[Culturechat] Jim Kunstler's Thoughts, upon returning from
Europe
Brian Taussig-Lux
bt@untours.com
Thu, 16 Dec 2004 22:12:32 -0500
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According to this article in today's Philadelphia Inquirer, Starbucks is
the answer to our impoverished American public life. (They also seem to
be doing surprisingly well in Europe. Seeing the big Starbucks across from
the Thun train station in Switzerland was a surprise to me last year.)
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/10426584.htm?1c
At 06:16 PM 12/16/2004, WesTexas@aol.com wrote:
>Jim Kunstler is an iconoclastic social and architectural critic and writer
>(he is a proponent of New Urbanism). He was the primary person
>interviewed in "End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the
>American Dream" (available and www.endofsuburbia.com). Jim, like me,
>believes that we are on the verge of Peak Oil (when world oil production
>begins a decline that it will never recover from. FYI--here in Texas we
>are way past our peak; our oil production is down 75% from 1972).
>
>Jim just returned from a trip to Europe. I thought you might find his
>comments (at www.kunstler.com) interesting.
>
>By the way, the WSJ had an interesting article last week regarding the
>huge differences between Americans and Europeans regarding debt. The
>average American charges something like $5,000 per year on their credit
>card--the average German charges $64 on their credit card. Europeans
>primarily use debit cards, and the credit cards they use typically have
>low credit limits. Also, there is nothing in Europe like the home equity
>lines of credit and cash out refinancings that we have here in the
>states. FYI--home equity lines of credit in the U.S. are up 41% in one year.
>
>Jim Kunstler:
>
>December 15, 2004
> Paris was normal, which is to say the streets were thronged with
> live human beings (hardly any of them overweight), the cafes and
> restaurants were bustling, even the parks were well-populated on a brisk
> December day and we were reminded emphatically of the stark contrast with
> the impoverished public life of America. In fact, one morning as we
> puttered in the hotel room with CNN-Europe playing in the background, a
> story came on about retail sales back in the States, and there was a shot
> of our supersized fellow countrymen waddling around in a WalMart dressed
> in the usual slob apparel by which they fail to make a distinction
> between being at home and being out in public.
>
> Amsterdam, Holland, was pretty much the same story as Paris, though
> it is physically quite different from Paris -- the scale is smaller, the
> intimate streets are deployed along a network of beautiful canals, and
> the car is barely tolerated (or even much in evidence). There, we would
> duck into a "brown bar" (so-called because of the dark wooden
> wainscotting) at five p.m. and it would be full of well-dressed,
> gainfully employed adults in animated conversation. Public life in Europe
> is only minimally about shopping and maximally about spending time with
> your fellow human beings.
>
> American public life by comparison is pathetic-to-nonexistent.
> Americans venture out only to roam the warehouse depots, and only by car.
> In most American places bars are strictly for lowlifes, and the public
> realm for the employed classes is pretty much restricted to television,
> with its predictable cast of manufactured characters and situations. The
> alienation and isolation of American life is so pervasive and
> pathological, compared to life lived elsewhere in this world, that all
> the Prozac ever made will never avail to make things better for us.
>
> The process of making America an alienated land of solitary, obese
> driver-shoppers has been very profitable for predatory corporations. They
> have systematically disassembled the public social infrastructure and
> repackaged pieces of it for sale -- starting with the single-family house
> isolated on its lot from all the normal amenities of culture and society.
> Everybody now has their 'home theater' so the cinema is only a place to
> park children for two hours so you can drive elsewhere to buy the cheez
> doodles, frozen pizza, Pepsi, and other staples of the American diet. You
> equip your kitchen with an espresso machine and there is no reason to
> "waste your time" in a cafe. Everybody has to have their own pool, so the
> kids can go swimming by themselves. Family values. The rest of the human
> race is unimportant.
>
> American adults are said to work far more hours than their European
> counterparts. Clearly, that is because they have no place to "be" with
> other people besides the WalMart, and no way to get anyplace except the
> car. On top of this fantastic alienation, there is the inescapable din of
> manufactured Christmas festivity, which must only reinforce the
> deep,chronic loneliness of most average Americans, the utter lack of
> connection with other people. In Paris there was hardly a Santa to be
> seen, or a carol to be heard, though the busy and beautiful streets were
> saturated with cheer and conviviality.
>
> What is also striking in contrast is the stupendous and immersive
> ugliness of all "normal" American daily environments. Public beauty in
> buildings and streets is not merely absent, it seems to have been
> rigorously banished. Americans now move continually through a machine
> terrain unmediated by any reminders of what it means to be human. Our
> most celebrated architects are high priests of the machine ethos. America
> has become a country of sad, lonely, and frightened people. We say that
> we like our way of life, but I suspect that many Red staters have never
> known anything else besides the six-lane highway, the box store, and the
> life of cable TV. The widespread demoralization is too great to be calculated.
