A conversation with a human PMC female fresh from a trip to Kenya was most instructive. She was very upset that tribal people were, well, tribal, in the sense that people in the tribe are expected to follow tribal norms, rather than express themselves. "I gotta be me" is the theme of pretty much every Hollywood production, every western song and cultural trope, going back at least to 1965 or even earlier. This works, but only in the specific context of a liberal society.
At the same time, viewed in the Kenyan context, tribal norms made perfect sense. For better or for worse, in rural Kenya, there is no law or government like what she is used to, You cannot call the police, you cannot expect help from the local government or the courts, not if you are the average frustrated Kikuyu. Rather, your extended family, your tribe are the only people you can count on to have your back if you need it. That can mean protection from attack but isn't limited to that.
At the same time, your tribe does not want loose cannons, people who themselves cannot be counted on, people who are unpredictable and whose unpredictable actions they may have to answer for. To use a favorite phrase, they don't want members whose mouths write checks that the tribe may end up having to cash.
They have to enforce tribal norms, because, for better or worse, their lives are not necessarily their own.
I had a similar conversation (well actually I heard a presentation by) a human PMC, an NGO type who was running a charity school in a very old tribal area. I have no particular disagreement with this woman, she was in many ways a very kind, generous and intelligent woman who had given a great deal to others, yet I was genuinely surprised at the anger, almost rage she expressed when she told the audience of how the father of one of her students informed her that his daughter (18 -19 years old) would not be returning to school next year because she was getting married.
That woman was a guest in a community that had survived incredible hardships for thousands of years yet, their tribal customs seemed to be a personal insult to her.
I happened to read earlier today the first essay of a series about how European pre-Roman tribes raised armies and about the social structures that provided the foundation to do so.
I wonder if the rise of "neofeudalism" (edit: per Yanis Varounakis' characterization) can be viewed in this context as well. The "original" feudalism, after all, was successful domination of those who could better engage in collective action over those who could not. The original incarnation of the aristocracy was tribal--the Germanic and other tribes--that enabled them to organize better. While the main source of their collective action advantage shifted to other assets over time, the "tribal" aspects of nobility remained: not surprisingly, nobles always acted more tribal.
Who are the modern Visigoths, Vandals, and Franks? Well, the emperors did invite them to do the jobs Romans wouldn't do, right?
feudalism ...was successful domination of those who could better engage in collective action over those who could not. It has to be specified that this collective action you mention is organized violence. The many peasants revolts in early feudal times (France for instance was rife with them) were violently repressed.
Who are the modern Visigoths, Vandals, and Franks?
Narco-cartels, street gangs and outlaw motorcycle clubs. I'm only partially joking, humans organize, and fraternal societies are always bubbling up. A loose federation of strong men unafraid of violence can do well in times of anarchy or just move into the cracks of society that the rule of law has abandoned.
I have recently been going back over some of the old stories of The Arthurian mythos, apart from a lot of other things, it does show a political project. In a time of anarchy Arthur becomes King by gathering the strongest warriors of the land and swears them all to brotherhood and a code of conduct.
I guess that depends on the particular migrant group.
The Visigoths Vandals and Franks were migrants, but they were also warlike tribes. The migrant work that they did for the Romans was mercenary work. Like many mercenaries they eventually decided to cut out the middleman and take the money directly from the bank, and the bank, and the city it was in.
Not all migrant groups can do that, or at least not all with the same level of efficacy.
While hk is correct that the advantage goes to the groups that can organize collective action better, Kouros gives consideration to VIOLENT collective action. I also believe that it is collective action of a very different type.
There have been many times when a factory that was making typewriters and sewing machines quickly converted into making pistols and rifles, but the factory workers themselves not so much.
A captain of industry is a different animal than a captain of infantry.
At risk of overstating the obvious, the reason we talk continually of power and sociopaths is because we are ruled by sociopaths.
Once a sociopath enters any game, all other players must turn sociopath themselves or lose, for the sociopath has no qualms about cheating and has no ideals to uphold.
Ah, but in groups troublemakers like sociopaths often get knifed in the back or lock out at the gate. It pays to be a sociopath in the right situation.
