The Current Racial Frenzy Will Abate, But...

 George Will has a piece out prophesying the end of the current race frenzy: "National conservatives and racial identitarians have a common enemy: Individualism." But our problems will not be solved with the race frenzy abatement, because the nationalist right is almost as bad as the racist left. Both the nationalist right and the racist left are united in a war against individualism. Individualism, is something new under the sun, he says, invoking Michael Oakeshott.

Modernity’s greatest achievement, which was the prerequisite for its subsequent achievements, was the invention of the individual. Oakeshott argued that, in the 14th and 15th centuries, conditions emerged that were “favorable to a very high degree of human individuality,” meaning “persons accustomed to making choices for themselves.”

And the conditions were particularly favorable in Italian cities.

Well, I can understand that Buckley-era conservatives like Will would look askance at Trump-era populist conservatism; it's centered on the identity and the economic interest of the very ordinary middle class American rather than the business-owning middle class of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.

Indeed, in 2021, U.S. “national conservatives,” who are collectivists on the right, recoil against modernity in the name of communitarian values, strongly tinged with a nativist nationalism and with a trace of the European blood-and-soil right.

Really? I have a better idea, a higher idea, that floats above the decaying remnant of Buckleyism and the eternal lefty search for the transformative community that will lead directly to justice do not pass go.

It is this.

All politics is built around the friend-enemy distinction. The point in any politics is to define who is one of "us" and who is one of "them," the enemy that "we" might have to fight and kill.

Once the size of human community has expanded beyond the hunter-gatherer band of the kindred the big man and the politicians and the clerics have to come up with a new narrative that explains the new community. Enter the age of "tribalism." And I maintain that all tribalisms are fake tribalisms, a likely origin myth and  "story so far" that explains and exalts "our community" and unites the community with feeling of belonging together.

In particular, I suggest, almost all political identities are forged by the veteran soldiers in the army, the brothers in arms that founded the state that we descendants come to think of as having existed for all time.

What is "nativist nationalism?" It is, presumably the tribe of people in a contiguous nation state that are native to the place. As opposed to more recent arrivals who maybe don't yet identify as natives, but as an immigrant community that still identifies in part with its identity in the old country. It is not hard to understand that the natives of a country would be suspicious of more recent arrivals, and vice versa.

And it is not surprising that politicians and priests would take advantage of this.

Obviously, this is the story of politics in the United States at least since the Irish started arriving in the 1840s in consequence of the potato famine. Immigrant groups arrived in steamships from Europe and coalesced in immigrant "ghettos" for a generation or two. And soon after they arrived the local political machine started to organize them into its own personal vote bank. 

Obviously the left has invented a new form of tribalism based not on place but on class and race. To me, this is just another opportunistic "fake tribalism" that teaches a group of people to feel an identity that just happens to benefit the educated ruling class that wants to unite various lower-class groups into a political army to fight against the middle.

And this is the game of all political ruling classes, to conjure up some kind of "fake tribalism" to unify the people you want to unify into a political identity, and then lead them to war against some enemy, foreign or domestic.

It is telling that the current leftist politics based on race or the slightly less racist notion of "oppressed peoples" has arisen in a time when an appeal to workers as a class is not as politically useful as, say, back in the 1930s.

But whatabout nativist nationalism and race identitarians?

Well, I would say they they are both led by political leaders that experience themselves as creative individualists.

In other words, I would say that all "individualists" are upper class people that see themselves as transformative and creative leaders. On the conservative side these might be people that see themselves as intellectuals imagining a political framework of limited government, or business start-up entrepreneurs imagining how they are going to transform the business world, or lefty political activists imagining how they are going to bend the arc of history towards justice.

And so all this fits into my reductive Three Peoples theory, where the nativist nationalists are people in the Responsible middle class who identify with nation and the race identitarians are lower class Subordinates who identify with their non-American national origin or class or race rather than with the larger political community. And Individualists are all members of the Creative class imagining that they are doing a great thing.

But I could be wrong.

Women Complain Because They Want to be "Soothed"

Now there's one thing in the world that I trust absolutely.

