Hi, just wanted to say thank you for another well written thought provoking article! It’s really great to read your articles and I appreciate your substack very much in helping me to understand exactly what is going on in the world right now with North America being most important to me as I live in Canada. Thank you!!!
When I think about the current situation, a lot of the time it feels like gazing upon a huge mess of tangled Christmas lights. When I read McConkey, its almost like someone went in to meticulously untangle the lights and lay them in nice rows ready for hanging while I wasn't looking. Thanks for untangling the lights Michael, it is very much appreciated.
Thank you for a very thought provoking article. It’s a very dark vision, but unfortunately extremely plausible. I don’t think all is quite lost yet for some reasons I’ll note. But first, I do agree that politics is not downstream of culture. What is happening in our societies is as you argue a new culture being imposed, quite coercively, on a reluctant and occasionally rebellious majority. How did this happen? I’d suggest its roots were always there, but it was after the second world war that there was an explosive growth in an academic/professional/managerial/technocratic and eventually corporate elite. The rise of this new elite can be seen in the rise of the new left and how it gradually replaced the old left. This new left slowly gained control of the major institutional centres of power in society (universities, education, the administrative state, judiciary and legal system, media etc) and increasingly displaced the old conservative business elite which had previously dominated. Once it had consolidated its institutional control it started to impose its culture on the rest of society, first slowly and through nudging and in the past decade increasingly coercively. So in one sense Gramsci was sort of right but it’s not the culture of society in general but the culture of a dominant ruling elite that is being coercively imposed on society. So what chances are there to stop this? I can see three. One is the populist movement in the west. It is mostly weak and without any serious leadership just about everywhere except in the USA, where the coming of Trump and the huge impetus he has given to the populist movement in the USA, has changed the whole situation. True his first administration was a mess and he was levered out, but it may well be quite different in 2024. And the USA is a very powerful player in the world. So if Trump is not assassinated (which I think is unfortunately quite likely) this is a chance. The second is the push back from Eurasia (Russia and China) and the global south, who are either actively or passively resisting. This I think is potentially big and could just be the gamechanger in bringing down the hegemony of the west and its culture. And third are the enormously dangerous and destructive social and economic impacts of the changes being imposed by this new elite. These are creating enormously damaging social divisions and involve disastrously reckless economic policies which may well lead to a total economic collapse. Well, we shall see. These are very interesting times.
John, your comments are a relief to read. The developing situation within the USA necessarily includes the effects of international conditions. The US is at the heart of the planetary economy. Eurasian integration will transform the global economy. Even if the US retains a significant zone of control (North and Latin America, Oceania, Australasia and Antarctica), it will face competition from competent and confident regimes with state capitalist systems and gov'ts that prioritise national considerations over American/global ones, regimes that are explicitly committed to the continuity of their national cultures and inherited social and cultural practices. This cannot fail to have an impact on the political and economic choices/options available to Washington. The pushback from Russia, China and the global south will put enormous pressure on the US.
I agree I think that is the best chance. I think Trump will win in 2024 (if he does not meet an "accident") and I think he will do a lot better then. But he will be hamstrung by a Republican party which will have a lot more populists but still a minority, and the establishment Republicans (with the democrats) will likely stymie much of what he will try to do. His judgement is also sometimes not that good. Paradoxically he will probably improve the economy and so increase the power of the USA for the Democrats when they get back. Of course they will probably start trying to do as much damage as possible when they get in by pursuing their idiotic policies. As lar as Eurasia goes, well Russia is making a mess of the war and may come out of it weakened. The Chinese will like this, just as the USA likes a weakened and dependent Europe. It may also discourage many in the global south who are tired of the USA's bullying and dominance and just itching to fight back. But this may be temporary. In the long run China's rise and the USA's decline seem unstoppable. This may be optimism but I think the authoritarianism of regimes like Iran and China has been partly due to the need to resist western hegemony (fully democratic countries just can't hold out, which is why authoritarian regimes have resisted best) and as the threat of western hegemony fades, these counties will probably open up and democratize. I hope so.
From my point of view it is irrelevant if Iran or China democratise...what is important is that they act rationally and predictably within the international system and that their regimes enable their respective peoples to develop and flourish. Both countries have complex conditions and I get the sense that there are pragmatists aplenty at the top, even if we do not hear about them. I am not talking about 'moderates', simply pragmatists.
As for Russia, I am not sure that I'd believe the mainstream narrative. Wars are not won or lost on a tactical or operational level, but at the strategic one. The coverage we receive in the West about the war is an insult to our intellligence.
I'm pretty sure all three are going to happen simultaneously... very little chance that an economic collapse can be forestalled politically, but on the bright side it will give a higher percentage of the population the direct exposure to nature that informs one of the deep truth inherent to the constrained vision. It would be really nice if that didn't happen though, I really like being comfortable...
Way to completely misread what the Brahmin Left wants in terms of gender issues. They HATE trans women. If you ever looked at any law they ever passed ever, and thought "Who benefits" you'd see that. If you looked at their pre-2010s rhetoric, you'd see that. But instead, like the useful idiot you are, you're happy to have us served-up on a platter, and never question why it was FAR more important to Vice President Harris, when she was Attorney General of California, that a teenage trans girl enter a girl's trackmeet without fear of discrimination than an adult trans woman enter a Planned Parenthood seeking Hormone Replacement without that same fear.
