Increasingly, many politicians have called for and attempted to institute austerity measures. The citizens of the United States seem loathe to put up with this, despite recently electing so many of the people calling for these measures and cutbacks. Even our closest allies Britain and Germany exhorted President Barack Obama to begin making these kinds of changes, for the sake of the world economy. I think these measures may very well be necessary but it is disappointing that the American people, particularly the more privileged ones and the upper middle class, don't take more of a soft-core ascetic regime upon themselves in the first place. The government is constantly forced to delegate from above what we should force upon ourselves.
In addition to austerity measures, curbing environmental problems provides another example of our resistance to frugality and self-monitoring. Rather than having the government try to spur green initiatives through essentially negative and coercive means, such as a carbon tax, it would be better for many people to simply set a few limits on their private lives, such as eating less meat, buying fuel-efficient cars, etc. The benefits would be greater than mere environmental improvement they'd lead to self-improvement, diminishing the madness of addiction to all kinds of irrational attachments. But we've continually demonstrated ourselves incapable of such self-reliance, and in our cupidity we cry out when the government snatches our hands away from the fire that so delights us.
It would be better if like the main character in Tom Wolfe's "A Man in Full" we could spark the rise of a modern Stoicism, an actual popular philosophical movement. After all, what is the point of existence, unless we gain some kind of mastery over ourselves and can prove that we are sufficient for the task of living? The vision of austerity should become a guiding principle for every aspect of our lives especially our privileged and pampered Ivy League lives. We will only be able to affect any meaningful changes in the world if we first put ourselves voluntarily through a gauntlet of willful self-reformation. Rigorous self-discipline cold showers and runs at five in the morning would provide many helping factors.
Consider that the Great Depression was, in effect, the crucible that forged the Greatest Generation. It is pain and austerity that make us suddenly come to ourselves and violently exert our will in the direction of some over-arching aim. But we've forgotten pain, though it is a necessary spur to life nothing comes from outside of ourselves to prick us into action, save in rare cases. It is only by first painfully weaning ourselves from our over-indulgences and, once again, I say this more to myself than to anyone else that we become worthy of moderately partaking in them. But this present day resistance to austerity measures simply shows that the mentality of self-sacrifice has evaporated in nearly everyone but the soldiers who are still fighting wars the public has ceased to care about.
I think this all sounds too preachy, but at the same time, Stoic evangelism strikes me as a natural prescription for a more stable and compassionate society, as well as a potential route to solving our economic problems with the national debt and excessive spending on credit. It would obviously be better if someone else took it up, as I don't plan on taking it up myself. I don't know whether the fact that nothing is so clearly contrary to our current way of life as Stoic philosophy would injure or actually help such a movement. The culture of instant gratification has probably proceeded so far that any kind of backlash against it is bound to fail. Yet the ultimate futility of the quest for instant-gratification may, nonetheless, make such a backlash possible, as the disaffected will turn away from that culture in disgust.
I hope that somehow this financial austerity if indeed we do take it upon ourselves to any degree does trickle into other aspects of our lives, quickening our minds and bodies. I see the potential for massive self-renewal boiling under so many of our domestic and foreign conflicts. The challenge is simply to do something, to shake off this inertia like the morning dew. And if we fail to use these opportunities to become more austere in our mode of being and I note this grimly there will doubtless be other, even "better" opportunities.
