Brady Bowman

Christopher Lasch, anticipating some of Douthat’s arguments re: decadence:

Futurology, in its infatuation with a technological utopia in the offing (so different from a genuine concern for posterity), cannot see what is under its nose. Devoid of historical perspective, it has no way of recognizing the future when the future has become the here and now. Those who pride themselves on facing “future shock” without fear retreat from the scariest thought of all: that social stagnation is not just a hypothetical possibility but a reality, which already has us in its grip. Indeed the prolongevity movement (together with futurology in general) itself reflects the stagnant character of late capitalist culture. It arises not as a natural response to medical improvements that have prolonged life expectancy but from changing social relations and social attitudes, which cause people to lose interest in the young and in posterity, to cling desperately to their own youth, to seek by every possible means to prolong their own lives, and to make way only with the greatest reluctance for new generations.

Christopher Lasch:

Both men and women have come to approach personal relations with a heightened appreciation of their emotional risks. Determined to manipulate the emotions of others while protecting themselves against emotional injury, both sexes cultivate a protective shallowness, a cynical detachment they do not altogether feel but which soon becomes habitual and in any case embitters personal relations merely through its repeated profession.

Christopher Lasch:

At first glance, a society based on mass consumption appears to encourage self-indulgence in its most blatant forms. Strictly considered, however, modern advertising seeks to promote not so much self-indulgence as self-doubt. It seeks to create needs, not to fulfill them; to generate new anxieties instead of allying old ones. By surrounding the consumer with images of the good life, and by associating them with the glamour of celebrity and success, mass culture encourages the ordinary man to cultivate extraordinary tastes, to identify himself with the privileged minority against the rest, and to join them, in his fantasies, in a life of exquisite comfort and sensual refinement. Yet the propaganda of commodities simultaneously makes him acutely unhappy with his lot. By fostering grandiose aspirations, it also fosters self-denigration and self-contempt. The culture of consumption in its central tendency thus recapitulates the socialization earlier provided by the family.

Christopher Lasch, with a passage that would make Matt Feeny’s heart soar:

Both parents seek to make the family into a refuge from outside pressures, yet the very standards by which they measure their success, and the techniques through which they attempt to bring it about, derive in large part from industrial sociology, personnel management, child psychology—in short, from the organized apparatus of social control. The family’s struggle to conform to an externally imposed ideal of family solidarity and parenthood creates an appearance of solidarity at the expense of spontaneous feeling, a ritualized “relatedness” empty of real substance.

Christopher Lasch:

The invasion of the family by industry, the mass media, and the agencies of socialized parenthood has subtly altered the quality of the parent-child connection. It has created an ideal of perfect parenthood while destroying parents' confidence in their ability to perform the most elementary functions of childrearing.

It never gets old

Cabin vibes

Of the many bizarre aspects of air travel (there are many), the timeless quality of the airport has to be among the strangest. Strange because time is, at a very obvious level, ubiquitous at the airport: Arrivals and departures are posted everywhere. The entire system is structured around clock time.

And yet, airport time feels quite different from ordinary time. The normal rhythms and natural patterns that structure life are gone. The terminal is governed by the cold logic of the clock alone. Apart from being able to see out the window and, in doing so, determine the time of day, the airport always feels the same inside. Even inclement weather is only rarely a barrier to shuttling busy travelers to their destinations. Admittedly, I’ve enjoyed the relaxed taboos around enjoying an early morning cocktail while waiting for a flight. Indeed, this whole reflection was inspired as I ingested a Shake Shack burger and fries this morning at 9am while awaiting a connecting flight. But such experiences do illustrate that normal time stops when you pass through security.

In The Life We’re Looking For, Andy Crouch suggested that air travel chips away at our humanity. His argument, as I recall it, was that the “superpowers” offered by technology can only be enjoyed by sacrificing some piece of our personhood. He was not launching some full-scale assault on technology; rather, his more limited point was that new technologies always offer trade-offs. My musings would complement Crouch’s point: the timeless environment of the airport is a de-humanizing one for us time-bound creatures. And lest I be misunderstood: This isn’t a screed against flying. (I’m typing this at gate B55 at Denver International Airport.) I see this, instead, as an attempt to look soberly at the trade-offs involved in air travel. The gains are easy to see, as they always are. The drawbacks less so.

Heading to Montana in the morning—I have the privilege of teaching a week-long class at MWSB, a school I attended many moons ago. Looking at the ten-day forecast, I see that the weather looks to be fairly mild for MT standards this time of year.

Lewis' essay on the dangers of national repentance was cited regularly a few years ago (and rightly so). But in our current moment, I think his essay “Meditation on the Third Commandment” is especially prescient. His warnings offer much fodder for reflection in light of conversations around post-Liberalism, Integralism, and Christian Nationalism.