If you haven't already, I would highly recommend watching Adam Curtis' documentaries, particularly "Hypernormalisation" and "Can't get you out of my head". Stunning archival footage courtesy of the BBC, mind blowing editing, hypnotic narration, and VERY profound and thoughtful. He has dealt for decades with the rise of neo-liberalism, covert neo-fascism, the promotion of the ego as the ultimate virtue, and the progressive collapse of western societies. He doesn't politicise the subject, he observes and analyses. In my humble opinion he is THE BEST out there in this field. And so committed to inform, that his work is free to watch on YouTube
Adam Curtis' "Century of the Self" was my first introduction to Edward Bernays. Curtis said that he had been almost totally forgotten, well not anymore. The psychological basis of mass propaganda is now a real talking point for the cyber-dissidents.
For example: Who should I marry? If social, religious and traditional norms were helpful in answering this question, the potential spouse is now faced with an almost innumerable number of candidates whose selection he can never be sure whether he will find the "ideal" partner - provided that the seeker is actually aiming for a lifelong commitment and does not see weddings as repetitive "events".
However, I think that despite a "partner market", the habitus of one's own class (such a thing is supposed to exist) will prevail in this and other choices.
1) Perhaps it is because I am from a Third World country, but I think the problem with Europe (and the U.S.) is much deeper than presented here. I think First World people are facing a fundamental problem: believing in equality and prosperity for all necessarily implies the death of their way of life. Europe and the U.S. as they are today cannot live without the blood and disposession of the global south. The global wealth pump is designed to extract resources from Third World countries for the benefit of the First World. First World people have built their entire societies on the basis of this foreign, ill-acquired wealth. When your primary means of living is exploitation, believing in freedom and equality is suicidal.
2) I don't think young people in the U.S. and Europe were educated to hate their own country. I think they were taught that their countries were beacons of human rights, and that the reason they were allowed a better standard of living than the rest of the world was because they simply had better values and better ethical frameworks. The problem is that you cannot keep the standard of living without the human rights violations, and now you have a generation of young people trained to see these violations as abhorrent instead of justifiable on the basis of religion or xenophobia or racism. Now they feel lied to, and of course no longer believe in their countries. You cannot make moral goodness the basis of your statehood. Especially not if you are still commited to injustice in the colonies.
West built power and wealth long before dispossessing the global south. West built the ships, cannons, and armies capable of conquering the world after all. Conquest just made them even richer but Europeans lived in wealth before colonization. One just has to walk the streets of Europe and look at the buildings houses and churches still standing from middle ages. Some of those Churches castles and manors would cost billions to try and rebuild today. Europe itself was under siege from middle east then and still built up and eventually out into the world. (adversity makes you stronger) It wasnt called the "dark ages" because it was poor but liberals used that term to denote not liberal and the Church was basically the government. I think they'll be fine again if they cancel the welfare state. That might violate "human rights" today since everyone seems to think government owes them food shelter and healthcare but too bad.
1) The fact that the nobility and the church in Europe could command their country's labor force and riches to build churches and palaces doesn't mean that their countries were wealthy. The modern equivalent of this is third world oligarchs building themselves skyscrapers and mansions while their fellow citizens live in shacks with no access to modern infraestructure like a water system or an electrical grid. Modern (well-functioning) societies do build things which cost billions, but they are usually infraestructure projects like ports, rail networks, electrical plants, etc. which can be justified as public goods. We do still build beautiful things, like museums or other cultural buildings, but they have to belong to the public, because they are built with taxpayer money. You can no longer build something like Versailles with public funds for the benefit of a single person or family (and if you can, then there's something wrong with your governing system).
2) The wealth transfer from the colonies to Europe is not exactly a disputed historical point? The British are famous for starving people all around the world and something like 60+ countries have a holiday to celebrate their independence from Britain. Mexico and Peru produced 80% of the world's supply of silver between 1500-1800. While the local population died in the mines, the spanish managed to build and then lose an empire on the basis of this wealth. The industrial revolution in Britain was fueled by food production in slave plantations in the Caribbean. Here the calculus is even simpler: workers need calories to keep the factories going. No calories= no explosive industrial growth. In the case of Africa the transfer of "wealth" also took one of its most devastating forms: the transatlantic slave trade. Maybe Europe was wealthy during the middle ages, I don't know, burt whatever wealth it had grew exponentially with colonial exploitation.
