How are We Coping, or: Are We Even Paying Attention?

Great post and very lively comment thread going on over at Boing-Boing about how people are seeing and dealing with the unfolding economic downturn.

In my day-to-day, I (not surprisingly) meet very few people that have the all-over rounded and informed worldview that Cory Doctorow does, and therefore I still take a lot of guff for being worried about these things, or even mentioning them in casual conversation. If I can say this without coming off as haughty, most of the people I talk with about this a) have very little actual knowledge of what is occuring, the extent to which it is, and why, b) retain a firm and entrenched belief that these issues will work themselves out in a completely satisfactory manner that requires no thought, effort or attention on their part, and c) don't really see how what's going on applies to them, or care. And I mostly interact with young, intelligent, college-educated people.

I realize full-well that many people do not have the luxury of free time allowing them to remain constantly informed on every current event, or the privilege of enough education to understand the wonkier details that (unfortunately) never get distilled down far enough to be absorbed by the mainstream populace (a topic that deserves it's own lengthy post, at least). However, I often marvel at the depth of knowledge and memorization that most Americans possess on the subject of endless sports statistics, or the minutiae of celebrities' personal lives, and wonder if all that mental effort couldn't be being put to a little bit more practical (I won't say 'better') use?

Even Chicken Little, when she thought the sky was falling, knew what both "the sky" and "falling" were. I fear our current situation will eventually find Joe America running around the proverbial barnyard yelling "Something's wrong with the thing!"

Most frustrating is the knowledge that when this thing gets worse, I will be subjected to months worth of mainstream media coverage whose basic theme will be how the majority are "shocked... shocked" that things played out the way they did, shaking their head as they spin the Wheel of Blame to see whose name will roll around this time. We can safely assume it won't be their own.

I am also frequently faced with criticism and/or hostility for discussing these issues without, shall we say, boundless optimism, even when the currency of my argument is exclusively facts. There is still more than a pinch of that old superstition in the air that says thinking about things in a negative way will result in an actual negative impact upon them, and vice versa. Granted, consumer confidence is a recognized factor in how this thing is playing out... so on a macro-scale that may well be true... to an extent. But when a positive outlook comes at the expense of actual knowledge about the situation, wishful thinking just seems like the easy way out.

And if there's anything we can all agree upon concerning the economic crisis, it's that there is no easy way out.