AS I pass another “timeline” milestone this week, I will admit that 40 years ago I genuinely thought that by this time I would be “mellow.” The word comes from the Late Middle English period from the 14th century and until the 15th century and meant “ripe, sweet, and juicy.”
I am far from that, but it is not my fault.
There is an inherent goodness in humans that historically expected the world to be better tomorrow than it is today. Most of the predictions for the 21st century going back 100 years painted a rosy future like with flying cars. Nikola Tesla wrote in a 1935 magazine article that by the 21st century it simply would not be “sophisticated” to poison our systems with “harmful stimulants like caffeine and nicotine.” Then again, he called alcohol an “elixir of life.” Smart man.
He also predicted that newspaper headline news would, “give a mere ‘stick’ in the back pages to accounts of crime or political controversies.” The front pages would mostly cover science. Maybe he was correct. ABC News headline: “Here’s a List of 58 Gender Options.”
Moving in to the 2000s, one respected geopolitical think-tank leader strongly believed (‘The Next 100 Years’ by George Friedman-Geopolitical Futures) that by now both Russia and China would be mere shadows of their former selves.
From a synopsis: “In the early 2020s, the New Cold War will end when the economic strain and political pressure on Russia, coupled with a declining population and poor infrastructure, cause the federal government to completely collapse.” Friedman also guessed that China would fragment, with “the central government gradually losing much of its real power and the provinces becoming increasingly autonomous.”
How can I be mellow without my flying car, “strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries as large as apples,” knowing that soon AI will control everything except Elon Musk?
Over the past 20+ years there has been a disturbing trend in the West. Repeated surveys of younger generations show a depressing belief that life on earth is getting worse, not better.
Yet by virtually every quality of a life measure, both on the global average and country-specific, human life has never been any better. Absolute poverty based on $2.00 PPP per day in 1950 was 80 percent of the world. It is now 10 percent. Life expectancy, daily calories per person, access to clean water/electricity, literacy, maternal/infant/childhood mortality, average length of education, the list is extensive.
Seventy-three years ago, a total of 35 nations had decriminalized same-sex relations. Now it is 135. Since 1970, global tree cover has increased by a net of 3 million square kilometers or some 40 percent.
You may argue against the “improving life” thesis for your own particular political/social/economic agenda, but you cannot change the facts.
What I see that has dramatically changed in my lifetime is a move to increasing “Flagellantism.” Flagellantism was a 14th-century movement, consisting primarily of penitents in the Catholic Church.
The first recorded incident was in Central Italy in 1259, the year after severe crop damage and famine throughout Europe, when adherents “began beating their flesh in a public penitential ritual in response to war, famine, plague and fear engendered by millenarianism (“The End Is Near!”).
The flagellants were infused with a fiery, apocalyptic passion that they could see terrible realities to which others were blinded. They would show up at any public celebration with a message: Your happiness is causing our suffering. Your joy is prolonging the suffering of the world.
Does that sound familiar? Your car, your “too many” children, and your house are killing our planet. Author Jeffrey Tucker writes, “We learn less, read less, write less, create less, love less. Personal trauma is everywhere.”
“Degrowth” is the economic model of flagellantism, reducing consumption, embracing privation, agreeing to austerity. Animal meat is bad. Farming is bad. Pets are bad. Religion is bad. Tradition is bad. Gadgets are bad. The ozone hole is bad. No, wait. In 2019, NASA reported that the ozone hole was the smallest ever since it was first discovered in 1982.
The flagellants are ignorant of where we came from. As a result, we are all getting increasingly large amounts of “Pessimism Porn.” Like sex porn, it makes you feel superior. A former editor of The New York Times Magazine wrote this. Pessimism porn “feeds a powerful sense of intellectual vanity. You walk the streets feeling superior to all these heedless knaves who have no clue what’s coming. Its main message is suffering.” No thanks. I am more of a “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” guy.
E-mail me at mangun@gmail.com. Follow me on Twitter @mangunonmarkets. PSE stock-market information and technical analysis provided by AAA Southeast Equities Inc.
