As someone who rebelled as a teenager against the mentally stultifying atmosphere and disciplinary rigidity of a Canadian public school in the 1960s and 70s, I find myself in the odd position of swinging in my old-ish age back toward at least some conservatism. While I would never advocate for a return to the physical punishment I endured at school as a child, I look with dismay upon the hyper-liberalized atmosphere of schools today, where the children seem to rule the roost, just as they do at home with their parents. Surely a middle ground between these two extremes could be found?
A recent TikTok video reel showed the contrast between young couples and how they dressed in the late 50s and early 60s and now. It's a stark and horrifying contrast. My mother, even in her final days dying from a lung disease, always dressed clean and neat and stylish—not once in baggy sweatpants. If she had to go out shopping or for a meal, she put on her lipstick. Yet she was a strong individual; she would have laughed you out of the room if you told her this was "patriarchal oppression." It's just having pride in your appearance—a trait that seems to have vanished. My grandfather used to wear a suit and tie just to go grocery shopping. I look at women today and can't believe how they've turned into such slobs in public. No wonder the marriage rate is at an all-time low (among other reasons, of course). Nothing makes me sadder than the current rash of women tattooing themselves all over their bodies. I find it ugly in the extreme. I fail to see how this is an improvement over previous eras when mostly sailors got tattoos. On anyone else, it was the mark of a criminal.
Cunningham is right to speak with nuance on the topic of a former golden age. All such ages tend to become idealized, forgetting that good and bad always exist side by side. But even a cursory study of history shows that all civilizations have their peak periods of prosperity and social harmony. The great historian Arnold Toynbee said that most civilizations die, not by external shocks (though these contribute), but by suicide. Sadly, that is where we are.
People getting tattoos seem to think this will mark them out as special, different and unconventional. They can not see that after a certain point, they become the ordinary, and those of us without become the special.
Well said Sean, completely agree about badly dressed people, tattoos etc.
BUT we're not just dying by suicide, we are under attack by A) home grown Leftists, Marxists, Fabians, Socialists and other useful idiots WITHIN but B) they are being directed by highly organised Communists WITHOUT at the UN, WEF, WHO and countless other NGO's on a mission to destroy Western society, all directed by the Hidden Hands of China.
Who here really thinks that the massive COP shindig in Brazil (50,000 delegates) has anything to do with 'climate'??? That's a massive red herring. It's the New World Order getting themselves organised.
“Materialism says the universe is mindless; and faith says it is ruled by the highest mind. Neither will be satisfied with the new progressive creed, which declares hopefully that the universe is half-witted.”
On any given day, I am likely to walk into the living room and see my wife watching a Christmas movie. For years I teased her, singling out a male/female couple and asking her whether the man was actually Santa or if they would be married at the end of the movie. Today she was watching a Christmas show featuring the relationship between two men. Wedding bells could almost be heard in the soundtrack. Welcome to the Final Century.
Clearly, my memories are "misty water-coloured," as my recollection of the social order is similar to that of the author's. Even so, I was mindful of my status as a white, upper-class girl in a North American democracy, as I'm sure you were too. "Progressivism," then meant expressing real interest in other people's situations and registering our displeasure with inequalities with non-violent resistance, marches, and debates. No more. Now, it's cos play with keffiyehs.
Yes. There is a perfromative element that was much less central. There was the idea of "street theatre", but this was a sort of catalyst used by anti-establishment leadership to mobilize the broader populace.
Now, it is an open competition for social media recognition.
Nice analysis! We were also at the forefront of moments, like LGBQ rights, never thinking that a military arm of Trans rights would push our children into amputating their body parts and taking hormones.
We supported multiculturalism until it curdled into a fight for Western civilization against large groups who do not believe in the separation of church and state.
Western education bears a lot of responsibility for this calamity. Mr. Cunningham and I grew up under "the Enlightenment" principles of education, where reason was regarded as more important than "passion" or "opinion." To that end, we were obligated to write essays (often "Research Essays"). We were also expected to conform to the objective standards of grammar -- which is why I despise when people are referred to as "that" (which should be reserved for objects), as opposed to "who." We rooted for the "underdogs" because we reasoned that their situation could be and should be bettered; the inequality was rationally objectionable.
Our yung'uns, now, are Romantics. They worship Mother Nature. "Emotion" is greater than reason. They've become the Robespierre's of the Enlightenment's Revolutions, and, sadly, I don't think they'll even get the reference unless they google it. Thus, they write "Opinion pieces" that argue that Othello is really about "Racism" when it's about so much more...
I've never understood the normative logic of multiculturalism. To have multiple cultures, where each is of essentially equal legal/power/etc stature, the host culture must, eventually and inevitably, be destroyed. Because the thing that allowed it in the first place to evolve into a culture -- local hegemony -- is destroyed.
If this process occurs in essentially all countries, eventually there are, de facto, no more host cultures, and the coherence of what each nation was is damaged. In addition, as what were the "foreign" enclaves are orphaned from their original nations, and they spin off in their own directions, they result in numerous new cultures. How does a nation function with such a polity? If it then must become a melting pot simply to be coherent again, what is the point?
