{"id":608,"date":"2017-02-08T15:51:31","date_gmt":"2017-02-08T17:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vos.homolog.arsnova.work\/?p=608"},"modified":"2017-02-08T16:05:28","modified_gmt":"2017-02-08T18:05:28","slug":"weve-debuted-the-decadence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vos.homolog.arsnova.work\/?p=608","title":{"rendered":"We’ve Debuted the Decadence"},"content":{"rendered":"

(pode ler este artigo em portugu\u00eas\u00a0a<\/a>qui<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve already said goodbye to 2016 and arrived at the dawn\u00a0of the inauguration of our unloved circus peanut as President of the United States of America. If there were an original joke to write about this appearing to be a scene out of a movie, I would write one, but there isn\u2019t. We already know who the next \u201cleader of the free world\u201d (for as much controversy as that phrase involves) is and what he stands for.<\/p>\n

Setting the scene of the beginning of 2017 is the triumph of the rejection of \u201ctechnocracy\u201d in favor of simplistic and nationalistic responses to the changes that the progression of globalization has brought to the fore. It no longer matters what experts say with regard to the worldwide consequences of this phenomenon, since they are the easiest scapegoat for all of the problems in our economies and their inability to reallocate and reinvent workers faced against forces that know no national boundaries. This is the point from which we arrived at Trump and Brexit. The pre-existing order of the West has been profoundly altered.<\/p>\n

The most accurate word for this phenomenon would be decadence.<\/p>\n

Not just in the sense of decline, but also the confrontation with the failures of the system. How are we going to tell the factory worker\u2014whether from Lincolnshire or Michigan\u2014that their life\u2019s work not only is never coming back, but that it was in fact substituted entirely by gains in productivity thanks to new technology and machines? By appealing to vainglory, ignoring the facts and complications of real life, because that\u2019s what they want to hear. Decadence resides in their reaction to the false promises and the snake oil they\u2019ve bought.<\/p>\n

But why, then, decadence<\/em>? Let\u2019s call it that for the decline of public service<\/em>, which is the point of any political position. The current discourse, arising as much in Trump as in Europe\u2019s simmering populism, is, at heart, an appeal to a simplistic image of government functioning. Governing is not a simple task. Appealing to a fantasy of a government-turned-machine in the service of enriching those of the majority left behind is simple. Governance is not capable of pleasing everyone at once. Populism\u2019s purpose is to say the words that it hopes will please everyone in that majority. It\u2019s decadent because it defrauds the proper principles of politics and governance.<\/p>\n

A lot is said about \u201cus\u201d in populist discourse, in appeals to patrimonial vainglory of the nation, in nostalgia for times that never existed. This \u201cus\u201d is most convenient when the attraction to dividing the public is strongest. We<\/i> are good people, versus those who don\u2019t have morals. We<\/em> are honest workers, versus those who already have everything and wouldn\u2019t know a proper day\u2019s work if it slapped them in the face. We<\/em> have common sense, we<\/em> understand the world around us like it is, versus those who spend all day in a laboratory researching things. We<\/em> are civilized, versus those buffoons on the other side. There\u2019s a whole universe of generic examples of this \u201cus\u201d that simultaneously represents everyone and no one. This \u201cus\u201d is simplistic by default. The real us is complex, includes even the least estimable parts of our society, has defects, and always needs corrections in its system.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve debuted the\u00a0decadence.<\/p>\n

Now we\u2019re debuting Us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(pode ler este artigo em portugu\u00eas\u00a0aqui) We\u2019ve already said goodbye to 2016 and arrived at the dawn\u00a0of the inauguration of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[123,129,55,127,128,54,53,126],"class_list":["post-608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nos-us","tag-brexit","tag-decadence","tag-donald-trump","tag-english","tag-governance","tag-nos-us","tag-sacha","tag-united-states-of-america"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vos.homolog.arsnova.work\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vos.homolog.arsnova.work\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vos.homolog.arsnova.work\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vos.homolog.arsnova.work\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vos.homolog.arsnova.work\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vos.homolog.arsnova.work\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vos.homolog.arsnova.work\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vos.homolog.arsnova.work\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vos.homolog.arsnova.work\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vos.homolog.arsnova.work\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}