Nation Of Highwaymen
I am reading Neil Postman’s book, Technopoly, The Surrender of Culture to Technology, copyright in 1992, though it could have been written this morning. Postman is a good writer, and he covers the sweep of hundreds of years of change in some detail, with language that is a delight to read. He quotes Alexis de Toqueville, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs who traveled around and wrote about us in our colonial period.
The American lives in a land of wonders. Everything around him/her is in constant movement, and every movement seems an advance. Consequently, in his/her mind the idea of newness is closely linked with that of improvement. Nowhere does he/she see any limit placed by nature to human endeavor; in his/her eyes something that does not exist is just something that has not been tried. – p. 404
Reading and considering these works I remembered the account by Hunter S. Thompson of a road trip, entitled Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. A cautionary tale about two guys on a drug and ethanol fueled jaunt to Las Vegas, mind bending and celebratory of late 20th century America. Now it seems that Las Vegas is everywhere. You do not have far to drive proximate to our bigger cities to find a casino, and all of the ancillary businesses those institutions attract. Weed is legal in Illinois, – the state takes a “piece of the cake” from every transaction. I could walk from this Starbucks to a weed dispensary.
So yes, the default attitude of the man/woman on the street is to push against any “limit” no matter the reason. Postman cites a few well researched precedents to the contemporary American psychological orientation:
- the immigrant nature of the population
- our frontier mentality
- abundant natural resources (for taking)
- a “new” continent and unlimited opportunity
I think of the founders of our high tech global entities: Musk, Zuckerberg, Altman, the Allisons, et al. Perhaps our ancestors, many who landed here from Europe were highwaymen after all? You know the type. Someone always on the move, antennae out for “a better deal” – willing to do anything to get it.