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<font size=3>According to this article in today's Philadelphia Inquirer,
Starbucks is the answer to our impoverished American public
life. (They also seem to be doing surprisingly well in
Europe. Seeing the big Starbucks across from the Thun train station
in Switzerland was a surprise to me last year.)<br><br>
<a href="http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/10426584.htm?1c" eudora="autourl">
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/10426584.htm?1c<br><br>
</a>At 06:16 PM 12/16/2004, WesTexas@aol.com wrote:<br>
</font><blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font face="arial" size=2>
Jim Kunstler is an iconoclastic social and architectural critic and
writer (he is a proponent of New Urbanism). He was the primary
person interviewed in "End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the
Collapse of the American Dream" (available and
www.endofsuburbia.com). Jim, like me, believes that we are on the
verge of Peak Oil (when world oil production begins a decline that it
will never recover from. FYI--here in Texas we are way past our
peak; our oil production is down 75% from 1972). <br><br>
Jim just returned from a trip to Europe. I thought you might find
his comments (at www.kunstler.com) interesting.
<br><br>
By the way, the WSJ had an interesting article last week regarding the
huge differences between Americans and Europeans regarding debt.
The average American charges something like $5,000 per year on their
credit card--the average German charges $64 on their credit card.
Europeans primarily use debit cards, and the credit cards they use
typically have low credit limits. Also, there is nothing in Europe
like the home equity lines of credit and cash out refinancings that we
have here in the states. FYI--home equity lines of credit in the
U.S. are up 41% in one year.<br><br>
Jim Kunstler:<br><br>
</font>December 15, 2004<br>
Paris was normal, which is to say the
streets were thronged with live human beings (hardly any of them
overweight), the cafes and restaurants were bustling, even the parks were
well-populated on a brisk December day and we were reminded emphatically
of the stark contrast with the impoverished public life of America. In
fact, one morning as we puttered in the hotel room with CNN-Europe
playing in the background, a story came on about retail sales back in the
States, and there was a shot of our supersized fellow countrymen waddling
around in a WalMart dressed in the usual slob apparel by which they fail
to make a distinction between being at home and being out in public.<br>
<br>
Amsterdam, Holland, was pretty much the same
story as Paris, though it is physically quite different from Paris -- the
scale is smaller, the intimate streets are deployed along a network of
beautiful canals, and the car is barely tolerated (or even much in
evidence). There, we would duck into a "brown bar" (so-called
because of the dark wooden wainscotting) at five p.m. and it would be
full of well-dressed, gainfully employed adults in animated conversation.
Public life in Europe is only minimally about shopping and maximally
about spending time with your fellow human beings.<br>
<br>
American public life by comparison is
pathetic-to-nonexistent. Americans venture out only to roam the warehouse
depots, and only by car. In most American places bars are strictly for
lowlifes, and the public realm for the employed classes is pretty much
restricted to television, with its predictable cast of manufactured
characters and situations. The alienation and isolation of American life
is so pervasive and pathological, compared to life lived elsewhere in
this world, that all the Prozac ever made will never avail to make things
better for us.<br>
<br>
The process of making America an alienated land
of solitary, obese driver-shoppers has been very profitable for predatory
corporations. They have systematically disassembled the public social
infrastructure and repackaged pieces of it for sale -- starting with the
single-family house isolated on its lot from all the normal amenities of
culture and society. Everybody now has their 'home theater' so the cinema
is only a place to park children for two hours so you can drive elsewhere
to buy the cheez doodles, frozen pizza, Pepsi, and other staples of the
American diet. You equip your kitchen with an espresso machine and there
is no reason to "waste your time" in a cafe. Everybody has to
have their own pool, so the kids can go swimming by themselves. Family
values. The rest of the human race is unimportant.<br>
<br>
American adults are said to work far more hours
than their European counterparts. Clearly, that is because they have no
place to "be" with other people besides the WalMart, and no way
to get anyplace except the car. On top of this fantastic alienation,
there is the inescapable din of manufactured Christmas festivity, which
must only reinforce the deep,chronic loneliness of most average
Americans, the utter lack of connection with other people. In Paris there
was hardly a Santa to be seen, or a carol to be heard, though the busy
and beautiful streets were saturated with cheer and conviviality.<br>
<br>
What is also striking in contrast is the
stupendous and immersive ugliness of all "normal" American
daily environments. Public beauty in buildings and streets is not merely
absent, it seems to have been rigorously banished. Americans now move
continually through a machine terrain unmediated by any reminders of what
it means to be human. Our most celebrated architects are high
priests of the machine ethos. America has become a country of sad,
lonely, and frightened people. We say that we like our way of life, but I
suspect that many Red staters have never known anything else besides the
six-lane highway, the box store, and the life of cable TV. The widespread
demoralization is too great to be calculated.<font face="arial" size=3>
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