Good job. Good job. Enjoy your tranny-bashing and corporate oligarchy. You'll deserve it.
I don't deny for a moment that managerial liberalism's current promotion of transgenderism exploits trans-oriented people. I do deny that women can be born in men's bodies.
Thank you for saying that, I have a transgender son who transitioned before all of this whole trans movement was pushed so hard and for him transitioning was very private and very personal. He doesn’t get the very public in your face push of the movement now in contrast to how he felt about it when he decided that was what he wanted, and he was 25 and not a child or teen so the frontal cortex of his brain was fully developed which helped me be more accepting that he knew what he wanted. He is so much happier now as a man so obviously he was right but I fear that many children and teens may regret their decisions in the not so distant future as they are so impressionable and their brains are not even fully developed to rationalize yet.
Wow, you got suckered by the Fake Left to buy into the transmisogynistic frame they wanted in the first place real good. Were the C-cup breasts I spontaneously grew in adolescence the product of a man's body?
Imagine how much unconstrained ideology was required to believe an atom was divisible, you ignorant asshat, demanding we return to our shackles, and the laws that the Rockefeller Administration enforced against trans people in New York, because obviously, you can understand everything about a human being by looking at what gametes they make.
Thought-provoking, as always. IMHO the prospects for any kind of populism are dim indeed. The working class has been crushed. The middle is shrinking fast. The US elites are truly unique in the developed world in the extraordinary degree to which they have demobilised the masses. This is the greatest political achievement in the 20th c., perhaps the only truly original achievement of US politics. It made success in the Cold War possible and remains a much-valued political legacy that the managerial and professional classes rely upon.
Furthermore, the working classes are about to face a challenge neither the 'Left' nor 'Right' will ever dare fight or indeed are equipped to understand: an elite that incorporates a substantial BIPOC element within both the oligarchy itself and the sub-oligarchic strata of professionals. This element of the new elite was made possible by affirmative action and preferential contracting and now stands to benefit from preferential access to finance (aka the Cantillon effect) which is being institutionalised by way of the new mandate for the Federal Reserve. The BIPOC elite will rely upon the social and cultural privilege conferred upon them by multiculturalism, a raft of enforceable legal privileges and economic policies crafted to promote racial equity. In return for their privileges, the BIPOC element within both the oligarchy and the professional and managerial class will defend the class interests of the wider elite...and they will be substantially shielded from criticism by their skin colour.
The rural population has little to no potential for lasting political success. They are already too poor and too marginalised. Their demoralisation and immiseration is evident from the wave of deaths due to opioid abuse. The fact that the such deaths never get onto the national health agenda tells you a fair bit about the sheer irrelevance of the welfare of the rural masses to the system. The whites of rural America are destined to be helots. The lucky ones will form a proletariat from which the army can recruit cannon fodder. The rest can look forward to something akin to the fate of the Redlegs in the Caribbean or the working class Afrikaners.
Populism may flourish within the Redleg Bantustans, but it will not necessarily produce an effective resistance. The system will use populism as a political foil. The elites will use it to frighten the constituencies they need. The opportunity for some performative anti-fascism will greatly appeal to the SJWs within the elites.
I'd never say you were wrong. The outcome you describe is certainly possible. I guess at an ontological/epistemological level, I don't believe anyone can ever anticipate all the possible variables that will play into making the future. Things can always take unexpected (even unanticipatable) directions. What may have seemed like a long shot, if Laplace's Demon knew all the relevant details, could actually be baked into the cake of reality. So, since no human can be Laplace's Demon, I'm happy to have hope for a better future, and bang out this little substack on an occasional basis. Thanks for your comment.
I agree that we cannot anticipate all the possible variables...no mind can grasp complexity on that scale. I am grateful if I understand anything at all for even a moment. Intelligence is not an attribute that belongs to us, only a fleeting experience that can be extended or intensified with great effort, but which eventually dissolves. If it helps to explain, I have been a Popperian of sorts since my late teens...I expect to be proven wrong eventually.
In my view, the best approach is to vary one's perspectives, develop ideas as required, exhaust their potential and move on to fresh perspectives while incorporating whatever insight might be worth retrieving in the process. This means swallowing the occasional black pill. The complexity of it all requires that we develop a sense of what is most likely to happen should things go wrong...and political history is mostly about failure.
The great weakness of dissident and dissenting thinking is that we assume a priori that the regime is fundamentally wrong-headed. However, it is useful for the purpose of thought-experimentation to assume that they are not stupid and that they too have a degree of realism that can be effective. After all, Leviathan has been demonstrably successful in getting what it wants. The possible, even likely, crisis that will bring down the regime is close, but the legacy of the regime will endure and the dynamics it has either harnessed so far or even, in some instances, generated itself will continue for the foreseeable future. We cannot afford to be complacent.
Sorry if the tone of my contribution was unsettling in any way. The last thing that I want to do is poison the atmosphere on the newsletter commentary section. I hope that I have not done this.
I think if the elite/managerial class were as successful as you perceive them to be, they would not need to work so hard narrative building, censoring, or surveiling. It might be valuable to explore the perspective of the generations after our own - who grew up with technology, the managerial elite, and the narrative building progressives. I have no wisdom to impart on their perspective but it should be factored in to how the future unfolds.