And that's My Girl Mary-Ann Evans. That's George Eliot to you. She was the daughter of a carpenter that rose to be an estate manager, managing the estates of rich rural magnates in the old rural England. Her chef d'oeuvre is probably Middlemarch.

So, we can say of George Eliot that, like Susan Sowerby, mother of ten in The Secret Garden, "she knows."

Now, in order to celebrate Christmas I have been re-reading Eliot's first full-length novel Adam Bede. Adam is a carpenter and rises to become the estate manager for Arthur Donnithorne. Adam is tall, strong, worthy, and courageous.

But Adam's mother is an eternal complainer, as in my earth-shattering notion that women have a Culture of Complaint.

But now comes Mary-Ann Evans, and "she knows." So here is a fragment about Adam's mother, Lisbeth Bede.

Like all complaining women, she complained in the expectation of being soothed, and when Adam said nothing, she was only prompted to complain more bitterly.

Did you get that, guys?

Women complain in the expectation of being soothed.

Does that align with my notion of "women expect to be protected" or not?

By the way, guess who is George Eliot's Soother-in-chief?

Right first time. It's Dinah Morris, the sainted Methodist lay-preacher and heroine in Adam Bede. and one of the people she soothes is Adam's mother Lisbeth.

(She also soothes the antagonist Hetty Sorrel before Hetty needs soothing. But she will need soothing, of course, and the sainted Dinah already knows it.)

Now, if a woman is complaining it is probably because she is anxious. And why is she anxious? Because she is concerned that she may not be protected.

And so, what is the point of soothing the anxious woman? To assure her that, don't worry darling, you are going to be protected.

By the way, this all aligns with our current safetyism, the notion of women all complaining about "stress." Not to mention workplace harassment. This all aligns with my talk about Women in the Public Square, that they are in the process, per Georg Simmel, of adapting the public square to suit "a more feminine sensibility."

Women expect to be protected; they need to be safe. When they are uncertain about that protection they complain. When they complain they don't want to be told to shut up and stop complaining -- such a guy thing! They want to be soothed, and they want to be told that everything will be all right.

Hmm. I remember, back in the olden time, how my sainted mother used to chuckle about my Dad. How he would tell her "it'll be all right."

See? Mary-Ann Evans is right. And my mother at least had the wisdom to laugh about my Dad's efforts to soothe her when she was complaining about something.

Whatabout Kids' Education?

We were dining with friends, whose daughters are both in college. And the father opined as how kids shouldn't go to college until their mid twenties. And I agreed.

But, really, when was the last time we, the American people, thought about our kids' education? Other than making sure to buy a house in a good school district and then send the kids to a good college? 

And when was the last time that our noble rulers thought seriously about kids' education?

My potted history of US education is:

Aristotle: "Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man."

Jesuits: Ditto.

Shakespeare: This son of a glovemaker in England went to the local grammar school at Stratford on Avon where he learned, among other things, Latin. In those days kids started work at age eight unless they went to grammar school.

Tocqueville: He thought American education in the 1830s was "widespread and mediocre." Your average backwoodsman had "the Bible, an axe, and a file of newspapers."

Horace Mann: Main force of the common school movement in the 1830s. The idea was for the Transcendentalists to outflank the remaining Puritans and reeducate the Catholics. His system was influenced by the Germans.

Irish Catholics: First build the school, then the church, Horace Mann.

High schools: Universal secondary education began to be widespread after the National Education Association recommended twelve years of education, with the idea that every kid should be taught the same material in the same way. And basically prepare kids for a job.

John Dewey: Believed in education as "a social institution through which social reform can and should take place."

School Choice: Advanced by economist Milton Friedman in the 1950s, it centers around "vouchers" so that parents can send kids to the school of their choice. With gubmint money.

Mega high schools: In The American High School Today in 1959 Harvard President emeritus James B. Conant recommended mega high schools so they could offer more and varied programs.

Home schooling: Began in the 1960s as a pushback against compulsory gubmint education.

School busing: A 1971 Supreme Court allowed busing of school children to "diversify the racial makeup of schools."