3) Regarding "cancelling the welfare state." I'm not up to date with all of the anglo-saxon terminology. I can only say that people used to admire the Western world for its standard of living: the fact that people had access to basic necessities, healthcare, education, and civil liberties (a slightly idealized view, i'lI admit).
I do think one of the basic functions of goverment is coordinating things so that the population has access to food, shelter and healthcare, yes. This can be done in a number of ways: fixing agricultural prices, tariffs, tax exemptions, making sure people earn a good living wage, cash transfers, strategical food reserves, etc. etc. The exact mechanism is irrelevant so long as it gets done. I believe common prosperity is a good measure of how well a governing system is doing.
In the United States, from about 1972 to today, there has been hollowing out of manufacturing, government, and education along with all the wealth generated during those five decades.
A store of institutional, educational, governmental, and business skills and knowledge deliberately created over the 150 years of the American System. It was created during the 1820s.
Deliberately destroyed because it was profitable for the elites to do so and it weakened the ability of the lower American classes to resist. No factories, no unions, no pesky union supported politicians.
""Instead of citizens, with rights and responsibilities, we have residents who might as well be customers, paying fees to governments and benefiting from services, like shareholders in a company""
actually, beyond some official forms, resident isn't what has been substituted for the concept of citizen. If you notice over the past few decades the word Citizen has been deliberately morphed into Consumer.
Consumer, and content, consumption, its all words heavily used these days. Everyone is a consumer, and everything is content.
I was thinking of the EU, and initiatives to allow non-nationals who are residents in a country to vote in major elections . The whole purpose of this is to weaken the link between the citizen and the state. This is a different issue from the "customer" point.
oh I see. I was more focused on the globalist messaging you constantly see pushed in most media. I suppose for Consumer its all part of the same issues as you cite, undermining links between nations and families and societies, constructing a global designation of Consumer, with no troublesome links and loyalties beyond those he gives to the transnational corporations like Google or Nestle, and causes such as lgtb or climate, while getting our daily dose to mind and body from Facebook or Pfizer.
Indeed. And furthermore we are expected to market ourselves, as products/content too, in order to land the right job and progress in an approved direction. Develop an elevator pitch and wag that backside to demonstrate that we mean no harm. Don't dilute your energies showing goodwill to those who can't help you though.
Everybody can be a millionaire, so everybody's gotta try but by the laws of this human jungle only the heartless will survive (HT Matt Johnson)
indeed. We are all products too, and so need to behave in a way doesn't cause problems for marketing. You can still be a rebel, but within only those bounds designated in the terms and service and the various DEI frameworks. And of course we shouldn't own any actual property, as property ourselves we can only lease it for as long the companies wish us to.
Aurelien, you know how much I love your special flavour of disgruntled former establishment, and that I read every post, but sometimes your writing comes across as fairly strange:
“ It can only be a question of time, though, before European leaders finally realise that if you teach children to despise their country, its history and culture, correspondingly few will be prepared to die subsequently for your mistakes.”
Well, 500+ years of the colonial world order is by far the worst thing that happened. Ever. Period.
It’s been crumbling before our eyes in quite a spectacular fashion the past couple of years, and that’s a good thing.
Young men have been saying “hell no we won’t go!” when asked to fight and die for it for half a century (btw: which war did you fight, I forgot, please remind me) which is a good thing.
You seem to imply that the only way to heal Europe is for everyone to make a circle, join hands and sing Rule Britannia together. Which won’t happen and — you guessed it — that’s a good thing.
And about the internal history of the UK, I won’t even ask if you ever read The Condition of the Working Class in England, because I know that you have. So you actually know that the amusingly ahistorical idea of uniting any nation around its proud history is stillborn. For a brief period of time it could be done in the running up to a war, but it cannot anymore because we know too much about history. Which is a good thing!
he's a disgruntled old man who is barely capable of hiding his decidedly mundane reactionary politics, which he thinks are something special and educated because he is of a generation that felt and feels entitled to the entire history and future of the world. it would be clever for this dyed in the wool technocrat to spend all his time bemoaning technocrats if it wasn't so stupid.
