A Surprise Ending

Posted on August 16, 2023 by thezman

The latest indictments of Donald Trump are a good example of how narrative is a controlling feature of the managerial state. This is the fourth batch of indictments and arguably the most ridiculous. The players on the side of the regime are like characters from a racial satire. The fact that they accidentally posted the results before the grand jury vote is what we have come to expect in the crisis of competency. It is as if the regime is trying to prove the critics are right.

Putting aside the idiocy of it all, the interesting bit is how narrative drives the actions of the elites even when the narrative is false. They come up with a scenario for how things will unfold in their favor over some period of time. This gains circulation among the elites and their key servants in the managerial class. Those key servants then announce the narrative to the media, who then scurry about repeating it in various ways until it becomes the consensus.

We see this with the Trump indictments. Before the first indictment, there were rumors about the Department of Justice looking into Trump. Then we had some stories about pressure on Merrick Garland to appoint a special investigator to look into Trump’s role in the January 6 stuff. It was at this point the key servants arrived to deliver the narrative on the Trump indictment. They wrote op-eds and appeared on cable chat shows to explain to the media what will happen.

What would happen is this. Trump would be indicted for mean words and one of three things would follow. He would be disqualified under the 14th amendment. He would drop out of the race. The Republican Party would disqualify him. All of this assumed that once he was indicted, his support would collapse. The only people supporting him would be QAnon weirdos and election deniers. This could then be used to pressure him if pressure were needed.

Once the official narrative was announced, the race was on to be the star of the show that got the ball rolling. The affirmative action guy in New York pulled the lucky ticket and indicted Trump for the crime of paying his bills on time. The excitement among the media was as if they were waiting for the Great Pumpkin to arrive. They were about to see the fulfillment of the narrative. Trump showed up, got charged and then continued campaigning as his popularity spiked up.

It took a little while for the media to figure out that the narrative was not playing out as they had been promised. CNN had a townhall hosted by their new you-go-girl that was supposed to be a roasting of Trump over his legal issues. To their horror, you-go-girl was not as good on stage as on the couch. Trump all but put her over his knee for a good spanking. Worse yet, the audience turned on the bimbo and laughed along with Trump at the idiocy of the whole thing.

Instead of backtracking on the narrative, we got two sets of Federal indictments of Trump, along with the same story lines from the prior indictment. The only thing missing was a Greek chorus chanting, “We got him this time. There is no way he escapes the narrative after this indictment.” Of course, in both cases Trump’s polling has gone up as people begin to see him as a victim of a malevolent system. At this point, the official Trump narrative should have collapsed.

Instead, we have a fresh batch of indictments. There is also word that other states with crackpot governors are looking to indict Trump. It is becoming something like the iPod craze back in the before times. All of the fashionable people in the provinces now want an indictment of Trump like the cool people have in the big cities. At this rate, the Europeans will be indicting Trump. Maybe they can drag him to the Hague for crimes against humanity for eating his steak well done.

Note that in each effort to push the narrative along the focus has been on humiliating Trump in the process. In this new show from Georgia, the first thing they did was announce that they will mugshot Trump and spread the pic online. The fact that they continue to think they can humiliate this man by making him more popular is a staggering indictment of these people. Trump will be selling shirts with his mugshot on them to raise millions for his campaign.

The Trump business is just a recent example. The war on Russia has been controlled by elite narrative framing. It is the same process. They created a narrative of Russian collapse and instead of updating the narrative in the face of disconfirmation, they reinvent the narrative with new features, like a counter-offensive or now the new spring of 2024 Ukrainian offensive. No matter what reality is doing, the narrative must be protected, even if it could bring disaster.

This is something to keep in mind as the economy falters this autumn. People in the dreaded private sector will tell you that things are not great in the economy, and it has all the signs of a recession. Inflation is not defeated, despite claims to the contrary, and oil prices are rising just in time for the heating season. The rise in the cost of money is starting to have its effect on the economy. Now China is admitting that it is headed to recession, due to slack demand from the West.

This is happening while the regime prepares to run the corpse of Joe Biden as the man who not only saved the world from Trump, but the man who singlehandedly saved the economy from disaster. The key servants have been out instructing the media on the new narrative about the economy. This means we will be flooded with stories about the economic miracle just as the economy is tipping into recession. Such a disconnect is the sort of thing that causes revolutions.

That is what may be the death of our regime. The people at the top of it live in a world of narratives that are independent of reality. They are so sure they can compel reality to fit their version of reality that they cannot imagine an alternative ending. The Tsar, no doubt, could not imagine an alternative ending to his narrative. The many people who met the national razor never were shocked by the end to their narrative. Our rulers may be in for a surprise ending too.

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The Cult Of Nick

Posted on August 15, 2023 by thezman

A few years ago, the fans of Nick Fuentes were no different from the fans of any of the other internet personalities that inhabit the video space. They liked his work and felt like they knew enough about him to like him personally. This is the unique aspect of video compared to audio and the written word. There is always a stronger emotional connection with the audience in the video format. Otherwise, Nick Fuentes was just another popular YouTube guy.

Since then, much has changed. Fuentes has inserted himself into the Trump story in ways that other political entertainers have avoided. He participated in the “Stop the Steal” rallies after the 2020 election. He was at the infamous J6 rally. He was by far the most enthusiastic supporter of Trump during that process. He also transformed from a commentator to something of a guru for the Zoomers. He was not just a YouTuber, but the cult leader of a youth political movement.

That is the way to think of the Fuentes operation now. His group is a cult of personality driven by people who believe in Nick Fuentes. He is not an entertainer or a political commentator, but the spiritual head of a movement. It is not just his followers who speak in these terms but Fuentes himself. He regularly reminds his followers that one day soon they will take over the world and remake it in their image. They are the change they have been waiting for, to quote a past cult leader.

