We are all Hezbulah". Hezbulah believes in Sharia law. How long would that sign bearer last under that legal system.
I have started a blog (haven't written much yet) that leans to the left but does not fall over. The classic example of leaning far enough to fall over is the Green party (who's primary focus is the environment), helping to elect George Bush over Al Gore, claiming that there is no difference between the two.
Stan
Don't read the quote I posted in isolation. This isn't a case of "hating America"; it's a matter of seeing what we're doing wrong and being willing to learn by example.
Yup. CD also says:
America has lots going for it -- innovation, the Bill of Rights, a willingness to let its language mutate in exciting and interesting ways, but the standard of living is not America's signal virtue.
And re the "American way of life," I personally am much, much, MUCH happier since I purposely adopted my current "un-American" lifestyle -- Live alone in a small, two-room apartment on the top floor of a frame house well over a century old, don't have a television, am not a sports fan, hardly ever eat out except on rare, strictly corporate-sponsored occasions, drive an 18-year old compact that still gets decent mileage, am almost a vegetarian, have a "bad" cholesterol level under 200 and seem otherwise in decent physical shape, am not overweight, don't date, don't travel on vacations (again, only corporate sponsored business trips).... My idea of a good time is reading and surfing (surf's ALWAYS up on the Internet!) And, of course, reading and posting to Mac's blog. My one nod (much more than that, actually) to the American Way of Life is that I still work for corporations (while basically hating the whole idea of a corporation). I'm currently a contract software technical writer, so this gives me a bit of an illusion of independence and also lets me earn my living by writing, which never ceases to amaze me....
I like how CD turns the question of "how many earths would it take to allow everyone to live like an American?" around to: how many would it take to support the lifestyle of the average Florentine?"
Unfortunately, when people talk about those lovely old European cities that are liveable and walkable and funky, they're really just talking about the really expensive parts that only well-off people can afford to live in. You won't find any starving poets living in the center of Paris, for example. Any city in the world has it's groovy spots - if you can afford them. For the rest of us, suburbs all look pretty much the same the world over.
Any city in the world has it's groovy spots - if you can afford them. For the rest of us, suburbs all look pretty much the same the world over.
I'm afraid you're right. But I'd argue -- as CD does -- that this is a *design* problem. We can do better.