Let's Admit it, the Financial Crisis is Kind of Cool

Back in 2002, The Onion ran one of the truest of the thousands of untrue headlines that have appeared in that publication over the years. It read, "Peace Activist Has to Admit that Barrett .50 Caliber Sniper Rifle is Pretty Cool."

The piece (you can read it here) explains that "[Peace Activist] Robinson also noted that anyone with $7,300 can buy the civilian version of the M82A1, a fact he finds 'thoroughly repugnant' and 'kind of tempting.'"

That things can be both awesome and awful is an apparent contradiction that philosophers have attempted to make sense of since the time of Longinus, the Greek who first struggled with the concept of the "sublime," a sort of hideous grandeur usually associated with nature and its infinite vastness. 18th Century British intellectuals further developed the notion while abroad on the Grand Tour. They were inspired by the dramatic landscape of the Alps where great forces beyond mortal comprehension stood poised to sweep them away or crush them to atoms.

It is typical of the Romantic intellectual discourse that Edmund Burke and others were able to nurture an aesthetic appreciation for the perilous and horrible, while exploring the tension between their rational and emotional faculties. This is, after all, the milieu in which Frankenstein's monster was born.

It was Burke who argued that the sublime and the beautiful were mutually exclusive. And though the current financial crisis has been ugly indeed, one could say that it has also been sublime. The scope of the proposed bailout is equally awe-inspiring and also sublime, if no less terrible. Just the notion that, as a nation, we could do such a thing and spend that amount of money should fill anyone with a sort of delectable foreboding like climbing aboard a roller coaster operated by a one-armed drunk might.

Intelligent people should be able to hold competing ideas in their head, even if they are fully contradictory. While I am no more delighted than the next fellow to see the Treasury Department taken over by Goldman Sachs as millions of nest eggs turn rotten, I have to admit that watching the great wheels of the global economy sputter to a halt and then periodically be restarted by the main force of the United States Government in the past few weeks has been kind of cool.

I admit it's not always easy to get enough distance from events to feel their sublimity. But, if you can, try and sit back and marvel at the grandeur of what's happening from time to time. The mountain has slid apart, like a Bond villain's lair, to expose the enormous workings, beltwheels, and gears within. If you've already phoned your Congressman, there isn't much you can do besides watch in grim fascination anyway.

You may protest that I wouldn't find the financial crisis so sublime if I were about to lose my job or my house. But, in fact, it is exactly this sort of personal hazard that distinguishes the sublime from a more detached aesthetic experience: looking at a painting, say, or hearing a symphony. That we are all involved, all at risk, is partly what makes the crisis so sublime. An avalanche that is rushing toward you is even more sublime than one that will pass you by and take out a Swiss village instead.

But if the sublime qualities of the current catastrophe seem a little hyper-rational and bloodless to you, there are some simpler pleasures to be gleaned. George Bush becomes the greatest New Dealer since Harry Hopkins; hot shot Wall Streeters are brought low; Congress is staggered by the Will of the People... Irony, just desserts, and the public roused to righteous indignation all have their satisfactions. More importantly, there's the warm feeling one gets when the rich get poorer along with everyone else, even if that happens only for a moment or, perhaps, only in our imagination.

Like most Americans, I have a bias for Bigness. Our Big successes are more fun than our Big disasters but they are no more compelling. And because we do things Big here, a Big disaster will beget a Big rescue which will, eventually, bring Big change. Change is something voters have said they want this year. Well, they've got it, but courtesy of George Bush not Barack Obama.

The essence of the sublime is to accept that, at a certain scale, the forces of destruction are also those of creation, that if an event is large enough it may transcend the distinction between good and bad. Whether the current crisis is this sort of event is something you can only decide by probing your own feelings about it. If it seems kinda cool to you, too, it may very well be.

The "creative destruction" spoken of by economists is a sublime phenomenon whereby old, broken, or failing systems that have become entrenched must be violently swept away rather than surgically repaired. The result is new opportunities for new players. The author of Ecclesiastes would recognize the moment we have arrived at. This is a time to be born.

Comments

[GwenElle]

Enjoyed this post. It was a much needed message to an uncertain Spirit . Staying in the moment, even though it frightens me, and envisioning something greater can feel kinda cool. I spend many moments being *kinda cool* these days. I affirm and expect that something Better and Greater is on the way. Cool!

