We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control . . .
All in all, it's just another brick in the wall
All in all, you're just another brick in the wall."Pink Floyd, in 1979 rock opera, "The Wall."
I am trying to understand the nihilism of the driver of this truck.
I don't see the value in his big "F--- You!!" to the world.
Someone spent a thousand dollars or more to modify a pickup truck so the driver can switch on big cloud of black smoke. At 4:58 p.m. yesterday on the Crater Lake Highway just outside of Medford I was behind this truck.
I had noticed an enormous cloud of smoke being emitted intermittently from the truck. I was behind him at the next stoplight. Then this:
And this:
And this. I was blind for about three seconds at 40 miles per hour.
The driver, a young man, turned on "the coal" three or four times over the three miles leading into town. It happened to be an area that included the county sheriff's headquarters, but the pollution bursts weren't focused there. It was at the world at large.
He was "rolling coal."
The serious venues of social commentary are full of articles about "the problem of young men." They have fallen behind women in education; they are playing video games instead of working; they are involved with drugs; they aren't settling down and starting families; and they are dying early in "deaths of despair." Political pundits observe that most of them are voting for Trump because he appears to be the one who will "burn it all down."
Objectively, measured by the unemployment rate (3.5%), and the wage people need to pay to have a person regularly show up at work ($20+ at minimum; $25 for agricultural work) conditions are not bad. A young American man need not fear being drafted into a war. The working and non-working poor have Medicaid health benefits under the ACA/Obamacare. Statistics don't seem to matter. The mood defies the data. They have tuned in to the zeitgeist and dropped out into angry nihilism.
The mood goes beyond young men. It includes older, fully established and connected men and women who have voted Republican for decades. These are people with careers, homes, and 401(k) accounts. They are people who go to church and have kids in scouting and soccer. They teach their children to be good sports and accept winning and losing. They tell their children it is wrong to cheat on tests. They, too, have picked up some of the "burn it down" attitude, at least in their politics. They know Trump is a con man, a tax cheat, a man who stiffs and bankrupts vendors. They know he stole classified government documents and lied about it, then complained when the government caught him in the lie and recovered them. They know he did something wrong to E. Jean Carroll. Most of them know by now that there was no factual basis for his claiming he won the 2020 election. Both Fox and Newsmax insert "No, he didn't. He lost" when they show video of Trump asserting that he won the election.
But even about 80 percent of those "good" Republicans go along, supporting for election a man whose job is to "faithfully execute the laws" even though he openly, flagrantly, and proudly flouts laws and the institutions of justice that enforce them, at least when they are enforced against him. They know he is a scofflaw, and they are OK with it. It is a feature, not a bug.
I took photos of the truck because I was frustrated and angry at the young man. But I also feel sorry for him. How miserable it must be to feel so angry and disaffected that one will trash his own place with such a pointless gesture of defiance.
I am more frustrated and angry at Republican officeholders and community leaders who know better. They have every advantage of privilege and power, but still support a leader who is so flagrant in his own nihilism. He is saying "F--- You!" He is trashing the place.
Tomorrow: A look at William James's essay, "The Moral Equivalent of War," 1910. It isn't a look back. It is a way forward. America needs a new burst of national purpose.
Since you have the license plate and the evidence, shouldn't Smokey be reported as a Bandit?
I was going to say "Those pictures say it all," Peter, but it was your commentary that really did the trick!