A ‘Malaise’ Speech for the Ages

By RAY WADDLE

Early warning about the financial fiasco surfaced not last year or last decade but 30 years ago.

In 1979, in the middle of a recession, President Carter got on TV and told Americans we need to embrace a new age of limits, a more responsible attitude toward energy independence and consumerism.

We face a crisis of spirit, he declared.

“In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption,” he told us.

The reaction was immediate: Carter was denounced left and right. Too pessimistic, the media pundits said.

Opponents quickly dubbed it the “malaise” speech, though Carter never uttered the word. Politicians got the message. Don’t ever tell the people hard truths again.

I remember that night. I thought the president was speaking honest thoughts that God-fearing Americans might well understand and appreciate. Instead, he was reviled. After that, no one dared suggest we plan for future energy needs or work harder for the common good. A year later, Carter lost re-election to a man of sunnier disposition, Ronald Reagan.

Why the harsh reaction to Carter’s speech? We might have received it less defensively. We might have agreed there are problems to solve and Americans can solve them.

Instead, we defined ourselves as full-time spenders and big-time boasters. Running up impressive deficits looked patriotic: we outspent the Russians and won the Cold War. We were unstoppable. Previously, a 5 percent annual corporate profit margin was cause for celebration. Now, Wall Street demanded 15-20 percent, an unsustainable fantasy.

Wealth went supernova for some. CEOs, competent or not, became billionaires. Anti-government anger reached new intensities. Cable news personalities took up more space, brandishing the tricks of professional wrestlers – fake scowls, rude interruptions, lots of menacing arm-waving. Any criticism against national myths of limitless growth was met with howling accusations of socialism.

Malls replaced farmland. Celebrity news filled the brain. Even when the American economy soared as the strongest in history, it relied on overspending and creedal optimism. The nation’s 17,000 economists gave no compelling warnings that anything was wrong. Anyway, nobody listened.

In the 1940s, publisher Henry Luce declared, “God had founded America as a global beacon of freedom.” Many took that to mean that anything America does has God’s blessing, and nobody has the right to criticize.

There’s another interpretation: divine laws protecting a great free society do not include flimflam public policy, habitual financial deceit and compulsive shopping.

This time the malaise is real. Someday it will pass. Meanwhile, a spiritual realignment is likely – an embrace of simplicity and beauty, maybe, and a rejection of glittering nonsense.

“We can succeed only if we tap our greatest resources -- Americas people, values, and confidence,” an embattled president said 30 years ago.