[Sundialsvc4]

Fact is, the world ISN'T going to be reduced to "eating non-buttered potatoes." It's a rather enormous world, you know. The 300+ million people who live in the United States is only a small percentage of that total.

And, banking is only a small percentage of the total economic activity.

In the accountant's and the banker's world, "money is all there is." Money IS their World. But money is not trade; money is not a tangible thing. Money is, and always was, just a medium of exchange. And right now there is a vast over-supply of it.

Unfortunately, the Houses of Congress are built on that over-supply and on the mechanisms that produced it. They feed upon it and want it to continue. And many "multi-national" folks do the same.

But... the world has changed a lot since the days of those butterless potatoes. Maybe it's time for it to outgrow the Cold War, once and for all.

[francoise]

Kinda cool ?

Especially for those whose life plans are turning sour.

Hiroshima, kinda cool ? 9/11, kinda cool too ? The Iraqis, these weak ragsheads, signing oil contracts with China in the middle of OIF, kinda cool too ?

I agree for the Alps to be kinda cool. One is both overwhelmed by the forces of nature and at the same time feels as belonging to the great cosmic system. As Virginia Woolf would say, sort of cosmic epiphany, universal unity.

But this sort of kinda coolness doesn't exactly feel the same just now when everyone around the world is compelled to eating potatoes. Non buttered ones.

[Asmodeus]

Not just kinda cool. VERY cool. People like me have been waiting all their lives for the greedy, autocratic, oligarchy to finally collapse under it's own hideously overfed weight. About 25-30 years ago, these pigs put themselves up on a pedestal and then stupidly started carving it thin with a chainsaw. Now that they've crashed and are burning, they find that most of us wouldn't pee on them to put them out. And they're SURPRISED. Amazing. Sublime.

Francoise may be surprised as well. Surprised that invoking 9/11, and spewing racial slurs that amount to "Sand N***er" don't mean anything once REAL issues are on the table. Particularly when it's only because Iraqis decided to sell their drug to another. Because by god, why shouldn't they be grateful for the utter destruction of their lands and it's people we're committing to get hold of that very same oil? We should be getting a good deal on it, these Neocons say. Amazing. Sublime.

And then ask yourself who the oil's for. You? Get real. You'll be paying for that oil again, at artificially inflated prices, when you pump gas.

Oh. Gee. I know you're on fire and all, but I just went to the bathroom....

[nezumi]

The crisis is certainly cool (expecially if you had already gleaned the dark clouds gathering a year earlier and waited for it). Of course, one aspect of it is that it is like watching a spectacular train accident happening in very very slow motion with you sitting in the front row and being allowed to watch all the gruesome details. But, more intriguingly for the educated and interested, it is also a great opportunity to deepen ones understanding of economics and our society. I have learned a lot! (and a lot from HuffPost!! Thanks guys and girls!) And that is what is most cool.

[GetAbike]

Good post.
Yes, "there are some simpler pleasures to be gleaned..."
and I also feel that conflict of empathy and the schadenfreude.
That I may also be swept away by events, kind of adds to the thrill of the whole Epic Drama.
We are all definitely here in the Grand Moment whether we like it or not, eh?
Good Luck to us all.

[veracity]

Good points, Billy... BUT...

This financial crisis has been a LONG time in coming. And a huge part of it has been our collective American STUPIDITY. Did you know that Chevron SUED Toyota to STOP producing the ALL ELECTRIC RAV4 EV back in 2002? some of the 280 cars produced are STILL ON THE ROAD, with ORIGINAL BATTERY PACKS... and GM says they can't produce their stupid VOLT until 2010?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV
This song and dance on an area SO CRITICAL TO AMERICA's ECONOMY - reduced oil importation - reveals HOW STUPID We Americans can be!

Unfortunately, there is REAL MISERY out there - THOUSANDS of families kicked out of their homes, lost jobs, denied credit, bankruptcies, and, worst of all, tragic diseases and ruinous medical costs.

The "WORSER" problem is OUR BOMBS & BULLETS & DEATH MACHINES in foreign countries.

The question the stupid media SHOULD ask John McCain and Sarah Palin is, "How many foreigners can the American military KILL in the name of 'the war on terror'?" Are we Americans ENTITLED to KILL goat-herders, even on BAD intel supplied by people who might have an axe to grind against a given town or village? "Was Dick Cheney right to buy himself a war in Georgia?"