In the modern age, the word “cult” conjures images of a lunatic leading a collection of naïve or desperate people. The words “UFO” and “suicide” tend to be attached to the word “cult” when describing an undesirable group of people. Neocons, for example, are often compared to a suicide cult. Then you have the image of the cult leader who is always a charlatan or crackpot preying on fools. The cult leader is never someone doing good things or operating from good intentions.

This was not always the case. The ancient world had many cults, and no one thought it strange for someone to be in a cult. Often, a cult would organize around a place where something special happened. Then you had mystery cults like the Eleusinian Mysteries, which dated back to the Greek Dark Ages. The Norse had cults that often revolved around personal or household gods. Of course, the ancients had many cults of personality centered on a charismatic figure.

That is how we need to think about the Fuentes phenomenon and other cults of personality that we are seeing. The ancient Greeks did not have political parties as we think of them, but personality cults that played a similar role. In the Roman Republic, politics revolved around strong popular figures. The more a society embraces the democracy idea, the more inclined they are to look to individuals who can lead the people in the direction they want to go.

Look back at American politics and you see the trend. Reagan was a highly charismatic figure whose support was mostly personal. Clinton was another highly charismatic guy whose support was entirely personal. He was compared to the acronym figures of progressive lore, as if he was the return of the king. Obama was obviously black Jesus for progressives. He never said anything of substance, but his followers would swoon when he spoke. Trump, of course, is a similar figure for his followers.

This is where we pick back up on the Fuentes story. To his followers, he is the young Trump or maybe the heir to Trump. While Fuentes never says this explicitly, his presentation suggests he understands the connection being made. He often talks about Trump as an imperfect messenger, which naturally implies that Fuentes is the new and improved version who can see the flaws, but still support the man. The cult of Nick is sure he will be president one day.

This may seem a bit weird, but it is important to keep in mind that this generation thinks about things wholly in the context of the internet. Clout is the currency of this world and that comes in the form of audience. That audience does not have to be in favor to count for clout points. You can have clout when lots of people oppose you. This is why Nick claims to be the most censored man on the internet. What he is saying is that he is the most important man on the internet and thus the world.

Because of our interconnectedness, the cult-like aspects of the Nick Fuentes movement jump out when you interact with it. For starters, all of his fans say the same things about why they like Fuentes. He has clout, of course. He also gets the message out to the biggest audience. He is the most successful leader in the history of “the movement” which is never explained. To what end is never addressed. What matters is that Nick Fuentes is famous, so he has clout.

That is where you see this as a cult of personality. Question the members and you will find that they have no agenda beyond supporting Nick. Press further and they do not know Nick’s agenda or even think about it. They trust Nick. The closest you will get is he wants to restore America to a white Christian nation. By Christian they mean Catholic, only because Nick Fuentes says he is a Catholic. He also wants to remove the Jews from power, even though he has Jews in his movement.

The Jewish aspect is a big tell, as far as whether this is a cult. Go to a Fuentes event and you will find Jewish supporters. The most committed Fuentes followers will welcome them without much thought. Key figures in the Fuentes operation are Jewish, despite Fuentes railing about Jews every day. This weird contradiction is the sort of test of faith you always see in a cult of personality. The truest believers easily accept the obvious contradictions and still love their leader.

Similar to the Jewish issue is the political issue. When pressed, the followers of Nick will say they are the only force opposing the system. In order to overthrow the system, they plan to take over the system through conventional means like elections or participation in mass media. In other words, they oppose the system by supporting it and they will overthrow the system by taking it over and using it to impose their vague version of a white Catholic democracy.

This is where things get interesting. If you manage to pin down one of the more intelligent members on these contradictions, they shift gears and tell you why it is important to not have a coherent agenda. They will say that ideology is the enemy because it is Jewish or liberal or some other scare word. This comes from Nick Fuentes who says this whenever he is pressed on specifics. In other words, the followers closely mimic their leader to avoid thinking about it.

In fairness, there is nothing going on here to raise alarm. This is not a suicide cult or terrorist cell headed for disaster. Nick Fuentes is not Jim Jones. Most of the followers are primarily drawn to the irreverence of Fuentes and the movement. If you press hard enough, the most committed will confess that much of what they are doing is sort of a performative lampooning of society. The Cult of Nick is bathos and pathos to create an emotional experience that is the only real point.

This explains the appeal, despite the many missteps of Fuentes. The young males attracted to this are from a common demographic. They are from white middle-class suburbs outside the South. Most were raised by women, and their play was exclusively online in the form of gaming. The intensity of the “groyper movement” provides something real compared to the synthetic reality of their upbringing. It also is largely free of women, which makes sense in this context.

Ironically, it also has the intense youth culture aspect that drove the 1960’s counterculture youth movements. The Boomers did not trust anyone over thirty and the Zoomers agreed with them. This is not Peter Pan syndrome, but a sense that their unhappiness is due to the failings of adults. The Boomers blamed the adults for squandering the promise of America on war and money making. The Zoomers blame the Boomers for doing the same thing.

That brings us to where this is headed. It has been assumed that Fuentes will follow the same arc as other e-celebrities. In time he would do things to ruin his clout and end up on the bench with people like Richard Spencer. That has not been the case. His wacky adventures with the mentally unstable Kanye West only made him more popular with his young fans. It got him attention, so it got him clout. In this regard, Fuentes is a unique figure in that all publicity is good publicity.

The challenge for this cult is time. Fuentes is twenty-four and his typical follower is in his late teens and early twenties. In five years, Fuentes is no longer a kid. His core followers will be entering the work world. There will be new young guys hunting clout with Generation Alpha, perhaps using Fuentes as a foil. In other words, the Cult of Nick will need to transition from the Neverland of internet culture to the hard reality of the material world that has all of those nasty adults.