I agree. In fact, I think you kind of provide an insight into what the answer to your query might be with the context that opens your comment. Narrative control, what I've called their ventriloquism, has always been central to the managerial class, and plays directly into their class disposition. However, the frenzy for maintaining control -- including through censorship and surveillance -- which we now observe is a reflection of the fact that the technologies they've built can be used against them. This is what Marx called the dialectic. That's too Hegelian a framing for my taste, but there is in it an important kernel of truth. Everything has tradeoffs, including building technologies of control. They can be subverted. The foresight of the 1980s cyberpunk authors in this regard was prescient. And I'm sure this will be a field of contestation for decades to come -- at least. And, funnily, as my PhD is in communications, you might think this is the aspect of the problem I'd be focused on. I will get to it. But I think there's still a lot of groundwork to be laid before I could provide the topic a auspicious analysis. Thanks for your contribution.
Technologies they’ve built can be used against them:
Kind of a chicken and egg question but I’ve been pondering if the explosion of social media, communication technologies, etc. might be responsible for the crisis period we seem to find ourselves in. Seems like the Trump election really caught them off-guard. The dates on the Twitter Files - 2017 - suggest they immediately recognized communication utilizing technology needed to be reigned in. Which in turn, suggests that prior to Trump, they didn’t see social media as a tool they needed to control. (Not sure how they missed that - since they used social media to exploit the Arab Spring. )
The Twitter File and MO Twitter Case exhibits are pretty shocking and while they’re not getting MSM attention, they show that Managerial Class/Elite have failed to find a successful means to extinguish their populist problem. Meanwhile their vice-like grip on traditional media is also back-firing.
I’m not trying to be optimistic but it sure looks like there are too many pots boiling over - too many variables for them to control. They’ve gone to great lengths to stomp out the populist movement (election shenanigans, censorship, investigations, media freezes, possibly a pandemic) and admittedly those lengths provided some short term gains but have left them with far too many little and unexpected/unplanned fires to put out. (Aside - I never understood why they just couldn’t put up with Trump until he extinguished himself as most politicians do.)
Also I don’t think the managerial class - under pressure right now and somewhat exposed - is unified. I n fact, I could definitely see them jettisoning various stakeholders as they take more incoming. And would these kind of little victories embolden populists?
In summary, I suspect that the expended communication that has been created by technology was also the uncontrollable fertilizer that is propelling the crisis. It may be that the Managerial Class in the US realized this too late. They were clearly working on limiting the US’ unique Free Speech rights via the pronoun, trans, safe space, etc. battles. But it’s starting to look like Trump phenomena came a little too early and they didn’t (and still don’t) have an organized plan to stop this. Absent a Tower of Babel moment, I don’t see how they pull this out?
Oh ye of little faith Phillip! Black swan events lurk beyond the horizon. A spiritual awakening can overcome much, and might be easier to achieve than you think, especially under the conditions of the steadily increasing economic hardship. We just need to work together and be persistent. This system of oppression advances ideas that are incredibly unpopular, preference falsification is epidemic, a preference cascade all but inevitable. The obstacles show the path my friend, you are very good at seeing the obstacles, perhaps direct some of your considerable intellect towards divining a path for us!
Grant, I stand corrected. Thoughts necessarily follow emotions/moods and these vary over time in all of us.
The future is far from bleak...the swelling reaction to Clown World is real and genuinely encouraging and worth acknowledging. Yet the popularity of anti-regime thinking (or any thinking that is not regime compliant) does not mean that the dissenters/dissidents have won the argument or have any prospect for winning the long term struggle. The dissidents in the former USSR did not bring down the system. My best guess is that the regime (Clown World) is doomed, but the replacement will incorporate much of the existing regime. That is how it works.
Furthermore, the underlying socio-economic and ethnic dynamic may well persist, regardless of the fate of the political system. Ultimately, politics is less important than everyday life for ordinary people...opportunities for family formation, fertility rates and family structure are vastly more important than any political beliefs whatsoever. They are the important determinants for providing the opportunities humans need to thrive.
A spiritual awakening is bull-#### in the absence of any substantial material improvement: we will certainly see major spiritual/cultural change (possibly epochal change) but this may not be positive. Mass conversions typically occur when a population makes a substantial change in its mode of life (shifting from agriculture to nomadism, nomadism to agriculture, urbanisation). The collapse in the old family model (two parent families and routine pregnancies without the intervention of fertility specialists) will be more significant than the fate of Washington. Shall write more later on.
With the spiritual awakening thing, I mean something very specific that transcends particular religions, although it is perhaps most prominent in Christianity. It echoes stoicism and is probably most closely aligned with the Scottish enlightenment philosophically. I think this technology can make a huge difference. Always look forward to reading any of your thoughts!
Thaks for the encouragement. Here are a few points I'd like to set out while they are on my mind.
It will take time for North Americans to adjust to the reality of the emerging conditions (the end of the unipolar global order etc) and the likely economic depression. The mass downward mobility, further contraction of the middle classes, will be accompanied by the Cantillon effect of the new mandate for the Federal Reserve (which gives racial equity parity with price stability and full employment). The next decade will see much intensified social conflict.
Opposition to the future regime (Clown World #2 or Clown World Redivivus) will be constrained by mass surveillance.
However, the way forward will come from covert networked communities and organisations of various kinds...the grey and black economy, the remnants of small business, grassroots organised religion, pod schools and underground academies....in short any structures that are controlled by participants rather by managers loyal to the regime. The first priority of these networked structures should be to foster cohesion and prosocial activities of all kinds, above all those that enable people to function economically and that contribute to high trust communities. They should fortify America's deep tradition of DIY and both personal and communal autonomy.
