Back in 2016 it was the Republican Party that got blindsided by a outside candidate, Donald Trump.
All the wise heads agreed that it just didn't make sense that everyone should be going crazy. Except it did make sense. Trump appeared and put himself at the head of a disorganized rabble of ordinary Americans, people that were neither educated swells or subordinate serfs: call them Responsibles, Commoners, Yeomen, whatever.
The point is that in the last 50 years the ruling class and the educated Gentry -- or Creative Class or clerisy -- has been implementing a cultural and political agenda that makes the ordinary American the scapegoat, because racist, sexist, homophobe. And Trump came along and made himself the leader of those selected to be scapegoats.
Today, in 2020, the Democratic Party is falling apart as Bernie Sanders, unreconstructed Sixties Commie, is the leading candidate for president. What is going on?
I mean, come on chaps! This is crazy! Nobody really believes that socialism works do they?
Sorry, but they do. And I would say that it is a consequence of the educated Gentry playing with gasoline for almost a century.
What the Democratic Party and the educated Gentry have been selling since, say FDR and the New Deal, is Oh No! We are not crazy lefty socialists, but boy, how you poor victims have been screwed by the system! And how about some free stuff if you vote for us!
The problem is, of course, that to win elections you have to promise free stuff, and the free stuff you handed out at the last election doesn't count.
As I say in my reductive Three Peoples theory and as Curtis Yarvin says in his three-layer theory, the current political setup is that the educated Gentry gets to occupy the commanding heights of the culture and education and the bureaucracy by organizing the Clients -- or victims or serfs -- against the ordinary middle who are racist sexist homophobes.
Plus, because the educated Gentry is also a kind of priesthood, a clerisy, it promulgates from a thousand cultural pulpits its religion of woke virtue. Due to the internal logic of such sermonizing you get to a point where ordinary Commoners that don't intone the correct responses to the Creed get named and shamed and shunned: canceled.
Now it is my belief that the current religion and culture of the educated Gentry is is fact a peculiarly nostaglic longing for the good old days, the prehistoric days: a Great Reaction. To use a Jungian notion, the educated Gentry is rediscovering the hidden harmonies and resonances of the old archetypes.
One of the points of the Jung doctrine was to say: don't you imagine that you are a modern that is all about logic and reason. Those ancient prehistoric archetypes are still at work in your unconscious mind, and don't you forget it.
Thus when I say that socialism is a return to slavery, I am saying that there is a peculiar satisfaction, if you are a notable in the Gentry, to ordering the plebs around.
When I say that the welfare state is a return to feudalism, I am saying that there is a peculiar satisfaction, if you are a functionary in the Deep State, to sashaying around like the local lord in caring for your flock of peasants.
When I say that activism is a replay of medieval knight-errantry, I mean that there is a peculiar frisson from pretending you are a brave revolutionary waving the flag of revolution on the barricades.
My belief is that the Left and its culture and its instantiation in the United States in the Democratic Party is a reactionary movement that is really cool for the educated Gentry, spending other peoples' money on themselves. But it is not good for the Commoners and Yeomanry.
And it is not good for the serfs, the Clients, the subordinates. Why? Because it does not help them master the Code of the City, that you leave the comforts of your ethnic tribe in the city ghetto and bravely, one step at a time, learn how to master life in the city as a contributor and cooperator in the market economy. The Gentry says to the victims, oh, don't worry about silly little things like getting a skill or learning how to be a good employee, or how to use the finance system. Just vote for us and we will take care of you.
Only the day comes, as it did for the white working class, when the Gentry reneges on its promise to its "Little Darlings" and leaves them by the side of the road. Sorry about that.
But that is not all.
The day also comes when the whole progressive project starts to split at the seams. You see that with Our Nance and Chuck the Schmuck. This week they are issuing crazy pronouncements blaming President Trump for his Coronavirus response. You mean, instead of going to the White House and saying: "Mr. President. How can we help!"
In other words, they don't have a clue what they are doing and where they are going. They are just reacting to the latest news and blaming it all on Trump.
Let us give the educated Gentry its due. Back in the day it made some kind of sense to imagine that the destiny of educated children of wealthy businessmen ought to be to help the workers in the city, who would otherwise die of "immiseration" among those Satanic mills.
