I hope he is right about the end of the automobile era. My 1st day back to work and there was a tractor trailer accident on the Schuykill with a diesel spill. I sat in traffic for 1 hour and 20 minutes.
Modernity Bites
By James Howard Kunstler
on November 26, 2012 9:05 AM
There is surely a correspondence between an exhausted culture and a populace devolved so far into mental dullness that it can’t recognize its predicament. We don’t seem to get how much the industrial production spree of the past 200 years has just plumb worn us out, not to mention the ecosystem we were designed to dwell in. My general sense of things for at least a decade is that we are closing this chapter of history and heading into something smaller, slower, and simpler, and that we could either go there willingly or get dragged there kicking and screaming by circumstances.
It interests me to reflect that the way things are temporarily is the way people define normality, and think things will always be, so that if you are living in a big city like New York where so much remaining wealth is concentrated, and you are dazzled by the whirr and flash of things, including all the pretty young people drilling into their iPhones, you might expect a longer arc to the moment at hand.
Out here in the provinces it’s a different story. The exhaustion is palpable. I dropped into the mall at mid-day on Sunday to take the pulse on the ballyhooed post-Thanksgiving ritual shopping frenzy and the place was like a ghost town. The sparse stream of supposed “consumers” had the dazed, beaten-down look of people pushed beyond the edge of some dark threshold, like displaced persons in a low-grade war zone.
Their behavior seemed ceremonial, though, mere acting-out as opposed to acting. They were not carrying bags with purchases. I saw almost nobody actually shopping, that is, fingering the merchandise, in either the two department stores I passed through or the smaller shops lining the corridors. There were strikingly few clerks in either the big or little retail operations and you got the feeling that these stores were now expected to run on automatic pilot, with a skeleton crew of employees because the margins just aren’t there anymore. They are going through the motions of being in business, and when Christmas is over some will not be there anymore. America has had enough, notwithstanding the latest YouTube videos showing crazed mobs fighting over worthless plastic crap at the “Black Friday” WalMart openings elsewhere around the country.
The physical condition of our so-called towns (many of them just “facilities” smeared carelessly over the landscape) is something else. We are not taking care of our property in part because we don’t have the money, but also because so much of it is obviously not worth caring about, was not designed and built to be cared for – and anyway, there is the lure of the narcotic flat-screen television within to distract anyone with a fugitive thought of opposing the pervasive entropy of these times. The disgrace of this nation – I mean it quite literally – is now total, from our bodies to everything around us. We are entropy made visible.
Variations on this exhaustion are playing out in other parts of the “advanced” world, Europe and Japan, where all the money-related parts of the modernity machine have gravel in their gears and are grinding into self-destruction. China will get to the same event horizon soon, too, despite the fact that so much of their stuff is brand-new – after all, what use is a set of new super-highways if Brent crude prices remain above $110?
What if we just accept the reality that the industrial spree was a self-limiting adventure and now we have to move on? What do we give up? What do we actually do with our time and effort?
There’s a clear trend to give up on the gigantic nation-state, at least in its current corporatist configuration, most recently in Spain with separatists winning this week’s election in the northern province of Catalonia. Perhaps greater Spain will now join the defunct entities of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and the USSR. There are rumblings of “secession” here in North America now, where a certain moron-inflected cohort favors a replay of the Civil War, largely for sentimental reasons instilled by TV. What Dixieland doesn’t seem to grok is the unraveling of its own Sunbelt miracle economy which was, in effect, a suburban development bubble, and which will land them back in a ditch with a sack of turnips like Jeeter Lester’s family in Tobacco Road.
Here are some trends we would benefit from getting comfortable with:
Globalism is withering and will end with a whimper (sorry, Tom Friedman). The economy of North America will become much more internally focused in the decades ahead. If you are young, think about getting into the boat business on the continent’s magnificent inland waterway system. There will be no more trucking to move stuff around, and at the rate we’re going the railroads will never be fixed.
National chain retail will be dying as its economies-of-scale vanish. WalMart and everything like it will be gone. No more Black Friday toy riots. Sorry. If you are young, think about getting into some kind of local business that will play a role in your rebuilt local economic network. There will be plenty of work for you, but not so much new cheap plastic crap to hassle with. Lots of opportunities for the business-minded!
Farming comes back to the center of economic life. Hard to believe, I’m sure, if you live in an iPhone fantasy-land of apps and tweets. Forget all that stupid shit. The electric grid will certainly fail, or at least fail to be reliable enough to matter, in the next couple decades, and the real value in human existence will be using the land to produce a living. Lots of opportunities for young people who like to work outside. Also, some chance of political revolution to expedite changes in land tenure.
Farewell to the auto age and hello again to real communities. Hard to believe, I’m sure, as you read this in traffic on your iPad, but your commuting days are numbered. Indeed the whole car thing comes to a rather stunningly abrupt halt – though we are certainly doing everything possible now to prop it up. The old Herb Stein formulation will apply here: people do what they can until they can’t, and then they don’t. The implications in this for how we inhabit the landscape going forward are rather huge. Find a nice small town on a waterway surrounded by farmland and get ready to have a life.