So, what host culture rationally wants this? Or, we should ask, who *does* want this? It looks like a perfect recipe for chaos, which serves only the elite strategy of divide-and-conquer.
Instead, it seems the host culture -- to continue to be rational, and a culture worthy of the name -- ought to continue to be dominant in all aspects, while the guest cultures may have their own geographic, social group, etc. smaller enclaves, all openly permitted of course in a liberal society.
Well said, Anti-Hip. The whole notion of "host" cultures presupposes parasitic cultures, a problem with which we are dealing.
We also NEED to reject "moral relativism" and re-assert the benefits of Western ideology. Sorry, "victims" are the conquered because their technology, ideology, religious belief systems are failures. They are INFERIOR to the victors. That's why they LOST. Period.
I have upon my person a pair of rose-tinted spectacles. When I wear them and look back at growing up in the '60s and '70s I feel sad that we've lost so much.
Oh we've gained lots too but we are so very different now as people.
I remember a time when we were encouraged not to be so straight-laced, proper, uptight. Conformity was scorned. We were encouraged to break free, be ourselves, push the boundaries. Oh the horror! That sort of permissive sloppiness was only for hippies! Did you have to take drugs to let your hair down? You didn't have to be married to have sexual intercourse? What????
Fits of the vapours all round.
I remember it well and my mother suggesting (we didn't talk about sex) that good girls 'didnt'. ( Didn't what, Mum? Come on, give us a clue?) No respectable woman carried on like that...oh no.
We are better people for losing lots of ill-informed, preconceived, handed-down notions about others. However, losing 'propriety', not being so buttoned up, allowed us over the decades to believe that anything goes and being individual, unique, authentic is what it's all about. Self entitlement rears its ugly head, rights without responsibility spawns all sorts of unpleasant behaviour.
Are we more thoughtful, more aware now we have 24/7 access to everyone and everything via our phones?
I suppose we are. Looking back I might have been fairly well read, educated by stern teachers and guided by 'respectable' parents, but I was terribly naive. I am amazed by the almost brazen confidence young people have today. Many aren't aware that they really don't know very much, and I'm still trying to work out if that's a blessing or a curse.
I can only compare my own living to my Mum's genuine disbelief when we bought her a brand new washing machine in the 80s.
Born into service and a skivvy to the aristocracy, she washed laundry in cold water, with a bar of soap. She rinsed clothes by hand, wrung them out and pegged them on the washing line, to drip dry. She did this as a young wife and mother, progressing to water she had to heat up, and later, hot water from a tap. She washed bedding and blankets in the bath and put them through a mangle.
She progressed to a single tub washing machine. A huge step forward. Still labour intensive, she used tongs to take the soapy garments out and rinse them in the sink. Mangle again to get most of the water out. Machine had to be lugged back into the outhouse.
Later, a small spin drier she loaded with wet washing replaced the mangle. She'd take her washing out into the garden and peg it on the line to dry.
Her face when she eventually had an automatic washing machine in the kitchen was memorable. She was mesmerised. Press a few buttons, and this contraption would wash, rinse and spin dry the clothes. She really thought it was magical. She gazed at it in awe, raved about it; we smiled. She still unloaded and carried baskets of washing outside to hang on the clothes line.
She never did have a tumble drier, bless her. That was as far as her laundry experience went. She didn't experience the machine that washed, rinsed, removed water and then DRIED all the clothes.
All that toil through the ages to ensure her family had clean clothes and there would be freshly laundered sheets for the bed. Such progression in her lifetime. However, she had a whole day of toil every week, focusing on the washing.
Unlikely to happen now. We have technology Aand machinesreplacing manual toil and phones to distract us with all sorts of trivia throughout the day.
An analogy perhaps to make sense of what it must be like to be born into an age when everything is possible in the western world.
Throughout the ages we have no sense of what went before, we can only appreciate progression., often with hindsight. My fear is that maybe we have thrown the baby out with the bath water. We live with incredible technology, stuff not even dreamed of when I was a child. We have incredible personal freedom, advocates for everything, validation for our moods, feelings, coaches to aid personal growth. We can dwell in victimhood, and that's okay too. We are very self-aware. We are urged to reach our potential, look after ourselves.
Reach for the stars. Believe in yourself.
Such a different world, from the behave, mind your manners, be considerate of ithers, work hard, dont boast, don't draw attention to yourself times of my youth.
Now AI helps us organise our words, thoughts, writing, vision.
We have thrown off many hardships, shackles, restrictive practices, but it seems we may have created ' me, me, me' monsters who believe they can do anything, be anything and to puncture that belief goes against the insidious 'Be Kind" mantra.
Of course we evolve but I'm increasingly donning my rose- tinted spectacles and remembering halcyon days of yore. Much of the past wasn't rosy but it seemed safe. My binoculars are rarely used to peer at the horizon. I fear what lies beyond. I'd love to come back 100 yrs from now and observe societal 'progress'.
Perhaps this is the lot of older generations, to ponder on the younger generation, the wrongs of society and to fear for the future of mankind?
1) Stop calling daft Lefties 'progressive'. 2) Shout when policies are obviously Marxist/Communist eg. when the Tories signed the UN's (China's) 'Compact for Global Migration' in 2018. Mass, unvetted immigration from the 3rd world is OBVIOUSLY designed to destroy the west.