This assumes the material world remains the controlling factor. Just as the Zoomers are an inflection point in history, the Cult of Nick could be an inflection point in how politics are conducted in an internet democracy. Fuentes may feel like a stranger in a strange land to those anchored in the analog world, but he could be the leading edge of the digital age that will sweep away the analog age of politics. Perhaps the Fosterite Cult of Nick becomes the Church of All Worlds.

The Kids Are Not Alright

Posted on August 14, 2023 by thezman

Note: Behind the green door is a post about the difficulty in making quality science fiction movies and two posts about the American Renaissance conference. You can sign up for a green door account at SubscribeStar or Substack.

Every new generation gets the usual treatment from the usual suspects, always in an effort to prepare the way for their integration into the culture. The naming of generations is like the naming of weather events. It is part of shaping a narrative. Of course, it is also a way to sell the new generation cultural products by flattering them with claims that they are special unicorns here to make everything right. Generational politics is a way to condition the young to conform to the cultural norms.

The Zoomers may be an exception to this rule. They are getting the usual treatment from the usual suspects, but unlike prior generations they have been raised as consumerist bugmen from birth. Consumerism is a part of their identity, not an activity to be encourage. Popular culture and consumer goods define them on an individual basis, but also signal their participation in subcultures within the generation. They do not require a “buy signal” as that is coded into their DNA.

This is also a generation raised by women for a female dominated culture. Gen-X is arguably the first feminized generation. The explosion of divorce in the 1970’s meant that many of this cohort were raised by mothers in female led homes. The surrounding world, however, was still a male oriented world. This started to change with Millennials who came along as society rapidly feminized. The Zoomers were not just raised in the longhouse, but for the longhouse.

Then you have the totally novel socialization of Zoomers. For as long as man as lived in settled societies, children were socialized in unsupervised play, with some guidance from parents and other adults. Helicopter parenting with the Millennials changed this, but the internet revolutionized it for the Zoomers. Mom was content to let the kids play video games in their room. They were safe. Meanwhile, the kids were learning to deal with other humans through the internet.

One result is that there are two distinct groups within the Zoomer generation that have nothing to do with class or education. One group played sports or grew up doing outside activities, while the other group grew up online. The former group is better socialized and far less engaged in popular culture. The latter, a much larger portion, is socially awkward, defined by consumerism and most important, wildly unrealistic about themselves, the world, and their place in the world.

The difference between online socialization and real-world socialization is easiest to see with the males. Males learning the male role on the playground got in fights and had to navigate physical space using the limitations of their mind and body. Getting beat in a physical game by someone who is not only better but will always be better is a humbling experience that is an important lesson in life. Getting in a fight on the playground, regardless of the result, shapes your behavior.

Zoomer males socialized online never experience this. Their character in the game can be whatever they imagine. This is why male video game characters are cartoonish caricatures of the idealized male form. Unlike on the ball field or the playground, the worst thing to happen to you online is your character dies. Maybe you get blocked from a chat room. You just respawn as a new character. There are no real consequences, so perceptions and expectations are never tempered.

One result of this is the Zoomer males sound like middle-aged single women when they engage with the public. Scan their online spaces and it is the sorts of complaints you expect from women. That is, they make everything about their feelings about an issue, rather than the issue itself. Nick Fuentes does a show that is mostly him complaining about the world being mean to him. The Groyper livestreaming space is a low production value version of daytime talk shows.

This jumps out when it comes to sex. Close to 20% of this generation claim to be something other than sexually normal. Some of it is fashion, particularly with the females, but much of it is simply a result of socialization. Both males and females have been raised in such a way that the normal interaction between the sexes has been short-circuited. Identifying as trans or pansexual is much easier when the normal interaction between the sexes has been made weirdly difficult.

Female Zoomers have been raised on a steady diet of Nth wave feminism for a world run by women. They think they can do all the you-go-girl stuff they get in the classroom and the popular culture. The trouble is, none of that you-go-girl stuff prepares them to land a boyfriend, much less a husband. Yet, that age old desire to be a woman and find a man remains. The result is a generation of females frustrated by the sexual marketplace, with nowhere to turn for advice.

Male Zoomers, raised to believe that females are the dominant force in the sexual marketplace, have not developed the social skills to interact with females. They assume the female should pursue them. Compounding it is the deluge of porn that has washed over them growing up online. Their sexual attitudes have been perverted to the point where many of them are incapable of interacting with a human female. Instead, they date anime characters and simp for female livestreamers.

Another novel feature of the Zoomer generation is that their social capital is virtual, rather than practical. Status is about online clout. This can be in the form of followers on social media or traffic on a livestream. In the analog age, expensive display items indicated money, which provided status. In the digital age, the digital man wants internet clout, which signals his status. Nick Fuentes lives in his parents’ basement and has never touched a woman, but he has clout, so he is important.

This explains the endless boasting. Zoomers in the real world are quiet wallflowers, but online they are obnoxious braggarts. It is why they worship Donald Trump. So many of them have embraced his boasting style because boasting is an important part of getting clout online, so why not emulate the greatest shit-poster of all time? This is why Nick Fuentes says he is the most censored man on the internet. The absurdity of the claim is the point because it gets attention and therefore it gets clout.

This also explains the unearned confidence. The generation least prepared for the world as it is and wholly unprepared for what is coming, is convinced they will take over the world and impose their will. Again, this gets back to being raised by video games and livestreams. You can always beat the game, so they assume they will beat the game of life. They find it ridiculous to think otherwise. Those who came before them are just losers who sucked at video games.

Something that ties it all together is the lack of seriousness. Again, Zoomers engage with the world for the sole reason of gaining online clout. To gain clout first requires getting attention. Getting attention means finding a novel way to present yourself online, so anything goes. It also helps if you can get the attention of other clout merchants, so the result is ridiculous clout chasers aping the antics of clout merchants. The clout market is a freakshow as a result.