A Nation at Risk: This 1983 report said that American schools were failing, so reform was needed.

Charter Schools: Schools within the gubmint school system that offer alternative educational methods outside the rigid rules of the standard schools.

No Child Left Behind: This Act in 2001 proposed national standards in education.

Bill Gates: High schools are too big.

Self-education: "Given tablets but no teachers, Ethiopian children educate themselves."

Common Core: Starting in 2010 a state effort to provide nationwide common education standards.

CRT and Equity: America and schools are racist; enough of grades and math already.

COVID School Closures: Close schools during a modest epidemic. Because safety and morbidly obese women teachers.

Most people will agree that this history adds up to a total cock-up on the education front that is Making Things Worse. 

All these experts have had their turn. Now it's my turn:

I propose that nearly all education reformers are Klueless Klots that don't have a Klue.

I propose that gubmint schools should properly be called "Government Child Custodial Facilities."

I propose an end to compulsory schooling.

I propose that the standard model of childhood education should be neighborhood mothers getting together to educate their children with tablets (see above) and the mothers that don't get with the program should be named and shamed and shunned by the other mothers.

I propose that after age 11, children should be forced to crawl over broken glass if they want to go to school.

I propose that employers should offer education opportunities, as the employers of apprentices did in the olden time.

I propose that the US should pass a constitutional amendment forbidding the federal government to fund or legislate about universities.

As you can see, I am a profound moderate when it comes to education. Merry Christmas!

The Eternal Question About Government

Government knows only two modes. First there is the call to arms against an enemy. The call to arms may be against the Vikings, the Frogs, the Krauts, the Commies, the A-rabs, the Pox.

But the question is ever the same. Is a total mobilization of The People to fight the Foe the only option? Or even the best option?

We can see this with World War COVID.

Was it really a good idea for President Trump to make it a headline affair? With daily press conferences at the White House?

Was it really a good idea for Democrats in Fall 2020 to raise questions about the "Trump vaccine?"

Was it really a good idea to push universal vaccination? And vaccine mandates? And tell anti-vaxxers that they are bad people, aka the enemy?

My point is that this is the way that government approaches everything. There must be an enemy! We must all unite together! Anyone that doesn't rally to the colors is a coward! You must follow the orders of the leader! Attack! Attack! Attack!

Let's say, for the sake of argument that when the nation is threatened by a new pestilence, then the strategy of mobilizing the country as for war, and creating an army to attack and vanquish the foe is appropriate.

But, I think, it is pretty obvious that, by now, the World War COVID approach is no longer appropriate. And the question is: was it ever appropriate? How do we know? How can we tell?

Let's segue to the question of governments and the poor.

Obviously, I would say, the COVID lockdowns were a mistake because they have flung a lot of marginal people out of work. And people who have responded to the government rent and mortgage pauses by skipping on your payments you are now in a world of hurt.

So now what? Do we throw more money at the folks thrown out of work whose lives are now in a spiral dive? Maybe homeless?

Let's go back to the Crash of 2008. Whatabout the people thrown out of work back then? That lost their houses because of their underwater mortgages? How good of an idea was it to subsidize mortgages, pump housing prices into the sky, and then have to deal with the human rubble after the crash? How well did government deal with and help the human rubble of the Crash of 2008.

By the way, back in the 1980s our liberal friends were making a big issue of the homeless, that they blamed on Reaganomics. But maybe they were folks thrown out of work in the stagflation and subsequent credit crunch and recession in 1980-81. And the inflation of the 1970s? Due to the Great Society of the 1960s and coincident Vietnam War? And maybe the end of the government-subsidized union jobs that got union worker wages way above the market rate?

By the way, back in the 1930s we had another crack-up, deriving from the Crash of 1929 and the failure of the Federal Reserve Board to act as lender of last resort. And the FDR government mucking around with 1,001 gubmint programs recommended by the best and brightest that didn't help get the US out of the Great Depression. Back then they call the homeless camps "Hoovervilles." Or Skid Row bums.

