Scan barcode
A review by chalicotherex
Best Behavior by Noah Cicero
3.0
Really liked this.
I tried to remember the first time I read each book. I was still in high school when I read The Sun Also Rises and On the Road. They made me very excited about life. The books assumed that life was really great and that happiness was awesome. I learned recently that much of the 20th Century's happiness was caused by the industrial use of oil, natural gas, and coal. Which led to a food surplus. Which meant these old great novels, where the reader is supposed to assume that the zeitgeist is creating all this new happiness, it is actually false and that many of the books of the 20th Century can be shelved under, “Massive Oil use and its Effects on Humans.”
Amanda didn't know what to do with her life. That phrase was said a lot this past decade. People back in the day didn't do things with their lives. They went where the jobs were. They went to the coal mines, to the factories, to the good soil. But the world had changed in the last 50 years. We had choices now. We could choose what type of job we wanted to do. This was unusual to humans. Perhaps as unusual to the tribes of Northern Europe when the Romans showed up and said, “Look, we need organization, laws, and ownership.” The Northern Europeans stared them and stumbled through it for 1000 years before getting it right.
Our parents didn't know what to do with us. They didn't have a choice either. Most of them went to the areas with jobs and took the first one they could get, and worked their way up to management. Even if they were white collar, the same thing applied, they went where the jobs were. They took the job and worked to get raises.
Things were different now.
Now, in that strange place called America a person could choose what their role in society would be. But we didn't think about it as a role. We thought about as, “How we want to live.” We didn't discuss roles; it was too Catholic, too medieval. Instead of role we had status and prestige; instead of a job being what a human did to benefit their society, it became a psychological symbol of status. People wanted to become lawyers because prestige and money went along with it. People wanted to become social workers and school teachers because that would represent they had some money but were getting the money from helping people. People wanted to become businessmen for money to buy impressive things. People wanted to become managers of restaurants, auto-body shops, hotels, and Walmarts because that would show they were in a position of power and it supplied enough money to buy houses and feed the children. And of course there was still the rabble. The rabble worked the low paying jobs, trying to feed themselves and their children. Even though they were poor and had little opportunity to become white collar there were still many programs to get them to become nurses, truck drivers, construction workers and auto-mechanics. Because the new cars were so complicated the job of auto-mechanic became a job that paid well and even had a little prestige. One would notice that I omitted the job of doctor. My generation gave up on the dream of being a doctor several years back. Going to medical school was too expensive even for white collar children, so America began to import doctors from India and South America where medical school was much cheaper. The ideal of a doctor being a person that helps somehow disappeared from the American landscape. Instead it got turned into a money-making device and turned off would be doctors, instead opting out for social worker jobs and nursing. People began to see doctors as agents of insurance and pill companies and not people trying to cure the sick. The role of the doctor was lost in America, and India with its billion people was glad to send us some of theirs to replace our lost doctors.
“Zombies,” I said in monotone voice.
“Yeah, man, zombies. Like people are in a building and they are trapped with zombies.”
“How about a movie about 30 normal people trapped in a high school with machines and a million dollars.”
“Then what?”
“Then everyone kills each other for the money.”
“That would be dumb.”
“How about this, we call the movie State of Nature. The movie has a godlike creature who has a deal for humanity. The godlike creature has a resource that will allow everyone to drive and transport goods and grow more food than they ever dreamed of. But there's a catch after three generations the resource will run out and their entire civilization will collapse. Now it won't matter to them because they will be dead. But their great great grandchildren will die of starvation and violence because the resource will run out and all their motorized vehicles will stop running.”
“I don't think anyone would make that deal.”
“You don't think so?”
“No, of course not.”
Our parents didn't know what to do with us. They didn't have a choice either. Most of them went to the areas with jobs and took the first one they could get, and worked their way up to management. Even if they were white collar, the same thing applied, they went where the jobs were. They took the job and worked to get raises.
Things were different now.
Now, in that strange place called America a person could choose what their role in society would be. But we didn't think about it as a role. We thought about as, “How we want to live.” We didn't discuss roles; it was too Catholic, too medieval. Instead of role we had status and prestige; instead of a job being what a human did to benefit their society, it became a psychological symbol of status. People wanted to become lawyers because prestige and money went along with it. People wanted to become social workers and school teachers because that would represent they had some money but were getting the money from helping people. People wanted to become businessmen for money to buy impressive things. People wanted to become managers of restaurants, auto-body shops, hotels, and Walmarts because that would show they were in a position of power and it supplied enough money to buy houses and feed the children. And of course there was still the rabble. The rabble worked the low paying jobs, trying to feed themselves and their children. Even though they were poor and had little opportunity to become white collar there were still many programs to get them to become nurses, truck drivers, construction workers and auto-mechanics. Because the new cars were so complicated the job of auto-mechanic became a job that paid well and even had a little prestige. One would notice that I omitted the job of doctor. My generation gave up on the dream of being a doctor several years back. Going to medical school was too expensive even for white collar children, so America began to import doctors from India and South America where medical school was much cheaper. The ideal of a doctor being a person that helps somehow disappeared from the American landscape. Instead it got turned into a money-making device and turned off would be doctors, instead opting out for social worker jobs and nursing. People began to see doctors as agents of insurance and pill companies and not people trying to cure the sick. The role of the doctor was lost in America, and India with its billion people was glad to send us some of theirs to replace our lost doctors.
“Yeah, man, zombies. Like people are in a building and they are trapped with zombies.”
“How about a movie about 30 normal people trapped in a high school with machines and a million dollars.”
“Then what?”
“Then everyone kills each other for the money.”
“That would be dumb.”
“How about this, we call the movie State of Nature. The movie has a godlike creature who has a deal for humanity. The godlike creature has a resource that will allow everyone to drive and transport goods and grow more food than they ever dreamed of. But there's a catch after three generations the resource will run out and their entire civilization will collapse. Now it won't matter to them because they will be dead. But their great great grandchildren will die of starvation and violence because the resource will run out and all their motorized vehicles will stop running.”
“I don't think anyone would make that deal.”
“You don't think so?”
“No, of course not.”