California's Dreamin'
Having lived in California from ages 3 to 18, I have tons of family and friends there, easily my densest aggregation of loved ones outside of Philadelphia. Almost all are solidly upper-middle-class, not tottering on the brink of financial or social disaster. So you can forgive them for not conveying any panic about California’s deteriorating fiscal situation. And, doomsday scenarios notwithstanding, there’s something to be said about a place that has beautiful weather, beautiful people, and a sunny, can-do spirit.
And yet. Is California the happy frog slowly boiling to death in the pot of water? Political gerrymandering, imposing unions, and tight environmental regulations have led to a panoply of simmering challenges, from a state budget on the brink, overcrowded prisons, underfunded schools, intrastate disputes over water, and population declines to lower-cost regions. City Journal responds to Time Magazine’s rosy outlook on California (“Despite Its Woes, California's Dream Still Lives”) with its own, more guarded take (“Time is On California’s Side, but Time is Not”).
It is often said that as California goes, so goes the rest of the nation. And some of the “frog in boiling water” mindset can be seen at a national level as well: “We’re America: people will always want to live/work/play here!” I don’t subscribe to the whole “this is the end of the American hegemony,” but neither do I think we can coast from here on out and hope that our contenders will shoot themselves in the foot before they eat us for lunch.
I’ll say this about California like I think about the US as a whole: so long as people are sufficiently motivated to work hard, innovate, and be engaged, and so long as governments are properly held accountable to do what only they can do and tread lightly where they have the possibility of doing harm, I’m bullish. There is too much pent-up creativity, entrepreneurship, and freedom-loving in Californians and Americans for me to think otherwise. And yet, I see signs that the water temperature is slowly creeping up, and I am worried; and I am even more worried that the frog in the pot hasn’t yet noticed the rising temperature.
Comments
Something that I've been ruminating on for the last few days is "there is nothing new under the sun". It has been a genuine comfort to me, to realize, deep down inside me, that some things have not changed since those ancient times when the Hebrew scriptures came into existence.
To wit-- we read in pretty much all of the Hebrew prophets about the "end of the world", but what in fact did that end turn out to be, and whose world? I would say it was the end of the world of those obliviously corrupt and complacent people that the prophets were thundering against. A New Testament writer spoke of "seared consciences", no longer able to perform their spiritual sensory function.
So why am I comforted? Because the world ended, in 700 BC (Assyrians ended the Northern Kingdom), in 580-ish BC (Babylon ended the Judah dynasty), in 70 AD (destruction of Jerusalem by Rome), in 403 AD (sacking of Rome), etc., etc., etc. Somehow, though, "the world" always seems to continue.
There is a "direction" to history, but it is also just one big circle. I am curious about the nature of your worry for CA and for the U.S.-- I know you aren't "gripped" by it, because I think you're too mature a believer for that. But is it the uncertainty? Is there even a kind of fear?
Not saying we automatically will too - in fact, I don't believe we will. I'm just saying neither it is a given that we won't. We actually have to make good choices; and I've seen some bad ones lately.
I grew up biased against the American "Empire State"-- meaning that the national state we know as The United States of America, had already taken on the skin of Babylon the Great. My parents were children of the American "Greatest Generation"; they played the roles assigned to them as rebels against empire and greed and complacency, etc. Your parents, if I remember correctly, were immigrants from Taiwan, and therefore probably did not give you this dark Jeremiah-like view of impending doom, for America.
But I can assure you that many of us who fancy ourselves "native Americans" (meaning, been around since 1900 or 1850 or earlier, from Europe), and who read the bible and study history, see an almost inevitable fall for the American State. But that is almost a truism: the more important question for people living in the belly of a beast, is how hard and how fast is this thing going to fall? Might it lie down gently and fall asleep, never to wake up, but rather to morph into several smaller beasts? Or might it topple while in full stride, hit by some devastating blow?
That, I agree, is the thing that makes this suspenseful. But it is my pretty solid opinion that in some ways this particular system cannot recover. Something different will be coming.
If I may defend a loaded phrase, "American exceptionalism" may very well exist. Not that we are destined to be automatically different from all other hegemonies, but that we can be different because of the way we diffuse authority, provide for checks and balances, and maintain an orderly transfer of power.
I appreciate you sharing how your past experiences flavor your future outlook. I suppose that, in contrast, embedded in my DNA is the notion that America is the "land of opportunity." Here's hoping that it remains so.