The covert or semi-covert character will be necessary to evade the malicious regulation by a hostile state and its allies. Unless some progress can be achieved this way (essentially creating parallel institutions free from elite ideology) I think it unlikely that we will ever see any improvement. I am optimistic that this scenario can and will develop, by trial and error. Solutions will emerge from below, not from above. They will be formed a posteriori, not a priori. The covert or semi-covert character of much (if not all) of this will help form more realistic social psychologies...people with a bias towards trusting their fellows rather that the state or its allies.
As for the culture, you need material prosperity to form anything like a high culture. There may not be enough to do this, but a vigorous and self-conscious kulak culture could and should flourish outside the elite enclaves. Raising the level of expertise, insight, skill and strength in this culture will be essential for the eventual re-emergence of a vigorous society and a renewed population. I'll expand on this last point later.
Hi Phillip, you sound very intelligent and knowledgeable which is a bit intimidating but nonetheless I would really like it if you could clarify if it is socialism, or fascism or possibly both we are experiencing. I have been on and still are on a tangent to explain what is happening in the world where up is down and down is up and absolutely nothing makes sense anymore because knowing and having an explanation for it for me is better and less scary than not knowing. Your words reflect a realist’s point of view in general but us dissidents of the current regime having to go underground to hide from detection from the mass surveillance is a really good prediction.
For some strange reason I still have faith in humanity at large and even if things are dark for awhile, I am hopeful we will come through it all to a brighter future.
My German mom is a survivor who planned her escape as a teen and included two other girls whom she trusted from a German ammunition’s camp where the Nazis used German and other refugee children because their hands were small enough to load the ammunition. The Allies were close and she knew they would target the camp. They were the only 3 survivors when within days of their successful individual escapes the entire camp was destroyed and everyone in it. She told me that she had determined she was not just going to sit around and wait to die but rather try to escape even if caught and shot in the back. Rather die fighting for freedom than meekly wait to die. Never give up she’s always said, always keep trying no matter what battle you have to face never give up so that is what I intend to do. I live in Canada and we just voted in a “right leaning “ new premier for our province as well the new leader unanimously voted in for our Conservative party in our federal government is also “right leaning” as have Italy and Poland and a few other EU countries voted in a populist government albeit Trump in the US was definitely the biggest and most powerful populist president. My biggest worry? Our prime minister of Canada Justin Trudeau and his woke Liberal government passing legislation “for our safety from mis and disinformation” to censor our Internet here in Canada.
Great question: do we have socialism or fascism. IMHO neither, though some features of both are incorporated into the system. The language of the past is useful only in so far as we can apply it without mistaking what is new and distinct and thereby most dangerous. Socialism died with the USSR, capitalism died in the decades after when corporate losses were routinely socialised and money-printing thoroughly displaced capital generated from the savings of the public. The seizure of Russian assets (both public and private) by administrative fiat, rather than a formal judicial process, takes us back to the 17th c and annihilates the liberal character of the state.
I'd say that we are moving into new, fast developing, territory: post-liberal modernity (US model). The defining feature of this is power projected universally through the synchronisation of all public and private institutions, co-ordinated by intra-elite co-operation which is incentivised by the need for individuals to maintain their lifelong employability within the system.
Post-liberal modernity aims to manage economic decline in an era of increasing scarcity and increased competition for resources such as energy, commodities and living-space. Historically, all successful systems of government needed to maintain public safety, social peace, security from external threats and the maintenance of whatever material condition were needed for the reproduction of society.
Post-liberal modernity involves a regime that is indifferent to public safety, undermines social peace, is inept at war and unable to maintain the material conditions for family formation and replacement level fertility of its nominal citizens.
Post-liberal modernity legitimises an ever-increasing incidence of state failure and stabilises oligarchic rule under conditions of social decay. It normalises the conditions of national decline. Managing economic decline through deindustrialisation enables regimes to simultaneously target austerity at disfavoured strata while preserving existing social relations and allocating resources to suit regime preferences. There is now no common good in which the ruled, the many, enjoy a share. The good of the few, the oligarchs and the constituencies that support them (the professional and managerial classes), is distinct from that of the many. To avoid mobilisation by the many, the few promote the activism of their own clients. Destabilisation is driven by the lack of any common good. The few see their future good realised through global integration. The many (the insecure working classes) see their good discounted in any viable or foreseeable future.
The psycho-affective drivers of the system: libido dominandi of the few, accompanied by the humiliation of the ruled. Humiliation or social denigration manages expectations of recognition and respect, maintains status distinctions and provides psychic income to the few as well as psychic welfare to those subordinate strata that are differentiated from the heritage population by identity politics. Active denigration punishes those who might disrupt the existing hierarchy, passive denigration reinforces the demoralisation/subordination of the disfavoured.
PS My Czech father was lucky not to be interned as a child, but he lived through the war and ended up in the West. I am appalled beyond words that we, meaning everyone, have not learnt a thing: power is not our friend and there is nothing in the condition of the West that offers us immunity to abuse and exploitation by authoritarian government. I believe in people and our ability to think for ourselves, not institutions.
Hi, just wanted to say thank you for another well written thought provoking article! It’s really great to read your articles and I appreciate your substack very much in helping me to understand exactly what is going on in the world right now with North America being most important to me as I live in Canada. Thank you!!!
