The Penny Finally Dropped

[ecosophia]

I've been scratching my head for a while now over the increasingly frantic and bizarre way that people on the privileged end of the American left have been trying to erase history -- demanding that statues be torn down, streets renamed, books removed from libraries, programs taken off the air, so that the past leaves no trace. To some extent, that's understandable -- it's been pointed out, for example, that nearly all of the Confederate generals whose statues are now under attack were registered Democrats, and today's Democrats have good reason not to want people to remember that in 1860 their party was pro-slavery -- but it's seemed to me all along that there's more going on than that kind of pragmatic dishonesty. 

While I was walking home from the grocery store this afternoon, the penny finally dropped. What sparked the insight was a comment by one of my publishers that Retrotopia, my quirky novel about a future North American nation that deliberately turned its back on progress and thrived as a result, is far and away the most successful of my titles with his firm. That startled me, but it makes sense, because more broadly -- across a very wide range of American subcultures -- a great many people are now realizing that the present really is worse than the past.

Were injustice, oppression, squalor, and abuse common in the past?  Of course -- but these things are just as common today as they were, say, half a century ago.  There's been some change in who gets the short end of the stick, but that's about the only difference. Meanwhile certain other things have changed dramatically.

There are plenty of people alive today, for example, who remember the days when you could feed, clothe, and house a family here in America, and even provide your kids with the occasional luxury, on a single working-class income. There are plenty of people alive today who remember when health care was cheap enough that most people paid for it out of pocket, and health insurance was there to keep you from having to declare bankruptcy if you got hit with a big-ticket illness or injury. There are plenty of people alive today who remember when American public schools were among the best in the world. There are plenty of people alive today who remember when a college education was easily affordable for many, and when most people didn't need one because there were plenty of jobs for which the only qualifications you needed were a good work ethic and a willingness to learn. 

And of course there are quite a few of us who remember when the streets of San Francisco weren't spattered with human feces...

The problem with these simple facts, of course, is that according to the beliefs of our comfortable classes -- the main constituency of today's mainstream American left -- this cannot and must not happen. Faith in progress is the established religion of our time; like all established religions, it upholds the interests of the political and economic status quo -- and it's being disproved right in front of us. To add insult to injury, the policies backed by those same comfortable classes are among the central reasons why the myth of progress is being disproved in front of us. The corporate media and the officially approved talking heads have spent the last few years saying, in effect, "Who are you going to believe -- me, or your lying eyes?"  These days, though, the answer they get is increasingly not to their taste. 

The frantic attempt to erase the past altogether is the logical consequence. If you've staked your entire identity and your sense of self-esteem on the idea that you're on the right side of history, helping to lead the way toward a future of perpetual improvement, the realization that the leaders you revere and the policies you support have presided over half a century of impoverishment and immiseration is intolerable. Outbursts of blind vindictive rage, frantic efforts to enforce belief in the failing religion, and over-the-top virtue signaling meant to shore up one's wavering faith and convince God or Progress or whoever to deliver on the promises made in its name -- all these are bog-standard features of a failing  prophetic religion in extremis.

The usual next phase is the widespread collapse of faith in the belief system. If that begins to build in the weeks and months ahead, hang onto your hats; the shock waves will shake the world. 

Comments

[tamanous2020]

Seems like appropriate timing for a major shift in world zeitgeist with the great conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter coming up! And even more appropriate since they and pluto would appear to have signalled the whole start of the era of infinite (fossil fuel) progress back in the early 19th century.

It remains to see how far the craziness gets pushed before the tides shift away from the religion of progress. The progressive wing just keeps on finding new levels of zaniness and even my non-political friends are becoming increasingly reactionary in private as a result.

[ecosophia]

As soon as I've finished the current flurry of ingress and eclipse charts, I'll be doing more charts on the Grand Mutation, taking it country by country.

It's precisely the reaction of those non-political friends, and their many peers, that matters most. The progressives have been able to go as far as they have because most people, very sensibly, don't care about politics -- they just want to live their lives. When that stops being an option, the pushback begins, and in a country where the pushback can affect elections, it can be pretty spectacular.

[(Anonymous)]

How quickly could the belief system fail on a large scale?

