MEANINGLESSNESS AND DESPAIR

In Woody Allen’s film “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” a wise European existentialist, Professor Levy, appears on video reflecting on the difficulties of living well in a universe without God. Here is one clip:

Professor Levy : We must always remember, that when we are born, we need a great deal of love, in order to persuade us to stay in life. Once we get that love, it usually lasts us. But, the universe is a pretty cold place. It's we who invest it with our feelings and, under certain conditions, we feel that the thing isn't worth it any more.

What are these “certain conditions” in which we feel that life “isn’t worth it anymore”—conditions in which love dries up?

How about a world in which there is no place for us, where we don’t matter, where there is nothing we can do that has value? Is this not the world in which so many people now find themselves, the world from which they flee from their lives into a stupor brought on by alcohol or opioids, or escape by means of suicide? As Chloe Watlington writes in a piece called “Who OwnsTomorrow?”

Life expectancy in the United States, the richest country in the world [continues to decline]. Opioids, alcohol, and guns are easier to get than healthcare and a steady [and, I would add, a meaningful] job. With no hope for the future, Americans [are] dying en masse by drug overdose, liver failure, and suicide. …[S]eventy thousand more Americans died in 2017 than 2016; forty-seven thousand of those additional deaths were self-inflicted, 120 souls per day. Over a million and a half others tried but did not succeed.

Watlington was moved to write this piece by the fate of her brother, Rodney. Rodney ran up a large student loan debt going to college but was unable to finish, which meant he couldn’t get a well-paying job. Hounded by collection agents, he worked various jobs for a few months until the creditors caught up with  him and started garnishing his wages. Then he would get by for a while selling food at music festivals. His sister writes,  

Thousands of people knew and loved him from the jam-band circuit. He was an anarchist, but ethically rather than politically. I found these lines in one of his notebooks, after he passed away: “Every time you loan a tool to a neighbor, share food with the hungry, or give a ride to a stranger you are embracing the anarchist ideal. Live it.” But he couldn’t live it always.

The crisis of never finishing college … became a source of lifelong shame for Rodney, as debt collectors hounded him for money he didn’t have. The way they hunted him across the country meant that he was never sitting still for more than six months his entire adult life.

My brother took his life in April of last year. Rodney left no note, just several empty bottles of vodka. Until a few hours before he died, he had been two months sober, trying a keto diet, and going for thirteen-mile runs while working full time. …He was struggling to better himself until the last moment but came up against more powerful forces. It is not a unique story.

[Shortly after Rodney’s death,] a student-loan company called my mom … to ask about payment [on his debt]. “He’s dead,” she replied. The agent offered her condolences but explained that death did not alter the terms of their contract.

Unemployment, under-employment, uncertain employment, meaningless employment and debt: these are among the soul killers that are abroad in our land today. Chloe Watlington writes, yes, “these deaths are deaths of despair, but more precisely [they are] capital punishment for those who fall down in a winner-takes-all society.”

Further undermining the conditions in which it is worth staying alive is what Watlington calls “the evaporation of public life, the decline in social experiences not organized around pay or profit.” Earlier on today’s Old Mole, we heard about the city of Portland closing the Columbia Pool and other rec center activities, as well as cutting day care at multiple sites that serve low income people. And as we heard from Bill Resnick and his guest, the threat of eviction and homelessness hangs over the heads of millions. We can see the results every day on the streets of Portland and every other city. Watlington concludes her piece,

People are tired of it all but find that they have no one to turn to: they are too suspicious of each other, too cynical about the motives lurking behind every attempt at fellow feeling and human connection. To get to the future we need, we are going to have to generate new collective lives out of the wreckage of neoliberal atomization.

I think Watlington is too pessimistic here. Political and social forces are rising up that challenge the rule of obscene wealth and corporate power. Many people are making friends with socialism as a concept and as a movement. Organizations like Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the Bernie Sanders campaign, Black Lives Matter, Tenants Unions, Teacher’s Unions, and many others are venues where people can “generate new collective lives out of the wreckage of neoliberal atomization,” and reestablish “fellow feeling and human connection”.  And beyond finding meaning in their own lives, they are working to bring about that better world that we know in our hearts is possible, a world organized and directed by the goal of a flourishing life, a desirable life, on our fragile planet rather than the meaningless and unsustainable goal of enriching the already rich.

Presented on he Old Mole Variety Hour, August 26, 2019. Listen to it here, with music.