There’s a great article by Richard Florida in The Atlantic this month called “How the Crash Will Reshape America” This is an extraordinary moment and we have a choice – resist or flow. I think flow and guide and nudge and reshape are better than resisting and breaking.

I keep telling people that if you take the loooooooong view, this economic crisis is one of the best things to happen to America in a long time. Now that we’re really crashing and burning we can re-envision, re-structure and re-build the whole thing. It is not often that a society is completely re-made. And the notion that “America’s best days are behind her” is only meaningful if you are a complacent conservative angry white guy (probably a baby boomer) who has been getting his way for so long that he can’t imagine a world where his concerns must take a back seat to, well, everybody else.

As with the banks and the TARP and the bailout – we need to work harder to undermine all the assumptions (read: lies/illusions/fantasies/collective self-deceptions) about the economy and start re-envisioning things. 

First off – nothing is Too Big to Fail. When The NY Times talks about Automakers seek $14B more in aid and a Painful departure for GM Brands, I tend to agree with Robert Reich who says, “If they’re too big to fail, they’re too big“.

Just let them fail.  Things are going to suck for a long time anyway, let them fail. These huge corporations just stifle innovation. Doesn’t anyone remember the movie Tucker? 

Look – things fall apart. We reached critical mass and now things are decentralizing, getting smaller. Fine. But this is the information age and we can change from being Big to being Vast. But we have to let all the big, bulky, slow, lethargic, entropic behemoths die.

Evolve or Die!

(this has EVERYTHING to do with arts & culture. More to come.)