Question : Can't things also be rediscovered? (Let's be optimistic)
I keep thinking the future of "the west" looks a lot like Italy (oligarchic, technocratic, tribal, corrupt), minus the good food.
A refrain I've heard more than once here has been "acquired rights" in reference to receivership of a "state" welfare program. It took me a while to figure out this actually means politicians rewarding their tribal voting groups; the Politics of Grievances is an apt label. Whether something is right or just doesn't really enter the equation, and once new spigots are opened, they rarely get shut (my favorite example is a 1970s/80s program to train women because of a school teacher shortage: 20 years minimum work for a guaranteed pension payout; *people were allowed to "buy out" years for university degrees and children. And I personally know a few 60-70 year olds who have been receiving a very modest monthly pension since the 90s.).
Interestingly though (in general terms), as we've subordinated everything to an illusory "economic" reason to exist, and societies are more complex and fragile, I think it's more and more likely that as the distance between reality and the narratives grow (Bourdieu comes to mind), so too might a trivial gash in the wall of a dam lead to its bursting, emptying the reservoir, leaving behind only artifacts for future groups to find. Incidentally this has always happened for millennia before the last 700 years of modernity.
Just a note on your comment about West Side Story, which of course was Romeo and Juliet set in Spanish Harlem. As it happens, Shakespeare meant the play to be an anti-dueling play. Apparently social norms were leading men to fight duels over anything. I read that Queen Elizabeth wanted to dampen down this destructive behavior and Shakespeare lent a hand. So your observation is astute.
There is much wisdom in honour and feuding. It is certainly different from Liberal individual concerns, so it must be differentiated from "ego" in that way. It is associated with collective shame more than individual guilt.
Goethe's treatment of Goetz of the Ironhand parallels with how important vengeance was for Indigenous Australian very enviable track record of social and cultural maintenance amongst tribal diversity and statelessness. Christian banning of "eye in place of an eye" and preassumed notion that vengeance is unquenchable makes understanding such more difficult.
Vengeance is often unending and extremely destructive, which is why it was eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth instead of a life for an eye. Also weregild another attempt to limit blood feuds especially the kind that go on for generations. The goal wasn’t to end vengeance, but to limit the extent.
Limit is good; dissolve is better. It IS possible, but perilous compared to sublimation, no question. The uninitiated (literally meant in Indigenous Australian culture) are not recommended to enter this arena.
Well written as usual! How do you both define and temporally rate generation as referenced in your last paragraph? I ask because, in the USA, I think we entered where people think we are entering now in the late 1970s and its just had its economic performance papered over (its still been bad though by any of the measurers measures, i.e. real GDP growth has been far worse) by empire (reserve currency, wage/development suppression in much of the "Global South", etc.) and its social BS took time to manifest as the invisible but still tangible structures constructed over the hundreds of years of the Old Republic took decades to fully degrade. If we do lose this empire very quickly very soon, then a great many papered over pathologies may quickly rear their monstrous heads...
What follows the neo-tribalism? Endless tribal wars? A revival of God and values? A strong man uniting tribes once more into nations? No way to mend the broken vase?
I've always thought that people are visceral. we are not rational beings. We are rationalizing beings that think with our brain stems. The enemy of my friend is my friend... for now, etc. We used to believe we even believed it.
A conversation with a human PMC female fresh from a trip to Kenya was most instructive. She was very upset that tribal people were, well, tribal, in the sense that people in the tribe are expected to follow tribal norms, rather than express themselves. "I gotta be me" is the theme of pretty much every Hollywood production, every western song and cultural trope, going back at least to 1965 or even earlier. This works, but only in the specific context of a liberal society.
At the same time, viewed in the Kenyan context, tribal norms made perfect sense. For better or for worse, in rural Kenya, there is no law or government like what she is used to, You cannot call the police, you cannot expect help from the local government or the courts, not if you are the average frustrated Kikuyu. Rather, your extended family, your tribe are the only people you can count on to have your back if you need it. That can mean protection from attack but isn't limited to that.