[ecosophia]

As another commenter pointed out below, the collapse of Communism in eastern Europe is a great model. There had been a long slow decay of belief in Marx, but few people were willing to say anything openly. Then, between June and November 1989, Communist regimes across eastern Europe imploded, to the point that most of the former Warsaw Pact countries no longer have a Communist Party of any significance, if they have one at all. That's the kind of thing we're looking at.

[robertmathiesen]

I remember all those things. When I started my adult working life here in Providence in 1967, my work brought in $7,000 per year--and that was it for our family! On that we could rent a modest apartment, keep ourselves and our two young children healthy, well fed and clothed (though not with meat on the table many days), pay off a loan we took out to buy a car, buy some books now and then, and put a little aside for a rainy day. Other than that first car and our first (and only) house, we never had to borrow any money to survive. Ah, those were the days--hard in some respects, but we were very young, and strong enough to cope with the demands of life.

Now? ... don't get me started, or I'll go into full geezer-rant mode!.

Also, I studeid the Middle Ages. I never believed in Progress. When the old commercioal used to end with, "At General Electeric, Progressa is Our Most Important Product!" I'd say to myself, "What a crock! It's Profit. not Progress, that is your foremost produce!"

Oops, I started geezer-ranting. Sorry! I'm done now.

[ecosophia]

Robert, you come from a long line of con artists and grifters. Of course you're not going to fall for so obvious a con as the myth of progress! ;-)

[(Anonymous)]

How messy will it get?

[ecosophia]

It's impossible to say in advance. Mass suicides? People huddled in corners babbling nonsense syllables to themselves? Former social-justice activists converting to Wahhabi Islam because they need a dogmatic faith and the one they had has just collapsed under them? We'll just have to wait and see.

Newspaper

[ferngladefarm.com.au]

Hi John Michael,

Yup. I remember those days because they weren't that long ago. My mother was a single mother in the 1970’s and she managed to earn a University degree part time and work full time. And my siblings and I had a roof over our head and food on the table. It certainly wasn't a flash life full of unuseful gizmos, but neither were we on the streets and hungry (unless that was our personal choice). The contrast between my own experience, and the possibilities of that circumstance nowadays is not lost on me.

Incidentally, people fail to realise that after conventional oil peaked in your country in the mid 70's there was a slow but gradually accelerating move towards the financialisation of your economy (look at when IRA's and 401k's began for just one example, or debt in any form for another example). Less polite people might suggest that it might be a case of papering over the loss.

And we've been in slow decline with the occasional upheaval ever since.

Incidentally, this week I cancelled my newspaper subscription. If I had to grade them I'd give them an 'F', as from my perspective they failed to report the news. I have sympathy for them as they may well be fearful for their jobs. Fear may not be a natural requisite of their job, but that is another story. Our news used to report upon international news, and have analysis of complicated situations, but of late I have heard too much about your President and the subject that dare-not-be-named - and have no interest in either matter. I support things that are worthy of support.

Cheers

Chris

Re: Newspaper

[ecosophia]

It has occurred to me more than once that if some newspaper publisher up and started publishing an old-fashioned newspaper -- you know, one that reported the actual news, and had features of interest to people outside the bored urban managerial classes -- they'd have a huge subscriber base in about a week. I don't know if there are any prospective newspaper owners reading this journal, but if so, please consider it...

[jpc2]

Only about four more years until it starts :-)!

I've given a several of copies to people. Many are ready to immigrate to Lakeland.

I picked up most of your background books for 'A Voyage to Hyperborea'. Library did not even have 'Two Years Before the Mast'. I remember reading it a looong time ago. Just started 'The Way of the Ship'. It looks to be just as good after 2 chapters. Much more detailed. 'After the Ice Age' is one of the most readable text books I've seen. At least it appears to be a textbook. Would like to see what been added since 1991.

[ecosophia]

Unfortunately we have to start by building it!

Glad to hear about the books -- I had a grand time doing research for that novel.

[(Anonymous)]

We've seen this before: if I'm not mistaken, the last time an established political religion fell like this was the 1980s and early 1990s, when Communism imploded. Hopefully it won't be quite as messy for us as it was for Eastern Europe though....

