David Zach, futurist

Futurist Gets You Thinking article, South Bend Tribune

Nice article in the South Bend Tribune about a recent talk I gave in Elkhart, IN for local business, industry and labor attendees. With an 18.8% unemployment rate there, the future looms a lot closer than it might in other areas of the country. 

Quoting one attendee: "This was the first futurist I've heard that actually talked about a reliance on a tradition or the past." 

Instead of everyone in these economically depressed areas being recruited into the agency of change, we might just need a few of them to be agents of tradition - helping to safeguard the treasures of the past, be they communities, values or perhaps just even little bits of common sense.  

If we treat the past more like a toolbox instead of an outdated anchor, we might build better futures. 

The Future of Suffering & Happiness

Be Happy: The American Refusal to Deal with Suffering by Jude Acosta is worthwhile article addressing the issue of happiness in American culture. When I've asked audiences of young people, "Do you have a right to be happy?" most all of the hands go up. Trying to gently explain to them that they, in fact, DO NOT have that right doesn't settle well with many of them. Having to actually work for it, such a bother.

And why wouldn't they believe in a right to be happy? The linked article points out that in modern times, sadness and suffering are for losers. I've also found a fascinating number of people who believe that anyone who is not happy is probably to blame for such a fault. This new-age guilt trip leads to a belief people getting what they deserve. There's a popular sentiment that fate is not something to fight against, it is inevitable.

The virtue of hope has only temporary standing with this sort of mindset. If not immediately rewarded any effort will be discarded as something that was false, even deceptive. This attitude helps explain the constant turnover in self-help, self-esteem gurus, books and talk-show topics. Afraid to go and look back at what was lacking in those once popular ideas, we rush forward into the next great idea that will take away your worries.

What can be said for a society that treats sadness as a disease to be treated with industrial strength meds –backed up by industrial strength marketing?

Update: Can Money Buy Happiness?, an article by Arthur C. Brooks explaining that in fact, it does not. I suspect that this really doesn't have much to do with money, but with the expectations that we attribute to money. I have often heard pretentious people say that money is the root of all evil. It is not. It's the love of money that roots us so deeply in unhappy things.

Mark Steyn on Constitutional Memory

Mark Steyn is a favorite author with more than a few opinions and here's an article about why the world should be thankful for America. Seems appropriate for this week.

Too often arrogance about something requires historical ignorance. There are many who argue with Mark Steyn and critics of America will hate this article, but he's not easy to defeat in an argument.