In the meantime, as these circumstances roil in the background, you can be sure that the people running things will campaign strenuously to keep the current set of rackets running. The results will be sad and possibly terrifying. Be brave and seek opportunity in these epochal changes. Modernity has nearly put us out of business. Leave the exhausted enterprise behind and be human for while. Enjoy the time-out from techno-progress that is at hand. It will be something to be grateful for.
Roysyl says:
I see JHK is back on his meds and confronting reality. With the diminishing energy supply the Industrial Revolution will grind to a halt along with Industrial Agriculture. Will the survivors (remnant) form a Jeffersonian agrarian society as the serfs would prefer or a plantation arrangement as the Lords are planning and preparing?
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26th November 2012 at 11:23 am
ragman says:
More bullshit from America’s #1 hypocrite. He went to the mall Saturday. I’d bet my next miserable paycheck that he drove a car instead of walking. We also get his weekly put-down of the South. He is not using “Civil War” properly. Southerners don’t want to control Washington and the Yankees, we simply want as little to do with the Northeast as possible. We want to be left alone.
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26th November 2012 at 11:26 am
Colma Rising says:
This pompous old fucker has grown on me.
For the naysayers, fluttering mullets and lovers of the iron circle,I have a message from Eric Cartman:
“Just go real fast and turn her to the left, kah?”
Hot debate. What do you think?
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26th November 2012 at 11:44 am
Colma Rising says:
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26th November 2012 at 11:58 am
sangell says:
$110 Brent is not prohibitively expensive oil. It translates into $3.50-$3.75 per gallon gasoline in the US. 50 years ago a gallon of gas cost 30 cents or so a gallon ( and you got your windshield cleaned and didn’t have to pump it yourself.). New cars cost $2000 to $4000 and got 8-15 mpg. A new house was $25-30k. Price levels have increased roughly 10 fold but cars are a better value than ever as their mileage has improved dramatically while maintenance costs have fallen sharply. Who changes spark plugs every 10,000 miles? Tires, batteries and brakes all can last for years without replacement. In fact the whole car lasts longer. If you were driving a 1955 car in 1965 you were driving a pile of junk.
A 1962 Ford Galaxy in 1962 would cost $3000 and need about 1000 gallons of 30 cent gas to go 10,000 miles. Annual fuel cost $300 or 10% of car purchase price
A 2012 Ford Taurus would cost about $30,000 and would need 400 gallons of $3.50 gas to go 10,000 miles. Annual fuel cost $1400 or less than 5% of car purchase price.
Cars have gotten cheaper to own even if oil hasn’t gotten slightly more dear.
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26th November 2012 at 12:21 pm
Stucky says:
Reluctant to say this, but Cuntsler makes valid points.
But, this does not change the fact that he is a libtard Northerner Joo hypocrite of the highest order.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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26th November 2012 at 12:25 pm
Transitioning to the Post-Consumer Society « The Small "r" says:
[...] at The Burning Platform, offers a view on a nascent post-consumer society in the making – Time for No-Tech – a favorite topic of mine. Long on rose color and short on pragmatism, Kunstler avoids the [...]
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26th November 2012 at 12:27 pm
Eddie says:
I think Jim K. is getting some of his”waterways” ideas from Dan Rirdan’s book “The Blueprint” Rirdan is a smart guy, but I doubt any of his “solutions” will ever be implemented.
Personally I think rail is coming back, albeit slowly. We could sure use more of both, trains and canals,but Rirdan wants to build out a huge national canal system infrastructure project. What could go wrong with a giant government program like that?
Gregor Mcdonald writes about rail…well worth reading.
http://gregor.us/
I’m working on a new project to replace cars with solar powered Rascals, as soon the gubmint realizes they can and should double the gas excise tax. (Eddie hopes Obama doesn’t read Bruce Krasting.)
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26th November 2012 at 12:32 pm
ThePessimisticChemist says:
The electrical grid can be fixed, and sustained for a very long period of time. Coal isn’t as common as it used to be, but we have a lot more of it than we do oil.
There is also natural gas, and nuclear power to consider as well.
I think he’s right in that mega cities are a thing of the past, however I do not foresee “the good old days” ever resurfacing.
We must blend modern tech with more traditional life styles if we are to get through this mess, strictly adhering to one or the other is pure idiocy.
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26th November 2012 at 12:38 pm
ThePessimisticChemist says:
@Eddie – I agree, I think the rail will make a major comeback.
I live in an area that is just ripe for one, too bad I have absolutely zero capital right now.
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26th November 2012 at 12:43 pm
Micro-Be says:
Man, I was hoping we would be able to sputter along until fusion power became a real solution. Not that I’m necessarily for massive government programs, but what could happen if every country on earth made a serious devotion to researching fusion energy? A sort of international Manhattan Project. I can still dream before I have to revert back to corn cobs for ass-wiping and working on farmer Bob’s turnip farm.
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26th November 2012 at 2:00 pm
Roysyl says:
The Government solution is a grey liquid.