When I think about the current situation, a lot of the time it feels like gazing upon a huge mess of tangled Christmas lights. When I read McConkey, its almost like someone went in to meticulously untangle the lights and lay them in nice rows ready for hanging while I wasn't looking. Thanks for untangling the lights Michael, it is very much appreciated.
Thank you for a very thought provoking article. It’s a very dark vision, but unfortunately extremely plausible. I don’t think all is quite lost yet for some reasons I’ll note. But first, I do agree that politics is not downstream of culture. What is happening in our societies is as you argue a new culture being imposed, quite coercively, on a reluctant and occasionally rebellious majority. How did this happen? I’d suggest its roots were always there, but it was after the second world war that there was an explosive growth in an academic/professional/managerial/technocratic and eventually corporate elite. The rise of this new elite can be seen in the rise of the new left and how it gradually replaced the old left. This new left slowly gained control of the major institutional centres of power in society (universities, education, the administrative state, judiciary and legal system, media etc) and increasingly displaced the old conservative business elite which had previously dominated. Once it had consolidated its institutional control it started to impose its culture on the rest of society, first slowly and through nudging and in the past decade increasingly coercively. So in one sense Gramsci was sort of right but it’s not the culture of society in general but the culture of a dominant ruling elite that is being coercively imposed on society. So what chances are there to stop this? I can see three. One is the populist movement in the west. It is mostly weak and without any serious leadership just about everywhere except in the USA, where the coming of Trump and the huge impetus he has given to the populist movement in the USA, has changed the whole situation. True his first administration was a mess and he was levered out, but it may well be quite different in 2024. And the USA is a very powerful player in the world. So if Trump is not assassinated (which I think is unfortunately quite likely) this is a chance. The second is the push back from Eurasia (Russia and China) and the global south, who are either actively or passively resisting. This I think is potentially big and could just be the gamechanger in bringing down the hegemony of the west and its culture. And third are the enormously dangerous and destructive social and economic impacts of the changes being imposed by this new elite. These are creating enormously damaging social divisions and involve disastrously reckless economic policies which may well lead to a total economic collapse. Well, we shall see. These are very interesting times.
John, your comments are a relief to read. The developing situation within the USA necessarily includes the effects of international conditions. The US is at the heart of the planetary economy. Eurasian integration will transform the global economy. Even if the US retains a significant zone of control (North and Latin America, Oceania, Australasia and Antarctica), it will face competition from competent and confident regimes with state capitalist systems and gov'ts that prioritise national considerations over American/global ones, regimes that are explicitly committed to the continuity of their national cultures and inherited social and cultural practices. This cannot fail to have an impact on the political and economic choices/options available to Washington. The pushback from Russia, China and the global south will put enormous pressure on the US.
I agree I think that is the best chance. I think Trump will win in 2024 (if he does not meet an "accident") and I think he will do a lot better then. But he will be hamstrung by a Republican party which will have a lot more populists but still a minority, and the establishment Republicans (with the democrats) will likely stymie much of what he will try to do. His judgement is also sometimes not that good. Paradoxically he will probably improve the economy and so increase the power of the USA for the Democrats when they get back. Of course they will probably start trying to do as much damage as possible when they get in by pursuing their idiotic policies. As lar as Eurasia goes, well Russia is making a mess of the war and may come out of it weakened. The Chinese will like this, just as the USA likes a weakened and dependent Europe. It may also discourage many in the global south who are tired of the USA's bullying and dominance and just itching to fight back. But this may be temporary. In the long run China's rise and the USA's decline seem unstoppable. This may be optimism but I think the authoritarianism of regimes like Iran and China has been partly due to the need to resist western hegemony (fully democratic countries just can't hold out, which is why authoritarian regimes have resisted best) and as the threat of western hegemony fades, these counties will probably open up and democratize. I hope so.
From my point of view it is irrelevant if Iran or China democratise...what is important is that they act rationally and predictably within the international system and that their regimes enable their respective peoples to develop and flourish. Both countries have complex conditions and I get the sense that there are pragmatists aplenty at the top, even if we do not hear about them. I am not talking about 'moderates', simply pragmatists.
As for Russia, I am not sure that I'd believe the mainstream narrative. Wars are not won or lost on a tactical or operational level, but at the strategic one. The coverage we receive in the West about the war is an insult to our intellligence.
I'm pretty sure all three are going to happen simultaneously... very little chance that an economic collapse can be forestalled politically, but on the bright side it will give a higher percentage of the population the direct exposure to nature that informs one of the deep truth inherent to the constrained vision. It would be really nice if that didn't happen though, I really like being comfortable...
Way to completely misread what the Brahmin Left wants in terms of gender issues. They HATE trans women. If you ever looked at any law they ever passed ever, and thought "Who benefits" you'd see that. If you looked at their pre-2010s rhetoric, you'd see that. But instead, like the useful idiot you are, you're happy to have us served-up on a platter, and never question why it was FAR more important to Vice President Harris, when she was Attorney General of California, that a teenage trans girl enter a girl's trackmeet without fear of discrimination than an adult trans woman enter a Planned Parenthood seeking Hormone Replacement without that same fear.
Good job. Good job. Enjoy your tranny-bashing and corporate oligarchy. You'll deserve it.