Gen-X came into a world that was never going to cater to them, so they were prepared to be ignored by the massive boomer population before them. Millennials came into the world lacking many basic skills, but the world they entered was stable and prepared to assimilate them. Zoomers have been prepared for a world that only exists online and they are entering a world that is in crisis. The result is the real world is not ready to reprogram the Zoomers for success in reality.

More important, this cohort is going to live their prime years in a society that is in both steep cultural decline, but also economic decline. Reality has a way of fixing the mistakes of society, but reality is not ready for the Zoomers any more than the Zoomers are ready for reality. In the fullness of time, this generation may be the inflection point of Western society. They are both the end product of the long unfolding social crisis in the West, but also the last hope for arresting it.

Tragedy Of Managerialism

Posted on August 11, 2023 by thezman

The inspiration for the show this week is the ongoing collapse of college football due to the financialization of the sport. I do not consume much sportsball these days, but I will watch a college football game. It was always my favorite sport to watch on television and it is now the only sport I can watch at all. The rest are human flea circuses woven within hours of commercials and agit-prop.

The appeal of college football has always been the variety. Each regional conference has its own traditions, rivalries, history and style of play. All of it was organic, having evolved with the leagues and the teams over time. The schools themselves have weird customs and traditions that often exist for reasons no one remembers. What people know is those traditions are important.

The same people behind all of the other problems have been gnawing away at these traditions for the usual reasons. They look at our culture and wonder how they can turn it into a quick buck and then into something vulgar. That is what is happening to college football through the lure of television money. As a result, it is becoming the same degenerate circus as the rest of entertainment.

There is another aspect here. This is much easier due to the domination of the hired man in all aspects of modern life. Managerialism is rule by a committee of people looking for a better job. They have no investment in the current job, other than what they need to do in order to maximize their return. It is a form of tragedy of the commons, except we pretend it is free market capitalism.

College football is dying because it is run by people who always leave the car running in the parking lot and carry a suitcase with them. If anything goes wrong, they know the way to the nearest airport or border crossing. Anything run by men who do not expect to be around very long is never going to last. All of their decisions are in the near term, as this is the extent of their interaction with the enterprise.

The Greeks say a healthy society is one where old men plant trees in whose shade they will never rest. The Global American Empire is denuded of trees because no one thinks about who comes next. This also explains youth culture. Everyone pretends to be forever young so they never have to think about who will tend their grave. Ours is a society of visitors run by aliens.

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This Week’s Show

Contents

Sports
Tragedy Of The Commons
Managers Versus Owners
- College Sports Example
- Boxing Example
Monetizing Social Capital
A Transactional Society

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The Crisis At The Window

Posted on August 10, 2023 by thezman

For about six months, starting last winter, Western media talked about a Ukrainian counter-offensive that was supposed to change the direction of the war. These stories coincided with stories about the delivery of various types of equipment, along with expert opinions from retired generals. Late in the spring Washington sent reliable toadies over to Kiev to see the plans and then talk to the media about how the Ukrainians were preparing to deal a death blow to Moscow.

As we get into the heart of August and the third month of the offensive, it is clear to most everyone that it has been a disaster. First came the images of Western armored vehicles trapped in minefields. Images of burning tanks were then followed by video of Ukrainian soldiers struggling to escape the same minefields after their armored vehicles were disabled by mines. Then came weeks of reports in the West about revised tactics that achieved nothing along the front.

As things stand, the most enthusiastic Ukraine supporters say that the counter-offensive has managed to capture about ten square miles. In reality, the Ukrainians failed to make it through the security zone of Russian defenses. This is the area in front of the first defensive lines that are used to slow an attack. In the south, Ukraine managed to capture a few abandoned villages, but relentless Russian attacks from artillery and airpower turned those into Ukrainian cemeteries.

At the start of the offensive, independent observers and Russian sources said the Ukrainians had enough resources to continue their offensive into August. At that point they will have exhausted men and material. At that point, they would have no choice but to stop offensive operations and fall back into defensive positions. Otherwise, they would be forced to cannibalize their lines and leave themselves open to Russian attacks in other areas along the line of contact.

That may have been a generous assessment. Over the last couple of weeks Russian forces in the north have steadily pushed the Ukrainians back. Ukraine has just moved their northern headquarters west to get clear of the Russian advance. They have also ordered the evacuation of Kupyansk, an important town located on the bank of the Oskil River in the Kharkiv Oblast. Reports suggest the Ukrainians simply lack the manpower and equipment to defend the area.

Washington is in a panic because they promised everyone that the Ukrainians would easily smash through Russian lines in the south. The plan was to rush through to the Sea of Azov, thus severing the land bridge between Russia and Crimea. Once that happened, attacks would begin on Crimea. The Russian army would either revolt after the humiliation or simply collapse, causing political chao in Moscow. It is hard to believe, but this was the official narrative.

Interestingly, the narrative was not just another pack of lies from the Kagan cult, but an official assessment from the Pentagon. It has been Western military doctrine that the way to defeat the Russians in a land war is with a rapid, concentrated attack on their defensive lines using armor and infantry. Here is a paper on the topic from 2017 and here is a recent video discussing it in connection with this war. This strategy actually goes back to the Cold War days.

The short version is that Russia organized its army around groups of 800 to 1000 men that operate independently within the defensive formation. These units have, tanks armored personnel carriers and artillery. The NATO strategy was to send overwhelming force at these units, forcing them to retreat in order to preserve their equipment. Russia is known for trading land for resources. They did this in the Kharkiv region last year and in the Kherson region last spring.

What Washington did not notice is that the Russians have moved away from the Battalion Tactical Group to more flexible arrangements based on the situation, terrain, and their own resources. In the south when Ukraine launched its main attack, they did not face battalions, but divisions. Further, the Russians had prepared complex defensive positions designed to trap advancing armored columns. In other words, the Russians read that paper and were ready for it.