[ecosophia]

That's one of the models I have in mind. In some parts of eastern Europe, it wasn't too bad -- though of course then there was the former Yugoslavia. I hope we can avoid that.

[(Anonymous)]

A-yup. I also think the great appeal of Retrotopia is that it helps readers imagine a future worth working toward.

[ecosophia]

That's one of the things the utopian genre of fiction is all about. I'd like to see more utopian novels, offering a range of interesting futures -- it would give us all a better sense of the possibilities.

[(Anonymous)]

I hope the madness ends soon. I'm getting very tired of it...

[ecosophia]

You and about two hundred million other people. How many of them will express their weariness at the ballot box this November is one of the big questions just now.

[kashtan]

I've been thinking for a while that the actions of the progressives are a response to the erosion of people's faith in Progress similar to how the fundamentalist Christian revivals and increased dogmatism around issues such as abortion during the Reagan years was a response to the decline of Christianity as the dominant religion in America. However, what followed the 1980s was a bitter struggle for decades between the dogmatic Christian Right and the left, which dominated American politics until the last decade when the left has taken on the dogmatic role and the right has mostly moved on. Even so, Christianity hasn't collapsed suddenly, just continued its slow decline.

I've been thinking we're in for at least ten more years of the dogmatic progressives playing a major role in society and politics, but I hope I'm wrong and you're right about it collapsing in the weeks and months ahead. What other examples are you thinking of where the belief system has collapsed rather suddenly, and why do you think Progress may follow that path rather than the slow decline that Christianity has taken?

[ecosophia]

The reason I expect a fast collapse rather than a slow decline -- and yes, I know how amusing it must be to see me using those words! -- is that according to a good many surveys, only about 9% of voting age Americans support the full social justice agenda, and only about 16% support any significant part of it. What we have, in other words, is a loud and privileged minority trying to force its ideology on an unimpressed majority -- and in a country where politics revolve around elections, that's a recipe for electoral blowback on the grand scale. Once the illusion of consensus shatters, in turn, that blowback becomes economic, cultural, and social.

As for examples, as already noted, the collapse of the civil religion of Communism is the most recent example. You might also look into the collapse of Catholicism in northern Germany and Scandinavia at the time of the Reformation -- it was very fast.

[barefootwisdom]

Okay JMG, that's a fair analysis, and one that's definitely in keeping with observations you've made elsewhere.

One further observation, though: while many of the leftists leading the charge to erase the past are old enough to remember the things you list, my sense is that most of the protestors in the streets of late are younger than that, often much younger. So unlike the older folks who are writing out their own personal memories, for that younger generation, it really is a conflict between two abstractions: the mythology of progress, and the (to them, equally) abstract facts represented by those statues, books, etc. And as you wrote elsewhere, they cannot let facts get in the way of truth.

[ecosophia]

Doubtless that's an important part of it. It'll be interesting to see what happens with them as things shift.

progress isn't progressing

[ritaer]

I'm reading _American Dreams: Lost and Found_ by Studs Terkel, a journalist who published several books based on interviews with people all around the country and in all walks of life. This one was published in 1980. In an interview with Vernon Jarrett, an African American columnist for the _Chicago Tribune_ is this passage. "Some of the poorest people I knew in the South never really felt outright despair. This optimism was based on the fact that some of the older folks, the cooks, the houseboys, the chauffeurs and even some of the field hands, felt that racism was such a ridiculous thing, they just figured it couldn't last." He talks about grandparents who had been born into slavery, a father overwhelmed with pride and amazement that his son was being granted an MA in a college auditorium that he had helped construct as a common laborer. But by the time of this interview the hope is fading. He talks of unemployment and lack of hope, not just in the black community but spreading to the white communities as youth take to drugs; he expressed the feeling that those in power are just writing about a third of the population off as not needed in the automated world.

Of course, for those so worried about preserving history, I suggest statues of Grant and Sherman be erected in Atlanta and Richmond, maybe one of Grant and Lee together at that little Virginia courthouse. But I'm a troublemaker, the kind of person who would put the PETA booth next to the Paleo diet booth at a fair.

