humanity.â
Besides, nobody really cared about anything anymore. Apocalyptic apathy. Thatâs what self-impressed experts were calling it, how they were accounting for the cultural exodus into New Orleans, and the French Quarter in particular. Ravaged by the collapsing economy, desolated by consumerism, exhausted by fear, beaten into indifference, people of all ages were, very simply, shrugging a big fuck-it. Barefoot Barry liked to describe the attitude as âthe wisdom of whatever,â and the wisdom of whatever was seen nowhere as sharply as it was seen in the streets of the French Quarter. It was trendy around town to fly a white flag from your carâs antenna, signifying oneâs total surrender into life and the relentless death it implied. Strangers were friendly, smiles were frequent, and life had a thrill of adventure to it. Such a rowdy nowadays might
have been an unremarkable state of affairs; that it was an experience rare in the lives of so many was a sad circumstance indeed. It was not so sad, however, that people could not see what they were starving for once they tasted it, and this is precisely what they saw in New Orleans under the spell of Laughing Jim.
At least, this is what Elizabeth Wildhack saw. Elizabeth Wildhack was the only child of Dave Wildhack and our dearly deceased Bridget Snapdragon. Originally, Elizabeth had fled Normal, Illinois, to attend Tulane, but she dropped out by the middle of the first semester. The way she saw things, college diplomas were working papers, and since she didnât aspire to be a worker, why should she strangle her alleged future with debt just to get working papers for a job she didnât really want but would by then need in order to pay off the debt? At the same time, she held no disdain for education, so she continued to take classes. She just didnât register or pay for them. What kind of a society places something as essential as the education of its young below the signature line of a promissory note, anyway? Thatâs what the hell she wanted to know.
In an Econ 101 class she wasnât paying for, she learned that student loans werenât even widely available until 1978. Before 1978, it seemed, tuition rose at 2 percent
below
the inflation rate. Since 1978, tuition has risen at
twice
the inflation rate. According to her professor, because the federal government guarantees student loans, banks earn a return on their money no matter what. Essentially, all market controls on the cost of tuition were removed, and more and more students have graduated into more and more debt every year since.
Elizabeth heard this and furrowed her brow. The whole arrangement, it seemed to her, sounded like a scam. Before student loans, the young graduated from college educated and free. Too free, it turned out, once the atomic generation threatened to slap the silver platter of their consumer futures aside. After all, you canât have kids abandoning the past and building a relevant future of their own design. So now, it appeared to Elizabeth, in order to perpetuate itself, an obsolete social system uses debt to enslave its young; an education tax, turning generations into indentured servants, and smothering the rebellion of their youth with the wet blanket of debt. (Then, when Elizabeth heard that if you were caught smoking marijuana you would lose your student loans, your education, and your ostensible future, she immediately located some of this forbidden herb to investigate. The intoxication impressed her.)
And so, with Laughing Jim eventually providing the background for her journey of self-discovery, Elizabeth Wildhack took innumerable classes at several local universities and colleges over the next few years. Thrilled with her freedomâand determined to keep itâshe devised a plan, a plan to outwit any possibility that some future version of herself might somehow compromise her freedom. She would never submit to the ordinary. She
Besides, nobody really cared about anything anymore. Apocalyptic apathy. Thatâs what self-impressed experts were calling it, how they were accounting for the cultural exodus into New Orleans, and the French Quarter in particular. Ravaged by the collapsing economy, desolated by consumerism, exhausted by fear, beaten into indifference, people of all ages were, very simply, shrugging a big fuck-it. Barefoot Barry liked to describe the attitude as âthe wisdom of whatever,â and the wisdom of whatever was seen nowhere as sharply as it was seen in the streets of the French Quarter. It was trendy around town to fly a white flag from your carâs antenna, signifying oneâs total surrender into life and the relentless death it implied. Strangers were friendly, smiles were frequent, and life had a thrill of adventure to it. Such a rowdy nowadays might
have been an unremarkable state of affairs; that it was an experience rare in the lives of so many was a sad circumstance indeed. It was not so sad, however, that people could not see what they were starving for once they tasted it, and this is precisely what they saw in New Orleans under the spell of Laughing Jim.
At least, this is what Elizabeth Wildhack saw. Elizabeth Wildhack was the only child of Dave Wildhack and our dearly deceased Bridget Snapdragon. Originally, Elizabeth had fled Normal, Illinois, to attend Tulane, but she dropped out by the middle of the first semester. The way she saw things, college diplomas were working papers, and since she didnât aspire to be a worker, why should she strangle her alleged future with debt just to get working papers for a job she didnât really want but would by then need in order to pay off the debt? At the same time, she held no disdain for education, so she continued to take classes. She just didnât register or pay for them. What kind of a society places something as essential as the education of its young below the signature line of a promissory note, anyway? Thatâs what the hell she wanted to know.
In an Econ 101 class she wasnât paying for, she learned that student loans werenât even widely available until 1978. Before 1978, it seemed, tuition rose at 2 percent
below
the inflation rate. Since 1978, tuition has risen at
twice
the inflation rate. According to her professor, because the federal government guarantees student loans, banks earn a return on their money no matter what. Essentially, all market controls on the cost of tuition were removed, and more and more students have graduated into more and more debt every year since.
Elizabeth heard this and furrowed her brow. The whole arrangement, it seemed to her, sounded like a scam. Before student loans, the young graduated from college educated and free. Too free, it turned out, once the atomic generation threatened to slap the silver platter of their consumer futures aside. After all, you canât have kids abandoning the past and building a relevant future of their own design. So now, it appeared to Elizabeth, in order to perpetuate itself, an obsolete social system uses debt to enslave its young; an education tax, turning generations into indentured servants, and smothering the rebellion of their youth with the wet blanket of debt. (Then, when Elizabeth heard that if you were caught smoking marijuana you would lose your student loans, your education, and your ostensible future, she immediately located some of this forbidden herb to investigate. The intoxication impressed her.)
And so, with Laughing Jim eventually providing the background for her journey of self-discovery, Elizabeth Wildhack took innumerable classes at several local universities and colleges over the next few years. Thrilled with her freedomâand determined to keep itâshe devised a plan, a plan to outwit any possibility that some future version of herself might somehow compromise her freedom. She would never submit to the ordinary. She
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