Another thing Washington did not notice is that the Russian army has changed in other ways since the Cold War. They have a wide range of electronic warfare systems that work well against modern weapons. They also have incorporated drones in massive numbers that are highly effective against Western armor. The internet is full of videos where a Lancet drone takes out a Ukrainian armored vehicle. The Russians have quickly become the masters of drone warfare.

The main reason the Ukrainian offensive is a catastrophe is the side with the trillion-dollar annual budget has not updated their understanding of the Russian army since the last century. They have not bothered to notice what has been happening on the battlefields over the last eighteen months. Instead, the world’s most expensive military has gone along with the crackpot plans of the Kagan cult, either not understanding what is happening or indifferent to the inevitable results.

The Ukraine war is becoming a microcosm of the crisis of competence. It is not just the scarcity of talented people in the ranks. They still exist in sufficient numbers to keep the system operating reasonably well. The issue is the selection pressure at the top is for true believers and sycophants. The only way to get in the room to discuss the Ukraine war is to be fully on board with the dream of destroying Russia or be willing to humiliate yourself by telling these people what they want to hear.

Imagine the tag team of Victoria Nuland and General Milley replicated throughout the managerial system. Nuland is the maniacal imbecile in charge for no other reason than zealotry, while Milley is the oleaginous flunky with the credentials to provide legitimacy to the rantings of Nuland. The competent are driven from the room, leaving this combination to chart public policy. The general decline in competence that is driving demographics, is driven by this combination at the top.

In the movie Braveheart, Longshanks returns from France to confront his son who was charged with putting down the Scottish revolt. His son has his “advisor” with him, who makes the mistake of speaking out of turn. This is what has happened in the West, except Longshanks died of a heart attack and his son is in charge. The advisor now busies himself telling the son what he wants to hear. Meanwhile, outside the castle walls, the kingdom rattles toward collapse.

Back To The Future

Posted on August 9, 2023 by thezman

The 1970’s are remembered by those who were around during that era as an economically depressing time. Inflation was the defining feature of the economy, but the gas crisis was a close second. Gas lines, inflation, urban crime and history’s worst clothing styles was the 1970’s. When someone wants to produce images that are supposed to capture the mood of the period, inevitably they show people in the hideous costumes of the era, standing at a gas station.

Nixon taking the dollar off the gold standard gets the blame for inflation, but in reality, it was the interplay of energy and the dollar that caused the problem. The reason we have the petrodollar is to solve the inflation problem. This made official what had been unofficial since the end of the war. The dollar was the world’s reserve currency because it was used to trade energy on global markets. The Louvre Accord, which followed the Plaza Accord, stabilized the dollar internationally.

It is not an accident that soon after the dollar stabilized and became the default currency for international trade that the Soviet Union collapsed. The Soviets were dependent on food imports, and they raised the cash for food by selling energy products, mostly crude oil, on global markets. When oil prices declinedin the 1980’s, the Soviets suddenly found themselves struggling to raise enough dollars, which further strained an already fragile domestic economy.

The energy – currency link is an important concept to understand when thinking about what comes next for Western economies. A steady and consistent flow of energy products, along with a stable dollar, is what has allowed the West to borrow massive sums in order to underwrite the domestic economy. We are now entering a period of erratic and inconsistent energy flows, along with an unstable dollar. This is largely due to the decline of the American empire.

The energy markets are the first issue. Washington’s war on Russia has destabilized energy markets through efforts to cripple Russian energy sales. While this has failed, it has created distortions in the markets. For example, Germany now must import expensive LNG to replace the cheap pipeline gas from Russia. Meanwhile, India and China enjoy cheap energy from Russia. All of which is traded in rupees, yuan, and rubles, rather than dollars and euros.

Added to this is the realignment of the Gulf countries. Led by the Saudis, the oil producing countries have aligned themselves with their most dependable partners, Russia and China. The Saudis are now willing to trade in currencies other than the dollar, which is an enormous change. While it does not mean the end of the petrodollar, it is a step in that direction. It also means the dollar will not be the only currency used in international trade, thus lowering the demand for dollars.

Then we have the growing problems in America’s domestic energy supply which are largely due to bad policy. The growth in domestic supply has stopped. New investment is in decline as a result, so the decline in domestic supply will continue. This will inevitably drive-up global prices, but also flip North America from a net exporter to a net importer of energy products. There is only so much oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and it is at its lowest level ever recorded.

Of course, inflation is already an issue. Despite the happy talk from the government, anyone who buys things sees the problem. Food inflation remains an issue, despite low energy costs over the last year. Now that oil is creeping back up with a target of $100 per barrel, inflation will become even more obvious. Add in the softening of the economy and you see the signs of stagflation, which is the combination of high inflation and economic stagnation.

The one thing missing from this picture is brown leisure suits. While gas lines are unlikely in the near term, reckless foreign policy could easily result in the disputes with the Saudis turning into rocket high gas prices. Aggression towards the Chinese will result in shortages and inflation in other parts of the economy. This is coming at a time when the bulk of Americans are losing trust in the economic and political system, not just the people pretending to run the system.

That is where the parallels between the 1970’s and this period stop. The economic and political crisis of the 1970’s was largely due to the American political class adjusting to new global realities. Europe and Asia were back online economically, but the global currency arraignments were still tuned for the 1950’s. The West was also on the cusp of the microprocessor revolution, which would require the freeing of capital from old industry so it could flow into the new technologies.

This crisis is largely due to incompetence. The Russians were happy to sell their energy and agricultural products to the world at a good price. They just wanted the West to respect the territorial integrity of the Russkiy Mir. The Chinese are happy to be the manufacture of the world, as long as Washington refrains from trying to overthrow the Chinse government and that of its neighboring allies. The Saudis were happy with the petrodollar as long as America stayed out if its domestic affairs.

