Like the screams of a dying animal, the seemingly random ridiculous tirades constantly thrown by our current "president" seem to be the death throes of a time long since past, but not long enough yet to pass from the psyche of our parent's generation. There's a reason why they seem somewhat familiar. Familiar in that there's a hint of something your uncle said here, your parents said there, probably at a family dinner, unsubstantiated claims loudly proclaimed and prompting little more than rolling eyes or complete indifference from the younger generation.
Sometimes these things happen at extended family gatherings, the older generation coagulating into a racist, xenophobic clump and, confident in their cozy groupthink, conspire to loudly exhort the woes befalling their tribe. The young ones play in the yard.
At the core, I don't understand the desire to go back to those purportedly heady days of misogyny, overt racism, and militaristic insanity. Oh, those were the days indeed! To once again revive ingenious deterrence strategies like mutually assured destruction! How I miss playing bomb shelter under my desk! And who can resist ant-like conformity, available to all those willing to turn a blind eye to racial and social injustice. Boy, those were the days!
Not that we've made much progress. We are just as militant as we have always been. Women and minorities have made some tentative gains, but shockingly less than most science fiction authors had predicted. Why? Mostly because these old fuckers keep their ideas hanging around like a bad infection.
Why are they all stuck in a horrendous loop of bad ideas? The human brain reacts to ideas counter to core beliefs in the same way it reacts to physical danger. Theirs is a generation that spent their whole lives in constant fear of a nonexistent enemy. They've learned to need that enemy, and whatever enemy fits the bill supplants the one before it. A whole generation ruled by fear.
Kinda pathetic, really.
So busy complaining they don't even appreciate what they have. Completely incapable of seeing why people outside of their tribe want the same things they do. Instead labeling these "outsiders" as "threats." C'mon, this is tribalism 101.
We need a psychotic split from this debased level of thinking.
In Fight Club, at the end of the book, it is revealed that Tyler's true target isn't the financial building where all the charges are rigged, rather it is the adjacent Museum of Natural History. "Those ancient people are dead. This is our world now."
I'm starting to think the best lesson I can teach my kids is not to listen to a god damn thing I say. This is their world now.