Actually, they turned out to be wrong about that. The Industrial Revolution saved the peasants from starvation and gave them jobs in the cities and then the workers could climb up from being mere "hands" to a modest respectability as, in the 19th century, the Irish in America rose in half a century from "shanty Irish" to "lace-curtain Irish."
But whatabout the blacks? We need to give them their rights and end the shame and injustice of slavery and Jim Crow.
OK. Done that. Yes, but whatabout institutional racism, and disparity and exclusion? And toxic masculinity! And homophobia!
Oh yeah. I see. You chaps want a job. You want to maintain meaning in your Gentry lives. You are looking around you and want get your name up in lights again.
Well, now the whole project is in ruins. Actually, in this situation, Bernie Sanders makes sense. As developmental psychologists like Clare Graves and Don Beck and Ken Wilber say: when your life seems to be failing then you reset back to a lower developmental level. So if the woke-and-identity politics seems to be failing let's go back to the class politics of our fathers!
Of course, I know exactly what should happen next, because I am all-wise and all knowledgeable.
First, the educated Gentry should actually think about how to help the serfs, clients, and subordinates. My advice is to help them to get out of the victim culture and become Commoners and Yeomen and middle class.
Then, the educated Gentry should think about how to help the Commoners, Yeomen and deplorables. My advice is to help them imagine that they could step out of the set routines of middle-class life and become just a little bit creative. But nobody should pretend that the creative life is just a walk in the park.
Then, the educated Gentry should think about themselves. What does it actually mean to be woke and evolved and creative? My advice is that the real creative life is the life of the Sacrificial Hero, that descends into the underworld of the unconscious to confront the truth about himself, and if he survives that journey he may return to the world to live on the border between Chaos and Order and try to explore that terrifying land -- and hope that his experience will be a boon to his fellow humans. And to recognize that there will be no hosannas and statues and adoring crowds. In other words, better leave ambition and vanity and honor at the door.
But back to the excitement of today.
Conrad Black says that the Dems need to commit (temporary) suicide.
All the wise heads agreed that it just didn't make sense that everyone should be going crazy. Except it did make sense. Trump appeared and put himself at the head of a disorganized rabble of ordinary Americans, people that were neither educated swells or subordinate serfs: call them Responsibles, Commoners, Yeomen, whatever.
The point is that in the last 50 years the ruling class and the educated Gentry -- or Creative Class or clerisy -- has been implementing a cultural and political agenda that makes the ordinary American the scapegoat, because racist, sexist, homophobe. And Trump came along and made himself the leader of those selected to be scapegoats.
Today, in 2020, the Democratic Party is falling apart as Bernie Sanders, unreconstructed Sixties Commie, is the leading candidate for president. What is going on?
I mean, come on chaps! This is crazy! Nobody really believes that socialism works do they?
Sorry, but they do. And I would say that it is a consequence of the educated Gentry playing with gasoline for almost a century.
What the Democratic Party and the educated Gentry have been selling since, say FDR and the New Deal, is Oh No! We are not crazy lefty socialists, but boy, how you poor victims have been screwed by the system! And how about some free stuff if you vote for us!
The problem is, of course, that to win elections you have to promise free stuff, and the free stuff you handed out at the last election doesn't count.
As I say in my reductive Three Peoples theory and as Curtis Yarvin says in his three-layer theory, the current political setup is that the educated Gentry gets to occupy the commanding heights of the culture and education and the bureaucracy by organizing the Clients -- or victims or serfs -- against the ordinary middle who are racist sexist homophobes.
Plus, because the educated Gentry is also a kind of priesthood, a clerisy, it promulgates from a thousand cultural pulpits its religion of woke virtue. Due to the internal logic of such sermonizing you get to a point where ordinary Commoners that don't intone the correct responses to the Creed get named and shamed and shunned: canceled.
Now it is my belief that the current religion and culture of the educated Gentry is is fact a peculiarly nostaglic longing for the good old days, the prehistoric days: a Great Reaction. To use a Jungian notion, the educated Gentry is rediscovering the hidden harmonies and resonances of the old archetypes.
One of the points of the Jung doctrine was to say: don't you imagine that you are a modern that is all about logic and reason. Those ancient prehistoric archetypes are still at work in your unconscious mind, and don't you forget it.
