{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "Depressed about the state of America\nI mean, like everyone, but specifically focused on what\u2019s truly important \u2013 my own...", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/175254778993/", "html": "<p>Depressed about the state of America</p><p>I mean, like everyone, but specifically focused on what\u2019s truly important \u2013 my own righteous self-pity</p><p>The culture\u2018s dying, and once it goes threatens to rise as a devouring zombie</p><p>And it\u2019s true the miracle cures on offer seem to work largely by infusing it with the power of a rampaging brute instead</p><p>(even if the ones pounding that fact hardest DO exhibit some worrying bite marks and a bouquet of rotting flesh)</p><p>And I accept that I\u2019m not particularly likely to save it with my brilliant insights, and I guess the time-tested advice would be to turn inward, draw the circle of world you invest your identity in tighter, focus on your hobbies, the small things you can do with your personal skills to make the world better, make your social circle a good society to inhabit in its own right and maybe you can regrow from there</p><p>But I mean, American culture, and specifically a narrative of American culture that leads, in however contingently path-bound and non-Whiggishly-inevitable a manner, to the \u201890s synthesis \u2013 \u201cbourgeois bohemian\u201d values, spirit of \u201868 tempered by lessons of the \u201870s, 20th century mass pop culture as the new canon binding society together \u2013 that IS my hobby, and skill, and a good share of my social circle, so \ud83e\udd37\u200d\u2642\ufe0f</p>"}