I don't live in San Francisco anymore--lived there 3 separate times, so I've seen things get bad when the economy is bad and fail to improve when the economy is booming. Here is a free suggestion to address the toilet problem--the city could pay businesses to allow people to use their toilets. Make the sum sufficient to cover the cost of additional supplies and cleaning. Issue tokens to the homeless. The business would collect the tokens and turn them in to the city for reimbursement. I bet it would be less costly than cleaning the streets and sidewalks and certainly less costly than those expensive French toilets that didn't work out.

To be fair, the current Democrats have no more connection to the party of Strom Thurmond and the other Dixiecrats than the current Republicans have to the party of Lincoln.

Rita

Re: progress isn't progressing

[ecosophia]

Neither the current Democrats nor the current Republicans are the parties they were even twenty years ago. The wind is changing, and a lot of apparent certainties are swinging around in unfamiliar directions. As for San Francisco, dropping some of the policies that drive up housing costs -- benefiting property owners at the expense of everyone else -- would do much more good.

[(Anonymous)]

There are a few consequences which will likely occur if the religion of progress gets ripped from the handles of power. The one I'm most interested in seeing is the rapid removal of the subsidies for the internet and the systematic recreation of those goods and services which existed prior to its metastatic growth.

It may take a few years, but by 2030 I hope most people won't be using it more than once a month or so. Do you think I'm being too optimistic?

[ecosophia]

My guess is that it'll decline the way it spread -- most people will stop using it altogether, and it'll once again become the concern of hobbyists on the one hand, and a network used mostly by government, big business, and the universities on the other.

[(Anonymous)]

It's been interesting, sad, and worrying, watching the self-immolation from my little corner of the universe.

Justice has become Amazon-brand Justice(tm), and if someone were to write a satire featuring Alexa screaming SJW slogans at people, it would be a bit too on the nose.

You've got Mitt Romney marching with BLM, and George W. Bush coming out against Trump, and a senile has-been leading the Democratic charge into November. No one on the left, AFAICT, is looking at all of this and asking, "What's wrong with this picture?"

It feels to me like all of the bright dreams of the American left have been hollowed out and turned into ghastly skin-suits by corporate neoliberalism.

It would be one thing if I were living by myself, but I'm living with two MSNBC addicts. It's going to be bad times at Chateau d'Cliff in November. I may want to lay in a couple of cases of antidepressants.

-Cliff

[ecosophia]

Oof. Yeah, that's going to be harsh. I consider myself profoundly lucky that my wife has no more interest in television than I do.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, here’s Rod Dreher, who is, as usual, terrified, this time that SJWs will make it impossible to express taboo ideas at work:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/letter-from-campus-revolution-under-siege-radical-woke-race/

Before he got the gig at the American Conservative, he must have been self-employed most of his life (though he has mentioned working for the Washington Post newspaper). As anyone who’s ever had a boss knows, in NO job can you run around breaking taboo, at least not for very long, unless you’re one of the tiny minority employed as a shock jock, a musician for Marilyn Manson, or some such.

Anyway, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Rod thinks we will all soon be trembling under the iron fist of a SJW dictatorship. Do you all think he’s correct? I don’t. I think this will all go on until next January at the latest, when all those emphatically NON-SJWs elected this fall by annoyed citizens will take office and set about returning life to what passes for normal in modern America. (This May explain Trump’s passivity; he may be giving the SJWs enough rope to hang themselves.)

[ecosophia]

Only 9% of voting age Americans support the social justice agenda, so I don't think we have to worry about a dictatorship. My guess is that Trump is sitting back, grinning, and letting that 9% convince the other 91% to vote for him.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, you are right, that's it! This is the most rational explanation for their crazy behaviour I've seen. As for the shock waves, well there is a police strike in progress in Atlanta and polls suggest that many ordinary Americans actually wanted Trump to use military against Antifa... TIDLÖSA

[ecosophia]

It certainly seems to make sense of the situation to me.