All of this is happening in the shadow of a rapidly growing debt problem magnified by higher borrowing rates. The deficit is over $31 trillion, a number that is inconceivable to most people. Debt payments are now at one trillion per year. The ongoing baby boomer retirement is going to drive both numbers higher. In 1980, Ronald Reagan ran on the promise to end deficit spending and clear the national debt. Half a century on and the problem is worse than anyone imagined possible.

America is now entering a period with the economic and social aspects of the 1970’s, but this time it is set in the world of the film Idiocracy. The main cause is not changing global conditions, but a suicidally incompetent ruling class. In the 1970’s, the solution was better policies. Fifty years on, the solution is an entirely new international order to replace the old order, which also means replacing the American ruling class with a new ruling class capable of navigating the new order.

What all this means is that this version of the 1970’s will bring us far worse things than denim leisure suits and velour car interiors. Add in the demographic problems and the picture is far grimmer than that 1970s’ picture. Instead of a 20-something in a terrycloth jumpsuit standing in a gas line, the image of this age could be a 60-somehting boomer in a golf shirt lined up at a food bank. In the end, we may look at the 1970’s as a warning about what was ahead for the American Empire.

Without Merit

Posted on August 8, 2023 by thezman

Every human civilization has some mechanism to find talented people who can be of service to the ruling class of the society. The system can be formal, like the Chinese exam system or graduate school in modern America. It can also be informal, as it was in the Middle Ages when a talented young man could be noticed by his lord and given a chance to raise his own status. The Hundred Years War created fortunes for many common men who fought on behalf of their king.

This search for talent is not only internal. Jews in Europe found that there was always a noble in need of smart and literate men. The Hoffaktor in Germany was almost always a Jewish banker who not only kept the finances of the house he served, but he also maintained connections with other court factors. In return for these services, these Jewish men were often awarded lands and titles. The endless search for talent by the ruling elites is why we have Ashkenazi Jews.

This is important to keep in mind when members of the chattering class talk about the meritocracy and the role it plays in the current crisis. This column by David Brooks titled, “What if We’re the Bad Guys Here?” is a good example. Brooks speaks as a member of the meritocracy, which he defines as the highly educated and highly connected urban class that runs the institutions. His column is mostly a self-congratulatory call to action to address the growing unrest.

The place to start is the assumption on behalf of Brooks and no doubt his intended readership that he is a member of the meritocracy. He ticks many of the boxes he repeatedly insists are requirements of the meritocracy. He is the child of wealthy foreigners, and he went to the right schools. He has avoided anything that looks like productive labor. He has no loyalty to his host country. He sent his son off to serve in the army of a foreign country.

By the standards of the people who throw around the term “meritocracy” as a compliment, David Brooks is a good example. The question is what service is he rendering to the ruling class? He has no useful skills, and he has never tried to do anything that requires sacrifice on behalf of the ruling class. His career looks like the life of a self-indulgent fop from the British literature. What has David Brooks ever done to merit consideration of the ruling class?

The first clue is a quote from Thomas Edsall he uses in his post to explain why he and his fellow meritocrats aligned against Trump. “Republicans see a world changing around them uncomfortably fast, and they want it to slow down, maybe even take a step backward. But if you are a person of color, a woman who values gender equality or an L.G.B.T. person, would you want to go back to 1963? I doubt it.” That right there captures the Cloud People – Dirt People divide.

Opposing Trump was never about practical things like the priorities of government or the general welfare of the people. It was class struggle. The meritocratic class view their membership in that class as a sign of their moral goodness. Their ability to worm their way through the labyrinth of credentialling mechanisms in order to fill up their resume with the best associations is proof of their virtue. A perch at the New York Times is no different from an assigned seat in the front pews.

Hatred of Trump, and it was real hate, was a defense of the optimates versus the populares on purely class grounds. The problem is the optimates are a polite fiction, a fig leaf for the tiny ruling elite at the top of the system. The role of thoroughly impractical men like David Brooks is to maintain both a moral code that benefits the ruling elite and to provide a barrier between the optimates and the populares. Trump crossing that barrier was viewed as a violation of this system’s integrity.

That is the heart of the Brooks post. The headline is misleading as at no point does he genuinely suggest the meritocrats are the bad guys. Instead, he explains how people could possibly make this mistake, because their highly exclusionary systems do seem to violate their alleged moral code. Note he quickly moves along to the part his readers expect from a Brooks column. That is the part where he says the Dirt People are undereducated rubes who need to be put in their place.

In fairness, he probably sensed this and finished with “We can condemn the Trumpian populists until the cows come home, but the real question is: When will we stop behaving in ways that make Trumpism inevitable?” Fools grabbed onto this thinking it revealed some genuine self-reflection and perhaps a sign that the managerial elite is coming around to the criticisms leveled at them. In reality, it was another blow on the shofar to rally the people of the meritocracy.

That is how the Cloud People view things. Like the children of Israel camping in the wilderness of Sinai, they await the final instructions. They have seen the destruction of the Dirt People and they can see the ultimate end of their leader. What comes soon is the Promised Land where the meritocrats will build a kingdom of priests and a holy nation that serves the gods of the new religion. The Dirt People will be gone and what will remain is the righteous led by the meritocrats.

That is the purpose of these men of the meritocracy. Their role is to keep the dream alive and encourage the elites to push forward and faster. Whether any of this is possible is never considered. Those debates are left to the Dirt People and once they are gone, all doubt will be gone. In the end, the meritocracy is nothing more than a cheering section for a system that serves elite interests at the expense of the people and nations on which they feed.

The Clash Of Realities

Posted on August 7, 2023 by thezman

Note: Behind the green door is a post about the classic Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a review of the classic film Jaws, and the Sunday podcast. You can sign up for a green door account at SubscribeStar or Substack.

