The crisis of ’29, which was a real catastrophe,
cannot happen again today.
It has been supplanted by a perpetual simulation of crisis.
Unlike a society’s heroic or intrinsic values,
the simulated, synthetic values (see Reagan)
that have taken their place no longer threaten to collapse.
Their own weight no long threatens
to result in their loss.

They float or, like money,
move like a coiling snake.
And that is how we do it in our lives.
We get ahead, we move along
by oscillating around a hypothetical line of balance,
far from fateful deviations.

-excerpt The Anorexic Ruins by Jean Baudrillard, published 1989

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Ian has made its way across Florida from the Gulf to the Atlantic ocean.  In its wake is ruin.  I understand that the force of wind sucked water from Tampa Bay exposing the sea bed.  The water was shoved inland.  Photos of the neighborhoods cause one to shudder.  Sanibel Island is severed from the mainland, the causeway collapsed into the sea.

And yet millions of people in the last few years have moved to Florida, in the face of warning by climatologists that hurricanes will increase in frequency and intensity.  According to the Washington Post,

“from 1970 to 2020, census records show, the Cape Coral-Fort Myers area grew an astounding 623 percent.  Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater saw growth of more than 187 percent and is now home to more than 3.1 million people.”

How is it that “rational” humans in large numbers “decide” to live in the cross-hairs of these storms?

Baudrillard writes that unlike our ancestors, who lived according to values rooted in traditional society, since the Reagan era (1981-1989) we have adopted synthetic values.  You do remember Ronald Reagan, an actor adept at performing “the father figure” his face a perpetual plastic smile?   The set of artificial values, without grounding, absent an organic connection — are abstractions, weightless, and thus are not subject to challenge by science, by the dire warnings of climatologists of the cause and effect consequences of increased warming of the planet.  Baudrillard says these values simply oscillate around, seeking a balance…

That is until a monster storm, Ian, reduces marinas, homes, assets believed certain to rise in value — to piles of debris.

Note:  The crisis of ’29 refers to October 29, 1929, called Black Tuesday, when investors traded some 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day and signaled the beginning of the Great Depression.

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Surely there is a tune that will serve as a compass heading?  There is.  Blinded By The Light composed by master song-smith, Bruce Springsteen, serves to trace the outlines of our time.  The tune strikes a surreal note.                                   We live in a surreal time, do we not?

Blinded By the Light

By Manfred Mann

Blinded By The Light
Blinded by the light
Revved up like a deuce
Another runner in the night
Blinded by the light

Madman drummer bummers
Indians in the summer
With a teenage diplomat
In the dumps with the mumps
As the adolescent pumps
His way into his hat
With a boulder on my shoulder
Feeling kinda older
I tripped a merry-go-round
With this very unpleasing
Sneezing and wheezing
The calliope crashed to the ground
The calliope crashed to the ground

But she was blinded by the light
Revved up like a deuce
Another runner in the night
Blinded by the light
Revved up like a deuce
Another runner in the night
Blinded by the light
Revved up like a deuce
Another runner in the night

Some silicone sister
With her manager mister
Told me I got what it takes
She said, I’ll turn you on sonny to something strong
Play the song with the funky break
And go-kart Mozart
Was checking out the weather chart
To see if it was safe outside
And little Early Pearly
Came by in his curly-wurly
And asked me if I needed a ride
Asked me if I needed a ride

‘Cause she was blinded by the light
Revved up like a deuce
Another runner in the night
Blinded by the light

She got down but she never got tight
She’s gonna make it to the night
She’s gonna make it through the night

But mama, that’s where the fun is
But mama, that’s where the fun is

[Solo]

Mama always told me not to look into the eyes of the sun
But mama, that’s where the fun is

Some brimstone baritone
Anticyclone rolling stone
Preacher from the east
Says, “Dethrone the Dictaphone
Hit it in its funny bone
That’s where they expect it least.”
And some new mown chaperone
Was standing in the corner
Watching the young girls dance
And some fresh-sown moonstone
Was messing with his frozen zone
Reminding him of romance

The calliope crashed to the ground

But she was blinded by the light
Revved up like a deuce
Another runner in the night
Blinded by the light
Revved up like a deuce
Another runner in the night

(Madman drummers bummers and Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat
In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat)

Blinded by the light
Revved up like a deuce
Another runner in the night
Blinded by the light
Revved up like a deuce
Another runner in the night

(With a boulder on my shoulder feelin’ kinda older I tripped the merry-go-round
With this very unpleasing sneezing and wheezing the calliope crashed to the ground)

Blinded by the light
Revved up like a deuce
Another runner in the night
Blinded by the light
Revved up like a deuce
Another runner in the night

(And now Scott with a slingshot finally found a tender spot and throws his lover in the sand
And some bloodshot forget-me-not whispers daddy’s within earshot save the buckshot turn up the band.)

Blinded by the light
Revved up like a deuce
Another runner in the night
Blinded by the light
Revved up like a deuce
Another runner in the night

(Some silicone sister with her manager mister told me I got what it takes
She said I’ll turn you on sonny to something strong)

She got down but she never got tired
She’s gonna make it through the night

Lyrics by Bruce Springsteen/Manfred Mann