Musings Report #21 5-25-13 Present Shock and the Fantasy of Change
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Present Shock and the Fantasy of Change
It's remarkably easy nowadays to experience Present Shock overload. I wrote about Douglas Rushkoff's new book Present Shock in a recent Musings; the book discusses the manner in which always-on digital media, communication and work flatten the natural narratives of time and context into an associative sea of free-floating information.
With history and context both disrupted, it takes a huge effort to maintain a context that "makes sense" of our actions and conceptual narratives. Just maintaining this coherence requires a continual investment of time and mental energy. The constant threat of filter failure or information/task overload acts as a kind of ambient friction, draining time and energy from our limited resources.
When I find my worklife decohering/splintering, an internal Code Red is triggered and I go into slash-and-burn mode, reducing commitments and circling the wagons to conserve my mental energy for truly critical long-term tasks. In a way, the multiple commitments and digital distractions of modern life conspire against long-term projects and the coherent organization and investment of one's time and energy they require.
In other words, as digital distractions and pressures mount, we become less able to focus on the truly important projects that are long-term by their very nature. As a carpenter/builder, I often turn to building a house as an instructive analogy. The easily distracted and constantly overwhelmed person will be unable to build a house, or even get through the initial design and permit stage. Examples of this dynamic abound: the person who indulges in continual instant-gratification consumption/impulse buying will never be able to save enough capital to exit wage/debt serfdom. The same mechanism sabotages long-term projects such as losing weight, improving diet, etc.
In this way, the digital tools that are sold as improving our productivity, connectivity and knowledge actually undermine our ability to function effectively and competently in the larger narratives and contexts of our lives.
I consider this dynamic part of a larger phenomenon I call the fantasy of change: on the one hand, the constant flux of disassociative, decohering digital inputs creates the illusion that we're successfully managing change; on the other hand, these inputs sabotage our ability to achieve real change in our lives.
This phenomenon also has broader cultural and economic manifestations. The flattening of history and narrative generates a distortion field around the present, persuading us it is largely impervious to disruptive change. For example, millions of Millennials (born 1982-2004) are pursuing high-cost university educations in the belief that multiple degrees are now necessary to get a job. Even as evidence piles up that the economy has changed in fundamental ways such that even advanced degrees no longer inoculate the owner against financial insecurity, millions of young people feel they have no choice but to indebt themselves and spend scarce family resources on a questionable-value education.
The underlying assumption here is the present will endure, and change will be marginal. That the narrative of history suggests major disruptions of the status quo are cyclical and thus inevitable doesn't register. In this case, the fantasy is that the status quo won't change dramatically, even as it has already has changed dramatically beneath the surface of digital distractions. This disassociative sea of digital data masks our awareness of real change and decoheres our efforts to assemble a coherent narrative of these fundamental changes in our economy and society.
Market Musings
This is all evidence that the stock market has reached extremes that will be reversed in the days, weeks and months ahead. Right now, the decline is very modest and orderly. This is of course how managed markets act. Many technical analysts expect this modest decline to reverse next week into another move higher, in other words, a continuation of the move since late December.
Others are looking at the tea leaves and seeing the possibility of a "real decline," i.e. a 10% move of around 150 points on the SPX and 1,500 points on the DJIA. Technically, a move back up might form the right shoulder in a major head-and-shoulders pattern. That would trace a classic topping pattern.
The sharp reversal of stocks from new highs this week is also a classic sign of a market top.
The price of lumber and new architectural billings have both experienced sudden declines, suggesting the purported real estate boom underpinning the "recovery" has already run out of steam.
In sum, global stock markets are increasingly vulnerable to any disruption or data that calls into question the dominant media meme that the U.S. economy is in a slow but solid recovery that supposedly supports parabolic rises in stock values.
The best thing that happened to me this week
A BBQ with friends on a sunny afternoon--burgers (beef, turkey and fish), a big salad, haupia (coconut pudding) for dessert, a slug of cognac with our friends' 97-year old grandfather, and follow the leader games with their 7-year old son.
From Left Field
The middle-class trap in China (via Maoxian) the expectations built into the middle-class lifestyle in China are becoming unreachable.
"The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes." Aristotle
Thanks for reading--
charles
