When people come to be more reliant on the state than they are on each other, community bonds fray and social solidarity falls into disrepair. When the struggling mum looks to the state for help, rather than turning to family, friends, neighbours, the end result is that she becomes more isolated from her community. When a 17-year-old school student short of cash turns to the state for a weekly handout, he never really develops skills of self-sufficiency or dependency on friends and neighbours. When young men looking for work know that the state will sustain them for long periods of time, especially if they make a performance of being “ill” or “depressed” at the dole centre, then their instinct to work becomes frayed. The old healthy working-class habits of pulling together, “getting on one’s bike”, offering one another work and advice have slowly but surely – and tragically – been replaced by the “helping hand” of the ever-watchful state. People start to rely less on their own wits and mates, and more on the faceless keepers of charitable cash.
Because they don’t care, any more than they care about getting science right. And it never occurs to them that maybe this is one of the reasons why they haven’t been doing well in terms of selling movie tickets. The Deer Hunter was ruined for me by shooting what was supposed to be Pennsylvania in the Olympic Mountains, but apparently they don’t realize how stupid that was, or care that it was so grating to some people.
Some thoughts from Ed Driscoll on parallels between the two presidents. I found this part interesting:
Obama doesn’t like people. He likes himself.
He appears to have a long-standing pattern of disconnection from others. Where are the voices of those who grew up with him, went to school with him, worked with him? It is eerily quiet.
Naturally, there are those who disagree with the notion that our president is aloof.
Despite the narrative in Washington of Mr. Obama as a loner, his friends and aides say he likes people just fine. He looked positively ebullient when he worked the crowd at a hangar last Wednesday at Fort Bragg, N.C., reaching out to nearly every one of 3,000 troops returning from Iraq.
No surprises there. Obama knows how to work a crowd. Apparently, he is downright ebullient when doing so. But that is not the same thing as liking other human beings and connecting with them. Working the crowd is about his ego. And a photo op.
Obama holds himself apart.
Something about him is off kilter.
And lots of people know it.
Republicans and Democrats, alike.
It reminds me of the classic line by Linus from Peanuts: “I love mankind, it’s people I can’t stand.”