Yes but 'Progressivism' is the name for the ideology of daft Leftism in all its daft forms.....it's the conservative name for it; has been for many decades now.
I wouldn't flatter them with the term, kids think they're being 'progressive'. It's the same with 'Woke' the cuddly term for Communist, rebranded as something new and edgy.
It has never been meant as flattery....quite the opposite in fact. The reason Leftist utopianism has been labelled Progressivism (labelled that way by conservative thinkers) is that the whole idea of human nature' 'progressing' is bogus and delusory. It is meant as a repudiation (effectively an insult if you like) of that self delusion. Same with 'woke'.....meant as a derisory label for Leftist narcissism and fakery.
"What westerners got hopelessly wrong was underestimating the huge latent cultural capital of the people of south-east Asia..."
I've always liked motorcycles, and am old enough to remember (as a schoolboy) the Kawasaki 650 (the W1), which was obviously based on the BSA A7, right down to the shape of the offside crankcase cover castings. It was obvious that the Japanese were good at copying. By the 1970s, it was apparent that they'd soon take things to the next quantum level, once they had developed the confidence and the knack. We underestimated this, due to the poor quality of the initial copies. But, where they also had the advantage was the cost of labour. This was exacerbated by Nixon's reintroduction of China (in particular) and other emerging economies into the world labour market. Two billion workers were thereby added to global supply, most of them willing to earn 1/50th of what western workers received. So - western investment went there, eventually allowing even Japan to be overtaken as the major Asian exporting power.
Throughout all of this, the cultural capital of the west is being eroded by female emancipation, causing demotivation of the western male powerhouse.
Yes this is all part of the story....but not the whole story. I still say that the latent cultural capital of the SE Asian peoples in terms of inventiveness and enterprisingness (born probably of their long civilisational histories) took the West largely by surprise. As further evidence, think how over-represented SE Asians are in the Silicon Valley story.
Glad you liked this essay and hope you will make a free subscription....(where you'd find plenty more essays you would probably also enjoy).
I think that the gap you speak of, between the ideal human nature, and the nature which is driven by our biological necessities, is as though Plato and Aristotle co-exist in our heads at all times. This probably occurs because of the battle between the two brain hemispheres, which prioritise Scheler's Hierarchy of Human Values in opposite directions after female menarche (thereafter, she may become pregnant, therefore provision of material resources become more important than ideals). The best diagram illustrating this occurs on page 160 of 'The Master & His Emissary' by Professor Iain McGilchrist. Dopamine is the predominant neurotransmitter of the left brain, which is therefore very oestrogen-sensitive.
Thanks Warren...a very lot to chew on here. I will be taking a look at all these links - and especially your book - but bear with me as my reading inbox is a little queued up just now!
I see you have taken a free sub to my Slouching Towards Bethlehem 'stack (which is an all-free one at the moment)....but I'm confused about your refernce to "Maroli Tango"...what is that??
It seems to me that there are many things that are fine on an individual level, but really bad if accepted as normal at the social level.
For example, when I was growing up in the poshest area of Sydney in the 60s and 70s, we all knew that there were some couples living together who weren't married. But in individual cases we quietly tolerated such people. However, I don't think that anyone really accepted that it would be a good thing if de facto partnerships became socially accepted as being equal to marriage.
I admit that the quiet tolerance of the socially aberrant behaviour of individuals known to us involved more than a whiff of hypocrisy. But these days we have new kind of hypocrisy where people who themselves know the value of leading a bourgeois life keenly encourage others to indulge in whatever behaviour that feels good.
Once hypocrisy was the trubute that vice paid to virtue. Now hypocrisy id the tribute virtue pays to vice.
"Instinct tells me, on the other hand, that feminisation has brought losses as well as gains to womanhood but it would seem ungentlemanly of me, as a member of the opposite sex, to pontificate about what those might be." Fortunately, we have Lorenzo's recent essay to explore this area more deeply. :-)
"Grown-ups who had lived through world wars are bound to have seen things differently at least to some extent." I can't speak to the political history of the UK or Europe more generally in the 60's, but we need to remember that in the US it was the grandparents, parents, and older siblings of the Baby Boomers who elected the Congress that enacted the 1964 Civil Rights Law, the 1965 Voting Rights Law, and the "great society" welfare engrossment. The real Boomers were not allowed to vote until reaching age 21 in 1967; and the still younger Boomers starting at age 18 in 1971. The Boomer's subsequent temper tantrum [myself and some others excluded] did not initiate the rejuvenated "progressive" onslaught but did enliven it excessively.
Just remember, ALL institutional racism is and was by the democratic party. Slavery, the KKK, Jim Crow, government opposition to MLK, and inner city black ghettos. All democrat, al the time.
I would be interested to know what the author thinks about the inevitable leftist reply: "Those times were not as good as you remember; they were stiflingly conformist; we had to rebel for our freedom." Needless to say, those same thoughts could be applied to our current leftist orthodoxy. Maybe every generation rebels against its parents.
Yes the 60s 'rebellion against stiffling conformism' was itself stiffling conformism....by another name. Conformism is a more ubiquitous human trait than rebellion.
