We are NBN and we are idiots. We’ve been sober-minded for 20 years. Apologies to the wonderful organization that turned these 14 words into a rason d’etra for two million recovering addicts. Nonetheless, in this issue we propose that idiocy is an addiction as blissful as any drink or drug. The word ignorant might be a better fit for the purposes of this post. But then in this, the Information Age, ignorance is idiotic. So, we’ll be going back and forth as we stitch together the blossoming relationship between the two and the nation’s Middle Class.
One can argue we are a nation of idiots as we all chose to ignore one or another wave in the deluge of information washing over the world each day. NBN choses to ignore Fox News and CNN. The issue we wish to parse in this issue of NBN is the relationship between ignorance and occupation and why we think rural America is Idiot America. If this sounds trite, arrogant, and condescending—and it is—someone needs to explain then, why rural regions of this country so overwhelmingly voted for Trump while the cities overwhelmingly support anybody but Trump.
Here’s our explanation
For the pro-Trump, anti-government conservatives this cold, cum civil war pits the self-reliance of laid-back country living with those of your kind, against the frenetic, decadent dependence on public resources enjoyed in polyglot urban America. Conversely, in a world of rapidly diminishing natural resources self-righteous, globally-minded progressives celebrate the efficiency and diversity of city life over the selfish, xenophobic, wastefulness of country living. Caught in the middle with a foot in both worlds—and the rest in the suburbs—is the nation’s Middle Class. Do they side with the urban Libtards or the rural Rethuglicans.
The Rethugicans have the decisive advantage here because the Middle Class is under STEM attack. That’s right, good, ol’ science, technology, engineering and math, the essential ingredients to this nation’s previous preeminence is poised to up-root, if not end altogether what once made America great: A world class consumer economy that the Middle Class built, enjoyed, and sustained since WWII. By contrast, STEM today offers the Middle Class at best a vastly different, undefined future. Soccer Mom and Joe the Plumber don’t do different. That’s why so many otherwise morally rooted, well-meaning Middle Class Americans supported a president who is anything but.
Deplorables don’t do different
We’re not talking about the flag waving, boat sinking, crucifix-clutching Trump fanatics. We’re talking about the “silent majority”, now in the minority with a constitutionally provided electoral college edge, being locked in place by a Rethuglican Supreme Court coup. These people refuse to condemn this president for fear of leaving behind the standard of living that made America, at the very least, feel great. The Middle Class just cast 71 million votes for history’s single most unqualified leader all for that tried and true mother’s milk of successful political campaigns: fear. Fear of immigrants taking their jobs. Fear of science shaking their faith. Most of all, that sum of all fears: the unknown. Deep-down the Middle Class knows that STEM is going to turn their world on its ear so they can only vote for the one guy who scoffs at the stuff.
Given a choice, do farmers really want software steering their tractors? What becomes of legions of farm workers when artificial intelligence starts picking the nation’s strawberries and apples? How do we occupy millions of masons, carpenters, sheet-rockers, spacklers, plumbers and tile-setters as homes are increasingly built by 3-D printers? Are we just going to sit by and watch these disruptive technologies turn the Middle Class into an anachronism? The real question, which neither side of the political spectrum dares to address is: Do we really have a choice?
The Sum of all fears
The answer is: You can’t stop progress. Yet the fear of same has Middle Class America willing to embrace a president feverishly dismantling the organized labor movement which empowered it. Meanwhile a much greater threat, what the brilliant Michael Lewis called The Fifth Risk, is rushing forward even faster. The only platform this administration has ever embraced is deconstructing an administrative state built largely to protect those who cannot possibly protect themselves against global unknowns like pandemics, climate change, and nuclear holocaust.
Trump’s “World’s Greatest Economy” unleashed the consumer economy from decades of these costly, poorly administered, and in many cases much-hated government protections. Buying “stuff” has once again become this country’s main measure of greatness. It also unleashed chaos in the administrative state with no consideration for the overwhelming majority of the freshly unemployed in Trump’s now Covid ravaged economy. What neither side of the political divide chooses to admit, as they promise to put these good folks back to work, is that Covid has thrust into warp-speed the STEM-driven disruptive technologies turning the US from a manufacturing economy into an information economy. More than half of the Middle Class jobs these folks wish to return to are going to be eliminated or radically redefined regardless of who is in the Whitehouse.
That’s why a trite, arrogant, and condescending game show host still has so much appeal to a famously staid Middle Class. It has endured four-years of unparalleled political and social upheaval in the vain hope of bringing back the 1950s. Clutching to such hopes in an information economy demands some level of ignorance and Soccer Mom and Joe the Plumber are compelled to oblige. While the Middle Class may be ignorant, it ain’t stupid. It sees the writing on the wall. If the path of progress leads to a future where computers increasingly do their jobs, then making American great again has a certain, reassuring ring.
Blissful ignorance or exhausting inspiration
Which brings us to the final question of the day? What is great? Is it working hard, raising a family, buying stuff, having fun and then handing the planet off to the next generation with increasingly fewer choices but to do like-wise? Or do we follow STEM into a very uncertain future knowing only that the good ‘ol days will play an ever small role in it? Given such choices, ignorance starts to sound pretty good. But then, where will that lead?
NBN left construction for a reason. Despite the reliable rewards, it’s hard work with little promise outside of a paycheck. Still, prospect of constantly reinventing the world and ourselves in pursuit of that paycheck, as per STEM, sounds even harder. But with that paycheck comes the prospect of a more efficient, less wasteful tomorrow, and at NBN we hate waste. Not just wasting natural resources by consuming ever more of them in a futile reach for “greatness.” We hate wasting time, as we’ve already wasted so much of of our own. Worse, we hate wasting human potential on jobs designed to maximize material productivity over creative potential. One thing is for sure. It’s up to us idiots, and forgive us for thinking the guy we just elected is not up to the task.
