COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
"Permanent
Adolescence: The Epidemic That Will Destroy America"
I like the expression.
But the writer has the wrong tense of the verb.
The United States has been in a dizzying state of permanent adolescence
for all of my adult life. Its effects are a significant part of what is wrong
with the country today.
It leads to poor decisions and foolish pursuits.
Since the end of WWII, Americans have very much embraced
"I want it all, and I want it now," a childish, demanding attitude.
The so-called "American Dream" is just an
advertising slogan dignifying that state of mind. Today, of course, the
American Dream is fading fast in coming directly into conflict with a hard new
realities in the world.
But Americans cannot quite give up their fantasies. Thus,
Trump's vacuous slogan about "Make America Great Again."
And, you must always remember, advertising and marketing,
one of America's true original inventions, play an inordinate role in life.
Americans are inundated with advertising of every description, none of it of
course really communicating any facts or reality, all of it a close relatives
to propaganda in its effects.
I've always related the observed state of perpetual youth
with America's revivalist tent preachers telling everyone they must be
"born again." It is a religious concept owing to the Puritans and its
effects upon America have been pernicious.
Somewhere, deep inside, many Americans genuinely believe in
some form of perpetual youth – whether in religion or facial and bodily beauty
or other obsessions.