At the same time, your tribe does not want loose cannons, people who themselves cannot be counted on, people who are unpredictable and whose unpredictable actions they may have to answer for. To use a favorite phrase, they don't want members whose mouths write checks that the tribe may end up having to cash.
They have to enforce tribal norms, because, for better or worse, their lives are not necessarily their own.
I had a similar conversation (well actually I heard a presentation by) a human PMC, an NGO type who was running a charity school in a very old tribal area. I have no particular disagreement with this woman, she was in many ways a very kind, generous and intelligent woman who had given a great deal to others, yet I was genuinely surprised at the anger, almost rage she expressed when she told the audience of how the father of one of her students informed her that his daughter (18 -19 years old) would not be returning to school next year because she was getting married.
That woman was a guest in a community that had survived incredible hardships for thousands of years yet, their tribal customs seemed to be a personal insult to her.
I happened to read earlier today the first essay of a series about how European pre-Roman tribes raised armies and about the social structures that provided the foundation to do so.
Surprise. They were not liberal democracies.
https://acoup.blog/2024/06/07/collections-how-to-raise-a-tribal-army-in-pre-roman-europe-part-i-aristocrats-retainers-and-clients/
The atomized neoliberal individual is a fiction, as you so clearly demonstrate with your Kenyan example -- we are pack animals (like wolves).
Cats are not pack animals.
Except for Lions, maybe ;-)
True. Cheetahs also are more clingy than most other felines.
Cats are quite capable of altruism and of living in groups, just we aren't herd animals.
I wonder if the rise of "neofeudalism" (edit: per Yanis Varounakis' characterization) can be viewed in this context as well. The "original" feudalism, after all, was successful domination of those who could better engage in collective action over those who could not. The original incarnation of the aristocracy was tribal--the Germanic and other tribes--that enabled them to organize better. While the main source of their collective action advantage shifted to other assets over time, the "tribal" aspects of nobility remained: not surprisingly, nobles always acted more tribal.
Who are the modern Visigoths, Vandals, and Franks? Well, the emperors did invite them to do the jobs Romans wouldn't do, right?
feudalism ...was successful domination of those who could better engage in collective action over those who could not. It has to be specified that this collective action you mention is organized violence. The many peasants revolts in early feudal times (France for instance was rife with them) were violently repressed.
Who are the modern Visigoths, Vandals, and Franks?
Narco-cartels, street gangs and outlaw motorcycle clubs. I'm only partially joking, humans organize, and fraternal societies are always bubbling up. A loose federation of strong men unafraid of violence can do well in times of anarchy or just move into the cracks of society that the rule of law has abandoned.
I have recently been going back over some of the old stories of The Arthurian mythos, apart from a lot of other things, it does show a political project. In a time of anarchy Arthur becomes King by gathering the strongest warriors of the land and swears them all to brotherhood and a code of conduct.
All they need now is a Merlin.
Aren't migrants new barbarians?
I guess that depends on the particular migrant group.
The Visigoths Vandals and Franks were migrants, but they were also warlike tribes. The migrant work that they did for the Romans was mercenary work. Like many mercenaries they eventually decided to cut out the middleman and take the money directly from the bank, and the bank, and the city it was in.
Not all migrant groups can do that, or at least not all with the same level of efficacy.
While hk is correct that the advantage goes to the groups that can organize collective action better, Kouros gives consideration to VIOLENT collective action. I also believe that it is collective action of a very different type.
There have been many times when a factory that was making typewriters and sewing machines quickly converted into making pistols and rifles, but the factory workers themselves not so much.
A captain of industry is a different animal than a captain of infantry.
Ask Goethe and Goetz of the Iron Hand about feudalism. A different perspective.
At risk of overstating the obvious, the reason we talk continually of power and sociopaths is because we are ruled by sociopaths.
Once a sociopath enters any game, all other players must turn sociopath themselves or lose, for the sociopath has no qualms about cheating and has no ideals to uphold.
