When pondering the Nixon Administration, rarely do the words “uplifting” and “prescient” come to mind. However, Spiro Agnew while speaking to the California Republican state convention on September 11, 1970 seemed eerily clairvoyant when speaking of the media stating : “In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism. They have formed their own 4-H Club — the ‘hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.” Today with 24 hour news, tweets, Snapchat’s and the like, the danger of buying into the nattering nabobs of our time is constant and pervasive. We are bombarded with death, destruction and stories of just how awful it is to live in these times. Never mind that by every objective standard the average person is living leaps and bounds better than our brethren lived 200, 100, or even 50 years ago. Reality be damned. We must make “America Great Again” because now is so very terrible.
This narrative is utter b.s. of course but that does not stop people from buying into it. In the 195,000 years of man’s existence, never has there been more opportunity, more readily available access to unfathomable knowledge, and affluence. Each one of us has access to information that Pharaoh’s and Kings would have paid a large ransom for in previous ages. Any person with an iPhone or Kindle possesses more knowledge than the Court of Louis XIV. Gone is the age of a select few controlling the keys to prosperity. Gone are the days of knowledge for a very select few and the rest of the peasant population must toil in unimaginable conditions to hopefully make enough for bare sustenance, not to mention those pesky outbreaks of small pox, dysentery or bubonic plague.
So what do most of us do with the glorious benefits of this Affluent Society? Do we express gratitude for living in literally the best time in the history of the world to be alive? Do we use every waking second of our lives to better ourselves and our world, taking advantage of the resources that past generations could not have fathomed in their wildest dreams. Sadly most of us do not. Instead we spend hours upon hours consuming non-ediyfing garbage. Reality shows that praise vain and despicable behavior. News broadcasts that only support the narrative of tragedy and despair. Instagram feeds of the latest celebrities side boob. If these were simple brief diversions in most people’s lives that would be one thing but more and more it appears that these are not diversions but how most people consume information. Some warped, Total Recall version of Juvenal’s “bread and circuses”.
So what to do? How do we as individuals reject this “reality”. Hell if I know. My plan is to turn off the t.v. more often, spend more of my time reading great books that uplift and educate and try to make a conscious effort to inject optimism into this world. I undoubtedly will too often fall short (Sorry, Game of Thrones is just too amazing) but with every intentional action my hope is that a cumulative effect takes place that may just may ripple to person after person. Right now the Nattering Nabobs of Negativism may appear to be winning the war, but in the words of John Paul Jones…I have not yet begun to fight!