“It is difficult to conceive any situation more
painful than that of a great man condemned to watch the lingering agony of an
exhausted country, to tend it during the alternate fits of stupefaction and
raving which precede its dissolution, and to see the symptoms of vitality
disappear one by one, till nothing is left but coldness, darkness, and
corruption.”
Alexis de
Toqueville
Some consider Toqueville the greatest political
thinker since Aristotle and the greatest friend to and critic of democracy. He might
define “great man” differently today, but he, too,
lived during a tumultuous time, watching his beloved France slide into chaos.
Toqueville believed that both men and nations have free will, and the great
Russell Kirk, in summarizing Toqueville wrote, “…the perversion of democratic
society into a sea of anonymous beings, social droplets, deprived of true
family, true freedom, and true purpose, although terribly possible, is not yet
inevitable. Against this, intelligent men should struggle like fanatics.” Struggle
we shall.
Here is where I planned to argue the nation is in
decline. Really, what’s the point? This is apparent even to fools and children.
Only the causes need debate. “America, We Had a Good Run” Parts I,
II,
and III examine
three major causes of our devolution. What follows is a more parsed and
detailed discussion over a four-part series. Are barbarians inside the gates?
Let me count the ways.
POSTMODERNISM
The roots of any social phenomenon are usually complex, but one thing beyond all others deserves a lashing. For my money, the grand villain is Postmodernism. I had intended to put this section at the end, but I would like you, dear reader, to overlay this section onto the others that will come, to think about how it feeds nearly every necrotic idea eating away the social marrow. I see three cancers at work, especially in the young: Identity, meaning, and emotional fragility, all closely related, three heads, one animal. The obsession with race, the explosion of transgender teenagers, the skyrocketing suicides and the weird popularity of self-mutilation, all are evidence of these diseases. Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl noticed great disparities in how concentration camp victims responded to their afflictions. Those with stable and robust philosophical superstructures, who were spiritual, who did not struggle with moral confusion or succumb to broad hatreds and self-pity, fared better. Some of them even seemed…happy. Clay Routledge studies meaning, primarily the effects of lacking it. He notes those with a confused or muddled worldview, who reject organized religion, often gravitate towards pseudo-scientific beliefs like astrology and belief in aliens that provide little comfort. The established faiths are the most readily available communities of meaning. Like-minded people embrace fixed sets of rules and support each other in following them. The aggressively irreligious mock the “weak” for needing a savior, a Santa in the sky. A kid told me once regarding church, “I don’t wanna sing cheesy old folk songs, I’d rather be cool.” Being cool means being above it all. So the cool amongst us, unencumbered (so they believe) by some bronze-age dogma, do the only thing they know: Scoff. Yet, non-believers are much more likely to suffer depression and anxiety. Postmodernism rejects objective truth, replacing the truth with my truth. Yet, if there is no truth, there is no beauty, no grand, historical narrative that belies a purpose of existence. Postmodernism repudiates the very idea of anything special or transcendent. Like Covid, believing nothing is truly better makes everything tasteless and bland. If nothing is true, and if those bigoted, old-time superstitions with their ugly, outdated notions of sin must be discarded, what is left? Nihilism. What is the only thing left to cling to? The self. Man must have a god, of course, and if there is no God, man must make himself God. It’s all very Garden-of-Eden-ish. Jurgen Habermas argues that Postmoderns, “are prey to a performative contradiction and a paradox of self-reference.” Sounds like virtue-signaling and narcissism. The loss of meaning and purpose dehumanize. When there is nothing to rank or order, thinking, reason itself, is banished. What remains is a meat shell, an automaton. Reality is the basis of common sense, of course, something widely mocked by elites because it’s, you know, “common.” In the end, however, everyone is forced to admit something: Reality has a vicious left hook. Like Mike Tyson in his prime, reality always wins. Here’s to its triumphant return.