Oh, back in the 19th century we had the Long Depression in the 1870s after the US did a bit of Deflation after the civil war to get back on the gold standard. About ten years of misery and ruin. Back in the day, young chaps like Andrew Mellon and his dad Thomas Mellon reckoned that the economy moved in about five good years followed by five bad years, rinse and repeat.

Back in 1820, after the end of the Napoleonic Wars things were pretty bad for workers and peasants in England, and they had the Captain Swing riots.

Back in Prussia, after the Seven Years War, King Frederick tried to get the economy going again. He "did what he could to help the peasants... a downtrodden class." But his "simple agrarian reforms... was hampered by the conservatism of the countrymen"; an echo of centuries of agricultural "improvement." And his clumsy efforts to promote industry were a mixed bag.

And prior to that, in the age of agricultural "improvement" peasants were chucked off baronial estates because they did not pay.

And the governments of the age lurched from anti-vagrant laws to indoor relief to outdoor relief to workhouses to I know not what. In other words, they didn't have a clue. Never did, never will.

See, I think that the current liberal lurch towards criminal reform and release of criminals pre-trial -- except when the criminals do a car-jacking on a Democratic congresswoman -- is really a reaction to the failure of liberal politics. See, it's one thing to use state violence on armed insurrectionists, who are, after all, the enemy. But it cannot be that state-certified victims can be hunted down like armed insurrectionists. That's only for the enemy.

Unfortunately the inner-city thugs are just behaving like pre-agricultural humans. They are patrolling the border of their urban territory, and anyone they encounter is an enemy, and subject to looting and plundering.

But how to cure them of this culture?

Well, I think that politics and government, with their friend-enemy distinction, are not the vehicle to help the poor. In fact, I suggest, the history of the last 200 years is that the introduction of the poor into the industrial economy was totally unexpected and unpredicted by the best and the brightest. And even when it was in full swing, by the middle of the 19th century, you had rich kids like Marx and Engels predicting that it would all end in tears. Only they were wrong. Dead wrong. In fact, their solution to the workers problem was Communism, the worst nightmare visited upon humans short of a plague that takes away one-third of the population.

Actually, it makes sense that politics and government would not be the solution of the poverty problem. Because politics is about the enemy -- and we don't really want to think of the poor as an enemy. And government is about force -- and we don't really want to use force on the poor, do we?

I have a modest suggestion. Government is for war. And only war. Everything else must be done either at a local, municipal level, or by voluntary associations.

Back in the day, about the first thing that Hitler and his pals did was demolish the vast growth of German associations, by forcing them to have Nazis in control. In the conventional-wisdom The Coming of the Third Reich, Richard J. Evans writes about Northeim, in Saxony right in the middle of Germany. 

Northeim had a rich associational life, much of it more or less unpolitical[.]

That included the local "consumer co-operative... clubs for the disabled... the Boy Scouts... singing clubs... shooting clubs... swimming association... football clubs... gymnastic societies." But the Nazis burned them all down and co-opted them into the national state.

Is the co-opting of everything in America into the woke any different? Except for the lack of jackboots and swastikas?

See, underneath the stunning brightness of the glorious state is a vast human network of social interactions beneath and beyond the gaze of the political class. And it may be that most of the work of the world has been and will always be conducted by the ordinary people in their ordinary clubs and association and charities. And that without them human society would grind to a halt.

But do our rulers have a clue about that?

Alternatives to Politics and the Enemy

 If politics is the friend/enemy distinction, that "there is no politics without an enemy," then the interesting question is: "whatabout the alternatives."

And obviously the alternatives to the war against the enemy is something a bit less bloody. Such us religion and the good / evil distinction, and law and the legal / illegal distinction. And economic exchange and the trusting / cheating distinction.

But then an email acquaintance proposed the following:

Politicians need an enemy.
Corollary:  The enemy must be more feared than government.

That's a good point. Because clearly government likes to swing its weight around. I'd say it is pretty clear that since the January 6 riot our ruling class has -- deliberately or instinctively -- come down like a ton of bricks on the "armed insurrectionists" and also anyone in the Republican political sphere that might feel like lending them a hand, right Speaker Pelosi? Because, what with the resources of the government you can sure make life unbearable for any government critic or Outer Party partisan. As in bankrupting them.