"Nice guys finish last" as they say.
Ah, but in groups troublemakers like sociopaths often get knifed in the back or lock out at the gate. It pays to be a sociopath in the right situation.
If you haven't already, I would highly recommend watching Adam Curtis' documentaries, particularly "Hypernormalisation" and "Can't get you out of my head". Stunning archival footage courtesy of the BBC, mind blowing editing, hypnotic narration, and VERY profound and thoughtful. He has dealt for decades with the rise of neo-liberalism, covert neo-fascism, the promotion of the ego as the ultimate virtue, and the progressive collapse of western societies. He doesn't politicise the subject, he observes and analyses. In my humble opinion he is THE BEST out there in this field. And so committed to inform, that his work is free to watch on YouTube
Adam Curtis' "Century of the Self" was my first introduction to Edward Bernays. Curtis said that he had been almost totally forgotten, well not anymore. The psychological basis of mass propaganda is now a real talking point for the cyber-dissidents.
Thank you. Will do!
For example: Who should I marry? If social, religious and traditional norms were helpful in answering this question, the potential spouse is now faced with an almost innumerable number of candidates whose selection he can never be sure whether he will find the "ideal" partner - provided that the seeker is actually aiming for a lifelong commitment and does not see weddings as repetitive "events".
However, I think that despite a "partner market", the habitus of one's own class (such a thing is supposed to exist) will prevail in this and other choices.
But I'm also an older person ...
I have two comments regarding this post:
1) Perhaps it is because I am from a Third World country, but I think the problem with Europe (and the U.S.) is much deeper than presented here. I think First World people are facing a fundamental problem: believing in equality and prosperity for all necessarily implies the death of their way of life. Europe and the U.S. as they are today cannot live without the blood and disposession of the global south. The global wealth pump is designed to extract resources from Third World countries for the benefit of the First World. First World people have built their entire societies on the basis of this foreign, ill-acquired wealth. When your primary means of living is exploitation, believing in freedom and equality is suicidal.
2) I don't think young people in the U.S. and Europe were educated to hate their own country. I think they were taught that their countries were beacons of human rights, and that the reason they were allowed a better standard of living than the rest of the world was because they simply had better values and better ethical frameworks. The problem is that you cannot keep the standard of living without the human rights violations, and now you have a generation of young people trained to see these violations as abhorrent instead of justifiable on the basis of religion or xenophobia or racism. Now they feel lied to, and of course no longer believe in their countries. You cannot make moral goodness the basis of your statehood. Especially not if you are still commited to injustice in the colonies.
West built power and wealth long before dispossessing the global south. West built the ships, cannons, and armies capable of conquering the world after all. Conquest just made them even richer but Europeans lived in wealth before colonization. One just has to walk the streets of Europe and look at the buildings houses and churches still standing from middle ages. Some of those Churches castles and manors would cost billions to try and rebuild today. Europe itself was under siege from middle east then and still built up and eventually out into the world. (adversity makes you stronger) It wasnt called the "dark ages" because it was poor but liberals used that term to denote not liberal and the Church was basically the government. I think they'll be fine again if they cancel the welfare state. That might violate "human rights" today since everyone seems to think government owes them food shelter and healthcare but too bad.
1) The fact that the nobility and the church in Europe could command their country's labor force and riches to build churches and palaces doesn't mean that their countries were wealthy. The modern equivalent of this is third world oligarchs building themselves skyscrapers and mansions while their fellow citizens live in shacks with no access to modern infraestructure like a water system or an electrical grid. Modern (well-functioning) societies do build things which cost billions, but they are usually infraestructure projects like ports, rail networks, electrical plants, etc. which can be justified as public goods. We do still build beautiful things, like museums or other cultural buildings, but they have to belong to the public, because they are built with taxpayer money. You can no longer build something like Versailles with public funds for the benefit of a single person or family (and if you can, then there's something wrong with your governing system).