Thus when I say that socialism is a return to slavery, I am saying that there is a peculiar satisfaction, if you are a notable in the Gentry, to ordering the plebs around.
When I say that the welfare state is a return to feudalism, I am saying that there is a peculiar satisfaction, if you are a functionary in the Deep State, to sashaying around like the local lord in caring for your flock of peasants.
When I say that activism is a replay of medieval knight-errantry, I mean that there is a peculiar frisson from pretending you are a brave revolutionary waving the flag of revolution on the barricades.
My belief is that the Left and its culture and its instantiation in the United States in the Democratic Party is a reactionary movement that is really cool for the educated Gentry, spending other peoples' money on themselves. But it is not good for the Commoners and Yeomanry.
And it is not good for the serfs, the Clients, the subordinates. Why? Because it does not help them master the Code of the City, that you leave the comforts of your ethnic tribe in the city ghetto and bravely, one step at a time, learn how to master life in the city as a contributor and cooperator in the market economy. The Gentry says to the victims, oh, don't worry about silly little things like getting a skill or learning how to be a good employee, or how to use the finance system. Just vote for us and we will take care of you.
Only the day comes, as it did for the white working class, when the Gentry reneges on its promise to its "Little Darlings" and leaves them by the side of the road. Sorry about that.
But that is not all.
The day also comes when the whole progressive project starts to split at the seams. You see that with Our Nance and Chuck the Schmuck. This week they are issuing crazy pronouncements blaming President Trump for his Coronavirus response. You mean, instead of going to the White House and saying: "Mr. President. How can we help!"
In other words, they don't have a clue what they are doing and where they are going. They are just reacting to the latest news and blaming it all on Trump.
Let us give the educated Gentry its due. Back in the day it made some kind of sense to imagine that the destiny of educated children of wealthy businessmen ought to be to help the workers in the city, who would otherwise die of "immiseration" among those Satanic mills.
Actually, they turned out to be wrong about that. The Industrial Revolution saved the peasants from starvation and gave them jobs in the cities and then the workers could climb up from being mere "hands" to a modest respectability as, in the 19th century, the Irish in America rose in half a century from "shanty Irish" to "lace-curtain Irish."
But whatabout the blacks? We need to give them their rights and end the shame and injustice of slavery and Jim Crow.
OK. Done that. Yes, but whatabout institutional racism, and disparity and exclusion? And toxic masculinity! And homophobia!
Oh yeah. I see. You chaps want a job. You want to maintain meaning in your Gentry lives. You are looking around you and want get your name up in lights again.
Well, now the whole project is in ruins. Actually, in this situation, Bernie Sanders makes sense. As developmental psychologists like Clare Graves and Don Beck and Ken Wilber say: when your life seems to be failing then you reset back to a lower developmental level. So if the woke-and-identity politics seems to be failing let's go back to the class politics of our fathers!
Of course, I know exactly what should happen next, because I am all-wise and all knowledgeable.
First, the educated Gentry should actually think about how to help the serfs, clients, and subordinates. My advice is to help them to get out of the victim culture and become Commoners and Yeomen and middle class.
Then, the educated Gentry should think about how to help the Commoners, Yeomen and deplorables. My advice is to help them imagine that they could step out of the set routines of middle-class life and become just a little bit creative. But nobody should pretend that the creative life is just a walk in the park.
Then, the educated Gentry should think about themselves. What does it actually mean to be woke and evolved and creative? My advice is that the real creative life is the life of the Sacrificial Hero, that descends into the underworld of the unconscious to confront the truth about himself, and if he survives that journey he may return to the world to live on the border between Chaos and Order and try to explore that terrifying land -- and hope that his experience will be a boon to his fellow humans. And to recognize that there will be no hosannas and statues and adoring crowds. In other words, better leave ambition and vanity and honor at the door.
But back to the excitement of today.
Conrad Black says that the Dems need to commit (temporary) suicide.
An ineluctable process of national political renovation is proceeding apace... the Democratic Party will... slouch off to Milwaukee to consummate temporary suicide, enabling a sensible resurrection worthy of that historically great party.And if their wise heads plump on my suggestions above, then future generations will sing hosannas to their vision and their wisdom.
But are there any Sacrificial Heros now?
ReplyDeleteMilwaukee was prescient!