Imagine a scenario in which there are two people talking. Person A says, “I am very thirsty” and Person B responds, “There is a store around the corner.” Now imagine a member of the secret police reading these lines in a transcript without any other information about the people. Stripped of all context, these sentences do not mean anything, and they are not obviously connected to one another. They could easily be viewed as random sentences or perhaps coded messages.

Of course, both Person A and Person B would understand the exchange because the receiver of the first message had a lot of other information. Maybe he knew that Person A had been exercising or that it was a hot day. That is why he mentioned that there was a store around the corner. Of course, Person A understood the response because he knew that Person B understood what he meant. These sentences made sense to both parties because of shared knowledge.

As an aside, secret messages work the same way. The messages are designed to make sense only within a specific context. The sender assumes the receiver will have the key that provides the context. Often, the key is the context that makes the messages intelligible. To someone without the key, the message is meaningless gibberish. In more sophisticated codes, the receiver needs the key as well as the larger context of the message.

Getting back to the example, that exchange is something called the cooperative principle, a concept from linguistics. The parties in a casual conversation rely upon a commonly held set of assumptions. In most situations, the listeners and speakers act cooperatively to facilitate communication. They mutually accept one another to be understood in a particular way. There is an assumed base of shared information upon which their exchange rests.

This describes the cooperate principle of communication. The four maxims of this principle are quantity, quality, relation, and manner. Quantity is the amount of information communicated to the other parties. The quality of that information is the truthfulness of what is being communicated. Relevance is the relationship of the information to the topic or situation. Manner is the clarity of communication. Grice’s maxims explain how people efficiently communicate to one another.

This structure for how people communicate is vitally important in a society in which the people are expected to participate in the governing of society. In a monarchy, horizontal relationships are subordinate to the vertical social structures. One does not have to understand the king in order to understand the relationship. The customs and social structures provide most of what the king would ever need to communicate to the people and what the people need to communicate to one another.

In other words, in an aristocratic system, the context so dominates the daily life of the people that verbal communication is reduced to the pragmatic. There is no need to discuss, much less debate abstract concepts that require lots of additional information in order to make sense to the participants. In a democracy, those clear social structures are gone and what must replace them is a large common understanding. Everyone has to operate from the same set of truths and assumptions.

This gets to why America is in such an agitated state, despite the relative peace and prosperity of the age. The people in charge seem like they are not just speaking a different language but doing so from a different reality. That is because for the most part, they are using a different language and they do operate in a different world from the bulk of the people. The managerial class is defined by the managerial elite and therefore operates by a different cooperative principle.

Take the word “democracy” which is used all the time by the regime. To normal people, this means majority rule. In a democracy, the government does what the majority of the people want, with some exceptions. Normal people accept that some things like slavery are not up for debate. Even if the majority wants to bring back slavery, it is an immoral practice, so it is not permitted. Otherwise, normal people assume democracy is the will of the people expressed in the laws.

To the managerial elite, democracy means the process by which the majority or an assumed majority is convinced to support elite opinion. This is why they are inspired to redouble their efforts whenever they lose at the ballot box. Democracy requires them to work harder to get their desired result. Expediency may require them to go around this process using the courts or administrative fiat. The assumption is that enough people already agree so it is close enough to justify action.

This one word shows how the elite and the commoners do not share the same basis of understanding when it comes to politics. The elites see democracy as the process of working toward their desired end. The people assume it is the process by which elites discover the common will. These are two entirely different and incompatible views of the democratic process. Inevitably this leads to a large number of words and concepts lacking a shared understanding.

More critically, the managerial elite deliberately flouts the principle of commonality to trick the people into supporting the opposite of what they desire. Normal people are used to flouting the principle of commonality, as it is a central part of comedy, as in sarcasm or satire. The managerial elite, however, violates the principle in order to trick the common people, but also to signal intent to the rest of the elite. It is why every new social fad comes with new insider jargon.

The regularized flouting of the principle of commonality in political discourse is not entirely due to deceit, even though it is often a happy accident. The managerial elite in particular, but the managerial class in general, lives in a different shared reality than the people over whom they rule. More important, the managerial class is increasingly aware of the class difference. Much of what defines the ruling class is the shared knowledge of the difference between them and the rest.

This is why political discourse is increasingly frustrating, but also pointless. The gap between how the media, for example, talks about the Trump indictments and how normal people talk about it is too large to cross. The shared reality of the media imagines Trump leading an armed rebellion against the system. The shared reality of the normal people is of a man being tormented by the ruling elite. There is no commonality here, so the communication is cognitively meaningless.

What this suggests is that the clash between the rulers and the ruled is much more than a clash of interests. It is not simply about one side wanting different ends than the other side or wanting more from the result than the other side. Those sorts of conflicts rest on a set of commonly accepted principles. This clash is due to the managerial class living in a different contextual reality from the people. The current conflict is not a clash of interests, but a clash of incompatible realities.

Terrible Choices

Posted on August 4, 2023 by thezman

Most online political commentary is either analysis of what is happening in the world or dire predictions about where things are heading. The response is often some form of “Well, what can we do about it?” On this side of the great divide, this is usually a rhetorical question, as the person asking knows what he wants to do. He wants to get himself and the site on an FBI watch list.

As we see with the lawfare against Trump, the regime is determined to do what it likes and there is nothing that can be done about it. The best Republicans are cowards, while most are sociopathic criminals. The former mews about what is happening, while the latter claps and cheers on their friends across the aisle. The two-party system is just two faces of the same monster we call the regime.

That means the formal tools citizens have to affect politics are useless. You can vote yourself silly but the system gets worse. In fact, this is exactly what has been happening the last couple of decades. The system gets worse, so more people get engaged in elections, but that makes things worse. Record turnout in 2020 gave us a deranged old men run by the Kagan cult.

Even so, people still think in terms of elections, so the show this week dives into what would be required to use the system to reform the system. Then we get into the informal tools that can be used to effect change. These are not great choices. There is not a lot of joy to be found in the options that are available to us. The reason is a system in crises is one that leaves open only the terrible choices.