I don't deny for a moment that managerial liberalism's current promotion of transgenderism exploits trans-oriented people. I do deny that women can be born in men's bodies.
Thank you for saying that, I have a transgender son who transitioned before all of this whole trans movement was pushed so hard and for him transitioning was very private and very personal. He doesn’t get the very public in your face push of the movement now in contrast to how he felt about it when he decided that was what he wanted, and he was 25 and not a child or teen so the frontal cortex of his brain was fully developed which helped me be more accepting that he knew what he wanted. He is so much happier now as a man so obviously he was right but I fear that many children and teens may regret their decisions in the not so distant future as they are so impressionable and their brains are not even fully developed to rationalize yet.
Wow, you got suckered by the Fake Left to buy into the transmisogynistic frame they wanted in the first place real good. Were the C-cup breasts I spontaneously grew in adolescence the product of a man's body?
Imagine how much unconstrained ideology was required to believe an atom was divisible, you ignorant asshat, demanding we return to our shackles, and the laws that the Rockefeller Administration enforced against trans people in New York, because obviously, you can understand everything about a human being by looking at what gametes they make.
Not everything, just their natural function in sexual reproduction. But if you're looking for an argument about this, you've picked the wrong venue.
Thought-provoking, as always. IMHO the prospects for any kind of populism are dim indeed. The working class has been crushed. The middle is shrinking fast. The US elites are truly unique in the developed world in the extraordinary degree to which they have demobilised the masses. This is the greatest political achievement in the 20th c., perhaps the only truly original achievement of US politics. It made success in the Cold War possible and remains a much-valued political legacy that the managerial and professional classes rely upon.
Furthermore, the working classes are about to face a challenge neither the 'Left' nor 'Right' will ever dare fight or indeed are equipped to understand: an elite that incorporates a substantial BIPOC element within both the oligarchy itself and the sub-oligarchic strata of professionals. This element of the new elite was made possible by affirmative action and preferential contracting and now stands to benefit from preferential access to finance (aka the Cantillon effect) which is being institutionalised by way of the new mandate for the Federal Reserve. The BIPOC elite will rely upon the social and cultural privilege conferred upon them by multiculturalism, a raft of enforceable legal privileges and economic policies crafted to promote racial equity. In return for their privileges, the BIPOC element within both the oligarchy and the professional and managerial class will defend the class interests of the wider elite...and they will be substantially shielded from criticism by their skin colour.
The rural population has little to no potential for lasting political success. They are already too poor and too marginalised. Their demoralisation and immiseration is evident from the wave of deaths due to opioid abuse. The fact that the such deaths never get onto the national health agenda tells you a fair bit about the sheer irrelevance of the welfare of the rural masses to the system. The whites of rural America are destined to be helots. The lucky ones will form a proletariat from which the army can recruit cannon fodder. The rest can look forward to something akin to the fate of the Redlegs in the Caribbean or the working class Afrikaners.
Populism may flourish within the Redleg Bantustans, but it will not necessarily produce an effective resistance. The system will use populism as a political foil. The elites will use it to frighten the constituencies they need. The opportunity for some performative anti-fascism will greatly appeal to the SJWs within the elites.
And John thought my vision was dark.
I'd never say you were wrong. The outcome you describe is certainly possible. I guess at an ontological/epistemological level, I don't believe anyone can ever anticipate all the possible variables that will play into making the future. Things can always take unexpected (even unanticipatable) directions. What may have seemed like a long shot, if Laplace's Demon knew all the relevant details, could actually be baked into the cake of reality. So, since no human can be Laplace's Demon, I'm happy to have hope for a better future, and bang out this little substack on an occasional basis. Thanks for your comment.
I agree that we cannot anticipate all the possible variables...no mind can grasp complexity on that scale. I am grateful if I understand anything at all for even a moment. Intelligence is not an attribute that belongs to us, only a fleeting experience that can be extended or intensified with great effort, but which eventually dissolves. If it helps to explain, I have been a Popperian of sorts since my late teens...I expect to be proven wrong eventually.
In my view, the best approach is to vary one's perspectives, develop ideas as required, exhaust their potential and move on to fresh perspectives while incorporating whatever insight might be worth retrieving in the process. This means swallowing the occasional black pill. The complexity of it all requires that we develop a sense of what is most likely to happen should things go wrong...and political history is mostly about failure.
The great weakness of dissident and dissenting thinking is that we assume a priori that the regime is fundamentally wrong-headed. However, it is useful for the purpose of thought-experimentation to assume that they are not stupid and that they too have a degree of realism that can be effective. After all, Leviathan has been demonstrably successful in getting what it wants. The possible, even likely, crisis that will bring down the regime is close, but the legacy of the regime will endure and the dynamics it has either harnessed so far or even, in some instances, generated itself will continue for the foreseeable future. We cannot afford to be complacent.
Sorry if the tone of my contribution was unsettling in any way. The last thing that I want to do is poison the atmosphere on the newsletter commentary section. I hope that I have not done this.
I think if the elite/managerial class were as successful as you perceive them to be, they would not need to work so hard narrative building, censoring, or surveiling. It might be valuable to explore the perspective of the generations after our own - who grew up with technology, the managerial elite, and the narrative building progressives. I have no wisdom to impart on their perspective but it should be factored in to how the future unfolds.