Actually, there must be a further corollary to "politicians need an enemy." Clearly, practical politicians in the ruling class's Inner Party would really like it if members of the Outer Party had a healthy fear of the Inner Party.

And that is obviously what Our Nance and the Cancel Culture are all about. They are not interested in persuasion any more. Just intimidation.

Which tells us that they have given up on persuading us of the glory of their arc of history bending towards justice. Just shut up and fall into line, peasants.

But my point is that, really, we humans should attempt to spend as much time as possible outside the political world and its friend  enemy distinction. Because treating other people as the enemy implies physical conflict and ultimately the possibility of killing.

And the point about conflict and killing is that it is very expensive. Particularly for men. That is why, I have read, primitive tribes do not go in for pitched battles and the risk that the entire male warrior group could be killed off. When the males are all eliminated it means the end of the tribe, and the women are absorbed into the neighboring tribe.

You know, just like German women after World War II becoming GI war brides.

Primitive tribes prefer a nice surgical dawn raid to a pitched battle. More civilized, old chap.

And so also religion, which deals with malefactors by naming, shaming and shunning, rather than by conflict and killing. More civilized, old chap.

And law, which short-circuits the revenge and reparations culture with a legal trial, rules of evidence, and a final disposition of an argument over land, inheritance, wimmin, and a deal gone sour. More civilied, old chap.

And the market economy, which, as indicated by the Science™ of trust and the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, rewards acts of trust and penalizes acts of deceit. Notice that the market economy is gentler than the religious game of naming, shaming and shunning, and the expensive law game of trials and lawyer bills.

Amazing, innit, that the most civilized version of the friend-enemy distinction should be the one thing anathametized by our lefty friends. I wonder why? Is it because, at heart, they are primitives, or at least reactionaries, as in my Great Reaction.

Hey, you gotta say, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat are most keenly experienced in the political sphere, where all is won and lost in the decisive battle. So I understanding my lefty friends having a certain hankering, a certain nostalgia, for the good old days.

But I say that the destiny of mankind is to civilize conflict and disagreement. Because that is the whole point of social animals.

If you want excitement, then build a spaceship and go to Mars. Hey, Elon Musk may have a job for you.

Schumer, Pelosi, and the Nature of Politics

If you needed reminding that there is no politics without an enemy, just take a look at the reaction of Sen. Schumer (D-NY) to Sen. Manchin's decision that he's not supporting the Build Back Better bill in the Senate.

We are going to vote on a revised version of the House-passed Build Back Better Act – and we will keep voting on it until we get something done.

In other words, "once more unto the breach, dear friends."

Then there is Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

"We will continue to fight to pass the legislation," Pelosi said. "It must happen and we will do it as soon as we can."

See what I mean? Both Pelosi and Scbumer are talking as though there's a war on.

And in fact that is exactly what the BBB bill is all about: forcing Americans to pay for more social spending for Democratic lower-income constituencies and forcing Americans to pay for more green energy programs.

Because?

Because we must smash systemic racism once and for all.

Because we must transform the energy economy before the planet fries from runaway climate change.

Now, over at National Review they are talking about one-the-one-hand on-the-other-hand politics.

A close election and a narrow majority call for a modest agenda and for some bipartisan policy-making...

But the political psychology of a bitterly partisan time firmly resists modest agendas and bipartisan policy-making.

Trump won a narrow election but pushed the limits on his political agenda; Democrats won a narrow election and are pushing the limits. Both sides think the they was robbed, etc. 

I guess I live on a different planet from the NR guys.

Because I don't experience the present era as two sides fighting over the spoils. I see the current era as the ordinary middle class rebelling against a century of the educated class increasing government spending from 10 percent of GDP to the present 35-40 percent of GDP.

That is to say, the educated class has moved the United States from a society in which about 10 percent of its economy was decided by force to a society in which about 35-40 percent of its economy is decided by force.

Now I would say that, at some point, the ordinary people of a country are going to rebel when their rulers decide 35-40 percent of who gets the moulah. Because, human nature being what it is, the chances are that the rulers will prefer their friends and supporters when it comes to handing out the loot.