[(Anonymous)]

In a way, this looks even more crazy than the fall of Communism. That system was completely artificial and propped up by literal Soviet tanks. American amd global capitalism looks more "natural". Perceptions can be decieving... I'm old enough to remember 1989-91. So far 2020 is wilder! Here we go... TIDLÖSA

[ecosophia]

The thing is, American kleptocratic capitalism only looks natural. It's propped up by a vast, costly, and cumbersome structure of corruption, chicanery, propaganda, and fraud, and things have gotten this crazy because that structure is no longer doing its job. That's why the corporate media, the officially approved talking heads, and politicians on the leftward side of things are so frantically trying to create riots and chaos -- all their other levers of control have stopped working.

[open_space]

Here in Seattle, at least to my perception, most of the people are left so I don't really see what is happening on the other side of the sentiments. Do you have any particular way on which I would be able to see what is going on the right side? Maybe some blogs or forums as for me to see how "the faith in the belief system" starts collapsing for myself?

[(Anonymous)]

You've already taken the first step, by realising you are in an artificial information bubble, and looking for information outside that bubble. Also, consider the possibility that at least some those people around you don't feel free to speak their minds, and are toeing the Seattle 'party line' out of fear.

[(Anonymous)]

What happened to the privileged end of the political right? I'd have thought the collapse of the religion of progress would be felt there too....

[(Anonymous)]

My read on it is that they either had their meltdown in 2015-2018 or defected to the left. It's very hard to support Trump and buy into the myth of progress...

Vulnerability after collapse

[(Anonymous)]

I was a in Russia as a young missionary after communism collapsed. What strikes me now was how open they were at this time. Communism collapsed incredibly fast. Russians became a fascinated and an open people willing to listen and learn about the new ways of life that could potentially be available to them. By the the time Yeltsin became a full blown alcoholic it was clear this attitude was taken advantage of in hindsight. If political collapse is on the near horizon for America that means, in my opinion, there will be a window of vulnerability by way of a power vacuum that could literally be filled by anything and anyone with an appealing idea or a good power base. In Russia the Mafia was one of the players vying for power. I"be read that China actually wants Trump to get in again....

Re: Vulnerability after collapse

[ecosophia]

Yep. Why do you think I'm working to get sane ideas into circulation beforehand?

[aldabra]

People were trying to get rid of the Colston statue in Bristol when we lived there twenty years ago. I think it's that people who are subjugated resent living around monuments glorifying subjugation, where as people who aren't subjugated don't notice. Increasingly many people notice they're subjugated as living standards get worse.

[ecosophia]

No, that won't wash. The statue-topplers are mostly middle- and upper middle-class people who are being egged on by the corporate media and cheered by officially approved talking heads. It's not the subjugated who are doing this -- it's the subjugators.

[(Anonymous)]

"There are plenty of people alive today, for example, who remember the days when you could feed, clothe, and house a family here in America, and even provide your kids with the occasional luxury, on a single working-class income. There are plenty of people alive today who remember when health care was cheap enough that most people paid for it out of pocket, and health insurance was there to keep you from having to declare bankruptcy if you got hit with a big-ticket illness or injury. There are plenty of people alive today who remember when American public schools were among the best in the world. There are plenty of people alive today who remember when a college education was easily affordable for many, and when most people didn't need one because there were plenty of jobs for which the only qualifications you needed were a good work ethic and a willingness to learn."

These elements of welfare state belonged to an era where Soviet Union (like it or not) was a balancing force against unrestrained capitalism; so that Western countries had to make compromises to their working classes to keep them away from the influence of socialism. In order to regain the same welfare state conditions, you need either another balancing super power whose paradigm is the polar opposite of neoliberalism today or a strong and genuine socialist movement inside the US. Unfortunately neither of them exists yet.

[ecosophia]

Please read what I wrote again, and pay attention this time. Nothing I mentioned was an element of a welfare state -- in fact, most of the things I listed were undercut by the rise of the welfare state. It doesn't take a welfare state to provide lots of full time jobs at livable wages, inexpensive health care, good schools, and so on. What it takes is less pandering to the professional and managerial class -- the class that profited from economic centralization, the metastatic growth of corporate and government bureaucracies, and the kleptocratic profiteering that now counts as business as usual in the medical, pharmaceutical, and educational industries.