I agree. In fact, I think you kind of provide an insight into what the answer to your query might be with the context that opens your comment. Narrative control, what I've called their ventriloquism, has always been central to the managerial class, and plays directly into their class disposition. However, the frenzy for maintaining control -- including through censorship and surveillance -- which we now observe is a reflection of the fact that the technologies they've built can be used against them. This is what Marx called the dialectic. That's too Hegelian a framing for my taste, but there is in it an important kernel of truth. Everything has tradeoffs, including building technologies of control. They can be subverted. The foresight of the 1980s cyberpunk authors in this regard was prescient. And I'm sure this will be a field of contestation for decades to come -- at least. And, funnily, as my PhD is in communications, you might think this is the aspect of the problem I'd be focused on. I will get to it. But I think there's still a lot of groundwork to be laid before I could provide the topic a auspicious analysis. Thanks for your contribution.
Technologies they’ve built can be used against them:
Kind of a chicken and egg question but I’ve been pondering if the explosion of social media, communication technologies, etc. might be responsible for the crisis period we seem to find ourselves in. Seems like the Trump election really caught them off-guard. The dates on the Twitter Files - 2017 - suggest they immediately recognized communication utilizing technology needed to be reigned in. Which in turn, suggests that prior to Trump, they didn’t see social media as a tool they needed to control. (Not sure how they missed that - since they used social media to exploit the Arab Spring. )
The Twitter File and MO Twitter Case exhibits are pretty shocking and while they’re not getting MSM attention, they show that Managerial Class/Elite have failed to find a successful means to extinguish their populist problem. Meanwhile their vice-like grip on traditional media is also back-firing.
I’m not trying to be optimistic but it sure looks like there are too many pots boiling over - too many variables for them to control. They’ve gone to great lengths to stomp out the populist movement (election shenanigans, censorship, investigations, media freezes, possibly a pandemic) and admittedly those lengths provided some short term gains but have left them with far too many little and unexpected/unplanned fires to put out. (Aside - I never understood why they just couldn’t put up with Trump until he extinguished himself as most politicians do.)
Also I don’t think the managerial class - under pressure right now and somewhat exposed - is unified. I n fact, I could definitely see them jettisoning various stakeholders as they take more incoming. And would these kind of little victories embolden populists?
In summary, I suspect that the expended communication that has been created by technology was also the uncontrollable fertilizer that is propelling the crisis. It may be that the Managerial Class in the US realized this too late. They were clearly working on limiting the US’ unique Free Speech rights via the pronoun, trans, safe space, etc. battles. But it’s starting to look like Trump phenomena came a little too early and they didn’t (and still don’t) have an organized plan to stop this. Absent a Tower of Babel moment, I don’t see how they pull this out?
I agree entirely.
Not poison at all. Thanks again for your contribution.
Oh ye of little faith Phillip! Black swan events lurk beyond the horizon. A spiritual awakening can overcome much, and might be easier to achieve than you think, especially under the conditions of the steadily increasing economic hardship. We just need to work together and be persistent. This system of oppression advances ideas that are incredibly unpopular, preference falsification is epidemic, a preference cascade all but inevitable. The obstacles show the path my friend, you are very good at seeing the obstacles, perhaps direct some of your considerable intellect towards divining a path for us!
Grant, I stand corrected. Thoughts necessarily follow emotions/moods and these vary over time in all of us.
The future is far from bleak...the swelling reaction to Clown World is real and genuinely encouraging and worth acknowledging. Yet the popularity of anti-regime thinking (or any thinking that is not regime compliant) does not mean that the dissenters/dissidents have won the argument or have any prospect for winning the long term struggle. The dissidents in the former USSR did not bring down the system. My best guess is that the regime (Clown World) is doomed, but the replacement will incorporate much of the existing regime. That is how it works.
Furthermore, the underlying socio-economic and ethnic dynamic may well persist, regardless of the fate of the political system. Ultimately, politics is less important than everyday life for ordinary people...opportunities for family formation, fertility rates and family structure are vastly more important than any political beliefs whatsoever. They are the important determinants for providing the opportunities humans need to thrive.
A spiritual awakening is bull-#### in the absence of any substantial material improvement: we will certainly see major spiritual/cultural change (possibly epochal change) but this may not be positive. Mass conversions typically occur when a population makes a substantial change in its mode of life (shifting from agriculture to nomadism, nomadism to agriculture, urbanisation). The collapse in the old family model (two parent families and routine pregnancies without the intervention of fertility specialists) will be more significant than the fate of Washington. Shall write more later on.
With the spiritual awakening thing, I mean something very specific that transcends particular religions, although it is perhaps most prominent in Christianity. It echoes stoicism and is probably most closely aligned with the Scottish enlightenment philosophically. I think this technology can make a huge difference. Always look forward to reading any of your thoughts!
Thaks for the encouragement. Here are a few points I'd like to set out while they are on my mind.
It will take time for North Americans to adjust to the reality of the emerging conditions (the end of the unipolar global order etc) and the likely economic depression. The mass downward mobility, further contraction of the middle classes, will be accompanied by the Cantillon effect of the new mandate for the Federal Reserve (which gives racial equity parity with price stability and full employment). The next decade will see much intensified social conflict.
Opposition to the future regime (Clown World #2 or Clown World Redivivus) will be constrained by mass surveillance.