Yes, mimesis and the associated rivalry it engenders have immense implications. As I'm sure you've written about before.
It's very human to look back in a fond way, maybe even to be amused by our younger selves. This need not be cynical. It is self-conpassion. While this taints our perception of what now is "really" like, it engenders hope that the halycon days can be restored or preserved.
This resonates absolutely zero percent with the wreckers who claim to be building back better, etc, really it's the confusion and humiliation that they relish.
There has developed a baffling generational social value: the tolerance, in fact, conscious use, of behaviors that would have been seen as hypocritical by previous western generations.
In the 60s one of the *worst* traits you could be accused of was hypocrisy: it was what The Man was, and people of my generation wanted no such connection.
So this reviling of hypocrisy acted as a sort of damper, keeping the discourse at least consistent in its aims. Keeping it like this engendered a bit of mutual respect for one's opponents. Therefore, a middle ground was at least possible, if unlikely.
But somewhere since then, outright 100% victory became more important than consistency, and since this was now a zero-sum contest, the idea of compromise vanished.
So we have now opposing parties who do not seek compromise with their opponents so much as their humiliation and utter suppression. So this excuses hypocritical positions on one's own part, using any sophistry as an ad hoc weapon, but attempting to ascribe the self-same hypocrisy when used by an opponent as shameful.
"reviling of hypocrisy acted as a sort of damper, keeping the discourse at least consistent in its aims. ... we have now opposing parties who do not seek compromise with their opponents so much as their humiliation and utter suppression"
Somewhere along the way, what in politics was once diplomacy (effecting shame from hypocrisy) has turned into war. Why? The passing of many decades on the same path means to me it's no mistake.
Even when I was in college in the mid/late 60s, any black students were popular. Not sure why this was--and still is--but I'd guess a combination of white students having been raised with the idea that all black people were worthy underdogs, PLUS there is a natural openness to interchange in black culture it seems.
The end result is that since that time at least, black culture has be at the forefront of shaping white upper middle class culture; black culture is hip and cool.
This is all OK, as far as I'm concerned, but one aspecty of black culture that has metastasized over the last 30 years or so is the culture of taunting--belittling. This is by nature potentially short-sightedly self-destructive, with no real benefit except ego-stroking,.
Basically, this weaponized hypocrisy is white academia's version of taunting.
"weaponized hypocrisy is white academia's version of taunting"
Agreed; I'm assuming you mean here that it is showing what they can get away with. What I'm trying to understand is where this negative energy is coming from, apparently growing ever since that time? My recollection of c.1970 (as a ten-year old) is a very dominant attitude of needing and striving for peace/coexistence/etc., eschewing (overt, at least) power games, and that this new dominance would/could change society for the better.
It was, indeed, a generally positive and unified attitude in general. Vietnam was over and there was a social void to fill--let's not forget just how heady the social component of righteous protest was. This turned toward feminism, AA, gay rights. All recipient groups were generally viewed as honest and without ulterior motivations--which at the time was largely true, I think.
But the policy remedies were implemented (AA, Head Start, etc.) and nothing notable changed after years of focused effort. Implied questions arose, and proponents of these programs became defensive and touchy; they couldn't adequately explain the shortcomings, even to themselves.
I don't really know where it went wrong, but it is indeed unstable as it is now; it will get better or everything will break, I think. Too much mistrust.
Freedom for the leftists means being able to idulge in basic primitive urges without any thought of consequence.
This means that they can take all your real liberties away and give you the illusion of freedom. Sex is the new god. If you dare say that perhaps promiscuity is not a good idea, then you will be labelled a heretic. Nevermind that the effect of promiscuity on the working class has been to turn many of them into the underclass.
"One essential part of the argument I want to lay out is that a part of the success of those Enlightenment ideas was that they hugely benefitted – paradoxically and unwittingly – from the persistence of traditions and social norms against which they had set themselves. These long pre-Enlightenment Classical and Christian traditions underpinned the new ideas and nourished them even as they were Progressively being eroded and supplanted by them. Enlightenment Liberalism was, in other words, unknowingly eating the very seed corn that sustained it."
As someone who rebelled as a teenager against the mentally stultifying atmosphere and disciplinary rigidity of a Canadian public school in the 1960s and 70s, I find myself in the odd position of swinging in my old-ish age back toward at least some conservatism. While I would never advocate for a return to the physical punishment I endured at school as a child, I look with dismay upon the hyper-liberalized atmosphere of schools today, where the children seem to rule the roost, just as they do at home with their parents. Surely a middle ground between these two extremes could be found?
A recent TikTok video reel showed the contrast between young couples and how they dressed in the late 50s and early 60s and now. It's a stark and horrifying contrast. My mother, even in her final days dying from a lung disease, always dressed clean and neat and stylish—not once in baggy sweatpants. If she had to go out shopping or for a meal, she put on her lipstick. Yet she was a strong individual; she would have laughed you out of the room if you told her this was "patriarchal oppression." It's just having pride in your appearance—a trait that seems to have vanished. My grandfather used to wear a suit and tie just to go grocery shopping. I look at women today and can't believe how they've turned into such slobs in public. No wonder the marriage rate is at an all-time low (among other reasons, of course). Nothing makes me sadder than the current rash of women tattooing themselves all over their bodies. I find it ugly in the extreme. I fail to see how this is an improvement over previous eras when mostly sailors got tattoos. On anyone else, it was the mark of a criminal.