[booklover1973]

About America copying from Europe: The American left copies from European leftists concepts, but at the same time trends in the United States are taken over in Europe after a few years in a weakened form, especially in the United Kingdom. So we have here a double pseudomorphosis, where the elites from Europe and the United States adopt ideas which are more or less alien to the culture of the borrowers' non-elite culture.

About the current craziness and unrest, the Cancer Ingress chart, the lunar eclipse and the solar eclipse all have squares between Mars and Sun/Moon, so it's, astrologically speaking, a triple whammy.

And about journalism, the standards for the kind of journalism which existed in serious newspapers and magazines during the 20th century are so lofty and resource-expensive (travel to far-off countries, writing things contrary to the ideological line of the country in which the journalist lives), that journalism of this kind may cease to exist for good in the near future or return only to a very modest degree. In this matter, one should remember that civilizations lose their distinctive features as they decline, so the West may well lose its unique property of having people who want to know / tell what is really going on instead of merely telling or hearing a good story.

[ecosophia]

Booklover, that's a good point. I don't happen to know anyone who's studied the mechanisms by which elite cultures rise and collapse; it might well be an interesting subject to look into. As for journalism, possibly so, but newspapers that reported on the news were already a going concern in the 18th century, on a much smaller resource base; that's a model that might be worth imitating.

[booklover1973]

By the way, a while ago I suddenly realized that one doesn't hear anything about Greta Thunberg and Fridays for Future. But that is probably nothing more sinister than the modern media-world, where one day the media are full of some subject, and the next day, nothing more is written about it, as if said subject had never existed. (The same phenomenon was observed in the North Korean media by a German diplomat at the beginning of the 1990s as he was stationed in North Korea for establishing a German diplomatic presence there).

[(Anonymous)]

The last news I saw about Greta was that somebody or other had added her to a committee of experts on racism. 🙄

[(Anonymous)]

It may be worth noting that the statues that got torn down are Confederate generals and elders, much like statues of Marx and Lenin and Stalin got pulled down in the Warsaw Pact countries and in Moscow and Leningrad as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics became ... just Russia. It was the reverence for the founders that was under attack there.

Across much of the former Confederacy, the story of the "Lost Cause" and "The South will rise again" has been a governing ideology of probate judges, county clerks, registrars of voters, and more: the middle management of state governance. I wouldn't characterize it as a conspiracy, so much as an idea that everyone breathes together (to borrow from the Latin). When the Democratic Party as a whole supported segregation, this swath of local, county, and state leadership supported the Democratic Party; when Lyndon Johnson switched positions on race, that same swath switched parties — their governing belief was a kind of aristocratic supremacy based on a particular view of race relations, not the official party platform. I think we tend to forget how much of 'Southern society' was the result of the Royalists fleeing England after Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army and Parliament devastated the aristocracy — and how much they tried to re-establish their lordly privileges in the Carolinas, Virginia, and Georgia.

And it might be that story which is under attack now, rather than the myth of progress. (Or maybe they're both under attack at the same time). Pulling down the statues of Confederate heroes may be a way of saying, "the private governing ideology of our state government's middle and upper management is no longer acceptable."

Talking with Southern friends over the last few years, there's been a widespread frustration with this private governing ideology: everyone I talked to, knew that voting systems and precincts were rigged; that elections were bought and sold; that voter disenfranchisement was real; and that there was this private 'breathing together' (to reference your recent references on the other blog to Franz Mesmer) that informed much of their states' legal frameworks — and that those frameworks got in the way of economic prosperity and created social friction. While the economy was humming, it was an odious but unavoidable reality. After months of stress, lockdown, and financial uncertainty... it may be that times are a'changin'. The "breathing together" hasn't delivered economic well-being at the start of Great Depression 2.0 — maybe they need to be shocked out of their habits of *Qi*.

The interesting next step, of course, is whether those self-same judges, sheriff's deputies, court clerks, and other officials are able to arrest, try, fine and/or jail the protestors who pulled down the statues: if they are, then the governing ideology is intact; if they aren't... that's maybe left to the reader.

[ecosophia]

I suspect that here again, the South is marching to its own beat. The people who are pulling down statues in England and Minnesota pretty clearly aren't incensed by the southern Old Boy's Network -- but I'm quite prepared to believe that at least some people in the South are doing so.