Slavoj Žižek:

One should insist on the key question: which ‘flaw’ of the system as such opens up the possibility for such crises and collapses? The first thing to bear in mind here is that the origin of the crisis is a ‘benevolent’ one: after the dotcom bubble burst in 2001, the decision reached across party lines was to facilitate real estate investments in order to keep the economy going and prevent recession – today’s meltdown is the price for the US having avoided a recession seven years ago.

The danger is thus that the predominant narrative of the meltdown won’t be the one that awakes us from a dream, but the one that will enable us to continue to dream. And it is here that we should start to worry: not only about the economic consequences of the meltdown, but about the obvious temptation to reinvigorate the ‘war on terror’ and US interventionism in order to keep the economy running.

From the archive:

That the Internet and housing hyperinflations transpired within a period of ten years, each creating trillions of dollars in fake wealth, is, I believe, only the beginning. There will and must be many more such booms, for without them the economy of the United States can no longer function. The bubble cycle has replaced the business cycle.

Use Your Illusions

Most of us, of course, think we know what a depression looks like. Open a history book and the images will be familiar: mobs at banks and lines at soup kitchens, stockbrokers in suits selling apples on the street, families piled with all their belongings into jalopies. Families scrimp on coffee and flour and sugar, rinsing off tinfoil to reuse it and re-mending their pants and dresses. A desperate government mobilizes legions of the unemployed to build bridges and airports, to blaze trails in national forests, to put on traveling plays and paint social-realist murals.

Today, however, whatever a depression would look like, that's not it. We are separated from the 1930s by decades of profound economic, technological, and political change, and a modern landscape of scarcity would reflect that.

What, then, would we see instead? And how would we even know a depression had started?

Depression 2009: What would it look like?

A new study by sociologists at the University of Maryland concludes that unhappy people watch more TV, while people who describe themselves as "very happy" spend more time reading and socializing. The study appears in the December issue of the journal Social Indicators Research.

"The data suggest to us that the TV habit may offer short-run pleasure at the expense of long-term malaise."

Unhappy people were also more likely to feel that they have unwanted extra time on their hands (51 percent) compared to very happy people (19 percent) and to feel rushed for time (35 percent vs. 23 percent). Having too much time and no clear way to fill it was the bigger burden of the two.

From the archive:

To be sure, time marches on.

Yet for many Californians, the looming demise of the "time lady," as she's come to be known, marks the end of a more genteel era, when we all had time to share.

What does this tell us about Everything Bad Is Good for You?

Unhappy People Watch TV

Malcolm Gladwell's new book goes on sale this Tuesday.

From the Q&A on his web site:

Q: What do you want people to take away from Outliers?

A: My wish with Outliers is that it makes us understand how much of a group project success is. When outliers become outliers it is not just because of their own efforts. It's because of the contributions of lots of different people and lots of different circumstances— and that means that we, as a society, have more control about who succeeds—and how many of us succeed—than we think. That's an amazingly hopeful and uplifting idea.

From the Publishers Weekly review:

In Outliers, Gladwell (The Tipping Point) once again proves masterful in a genre he essentially pioneered—the book that illuminates secret patterns behind everyday phenomena. His gift for spotting an intriguing mystery, luring the reader in, then gradually revealing his lessons in lucid prose, is on vivid display.

But who in this day and age believes that a high intelligence quotient in itself promises success? In structuring his book against that assumption, Gladwell has set up a decidedly flimsy straw man.

Recently, at the Abbeville Manual of Style:

We enjoyed Late Bloomers tremendously because it concerned two of our favorite subjects—artistic and literary excellence—but we also wanted to throw things at it, because the sound core of truth it contained was coated with an obscuring layer of inaccuracy and inexpertise.

Mildly irritating though all of this may be, it is Gladwell’s forthcoming book, Outliers, that truly threatens to exasperate.

Demystifying greatness can be as dangerous as romanticizing it.

Outliers: The Story of Success

You load sixteen tons, and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go;
I owe my soul to the company store...

Paul Graham:

Don't just not be evil. Be good.

It will always suck to work for large organizations, and the larger the organization, the more it will suck.

On Richard Sennett:

The evidence suggests that from an executive perspective, the most desirable employees may no longer necessarily be those with proven ability and judgment, but those who can be counted on to follow orders and be good "team players."

New York in the 1930's

Martin Varsavsky:

Five years into the 20th century, Einstein was living his Annus Miarbilis. Where is our patent office today? Who is our Einstein?

Unfortunately, when I look around me today, during the end of 2008, I see humanity leading an unsustainable life based on technology that should already be obsolete.

From the archive:

Someone from the future, I’m sure, will marvel at our blindness and at the hole we have driven ourselves into, for we are completely committed to an unsustainable technology.

Recall:

Albert Einstein achieved scientific fame by asking questions and solving problems that nobody else had realized were problems.

Also, Radebaugh: The Future We Were Promised (now, archived here by wayback, and here)

Radebaugh's space-age but practical inventions, from modular homes to be delivered by helicopter, to jet-propelled commuter trains, all have a wild utopian sensibility that is now both nostalgic and magical.

Where is the future that we were promised?

Caleb Crain:

If industrial capitalism is fostering loneliness, then neither science nor political philosophy is likely to save us from it.

From the archive:

Here the purpose of the personality tests administered by career coaches becomes clear. They are useless as measures of ability and experience, but they may be reliable indicators of those who are "cheerful, enthusiastic, and obedient." The dismal experiences of many middle-aged job seekers suggest that corporations would rather find conformists among younger workers who haven't been discarded by employers and aren't skeptical about their work.

The sheer amount of sewing done by gentlewomen in those days sometimes takes us moderns aback, but it would probably generally be a mistake to view it either as merely constant joyless toiling, or as young ladies turning out highly embroidered ornamental knicknacks to show off their elegant but meaningless accomplishments.

Lonely together

David Kynaston:

Amid the bewildering complexities of the global financial crisis, one simple fact stands out: the little we have left needs to go a lot further. Fear not! We'll show you how to endure the forthcoming recession with a bit of grit, some nous and the wise advice of our post-war forebears. And you never know, you might have a laugh or two along the way ... To begin our special issue, a celebration of the true heroine of austerity Britain: the housewife.

From a month ago:

A solution requires the country to begin to spend what it earns, reduce its mountainous debt, and address massive liabilities, restructure Social Security, pension deficits, military, and Medicare. No wonder politicians would rather spend more of your money now rather than address these problems.

The Austerity Issue: don't panic

Onora O'Neill:

We say we no longer trust our public services, institutions or the people who run them. Politicians, accountants, doctors, scientists, businessmen, auditors and many others are treated with suspicion. Their word is doubted, their motives are questioned.

Trust is needed not because everything is wholly predictable, or wholly guaranteed, but on the contrary because life has to be led without guarantees.

From the archive:

Francis Fukuyama argues that the most pervasive cultural characteristic influencing a nation's prosperity and ability to compete is the level of trust or cooperative behavior based upon shared norms.

He argues that the United States has been a high-trust society historically but that this status has eroded in recent years. This well-researched book provides a fresh, new perspective on how economic prosperity is grounded in social life.

A Question Of Trust

Paul Krugman:

Whatever the reasons for the continuing weakness of policy, the situation is manifestly not coming under control. Things continue to fall apart.

The Widening Gyre