Cunningham is right to speak with nuance on the topic of a former golden age. All such ages tend to become idealized, forgetting that good and bad always exist side by side. But even a cursory study of history shows that all civilizations have their peak periods of prosperity and social harmony. The great historian Arnold Toynbee said that most civilizations die, not by external shocks (though these contribute), but by suicide. Sadly, that is where we are.
People getting tattoos seem to think this will mark them out as special, different and unconventional. They can not see that after a certain point, they become the ordinary, and those of us without become the special.
Well said Sean, completely agree about badly dressed people, tattoos etc.
BUT we're not just dying by suicide, we are under attack by A) home grown Leftists, Marxists, Fabians, Socialists and other useful idiots WITHIN but B) they are being directed by highly organised Communists WITHOUT at the UN, WEF, WHO and countless other NGO's on a mission to destroy Western society, all directed by the Hidden Hands of China.
Who here really thinks that the massive COP shindig in Brazil (50,000 delegates) has anything to do with 'climate'??? That's a massive red herring. It's the New World Order getting themselves organised.
It might help if everyone would remember to not feel guilt over things for which they are not responsible.
“Materialism says the universe is mindless; and faith says it is ruled by the highest mind. Neither will be satisfied with the new progressive creed, which declares hopefully that the universe is half-witted.”
- G. K. Chesterton, Collected Works 1920
On any given day, I am likely to walk into the living room and see my wife watching a Christmas movie. For years I teased her, singling out a male/female couple and asking her whether the man was actually Santa or if they would be married at the end of the movie. Today she was watching a Christmas show featuring the relationship between two men. Wedding bells could almost be heard in the soundtrack. Welcome to the Final Century.
Hard times create strong men.
Strong men create good times.
Good times create weak men.
Weak men create hard times.
There is nothing new under the sun.
Clearly, my memories are "misty water-coloured," as my recollection of the social order is similar to that of the author's. Even so, I was mindful of my status as a white, upper-class girl in a North American democracy, as I'm sure you were too. "Progressivism," then meant expressing real interest in other people's situations and registering our displeasure with inequalities with non-violent resistance, marches, and debates. No more. Now, it's cos play with keffiyehs.
Yes. There is a perfromative element that was much less central. There was the idea of "street theatre", but this was a sort of catalyst used by anti-establishment leadership to mobilize the broader populace.
Now, it is an open competition for social media recognition.
Nice analysis! We were also at the forefront of moments, like LGBQ rights, never thinking that a military arm of Trans rights would push our children into amputating their body parts and taking hormones.
We supported multiculturalism until it curdled into a fight for Western civilization against large groups who do not believe in the separation of church and state.
Western education bears a lot of responsibility for this calamity. Mr. Cunningham and I grew up under "the Enlightenment" principles of education, where reason was regarded as more important than "passion" or "opinion." To that end, we were obligated to write essays (often "Research Essays"). We were also expected to conform to the objective standards of grammar -- which is why I despise when people are referred to as "that" (which should be reserved for objects), as opposed to "who." We rooted for the "underdogs" because we reasoned that their situation could be and should be bettered; the inequality was rationally objectionable.
Our yung'uns, now, are Romantics. They worship Mother Nature. "Emotion" is greater than reason. They've become the Robespierre's of the Enlightenment's Revolutions, and, sadly, I don't think they'll even get the reference unless they google it. Thus, they write "Opinion pieces" that argue that Othello is really about "Racism" when it's about so much more...
"We supported multiculturalism"
I've never understood the normative logic of multiculturalism. To have multiple cultures, where each is of essentially equal legal/power/etc stature, the host culture must, eventually and inevitably, be destroyed. Because the thing that allowed it in the first place to evolve into a culture -- local hegemony -- is destroyed.
If this process occurs in essentially all countries, eventually there are, de facto, no more host cultures, and the coherence of what each nation was is damaged. In addition, as what were the "foreign" enclaves are orphaned from their original nations, and they spin off in their own directions, they result in numerous new cultures. How does a nation function with such a polity? If it then must become a melting pot simply to be coherent again, what is the point?
So, what host culture rationally wants this? Or, we should ask, who *does* want this? It looks like a perfect recipe for chaos, which serves only the elite strategy of divide-and-conquer.
Instead, it seems the host culture -- to continue to be rational, and a culture worthy of the name -- ought to continue to be dominant in all aspects, while the guest cultures may have their own geographic, social group, etc. smaller enclaves, all openly permitted of course in a liberal society.
Well said, Anti-Hip. The whole notion of "host" cultures presupposes parasitic cultures, a problem with which we are dealing.
We also NEED to reject "moral relativism" and re-assert the benefits of Western ideology. Sorry, "victims" are the conquered because their technology, ideology, religious belief systems are failures. They are INFERIOR to the victors. That's why they LOST. Period.
Oh, and one last item: we are up under the "Great ManTheory" of history that argue that individuals could shape the world.