However, the way forward will come from covert networked communities and organisations of various kinds...the grey and black economy, the remnants of small business, grassroots organised religion, pod schools and underground academies....in short any structures that are controlled by participants rather by managers loyal to the regime. The first priority of these networked structures should be to foster cohesion and prosocial activities of all kinds, above all those that enable people to function economically and that contribute to high trust communities. They should fortify America's deep tradition of DIY and both personal and communal autonomy.
The covert or semi-covert character will be necessary to evade the malicious regulation by a hostile state and its allies. Unless some progress can be achieved this way (essentially creating parallel institutions free from elite ideology) I think it unlikely that we will ever see any improvement. I am optimistic that this scenario can and will develop, by trial and error. Solutions will emerge from below, not from above. They will be formed a posteriori, not a priori. The covert or semi-covert character of much (if not all) of this will help form more realistic social psychologies...people with a bias towards trusting their fellows rather that the state or its allies.
As for the culture, you need material prosperity to form anything like a high culture. There may not be enough to do this, but a vigorous and self-conscious kulak culture could and should flourish outside the elite enclaves. Raising the level of expertise, insight, skill and strength in this culture will be essential for the eventual re-emergence of a vigorous society and a renewed population. I'll expand on this last point later.
Hi Phillip, you sound very intelligent and knowledgeable which is a bit intimidating but nonetheless I would really like it if you could clarify if it is socialism, or fascism or possibly both we are experiencing. I have been on and still are on a tangent to explain what is happening in the world where up is down and down is up and absolutely nothing makes sense anymore because knowing and having an explanation for it for me is better and less scary than not knowing. Your words reflect a realist’s point of view in general but us dissidents of the current regime having to go underground to hide from detection from the mass surveillance is a really good prediction.
For some strange reason I still have faith in humanity at large and even if things are dark for awhile, I am hopeful we will come through it all to a brighter future.
My German mom is a survivor who planned her escape as a teen and included two other girls whom she trusted from a German ammunition’s camp where the Nazis used German and other refugee children because their hands were small enough to load the ammunition. The Allies were close and she knew they would target the camp. They were the only 3 survivors when within days of their successful individual escapes the entire camp was destroyed and everyone in it. She told me that she had determined she was not just going to sit around and wait to die but rather try to escape even if caught and shot in the back. Rather die fighting for freedom than meekly wait to die. Never give up she’s always said, always keep trying no matter what battle you have to face never give up so that is what I intend to do. I live in Canada and we just voted in a “right leaning “ new premier for our province as well the new leader unanimously voted in for our Conservative party in our federal government is also “right leaning” as have Italy and Poland and a few other EU countries voted in a populist government albeit Trump in the US was definitely the biggest and most powerful populist president. My biggest worry? Our prime minister of Canada Justin Trudeau and his woke Liberal government passing legislation “for our safety from mis and disinformation” to censor our Internet here in Canada.
Thank you for your time!
Great question: do we have socialism or fascism. IMHO neither, though some features of both are incorporated into the system. The language of the past is useful only in so far as we can apply it without mistaking what is new and distinct and thereby most dangerous. Socialism died with the USSR, capitalism died in the decades after when corporate losses were routinely socialised and money-printing thoroughly displaced capital generated from the savings of the public. The seizure of Russian assets (both public and private) by administrative fiat, rather than a formal judicial process, takes us back to the 17th c and annihilates the liberal character of the state.
I'd say that we are moving into new, fast developing, territory: post-liberal modernity (US model). The defining feature of this is power projected universally through the synchronisation of all public and private institutions, co-ordinated by intra-elite co-operation which is incentivised by the need for individuals to maintain their lifelong employability within the system.
Post-liberal modernity aims to manage economic decline in an era of increasing scarcity and increased competition for resources such as energy, commodities and living-space. Historically, all successful systems of government needed to maintain public safety, social peace, security from external threats and the maintenance of whatever material condition were needed for the reproduction of society.
Post-liberal modernity involves a regime that is indifferent to public safety, undermines social peace, is inept at war and unable to maintain the material conditions for family formation and replacement level fertility of its nominal citizens.
Post-liberal modernity legitimises an ever-increasing incidence of state failure and stabilises oligarchic rule under conditions of social decay. It normalises the conditions of national decline. Managing economic decline through deindustrialisation enables regimes to simultaneously target austerity at disfavoured strata while preserving existing social relations and allocating resources to suit regime preferences. There is now no common good in which the ruled, the many, enjoy a share. The good of the few, the oligarchs and the constituencies that support them (the professional and managerial classes), is distinct from that of the many. To avoid mobilisation by the many, the few promote the activism of their own clients. Destabilisation is driven by the lack of any common good. The few see their future good realised through global integration. The many (the insecure working classes) see their good discounted in any viable or foreseeable future.
The psycho-affective drivers of the system: libido dominandi of the few, accompanied by the humiliation of the ruled. Humiliation or social denigration manages expectations of recognition and respect, maintains status distinctions and provides psychic income to the few as well as psychic welfare to those subordinate strata that are differentiated from the heritage population by identity politics. Active denigration punishes those who might disrupt the existing hierarchy, passive denigration reinforces the demoralisation/subordination of the disfavoured.
PS My Czech father was lucky not to be interned as a child, but he lived through the war and ended up in the West. I am appalled beyond words that we, meaning everyone, have not learnt a thing: power is not our friend and there is nothing in the condition of the West that offers us immunity to abuse and exploitation by authoritarian government. I believe in people and our ability to think for ourselves, not institutions.