2) The wealth transfer from the colonies to Europe is not exactly a disputed historical point? The British are famous for starving people all around the world and something like 60+ countries have a holiday to celebrate their independence from Britain. Mexico and Peru produced 80% of the world's supply of silver between 1500-1800. While the local population died in the mines, the spanish managed to build and then lose an empire on the basis of this wealth. The industrial revolution in Britain was fueled by food production in slave plantations in the Caribbean. Here the calculus is even simpler: workers need calories to keep the factories going. No calories= no explosive industrial growth. In the case of Africa the transfer of "wealth" also took one of its most devastating forms: the transatlantic slave trade. Maybe Europe was wealthy during the middle ages, I don't know, burt whatever wealth it had grew exponentially with colonial exploitation.
3) Regarding "cancelling the welfare state." I'm not up to date with all of the anglo-saxon terminology. I can only say that people used to admire the Western world for its standard of living: the fact that people had access to basic necessities, healthcare, education, and civil liberties (a slightly idealized view, i'lI admit).
I do think one of the basic functions of goverment is coordinating things so that the population has access to food, shelter and healthcare, yes. This can be done in a number of ways: fixing agricultural prices, tariffs, tax exemptions, making sure people earn a good living wage, cash transfers, strategical food reserves, etc. etc. The exact mechanism is irrelevant so long as it gets done. I believe common prosperity is a good measure of how well a governing system is doing.
In the United States, from about 1972 to today, there has been hollowing out of manufacturing, government, and education along with all the wealth generated during those five decades.
A store of institutional, educational, governmental, and business skills and knowledge deliberately created over the 150 years of the American System. It was created during the 1820s.
Deliberately destroyed because it was profitable for the elites to do so and it weakened the ability of the lower American classes to resist. No factories, no unions, no pesky union supported politicians.
""Instead of citizens, with rights and responsibilities, we have residents who might as well be customers, paying fees to governments and benefiting from services, like shareholders in a company""
actually, beyond some official forms, resident isn't what has been substituted for the concept of citizen. If you notice over the past few decades the word Citizen has been deliberately morphed into Consumer.
Consumer, and content, consumption, its all words heavily used these days. Everyone is a consumer, and everything is content.
I was thinking of the EU, and initiatives to allow non-nationals who are residents in a country to vote in major elections . The whole purpose of this is to weaken the link between the citizen and the state. This is a different issue from the "customer" point.
oh I see. I was more focused on the globalist messaging you constantly see pushed in most media. I suppose for Consumer its all part of the same issues as you cite, undermining links between nations and families and societies, constructing a global designation of Consumer, with no troublesome links and loyalties beyond those he gives to the transnational corporations like Google or Nestle, and causes such as lgtb or climate, while getting our daily dose to mind and body from Facebook or Pfizer.
Indeed. And furthermore we are expected to market ourselves, as products/content too, in order to land the right job and progress in an approved direction. Develop an elevator pitch and wag that backside to demonstrate that we mean no harm. Don't dilute your energies showing goodwill to those who can't help you though.
Everybody can be a millionaire, so everybody's gotta try but by the laws of this human jungle only the heartless will survive (HT Matt Johnson)
Either that or be born to the right parents...
indeed. We are all products too, and so need to behave in a way doesn't cause problems for marketing. You can still be a rebel, but within only those bounds designated in the terms and service and the various DEI frameworks. And of course we shouldn't own any actual property, as property ourselves we can only lease it for as long the companies wish us to.
Aurelien, you know how much I love your special flavour of disgruntled former establishment, and that I read every post, but sometimes your writing comes across as fairly strange:
“ It can only be a question of time, though, before European leaders finally realise that if you teach children to despise their country, its history and culture, correspondingly few will be prepared to die subsequently for your mistakes.”
Well, 500+ years of the colonial world order is by far the worst thing that happened. Ever. Period.
It’s been crumbling before our eyes in quite a spectacular fashion the past couple of years, and that’s a good thing.
Young men have been saying “hell no we won’t go!” when asked to fight and die for it for half a century (btw: which war did you fight, I forgot, please remind me) which is a good thing.
You seem to imply that the only way to heal Europe is for everyone to make a circle, join hands and sing Rule Britannia together. Which won’t happen and — you guessed it — that’s a good thing.
