Tune in

The commenters who weighted in on Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out: Introduction all had interesting things to say.  They added some important detail and depth to my introduction to the topic.  However, I hope to throw them a curve ball or two, starting today.  To repeat:

I suspect that during the next decade, the twenty-teens, "Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out" will acquire new meanings that would have confounded the early proselytizers of psychedelia. 

Illuminating what Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out: Introduction meant in 1966 is not my goal here; what it might mean going forward is.

Timothy Leary meant for people to Tune In their inner world, to turn away from a corrupt and dehumanizing reality.  For him, this would be the first step for becoming enlightened.  In contemporary America, Tuning In means something very different.  It means gaining increased access to the actual events and trends that underpin what used to be known as "news" but in reality was a fabrication of a small, select group of powerful men and women who had control over access to news and the narrative in which the news was embedded.  Until fairly recently there was almost no way for most people to actually Tune In to what was controlling their lives.  This has begun to change in a way that qualifies as that over-used term, a paradigm shift.

Americans began to Tune In in large numbers only over the last 10 years.  The explosive, exponential growth of the Internet and blogosphere fed a thirst for information that is potentially transformative.  It is awe inspiring to realize that it was only 12 years ago that The Drudge Report exploded into most people's consciousness with a story about a blue dress.  Since that time, we have increasingly Tuned In to what is being done in our name and with our country.  And what we see is disturbing.  Our elites have shown themselves to be self-serving, ineffectual (beyond their extractive abilities), hypocritical, arrogant, and far more ignorant than we might once have realized (not withstanding William F. Buckley's famous comment about the Boston Phone Book.)

Porphyrogenitus, writing at Winds of Change, has it just about right: [All emphases mine: SW]

The Governments Have Learned from their Mistakes

The trouble is, as sagacious as people like Kevin Drum are when compared to simple-minded people like Jonah Goldberg, these guardians of the main currents of enlightened opinion fail to think beyond stage one: Why is it that bankers won't learn from their mistakes? What incentive structures have been put in place or, as importantly, what has been demolished, so as to discourage them from learning from their mistakes?

Demolished might be too strong a word. Decayed, dissolved, deteriorated might all be better descriptions, as in a building not well maintained, as with much of our public infrastructure (oh, but shovel-ready will fix this as well!)

Here is the question they dislike most, as it reflects a shocking lack of faith in our ability to solve public problems through collective action: Have the institutions they favor demonstrated a better capacity for learning from their mistakes than the ones they mock? If not, why not?

Are California or Michigan or New York &tc doing better learning from their mistakes than Goldman Sachs is? Are they really? We mock the idea that bankers are, but is it a fair mockery? Or the gaunt, chilling laugh of those who are practically undead themselves?

Have the PIIGS learned from their mistakes? Really now, have they? Is there at least as much at stake here as there is in even the biggest "too big to fail" bank or corporation?

Those who think the problem was embedded in a previous Administration or one side of the aisle need to free their minds as well. The reassuring myth that it is all caused by having the wrong sort of people in government, and now we've got the right sort of master-minds involved; those who believe in government and have faith in its capacity to solve all problems, is one they may want to reconsider, and take a more historical view. If they can open their mind to untainted history.

I might take issue with his characterization of Jonah Goldberg, but in essence he is expressing his frustration with our elites, public and private.  There are a lot of people, on both sides of the political divide, who still believe that their side is right and the other side is wrong.  For those who are paying attention, it is becoming clear that both "sides" have failed for similar reasons; they have insisted on centralization of decision making without realizing that they lack the expertise to do the jobs they imagine they have been selected to do, and even when they have some expertise, lack adequate information upon which to make informed decisions.  The impossibility of incorporating adequate information is not new; markets work because they do a far better job of summing information than any small groups of elites could possibly do, even theoretically.  The problem of arrogant and ignorant elites being unaware of their limitations (which I see as much worse on the Left but hardly exclusive to the Left) is becoming unmistakable to people who now see much more of what was once withheld "for their own good."

[An analogy: I work with people four times a week.  A good argument can be made that I know them as well as anyone can, yet I also have the humility to recognize that I can never know enough about a person to predict with certainty what will work best for them.  I do not offer advice or tell them what to do because they will have to live with the consequences and only they can take responsibility for their actions as adults and free agents.  If I do not think it wise to make decisions for people who I know so well, how can I countenance unknown, distant people making decisions for all of us?]

Our markets failed in the banking crisis principally because the incestuous relationship between big business and government led to dangerous risk taking by the well connected, government intervention that distorted the market place, and ultimately a misunderstanding and miscalculation of the dangers inherent in their activity; all was well until the party ended.  We might excuse some of the aforementioned were we convinced that our governing and business classes were now taking our concerns into account.

Because Politicians Didn't Take The Crisis Seriously

Is our government really paying any attention? It seems to me that the DC crowd is diving ever deeper into denial.

What interests me is that common citizens in the US are paying attention, but our politicians are not. A further quote:

What at the time looked like scaremongering has now become bitter reality -- because politicians didn't take the warning signs seriously.

Below in the comments, Who Struck John writes that he thinks getting politicians to take the US government debt seriously will take a few election cycles.

We don't have a few election cycles. As of April 30th, US debt held by the public had risen to almost 8.4 trillion. Bookmark this Treasury Direct page. You can enter a date range at the bottom to see how debt has risen. At the beginning of 2010, the public debt was 7.81 trillion. Q1 nominal US GDP (see Table 3) was 14.6 trillion. The danger ratio is 80% of nominal; at this rate we'll be there by 2012 or 2013. It takes time to correct. We only have a few years to start that correction, which must include both tax increases and hefty cuts in government spending.

[NB: Read the whole thing including the comments to her post.]

I have no particular facility with economics, which is why I rely on people whose credibility has been earned over the years.  I find the front page reporters at the MSM to be without credibility anymore when it comes to almost anything.  They are so busy propelling an agenda that the actual news is a minimal part of their reports.  Yet, as M_O_M points out, the information is available.  Its import is seeping in as more and more people Tune In to what is happening to our country. 

America was founded and populated by people who just wanted to be left alone by their government.  As long as the government left us alone, (relatively speaking) we were willing to pay our taxes and leave well enough alone.  Since the Reagan revolution the government has been consistently reasserting its desire to not leave us alone.  At first slowly, then suddenly, the government has grown so large and become so demanding to be fed, that it now endangers our ability to be left alone. 

Once people Tune In, the next step, the Turn On, becomes inevitable.