This Week’s Show

Contents

The reality of current society
Solving the easy problems
Systemic social problems
The Terrible Choices
The Inevitable

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Diet And Superstition

Posted on August 3, 2023 by thezman

A paradox of the modern age is that the average person in the West knows more about the natural world than the most learned man of prior eras, but people remain as superstitious and irrational as ever. This is true even in the human sciences, where doctors continue to tell patients that they should make sure to eat plenty of vegetables and avoid fatty foods. Much of what people experience as medicine is the same old oogily-boogily that has been with us since forever.

The carnivore diet is the latest bit of nonsense to make the rounds. Search the topic on YouTube and your recommendations will suddenly be packed with videos of men wearing lab coats or standing in front of dry erase boards, explaining how this diet is based on the science of cavemen. They claim that humans are made to eat meat, not bread or vegetables, so we should only eat meat. This will cure the things that ail you in the modern age, like obesity and unhappiness.

This is pure nonsense. Modern humans are the product of a long process that continues to this day. That process is called evolution. The ancestors of modern humans survived on what they could find. We know that species that can survive on a varied diet are more adaptive than species hooked on a narrow diet. If you can eat anything, you can live anywhere. If you can only eat bamboo shoots, then the only place you can live is in a Chinese zoo.

Modern humans inherited this ability to eat just about anything, which is why modern humans were able to spread across the globe. Anyone who says humans were designed to eat meat is either ignorant or crazy. Humans certainly adapted to the food that was available, but the reason they could do this is our ancestors were able to eat just about anything. In some areas, humans lived primarily on fish, because there was a reliable supply of fish for them to eat year-round.

Adaptation is important. Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending argued in their book, The 10,000 Year Explosion, that as humans settled down and learned to cultivate animals and plants, adaptation accelerated. As grains became a bigger part of the diet, people adapted to the new food and lifestyle. If our caveman ancestors were meat eaters, it does not matter because our direct ancestors evolved to be omnivores living mostly on grains they made into bread and beer.

Now, this does not mean you cannot lose weight or lower your glucose levels by changing your diet. People in the modern age get fat for the same reason people got fat in the Middle Ages. They consume more calories than they need to perform their work, so some of the excess is stored as fat. That is another useful adaptation of humans that gets treated like magic. Storing fat is what helps us be so adaptive. Carrying emergency food around under our skin is a huge advantage.

This is why being fat was looked upon as a sign of success. Look at old photos of rich people and they are often quite fat. Women dressed in a way that made them look plump, even if they were slender. Fat people had extra food and time to eat it, which meant they were prosperous. Skinny people spent their days laboring thus burning lots of calories, but they had only the food they needed to keep laboring. In this age, Indians still regard tubbiness as a sign of prosperity.

Modern Americans, of course, view fat people as moral failures because they cannot control themselves at chow time. Chris Christie is an object of scorn mostly because he is a big fat slob. He even had his mouth stapled shut in an effort to lose weight and give his family some peace and quiet. Somehow, he managed to get around it and he remains a big fat noisy slob. In this age, the only fat people we like are the fat comics who make fun of their own fatness.

This probably explains the superstition around diets. The sales pitch of the carnivore diet is no different from what preachers during the Great Awakening were selling or social reformers of this age are selling. The subtext is always the same. We have strayed from the proper path, and we must return to it or else. In the case of diet, it means returning to some imagined time when we ate a different way. In the case of social reforms, it is getting back to the righteous path.

It is not just fad diets where we see superstitions about food. Many YouTube videos are sponsored by companies selling some sort goo in a jug that is supposed to give you energy and vitality. “Hey, you are a busy and important person, who just happens to be laying on the couch watching YouTube videos. You don’t have time to have a proper meal, so have a jug of green slime instead. It will not only give you the electrolytes plants crave, but it will also give you energy to watch more videos.”

These companies selling meal replacement and ready-to-cook meals delivered to your door are not really selling food. These companies are selling lifestyles. They are no different from the people selling perfume or ripped blue jeans. The people selling gourmet food kits are promising you a lifestyle if you adorn yourself with the accoutrements of the people who supposedly live that life. Fashion is a cargo cult and food fashion is not an exception.

Of course, the root here is happiness. The leisure classes in ancient Egypt had codes of conduct that were designed to give meaning and purpose to life. Cicero and Ovid wrote guides on how to live happy lives. People in comfortable lives have time to worry about abstract things, so there are people there to supply them with satisfying answers to the vexing questions of existence. Idle hands do the Devil’s work and the buying and selling of self-help books keeps those idle hands busy.

Getting back to food superstitions, not all of it is nonsense. If you are a big fat slob like Chris Christie, the carnivore diet will result in weight loss. It may put cows on the endangered species list, but that is a different issue. Cutting out carbohydrates does funny things to the body. It is why people feel like they have the flu for the first couple of weeks on all of these no-carb diets. Lacking carbohydrates for energy, the body begins to burn fat for energy, which takes a couple of weeks.

Weight loss comes mostly from the reduction in calories. If you eat a big fatty ribeye steak, you will not be hungry in a few hours. If you eat five donuts, you will be starving before the next mealtime. You consumed the same number of calories, but one was fat and protein and the other was all carbs. People who go on no-carb diets end up eating far less than they used to eat, so they lose weight. If you are a fat person, the trade-offs, at least in the short term, probably make sense.

In the end, the cold logic of things like the carnivore diet are no more appealing than the cold logic of fashion. Imagine ads selling ripped jeans that say, “go in debt for these and you will feel better until the credit card statement arrives.” Instead, these diets are sold to people as magic elixirs. The sales pitch works, because we are not so far removed from our primitive past that we are immune to abracadabra words that promise to make the gods happy and therefore make us happy.

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