These are not rhetorical questions. Brit Ambassador Afghanistan is reported to have said.. the US war Afghanistan "is doomed".

I suppose America has "the right" to torch itself, but NOT to spread untold misery across the world.

[MsCanadian]

Excellent piece! If you can remain detached, you can truly see the sublime in this crisis. Awesome opportunity for change and setting things on a better path by allowing them to completely break down first.

[Glynnda]

Unfortunately, suffering seems to be the only way to get our attention. We've been on a long, cold road for quite a while. And, as long as it was business as usual, and who Paris was dating was more important than what our political and business leaders were doing, we could stay still and make believe life was good. Now, our heads have been brought out of the sand. Of course, it's too late to stop what is about to happen to our economy, health care, and the planet. But, the fact that we are now paying attention gives me hope that people will wake up and begin to engage reality together. Life is still good. We just need to remember the real reasons why.

[Liberty 21]

It's all a scam! - Just like the spoiled kid that takes his ball and bat and goes home because he can't make up his own rules. The banks have seized up the credit because they want Congress to bail them out. What a bunch of suckers we are. Write your Representative and tell them to vote NO to bratty kids in banking!

[Overd0g]

Why not? Congress caused it all by pushing free money for deadbeat homeowners. How do you like your 'low income' housing loans now?

[punk]

The world rejoiced when the Soviet Union fell. It will also rejoice when the American empire falls. It will be bad for Americans, but good for the world. So, yes, it is kind of cool.

[Overd0g]

Ignorance is bliss.

[WorkingClass]

Lets say you borrowed $200,000.00 to purchase a house that we now know was worth about $50,000.00. Where did the 200k come from? Where did all the money come from to finance all the grossly overpriced houses? It came out of thin air, out of the void, with a key stroke that made an entry on the books of the federal reserve. Parallel to the real economy, in which ordinary people earn a pay check and pay the rent, is a virtual economy, a hologram, in which money is loaned into existence. When the real economy can no longer make the payments on the funny money loan, the virtual money disappears back into the void. That is what we are witnessing. All the money that never was is evaporating before our eyes with negative effect to the real economy. About thirty years ago we stopped creating wealth and started creating money instead. What we see unraveling was a con, a colossal scam in which virtual wealth was passed off as actual wealth. In terms of the real economy, the hologram is just a Ponsi scheme, destined to end badly. There is no way to fix it. The people at the top of the pyramid now have all the chips and the mass of people are now broke. The game is over. It only remains to be seen whether Paulson will pick up an extra 700 billion on his way to Dubai.

[McMurdo]

Beautifully insightful! I'll try to remember this column a few months from now when I'm curling up in my cardboard hovel under a freeway off-ramp dining on some rotten fruit that I salvaged from a dumpster. Good times! Good times!

[RepugsOut08]

Watching the "get a job!" crowd beg for a change has been mildly amusing, but knowing they'll be back in the money and sneering at their benefactors all too soon, takes the edge off of my amusement.
I get your point, from a historical point of view, but it just boils down to the rich gettin' their way,
and the rest of us gettin' screwed. Same as it ever was.

[drec1500Madrid]

I think that anyone interested in where this is all leading should check out Bill Moyers interview with Kevin Phillips

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/09192008/watch2.html

He has some pretty dire analysis of the situation. I for one have been talking with friends and family about this for some time now. If you were around during the collapse of the Soviet Union, and were able to get past all of the flag waving and "we're number one" chants, what you saw was the total collapse of a society in a really short period of time...weeks and months. I thought to myself at the time...this could happen here give the right circumstan­ces....and it looks like those circumstances are upon us now.

[Phalanxman]

How many times have we seen the old film of the Hindenburg crashing and burning? Or the Zapruder film? We're still making movies about the Titanic. We watch these events with eerie fascination, knowing we should feel horrible remorse, but unable to turn our eyes away, we stare on with awe. Watching the government trying to kick-start the economy is like watching paramedics jolting an accident victim with defribulators -- you just know the guy is dead, but you love the drama. Even worse, I'll be I'm not alone in rooting for the disaster to win. Even though I comprehend the possible consequences, there is a part of my mind that whispers, "We've got it coming." Tear down the old to make way for the new. Today's meltdown just may be the opportunity we've been waiting for.