Two events on June 6 might denote the death of the "slacker" as an American
cultural archetype. The first was the largest monthly jump in the US
unemployment rate in two decades, due to an unexpectedly large number of young
entrants into the labor market. The second was the release of the film Kung Fu
Panda, which transposes the ubiquitous slacker-makes-good story line
into the incongruous setting of Chinese martial arts.
America might be the first country in recorded history whose culture celebrates
not only indolence but also the sheer absence of ability. Byronic loafing is
the birthright of genius, but slacking has become the entitlement of every
young American. American
popular culture puts a special premium on doing nothing, which is what the
protagonists of such popular television series as Friends, Sex in the
City, The Office and Seinfeld did. Aristocrats throughout
history loafed because they could afford to. Until very recently, so could
Americans. That has come to a sudden and ignoble end, on which more later.
The popularity of slacking is evident from the success of films on the subject.
Well, they knew their demographics those who crafted Kung Fu Panda, in
which a fat and feckless panda who in two easy lessons becomes a kung fu
master. As film critic Carina Chocano lamented in the Los Angeles Times, "The
slacker panda whose favorite word is 'awesome' is singled out for heroism when
all the other characters have worked long and hard (the definition of kung fu)
and sacrificed for what they've accomplished. The message - believe in yourself
even when all evidence suggests you shouldn't - is annoyingly familiar and
frankly overdue for a serious debunking." A young martial-arts practitioner of
my acquaintance said it more simply: "Who made this movie? I want to rip out
his trachea."
Underlying the seemingly good-natured adolescent humor of this exercise is a
nasty streak of resentment. Young Americans profoundly resent the notion that
they must subject themselves to the discipline of authority in order to learn
and advance - precisely what Asian martial arts propose to teach. The easy
success of the panda protagonist (with the annoying voice of actor Jack Black)
is a gob of spit in the eye of authority.
The market is teaching Americans better. In a few years, I predict, young
Americans will wear neckties to work and say "Yes Sir!" and "Yes Ma'am," and
spend their evenings at night school rather than drinking beer with their
buddies.
In an essay entitled
American idolatry (Asia Times Online, August 29, 2006), I suggested
that American music's gradual descent into mediocrity expressed growing
resentment against artistic standards. But there is no resentment like
well-funded resentment, and it is the tragedy of American adolescents to have
had too much money at the worst possible time.
America is the only place in the world where a gaggle of acne-pitted,
pizza-gobbling, beer-guzzling mind-altered college dropouts in cut-off jeans
and flip-flops could start a website and become billionaires. A decade ago, a
couple of ex-hippies sold an Internet greeting card site for US$4 billion. The
window for such weird occurrences shut forever with the collapse of the
Internet bubble, to be sure, but the memory of rich rewards to slacking
persists among American youth.
The Internet bubble presumed that the world would pay staggering sums for
future delivery of American popular culture. The world never really liked
American popular culture, though; it liked what it thought that culture
represented, namely, limitless opportunity and upward mobility. Bloated
expectations about the financial future of web-based delivery of pop culture
were a case of a bad idea chasing its own tail.
American college dropouts ceased to become Internet millionaires in 2001, but
the sense of entitlement continued. As the world's savings washed into the
United States, reaching the improbable level of $1 trillion last year, American
asset prices rose, and the cost of capital fell. Americans nearing retirement
ceased to put money away, assuming that all of them would be able to sell their
houses to each other at some future date. Home prices doubled in the decade
through 2007.
American families stopped saving for their children's university education,
which at a good private institution costs roughly $200,000 per student.
Families expected to take cash out of their homes, and students expected to
borrow money at low interest rates, to defray these costs. Borrowing rather
than saving for college became universal, and the volume of student loans
outstanding reached $48 billion last year.
It is hard to think of a comparable case in social history: a country borrows
from foreigners to lend money to its young people to spend four years
binge-drinking at a university that pretends to prepare them for the world.
Textiles to India and opium to China financed the slacking of three generations
of British toffs, but the current-account surplus and the student loan
securitization markets paid for the slacking of American undergraduates.
Now it appears that a few hundred thousand college-age Americans have fallen
off the gravy train. Most American banks who offered student loans have exited
the market entirely. It is not that students have ceased to pay back their
loans, but rather that the banks are short of resources after the collapse of
the mortgage-lending market and associated portions of their asset books. In
May, the US government proposed emergency legislation to provide more
government loans to students, but this will not make up for what the banks have
taken away.
Families that expected to take cash out of appreciated homes had a rude
awakening this year. Most American banks have stopped allowing mortgage
borrowers to refinance and take out additional cash. So-called home equity
loans, or second mortgages on homes, are the cause of the crash of US bank
stock prices during the past few weeks. The well is dry. That leaves the
youngsters in the lurch, which is precisely where most of them deserve to be.
A profound sense of panic appears to have gripped American youth, which might
explain why so many of them are seeking a messiah in Democratic presidential
candidate Senator Barak Obama. But there isn't much that Obama or anyone else,
for that matter, can do to help the slackers
Americans have to work harder, save more, and defer gratification. Instead of
spending four years in a non-stop party at a taxpayer-subsidized state
university, the middling American student will work during the day, go to night
school, and save for a dozen years to buy his or her first house (at a much
lower price than the present owner paid for it). They will stop complaining
about boring jobs and oppressive bosses, and feel grateful to have the work.
Their parents won't bail them out; in fact, their parents will postpone
retirement and work and additional 10 or 15 years.
It's not going to be fun, but there's no helping it. The sooner Americans
reconcile themselves to a tighter belt and a longer day, the better.
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