Our babies see everything through a "Marxist" lens, so what's the point?
I have upon my person a pair of rose-tinted spectacles. When I wear them and look back at growing up in the '60s and '70s I feel sad that we've lost so much.
Oh we've gained lots too but we are so very different now as people.
I remember a time when we were encouraged not to be so straight-laced, proper, uptight. Conformity was scorned. We were encouraged to break free, be ourselves, push the boundaries. Oh the horror! That sort of permissive sloppiness was only for hippies! Did you have to take drugs to let your hair down? You didn't have to be married to have sexual intercourse? What????
Fits of the vapours all round.
I remember it well and my mother suggesting (we didn't talk about sex) that good girls 'didnt'. ( Didn't what, Mum? Come on, give us a clue?) No respectable woman carried on like that...oh no.
We are better people for losing lots of ill-informed, preconceived, handed-down notions about others. However, losing 'propriety', not being so buttoned up, allowed us over the decades to believe that anything goes and being individual, unique, authentic is what it's all about. Self entitlement rears its ugly head, rights without responsibility spawns all sorts of unpleasant behaviour.
Are we more thoughtful, more aware now we have 24/7 access to everyone and everything via our phones?
I suppose we are. Looking back I might have been fairly well read, educated by stern teachers and guided by 'respectable' parents, but I was terribly naive. I am amazed by the almost brazen confidence young people have today. Many aren't aware that they really don't know very much, and I'm still trying to work out if that's a blessing or a curse.
I can only compare my own living to my Mum's genuine disbelief when we bought her a brand new washing machine in the 80s.
Born into service and a skivvy to the aristocracy, she washed laundry in cold water, with a bar of soap. She rinsed clothes by hand, wrung them out and pegged them on the washing line, to drip dry. She did this as a young wife and mother, progressing to water she had to heat up, and later, hot water from a tap. She washed bedding and blankets in the bath and put them through a mangle.
She progressed to a single tub washing machine. A huge step forward. Still labour intensive, she used tongs to take the soapy garments out and rinse them in the sink. Mangle again to get most of the water out. Machine had to be lugged back into the outhouse.
Later, a small spin drier she loaded with wet washing replaced the mangle. She'd take her washing out into the garden and peg it on the line to dry.
Her face when she eventually had an automatic washing machine in the kitchen was memorable. She was mesmerised. Press a few buttons, and this contraption would wash, rinse and spin dry the clothes. She really thought it was magical. She gazed at it in awe, raved about it; we smiled. She still unloaded and carried baskets of washing outside to hang on the clothes line.
She never did have a tumble drier, bless her. That was as far as her laundry experience went. She didn't experience the machine that washed, rinsed, removed water and then DRIED all the clothes.
All that toil through the ages to ensure her family had clean clothes and there would be freshly laundered sheets for the bed. Such progression in her lifetime. However, she had a whole day of toil every week, focusing on the washing.
Unlikely to happen now. We have technology Aand machinesreplacing manual toil and phones to distract us with all sorts of trivia throughout the day.
An analogy perhaps to make sense of what it must be like to be born into an age when everything is possible in the western world.
Throughout the ages we have no sense of what went before, we can only appreciate progression., often with hindsight. My fear is that maybe we have thrown the baby out with the bath water. We live with incredible technology, stuff not even dreamed of when I was a child. We have incredible personal freedom, advocates for everything, validation for our moods, feelings, coaches to aid personal growth. We can dwell in victimhood, and that's okay too. We are very self-aware. We are urged to reach our potential, look after ourselves.
Reach for the stars. Believe in yourself.
Such a different world, from the behave, mind your manners, be considerate of ithers, work hard, dont boast, don't draw attention to yourself times of my youth.
Now AI helps us organise our words, thoughts, writing, vision.
We have thrown off many hardships, shackles, restrictive practices, but it seems we may have created ' me, me, me' monsters who believe they can do anything, be anything and to puncture that belief goes against the insidious 'Be Kind" mantra.
Of course we evolve but I'm increasingly donning my rose- tinted spectacles and remembering halcyon days of yore. Much of the past wasn't rosy but it seemed safe. My binoculars are rarely used to peer at the horizon. I fear what lies beyond. I'd love to come back 100 yrs from now and observe societal 'progress'.
Perhaps this is the lot of older generations, to ponder on the younger generation, the wrongs of society and to fear for the future of mankind?
Thank you DeeBeeDee for that wonderful trip down memory lane.
1) Stop calling daft Lefties 'progressive'. 2) Shout when policies are obviously Marxist/Communist eg. when the Tories signed the UN's (China's) 'Compact for Global Migration' in 2018. Mass, unvetted immigration from the 3rd world is OBVIOUSLY designed to destroy the west.
Yes but 'Progressivism' is the name for the ideology of daft Leftism in all its daft forms.....it's the conservative name for it; has been for many decades now.
I wouldn't flatter them with the term, kids think they're being 'progressive'. It's the same with 'Woke' the cuddly term for Communist, rebranded as something new and edgy.