INTERNET
AND SOCIAL MEDIA
The internet has democratized humanity like nothing
else. No one has to read anything that doesn’t perfectly please or titillate
them. Want to communicate only with Bronies,
or big toe fetishizers, or exceptional minds who understand “The Wall” is
superior to “Dark Side of the Moon?” You never have to bother with anybody
else’s inferior opinions again. Infinite choice has led to a ghettoization of
the world. Liberals need never bother with uncomfortable conservative facts and
vice-a-versa. Reality itself becomes tailored. But self-selection is just a
part of the story. Social media herds people into more and more radical corners
of the mind. A petri dish of narcissism, you get more of you. In an experiment
by Facebook employee, Frances Haugen, she created two
fake accounts with similar profiles but differing
political persuasions. The recommended items were increasingly radical,
including suggestions for Qanon and a picture of Donald Trump with an anus
photoshopped to replace his mouth. Facebook and others operate on a model of
addiction, using things such as recommendations and infinite scroll.
Whistleblowers have noted Facebook’s awareness that its model causes mental
illness, especially in teenage girls, but they continue to operate as normal
because change would reduce profits. Facebook is worth 915 beeelion dollars,
but, “Man, wouldn’t one trillion be SO cool??” Not content with owning the
world, James Bond villain Mark Zuckerberg’s new obsession is to shape the
coming “Metaverse.”
Robert Epstein discovered
Google, which performs 90% of all internet searches, manipulates search results
and auto-suggestion in ways that may give Democrats a 10% boost in elections.
They have been caught manipulating elections all over the world. Google’s
manipulations have subconscious but demonstrable impact. This enormous power isn’t
enough, apparently, as they openly and routinely censor conservatives.
Responding to complaints, Big Tech says, ‘well if you don’t like it, get your
own social media company. So we can crush that, too.’ Parler was the attempt to
make a conservative Twitter. Google, Apple, and Amazon destroyed it for
supposedly allowing its members to plan the Jan. 6th riot, which was
mostly
planned on Facebook.
URBANISM
The nature of work being increasingly white collar,
few people have experienced a callus. Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs is like John the
Baptist, a voice in the wilderness crying out, preaching the spiritual value of
hard, physical work. Except for computers, few know how to fix things. Except
for my Luddite
father, who doesn’t even own a cell phone, I don’t know anybody who owns a
welder. We are disconnected from the very building blocks of society: how our food
is grown, our minerals mined, and our wood harvested. When everything is
finished, packaged, and processed, stacked neatly in well-lit stores with
pleasant music piping over the speakers, you can’t help but be alienated from
your own hands. The urban mind drifts towards collectivism and dependence. Here
in Southern California, nature is managed to the point of absurdity. Trails are
groomed and roped off with signs that warn deviation from the path will destroy
the restoration of precious native habitat. Campground sites are almost on top
of each other, making the loud gangster rap of the foul-mouthed guys at site 23
in the Sequoias, completely unavoidable. I went to the Badlands of South Dakota
recently. You could get out of your car and just walk around and climb the
alien dunes. It felt…naughty. And liberating. Urbanites call for the
preservation of “pristine,” untouched wilderness. Certainly, some places of
extraordinary beauty should be protected, but when you drive or fly across the
U.S., the vastness of the land—what Midwesterners call “dirt”—becomes less
romantic.
DECADENCE
When we hear the term
“first world problems,” it’s usually a joke, but the reality is that most of
our ennui and anger could only exist in a wealthy and decadent society. Nobody
dies of malaria or Yellow Fever. Our “poor” are obese. The other day, I sat in
a Starbucks in a shabby area of town. I heard maybe a dozen languages. I saw
homeless people, disabled in wheelchairs, and teenagers, all waiting in line
for $5 coffee. Some had the latest Iphone. You can get decent brew at 7-11 for
$2 (or so I’m told. I’m a snob.) The poor in this country are awash in luxury (see
The Fantasy of Equality II).
Stay
tuned, because I’m just getting warmed up. Next week, there may even be a
chart.
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