Being neither black or white, gas or solid
One drop of which can completely dissolve your mind.
You advocates of government involvement have been abiding in the government solution.
Roy
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26th November 2012 at 2:09 pm
bluestem says:
Admin, you need to work in a more rural area, if a dead deer is in the middle of the road with it’s guts spilled all over you just move into the opposite lane for a few feet. No dealy and you are on your way! John
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26th November 2012 at 2:19 pm
Eddie says:
We have fusion. It’s called “the Sun”. It’s 93 million miles away, and that’s as close as I want to be to a fusion reactor.
Fusion is pie in the sky, Micro-Be. Less likely than powering the grid using cow farts. Now, thorium, I think that needs more money thrown at it. Well worth a second look. Probably won’t happen either, though, unless the military gets behind it.
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26th November 2012 at 2:20 pm
Administrator says:
bluestem
I have the best of both worlds. I was driving my son home from his friend’s house a couple weeks ago at night and a big buck just sauntered in front of my little Honda Insight. Luckily I wasn’t going too fast and was able to stop while he strolled across the road. There are deer all around my house.
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26th November 2012 at 2:26 pm
AWD says:
What’s admin going to do in a post-commute environment?
What’s the FSA going to do when SNAP cards don’t work anymore?
When this lard-ass gets svelte I’ll quit smokin’. Lotta socialized medicine problems would be solved if they would just let us kill ourselves in peace. With Baaaacon, and buttah!, and thick red-meatsteaks grilled over carcinogenic charcoal and washed down with some (gallons) of cheap beer!
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26th November 2012 at 2:37 pm
sangell says:
Something to consider when people speak of nuclear power plants of any flavor. Not all countries are equal. Fukushima was a horrible accident but, just suppose, it didn’t happen in Japan. Let’s say it was Mexico ( yes they have a nuclear power plant) or Indonesia ( trying to build one) that had an out of control nuclear reactor? Think they could handle it? I don’t. Japan, as technologically advanced a country as there is with a large nuclear industry was barely able to get Fukushima under control and they are facing a decades long clean up process that would be beyond the technical and financial capacity of most other nations.
Even if there was no doubt that Iran only wanted a nuclear power plant for peaceful purposes would it be wise to let them build it? I think the IAEA needs to evaluate just how safe a nuclear power plant is if is located in a country that has no indigenous capacity to deal with a major disaster and release of radiation.
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26th November 2012 at 2:47 pm
Kill Bill says:
I kinda like the way Kunstler eviscerates the iStupad generation of tweeting twits.
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26th November 2012 at 3:00 pm
ThePessimisticChemist says:
@Eddie – “Fusion is pie in the sky”
I disagree, I think its probably closer than people realize. The problem is that we aren’t attacking the problem from multiple angles. Everyone keeps trying to make the methods work instead of moving to new techniques.
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26th November 2012 at 3:38 pm
Stan says:
Once again as always kunstler is full of shit.
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26th November 2012 at 5:07 pm
Novista says:
TPC
Farnsworth made a good start and a long time ago. The rest is engineering. Trouble is, finding the will to follow through.
Rudolf Diesel didn’t give up after his first failure.
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26th November 2012 at 7:00 pm
Eddie says:
One problem with all nuclear power generation is that it takes an awful lot of fossil fuel and an awful lot of tax money to build the plants. I think that we will see fewer and fewer large infrastructure projects going forward, regardless of how smart our engineers are…because we are fucking broke. Only the military will get he mega billions to build the truly innovative big ticket items. If a safe fusion reactor could be built, I’m all for it. But I’m still really skeptical about that one. I don’t see our corporate overlords putting their money into experimental nuclear power plants. Too easy to make money off iPhones and credit cards.
I like Kunstler’s vision of smaller, more self-sufficient communities. I just think the most likely way that will happen is..the hard way, with a collapse coming first. I can’t help but believe we are still some years away from that..there’s too much fat left to trim from the wallets of the middle class…too easy to tax and tax and tax some more, to put off the inevitable..until one day it finally just starts to fall apart. Or maybe the next war will push us over the edge…
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26th November 2012 at 8:25 pm
OUTTAHERE says:
JHK sure paints a rosy picture doesn’t he? I could agree with some of it, but I won’t. I’m just as worried as the next guy, but I just don’t see it all falling apart like he envisions; not without a lot of natural disasters to facilitate it.
Much to my dismay, oil is most likely going to be around for many more decades. Why do I dismay over this? Because as long as oil is around, at any price, new fuel sources for transportation, manufacturing and electrical generation will not be sought after with any vigor. Why? Cost differentials. New sources of energy will necessarily be expensive at first and in an ever weakening global economy no one is going to bankroll looking for new power sources — UNLESS they can control them as oil is controlled now. It may even be Big Oil that eventually brings new power sources to the market so that they can control it and milk the public with their new source.
So, let Dr. Doom wallow in his own misery for now. I’ve got other more important things to worry about for now, like drilling a water well and installing an electrical generator for the house in case of “emergencies”. Good luck folks!
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26th November 2012 at 9:19 pm