On Living In Accordance with Reality
Insulation from reality may be the root of our spiritual malaise.
The French abbot and mystic, Bernard of Clairvaux, famously remarked that “A wise man is one who savors all things as they really are.”
I was reminded of this remark a few days ago in a conversation with my younger brother, who lamented how hard it is to find young skilled labor for his general contracting business on Maui.
“All of my skilled guys are now old,” he said. “My electrician is a Vietnam veteran. He loves his job and is very good at at it, but I can’t find anyone to replace him."
“What do the youngsters on Maui do for a living?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied.
“How do cover their cost of living?”
“I think a lot parents of our generation still support their grown children.”
“What does the younger set do with their time?” I asked.
“Look at their phones.”
To be sure, my brother’s sample size on Maui is very small. However, his personal perception seems to find confirmation in the remarkable fact that, out of a total U.S. population of 340 million, only 161 million are employed, or less than half.
Of the 179 million who are not employed, 50 million are retired and receiving Social Security benefits, 11 million are stay-at-home moms, 74 million are minors, and 44 million are apparently none of the above.
I wonder about the social and political outcome for a society when less that half of it does remunerative work and pays taxes. Could this be a major factor in the rapid and steady proliferation of debt to finance America’s high standard of living?
I mention employment and debt because it seems to me that these play major roles in shaping awareness and attachment to reality. Other factors include technological innovations that insulate humans from the natural elements and a large and powerful state that frequently intervenes in human affairs.
I wonder if the above factors could explain why I am frequently perplexed by the current state of American culture and public discourse. So often I hear people saying things that suggest they have little understanding or appreciation of reality. We Americans seems to have so many fervent attachments apart from the pursuit of ascertaining what is real and living in accordance with it.
My philosophy professor, Roger Scruton, was an expert on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, who dedicated his entire life to trying to ascertain reality. Kant never left his native city of Königsberg and never married. He apparently spent every day in study and reflection, breaking only for his daily walk and for his lectures at the University of Königsberg. I sometimes wonder what Kant would think if he were dropped into American society today. Would he perceive us to be insane?
While it’s possible that my perceptions are simply those of an old curmudgeon, I believe that much of American society has lost touch with reality. How long can this state of affairs last? In my brother’s estimation, if the American dollar loses its immensely powerful status as the world’s reserve currency, the American debt-sustained standard of living party—with all of its concomitant delusions—will end in an extremely unhappy way.
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John Leake,
I recommend you go to the FRED database at the St. Louise Federal Reserve. Take a look at the line graph for self-declared cases of full disability.
Just shy of ten percent (10%!!!) of the American population is fully disabled. The disability rate was at 29 million at the start of the pandemic.
They murdered 2 million Americans by withholding ivc and hcq. 2 million cases of full disability vanished from the roles in 6 months, Feb. to July 2020. The numbers of fully disabled began to climb again in July because, guess what, they started testing the shots then.
Now, the number of cases is 34 million+. Population of the USA? 334,000,000. You do the math.
I hope that helps to clarify the picture.
Allow me to clarify something that you seem to have left out in the data analysis - we who are retired and drawing Social Security PAY INCOME TAXES on BOTH, OUR RETIREMENT and on OUR SOCIAL SECURITY payments. These are MISTAKENLY referred to by many as "entitlements" - they are not. Our retirement was and always has been considered part of our wage/salary package so raises from our employers were calculated, and diminished accordingly over the years. Additionally, since our Congress saw it fit to UNCONSTITUTIONALLY renege on the Social Security agreement and open up that "Forever Locked Box" to those that should have NEVER been allowed SS "benefits" (yes- THEIRS is a true entitlement), the payouts to WE CITIZEN workers were greatly diminished...we would have been far better served to allow us to simply spend and/or invest those funds as then-year USD equivalence (true spending value), especially because the wage and salary increases were also diminished from our employers due to the funds they were forced to provide into the SS fund. And regarding the Medicare/Medicaid deductions from our pay that we were forced to endure during our entire working lives- we'd have been far better off pooling those funds in a big hat in Kansas and drawing the money out as our medical needs required, including the cost of administration. So let us not state inaccurately that Retirees drawing retirement pay and SS are "not paying taxes." I'd gladly do the math with you to reverse all of the above to simply provide all of us with OUR money back, in then-year / true spending value amounts.