Futurism

So I saw a painting yesterday evening which made me think of the precisionist works of Gerald Murphy. I hadn't thought about the Murphys, Gerald and Sara, in years, long enough ago that I was immediately reminded of how it felt not to be ashamed to be an American.

The good old days. There's always been that tradition, the one of the ugly Americans, the boors. I can deal with having a few boors on my side. Rubes. Jethros. Aborigines. People without respect and a sense of tradition and perspective. But we had good qualities as well.

Innocence. Optimism. Open-heartedness. Enthusiasm. Equanimity. Practicality. Inclusiveness. A sense of fair play. The Murphys were pioneers and not boors. Insiders because of their money. Outsiders because they were from immigrant families and Catholic. Not Brahmins.

An early example of what America could give back to Europe, once we had begun to become a power on our own, something good. I read about it in Wikipedia this morning. The Murphys invented sunbathing. Who knew. Or they were proponents of it and popularizers, at least.

I didn't know I was witnessing the end of this, as a kid. Our Golden Age, as much as we had one. And I read Toffler's book, FUTURE SHOCK, when it came out, as did everybody else. Also I'm aware of Neil Postman, who's opinions are still confusing to me.

They both wrote about change. The quality and quantity of change. I'm all for change for reasons of inevitability. It does happen and will happen independently of any desire to stop it. But you can't have it occur in good ways if you're in denial of it.

I think we have to work with it. And, man, are we ever failing at that. Thinking of the Murphys I remembered how I felt when I last read about them, in the 1980's, in connection with F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, by which time I had misgivings about America.

And since then we have run entirely off the rails. It's mourning in America now. Sadness and a sense of loss are the only appropriate responses in witnessing the country's failure and degradation. You have to be suspicious when people say the sky is falling.

As did both Toffler and Postman in their ways. But it has fallen. Future Shock? The infantilizing of adulthood? Man, I don't know. Narcissism, maybe, as Christopher Lasch wrote about it. But it's so wearing watching it all happen.

If you care about the country and what it once supposedly stood for, which I do. And I'm uncomfortable saying that because, who am I, to judge. But judge we must. And I mean must, because we do it inevitably, by our acquiescence, if nothing else.

The people doing all the damage have no hesitation to judge. They insist they're right. But they're all lotus-eaters. The ultimate luddites. You actually live in the past, in your heads, forgetful of all else. This takes resources.

Hence their love of continuity and privilege and money. It's a virtual plantation. Supported by the industry of others, as it must be, in order to work. Maybe not, if they chose to live like the Amish. Don't hold your breath. They are oblivious.

And they're running everything.