It has never been meant as flattery....quite the opposite in fact. The reason Leftist utopianism has been labelled Progressivism (labelled that way by conservative thinkers) is that the whole idea of human nature' 'progressing' is bogus and delusory. It is meant as a repudiation (effectively an insult if you like) of that self delusion. Same with 'woke'.....meant as a derisory label for Leftist narcissism and fakery.
I think we are at crossed purposes on this.
That is why I have popularised calling them Proggies.
"What westerners got hopelessly wrong was underestimating the huge latent cultural capital of the people of south-east Asia..."
I've always liked motorcycles, and am old enough to remember (as a schoolboy) the Kawasaki 650 (the W1), which was obviously based on the BSA A7, right down to the shape of the offside crankcase cover castings. It was obvious that the Japanese were good at copying. By the 1970s, it was apparent that they'd soon take things to the next quantum level, once they had developed the confidence and the knack. We underestimated this, due to the poor quality of the initial copies. But, where they also had the advantage was the cost of labour. This was exacerbated by Nixon's reintroduction of China (in particular) and other emerging economies into the world labour market. Two billion workers were thereby added to global supply, most of them willing to earn 1/50th of what western workers received. So - western investment went there, eventually allowing even Japan to be overtaken as the major Asian exporting power.
Throughout all of this, the cultural capital of the west is being eroded by female emancipation, causing demotivation of the western male powerhouse.
https://arctotherium.substack.com/p/review-of-j-d-unwins-sex-and-culture
Yes this is all part of the story....but not the whole story. I still say that the latent cultural capital of the SE Asian peoples in terms of inventiveness and enterprisingness (born probably of their long civilisational histories) took the West largely by surprise. As further evidence, think how over-represented SE Asians are in the Silicon Valley story.
Glad you liked this essay and hope you will make a free subscription....(where you'd find plenty more essays you would probably also enjoy).
I think that the gap you speak of, between the ideal human nature, and the nature which is driven by our biological necessities, is as though Plato and Aristotle co-exist in our heads at all times. This probably occurs because of the battle between the two brain hemispheres, which prioritise Scheler's Hierarchy of Human Values in opposite directions after female menarche (thereafter, she may become pregnant, therefore provision of material resources become more important than ideals). The best diagram illustrating this occurs on page 160 of 'The Master & His Emissary' by Professor Iain McGilchrist. Dopamine is the predominant neurotransmitter of the left brain, which is therefore very oestrogen-sensitive.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/12/001204072446.htm
The diagram in question is here - slide 12 (of 28).
https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/seats-of-learning-final/39299776
I have taken out a free subscription. Please allow me to reciprocate with my free book!
https://j4mb.org.uk/2024/09/04/warren-perkin-ms-patterning-shes-making-mgtow/
Thanks Warren...a very lot to chew on here. I will be taking a look at all these links - and especially your book - but bear with me as my reading inbox is a little queued up just now!
Hear hear!
Thanks....but a free subscription would be the best way of saying that!
Well, okay. I will comp you a free paid subscription to Maroli Tango, but I will be wanting to see a comment from time to time.
Thanks for that John G.
I see you have taken a free sub to my Slouching Towards Bethlehem 'stack (which is an all-free one at the moment)....but I'm confused about your refernce to "Maroli Tango"...what is that??
It's my serial novel. Marolitango.substack.com.
Ah...I see. Yes I'll take a look in due course
Oops. Substack wants your email address for me to comp a free paid subscription. Well, you know, I haven’t paywalled any posts, and probably will not.
So, if you like the book, take a free subscription, and we’ll pretend it’s compliments of the author.
Please do. It's crickets over there.
It seems to me that there are many things that are fine on an individual level, but really bad if accepted as normal at the social level.
For example, when I was growing up in the poshest area of Sydney in the 60s and 70s, we all knew that there were some couples living together who weren't married. But in individual cases we quietly tolerated such people. However, I don't think that anyone really accepted that it would be a good thing if de facto partnerships became socially accepted as being equal to marriage.
I admit that the quiet tolerance of the socially aberrant behaviour of individuals known to us involved more than a whiff of hypocrisy. But these days we have new kind of hypocrisy where people who themselves know the value of leading a bourgeois life keenly encourage others to indulge in whatever behaviour that feels good.
Once hypocrisy was the trubute that vice paid to virtue. Now hypocrisy id the tribute virtue pays to vice.
"Instinct tells me, on the other hand, that feminisation has brought losses as well as gains to womanhood but it would seem ungentlemanly of me, as a member of the opposite sex, to pontificate about what those might be." Fortunately, we have Lorenzo's recent essay to explore this area more deeply. :-)
"Grown-ups who had lived through world wars are bound to have seen things differently at least to some extent." I can't speak to the political history of the UK or Europe more generally in the 60's, but we need to remember that in the US it was the grandparents, parents, and older siblings of the Baby Boomers who elected the Congress that enacted the 1964 Civil Rights Law, the 1965 Voting Rights Law, and the "great society" welfare engrossment. The real Boomers were not allowed to vote until reaching age 21 in 1967; and the still younger Boomers starting at age 18 in 1971. The Boomer's subsequent temper tantrum [myself and some others excluded] did not initiate the rejuvenated "progressive" onslaught but did enliven it excessively.