And about the internal history of the UK, I won’t even ask if you ever read The Condition of the Working Class in England, because I know that you have. So you actually know that the amusingly ahistorical idea of uniting any nation around its proud history is stillborn. For a brief period of time it could be done in the running up to a war, but it cannot anymore because we know too much about history. Which is a good thing!
he's a disgruntled old man who is barely capable of hiding his decidedly mundane reactionary politics, which he thinks are something special and educated because he is of a generation that felt and feels entitled to the entire history and future of the world. it would be clever for this dyed in the wool technocrat to spend all his time bemoaning technocrats if it wasn't so stupid.
Great essay!
Question : Can't things also be rediscovered? (Let's be optimistic)
I keep thinking the future of "the west" looks a lot like Italy (oligarchic, technocratic, tribal, corrupt), minus the good food.
A refrain I've heard more than once here has been "acquired rights" in reference to receivership of a "state" welfare program. It took me a while to figure out this actually means politicians rewarding their tribal voting groups; the Politics of Grievances is an apt label. Whether something is right or just doesn't really enter the equation, and once new spigots are opened, they rarely get shut (my favorite example is a 1970s/80s program to train women because of a school teacher shortage: 20 years minimum work for a guaranteed pension payout; *people were allowed to "buy out" years for university degrees and children. And I personally know a few 60-70 year olds who have been receiving a very modest monthly pension since the 90s.).
Interestingly though (in general terms), as we've subordinated everything to an illusory "economic" reason to exist, and societies are more complex and fragile, I think it's more and more likely that as the distance between reality and the narratives grow (Bourdieu comes to mind), so too might a trivial gash in the wall of a dam lead to its bursting, emptying the reservoir, leaving behind only artifacts for future groups to find. Incidentally this has always happened for millennia before the last 700 years of modernity.
Liberalism? No - https://crushlimbraw.blogspot.com/2023/09/lose-your-culture-and-you-lose-your.html?m=0 - it's DaSynagogue of Satan.
Just a note on your comment about West Side Story, which of course was Romeo and Juliet set in Spanish Harlem. As it happens, Shakespeare meant the play to be an anti-dueling play. Apparently social norms were leading men to fight duels over anything. I read that Queen Elizabeth wanted to dampen down this destructive behavior and Shakespeare lent a hand. So your observation is astute.
There is much wisdom in honour and feuding. It is certainly different from Liberal individual concerns, so it must be differentiated from "ego" in that way. It is associated with collective shame more than individual guilt.
Goethe's treatment of Goetz of the Ironhand parallels with how important vengeance was for Indigenous Australian very enviable track record of social and cultural maintenance amongst tribal diversity and statelessness. Christian banning of "eye in place of an eye" and preassumed notion that vengeance is unquenchable makes understanding such more difficult.
Vengeance is often unending and extremely destructive, which is why it was eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth instead of a life for an eye. Also weregild another attempt to limit blood feuds especially the kind that go on for generations. The goal wasn’t to end vengeance, but to limit the extent.
Limit is good; dissolve is better. It IS possible, but perilous compared to sublimation, no question. The uninitiated (literally meant in Indigenous Australian culture) are not recommended to enter this arena.
Thank you Aurelian🙏
Well written as usual! How do you both define and temporally rate generation as referenced in your last paragraph? I ask because, in the USA, I think we entered where people think we are entering now in the late 1970s and its just had its economic performance papered over (its still been bad though by any of the measurers measures, i.e. real GDP growth has been far worse) by empire (reserve currency, wage/development suppression in much of the "Global South", etc.) and its social BS took time to manifest as the invisible but still tangible structures constructed over the hundreds of years of the Old Republic took decades to fully degrade. If we do lose this empire very quickly very soon, then a great many papered over pathologies may quickly rear their monstrous heads...
What follows the neo-tribalism? Endless tribal wars? A revival of God and values? A strong man uniting tribes once more into nations? No way to mend the broken vase?
I've always thought that people are visceral. we are not rational beings. We are rationalizing beings that think with our brain stems. The enemy of my friend is my friend... for now, etc. We used to believe we even believed it.
https://philosopherspeashooter.blogspot.com/2024/06/three-precious-words.html