I ran across a reference to this over at author Dan Simmons's site. If you don't choose to follow the link, in brief, it's an article from CNN about a new home in West Hartford, CT.
This newly built home is 50,900 square feet (4729 square meters) in size: only slightly smaller than the White House. It has, among many, many other things, a 103-seat movie theater and a 4900 square foot (455 square meter) games room.
I had surfed on over to the Simmons site immediately after perusing the weekly jeremiad over at Jim Kunstler's space. Kunstler is also an author (his books include The Long Emergency, and he's always good for a pull-me-down to start your week. Lately, what with the ongoing financial crisis in the United States, you can almost see him rubbing his hands together in glee. It's pretty clear from even a perfunctory reading of his blog that he hates our so-called "civilization" and hopes it collapses soon.
He may get his wish: between Peak Oil, environmental catastrophes and geopolitical upheaval, life as we know it on this planet may be in jeopardy. He certainly thinks so, anyway, and as the saying goes, you're not paranoid if they're really after you.
I was going to respond on Dan Simmons' forum to the article about the enormous house, but stopped short when I saw what others had written. Many of the respondants castigated the sociologist quoted in the article, Susan Eisenhandler, for saying what I (and I'm sure many others) are thinking:
"Do you actually need to have that amount of space to live a good life? There are homeless people. There are impoverished people. There are serious social concerns, and we're not addressing that."
So what? ran the prevailing wind of thought on that forum. As long as the guy's not a crook (and Enron, Tyco and the like nothwithstanding, most rich people aren't), who cares what he does with his money? The guy probably gives more to charity than you'll ever earn.
And who's this we? Since when are "we" responsible for every sad-sack homeless person?
There was exactly one halfway decent argument for such mega-mansions, advanced by someone calling him (her)self "goldston": that the super-rich, craving the anonymity denied them in the wider world, must create their own worlds within their homes.
Fair enough, I suppose. I don't wipe my ass with hundred dollar bills, nor, frankly, do I aspire to anything like that level of wealth, so I imagine I can't possibly understand the stresses and impulses governing the rich.
Eventually, I decided I couldn't let this go, though. Despite my inner coward yammering away, I responded to the thread.
This is what I wrote over there, while donning an asbestos suit:
This article and the reaction to it really set my teeth on edge.
There is nothing wrong with being rich. There's nothing wrong with being VERY rich. There is everything wrong with being ostentatious, with flaunting your wealth at every turn. And if building such a behemoth of a house isn't a blatant example of flaunting one's wealth, I don't know what is.
Eisenhandler, as far as I'm concerned, made a perfectly valid point which many here were quick to ignore while they bashed her quaint, oh-so-un-American conceit that we are our brothers' keepers. And her point was this: "Do you really need that amount of space to have a good life"?
Would you, any of you, say you have a good life?
Do you, any of you, live in a house even remotely close to that large?
Didn't think so.
The average size of an American (and Canadian, so people don't think I'm Yankee-bashing) home has increased by more than twenty percent in the past ten years. For what? Most of us are moving further and further out into the suburbs, seeking those wide open spaces, insulating ourselves in our own cocoons, disavowing the whole notion of community--let alone the "deep community" discussed (and held as an ideal!) elsewhere on this forum. The Chase house is only an extreme example of this.
Who am I to say what Chase can do with his billions? Nobody. He can do whatever the damn hell he wants. If building such a house makes him happy, hey, great. Maybe he'll be one of those alien rich people who's actually happy with what they have, who doesn't hear a voice whispering "more...more...more" twenty four hours a day.
Maybe. But I doubt it.
After posting that, I got to thinking about what I'd read at Jim Kunstler's site. Now, Kunstler is, as I have noted, strong medicine. He's not the most pessimistic person I've found when it comes to the state of the world and its imminent demise, but his views are apt to stick in most folks' craws. He believes, for example, that
we'd better drop the idea that there is any way whatsoever to preserve our system of happy motoring. The car as a mass market phenomenon, and enabler (dictator, really) of all our daily life arrangements, is finished...[he is] hugely worried (obviously) that even the intelligent-and-educated fraction of our society cannot focus on anything but how to keep all the cars running.
What's so bad about cars, especially if some way can be found to run them on renewable energy? In his view, the car is nothing less than the scourge of civilization. All by itself, it has prompted endless waves of suburban sprawl (destroying what used to be closely-knit downtown communities, not to mention untold amounts of arable land, in the process). It has encouraged drive-thru everything, which in turn is a net contributor to the national epidemic of obesity and all its attendant health issues. It has homogenized the national geography to the point where one place looks pretty much like any other place. And it has an incestuous relationship with the culture of material wealth that is sucking the soul out of the country. A car is the pre-eminent status symbol, even to people like Chase building megamansions: no matter how palatial your estate, it's stationary. A Maserati will go anywhere, allowing people far and near to see what a small penis (excuse me, what a large bank account) you have.
On my bad days, I agree with him on every particular. Then I hop into the car and go someplace, often someplace I probably should have walked or cycled to.
There is a storm coming, on that Kunstler and I agree. Whether that storm arrives in earnest by the end of next year, or decades from now, it will come. There is a vast library of informative books on Peak Oil and its ramifications, and I encourage everyone to read up. While you're at it, it probably wouldn't hurt to learn how to grow your own food. I hate to sound like Chicken Little, but...well, according to the BP (British Petroleum) Statistical Review of World Energy,
"It's no secret anymore that for every nine barrels of oil we consume, we are only discovering one".
If there's one thing that meandering through various books on Peak Oil has convinced me, it's that I have been understating our addiction to oil. I've said before that if your eyes are open, it's a very good bet you're looking at something either made of oil, or made with something made from oil. At the very least you transported it to its present location using oil. What I left unsaid (because really, it's just too frightening to contemplate for long) is that it isn't just the material things. My professional and even personal security rests on the assumption the supermarket shelves will always be full. (Any large city is three days of starvation away from mass civil unrest.)
By no means am I suggesting everyone head for the fallout shelters tonight. But I feel it's very important to keep a close eye on world events, especially when so many potential crises are linked to each other and can manifest in a heartbeat.
The rich, like Arnold Chase, will use their money to insulate themselves from the coming storm. It has always been thus: the elite create the conditions for a depression, then run from them.
If Kunstler's right, there'll be no running from this one.
In the meantime, I really do feel there are better uses for millions of dollars than building another monument to profigacy....
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