Hmm...at risk of seeming immodest, I delve pretty deeply myself in other essays; such as The Androgyny Syndrome and The House That Jill Built.
Just remember, ALL institutional racism is and was by the democratic party. Slavery, the KKK, Jim Crow, government opposition to MLK, and inner city black ghettos. All democrat, al the time.
I would be interested to know what the author thinks about the inevitable leftist reply: "Those times were not as good as you remember; they were stiflingly conformist; we had to rebel for our freedom." Needless to say, those same thoughts could be applied to our current leftist orthodoxy. Maybe every generation rebels against its parents.
Yes the 60s 'rebellion against stiffling conformism' was itself stiffling conformism....by another name. Conformism is a more ubiquitous human trait than rebellion.
Yes, mimesis and the associated rivalry it engenders have immense implications. As I'm sure you've written about before.
It's very human to look back in a fond way, maybe even to be amused by our younger selves. This need not be cynical. It is self-conpassion. While this taints our perception of what now is "really" like, it engenders hope that the halycon days can be restored or preserved.
This resonates absolutely zero percent with the wreckers who claim to be building back better, etc, really it's the confusion and humiliation that they relish.
"...it's the confusion and humiliation that they relish." Bingo!
There has developed a baffling generational social value: the tolerance, in fact, conscious use, of behaviors that would have been seen as hypocritical by previous western generations.
In the 60s one of the *worst* traits you could be accused of was hypocrisy: it was what The Man was, and people of my generation wanted no such connection.
So this reviling of hypocrisy acted as a sort of damper, keeping the discourse at least consistent in its aims. Keeping it like this engendered a bit of mutual respect for one's opponents. Therefore, a middle ground was at least possible, if unlikely.
But somewhere since then, outright 100% victory became more important than consistency, and since this was now a zero-sum contest, the idea of compromise vanished.
So we have now opposing parties who do not seek compromise with their opponents so much as their humiliation and utter suppression. So this excuses hypocritical positions on one's own part, using any sophistry as an ad hoc weapon, but attempting to ascribe the self-same hypocrisy when used by an opponent as shameful.
Sort of recursive hypocrisy.
"reviling of hypocrisy acted as a sort of damper, keeping the discourse at least consistent in its aims. ... we have now opposing parties who do not seek compromise with their opponents so much as their humiliation and utter suppression"
Somewhere along the way, what in politics was once diplomacy (effecting shame from hypocrisy) has turned into war. Why? The passing of many decades on the same path means to me it's no mistake.
I don't want to ascribe any racial animus here.
Even when I was in college in the mid/late 60s, any black students were popular. Not sure why this was--and still is--but I'd guess a combination of white students having been raised with the idea that all black people were worthy underdogs, PLUS there is a natural openness to interchange in black culture it seems.
The end result is that since that time at least, black culture has be at the forefront of shaping white upper middle class culture; black culture is hip and cool.
This is all OK, as far as I'm concerned, but one aspecty of black culture that has metastasized over the last 30 years or so is the culture of taunting--belittling. This is by nature potentially short-sightedly self-destructive, with no real benefit except ego-stroking,.
Basically, this weaponized hypocrisy is white academia's version of taunting.
"weaponized hypocrisy is white academia's version of taunting"
Agreed; I'm assuming you mean here that it is showing what they can get away with. What I'm trying to understand is where this negative energy is coming from, apparently growing ever since that time? My recollection of c.1970 (as a ten-year old) is a very dominant attitude of needing and striving for peace/coexistence/etc., eschewing (overt, at least) power games, and that this new dominance would/could change society for the better.
I don't know either.
It was, indeed, a generally positive and unified attitude in general. Vietnam was over and there was a social void to fill--let's not forget just how heady the social component of righteous protest was. This turned toward feminism, AA, gay rights. All recipient groups were generally viewed as honest and without ulterior motivations--which at the time was largely true, I think.
But the policy remedies were implemented (AA, Head Start, etc.) and nothing notable changed after years of focused effort. Implied questions arose, and proponents of these programs became defensive and touchy; they couldn't adequately explain the shortcomings, even to themselves.
I don't really know where it went wrong, but it is indeed unstable as it is now; it will get better or everything will break, I think. Too much mistrust.
Freedom for the leftists means being able to idulge in basic primitive urges without any thought of consequence.
This means that they can take all your real liberties away and give you the illusion of freedom. Sex is the new god. If you dare say that perhaps promiscuity is not a good idea, then you will be labelled a heretic. Nevermind that the effect of promiscuity on the working class has been to turn many of them into the underclass.
My younger self didn't know that there is no freedom without rules. Happiness was easier to achieve when I realised there were bounderies, limits.
This - on a macroscopic scale - is also the story of 20th c. Western Liberalism as I expanded upon in this essay: https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/has-liberalisms-flame-burned-too
"One essential part of the argument I want to lay out is that a part of the success of those Enlightenment ideas was that they hugely benefitted – paradoxically and unwittingly – from the persistence of traditions and social norms against which they had set themselves. These long pre-Enlightenment Classical and Christian traditions underpinned the new ideas and nourished them even as they were Progressively being eroded and supplanted by them. Enlightenment Liberalism was, in other words, unknowingly eating the very seed corn that sustained it."