I interpret the current Democratic regime as racing to enact as much of their agenda as possible -- damn the torpedoes -- before they are out of power for a generation.

And what I dream of is a ruling class that does not think that a society that decides 35-40 percent of its economy by force is a good thing.

What I dream about is a ruling class that thinks: hmm, I wonder if there is a way to reduce the amount of government force in our lives without, of course, compromising the gloriousness of the most glorious ruling class in world history.

Because, you see, in my view, the problem with big government programs is that you can never change and adapt them. So they go on, plowing along, full speed ahead, until they hit an iceberg.

And it doesn't matter if Captain Biden on the bridge is the smartest guy in a generation, or if the Chief Engineer Pelosi in the engine room really knows steam propulsion like nobody else in the world. If you a blindly steering full speed ahead into a field of icebergs, you are going to have trouble right here in River City.

And then, of course, it's a question of whether there is enough time for everyone to get in the lifeboats before it's too late.

See, I have this weird notion that whenever you do something by force, you are probably Making Things Worse.

I wonder why.

Disinformation, Misinformation, Where Does It End?

The problem with censorship is not the harm it does to conspiracy theorists, regime enemies, racists, sexist, homophobes, and armed insurrectionists, although their sufferings are not to be marginalized.

No, the big problem is that when the regime gets to censor its opponents it gets to do stupid stuff that ends up hurting the ruling class and its power.

Yep, every ruling class wants to control the narrative, and it usually does, because almost all the voices in society want to suck up to power.

For instance, my nickel says that, at the end of the COVID experience, wise heads will nod at the idea that the censoring of critics of the lockdown, vaccination, testing regime will turn out to be a strategic mistake for the ruling class, that ends up damaging it and its reputation.

It seems pretty clear that regime spokesmen like Anthony Fauci have used their power to censor perfectly valid scientific and research opinion. For what, St. Anthony?

Social media like to flag regime-critical posts as "disinformation" and "misinformation." Facebook recently flagged a British Medical Journal article article on a "host of poor clinical trial research practices occurring at Ventavia" a "contract research company helping carry out the main Pfizer covid-19 vaccine trial." Facebook flagged the article as "missing context.. could mislead people." Really, Facebook? Apparently the article was flagged by a Facebook contractor called "Lead Stories." And I am supposed to believe that an outfit I have never heard of is more reliable that the BMJ?

Sorry, I don't buy it.

Look it is getting pretty obvious that the censorship on COVID-related reporting is coming around to haunt all the governments of the world. They have turned to massive lockdowns and mandatory vaccinations and suppression of alternative narratives because that is what governments do.

And if they can get away with censoring alternative viewpoints they will do that, because having to answer critics makes their job harder, in the sense that they have to get their messaging to align with the overall message from science, not just the ones that support their messaging and their policy.

This all got into high gear during the ruling class's five year campaign to get rid of Trump, and it clearly extended from the usual Democrat-aligned media to manipulation of search-engine results and social media posts.

In my own case, I found that my government spending site suddenly experienced a cut in traffic by 50 percent on April 2, 2019. I think that on that day Google implemented a search engine policy that promoted known institutions over mere websites. Which is fine, but what if the known institutions are lying? Or just stupid and ignorant? How would you know? By trusting the government? By trusting fact-check sites? By responding to pressure from the White House?

Really, there is no substitute for letting the various political sides, from right-wing conspiracy sites to left-wing activist sites, fight it out in the public square.

Because, you know what? In politics, in culture, in religion, everyone is creating a narrative based on their own particular understanding of the meaning of "life, the universe, and everything."

And if you give people half a chance, they will start to lie, and cover up their mistakes, and silence the opposition, especially when their sacred narrative, their prophecy, starts to fail to provide an accurate and useful picture of the world. Because that's when they get desperate.

And in the end, they will damage their own interest, because they will use their power to censor the opposition in order to cover up their follies and their mistakes.

My own feeling is that censorship of any kind should be illegal except in the case of world war.

And I'm not sure that censorship is a good idea in a world war either.