We Live Like Royalty and Don’t Know It

"At the rehearsal dinner I began thinking about Thomas Jefferson’s ink. My wife and I were at a fancy destination wedding on a faraway island in the Pacific Northwest. Around us were musicians, catered food, a full bar, and chandeliers, all set against a superb ocean sunset. Not for the first time, I was thinking about how amazing it is that relatively ordinary middle-class [folk] could afford such events — on special occasions, at least.

"My wife and I were at a tableful of smart, well-educated twenty-somethings — friends of the bride and groom. The wedding, with all its hope and aspiration, had put them in mind of the future. As young people should, they wanted to help make that future bright. There was so much to do! They wanted the hungry to be fed, the thirsty to have water, the poor to have light, the sick to be well.

"But when I mentioned how remarkable it was that a hundred-plus people could parachute into a remote, unfamiliar place and eat a gourmet meal untroubled by fears for their health and comfort, they were surprised. The heroic systems required to bring all the elements of their dinner to these tables by the sea were invisible to them. Despite their fine education, they knew little about the mechanisms of today’s food, water, energy, and public-health systems. They wanted a better world, but they didn’t know how this one worked.

"This is not a statement about Kids These Days so much as about Most People These Days. Too many of us know next to nothing about the systems that undergird our lives. Which is what put me in mind of Thomas Jefferson and his ink...."

~ Charles Mann from his post 'We Live Like Royalty and Don’t Know It,' the first part of 'How the System Works,' a series on the hidden mechanisms that support modern life