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.
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Not to worry. After the next election, to you know, avoid the bad press beforehand, Mitch and Kevin will swing into high gear and honor their campaign promises, saving the republic. Just like always.
The fundamental issue here is there is no merit in what is called “meritocracy” in this piece. You know, when I think of merit, I think of someone developing a new semiconductor chip or a new alloy to make airplanes out of. Our so-called “meritocracy”, as represented by Brooks and Edsall, is that very few of the people who comprise it have done any real work of this nature. In reality, our “meritocracy” is comprised of those who have attended the right schools, played social games with the right sort of fellas, and have built careers based mostly on symbol… Read more »
When I read that piece by David Brooks all I could see is that covid amnesty article. It’s the same picture.
Just like Brook’s screed is telling of the outlook of the elite and managerial class, as well as the type of self criticism allowed, the current country hit warning antifa and BLM not to do their thing in small towns typifies the outlook and allowable response of our side. https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/jasonaldean/trythatinasmalltown.html Men to the right of the divide want to see themselves as winners and tough hombres in spite of always losing. Bragging that antifa can’t burn down small towns is simply a retreating army bragging it still controls some territory. The idea that you can hold that territory when the… Read more »
This public defiant gesture isnt as defiant as the public gesture I would definitely do if I had any public platform so therefore its worthless and I should dump all over it.
What we need is more backbiting and infighting, any public figure that makes overtures to our side should be relentlessly mocked. This is how we build support!
I was listening to some Waylon Jennings last night and compared to that this modern “country” just makes me sad.
Anyhow, the leftist corollary to Aldean is “Kill The Boer,”
not David Brooks.
It is understandable that the elites no longer are tethered to reality. They are always the winner even when we win a battle such as getting Trump elected. The changes that they have caused to society in the last 50 years and the power that they have amassed with almost no important opposition is enough to convince people that they can do anything including change the weather. And why not, in only 10 years they have been able to make teaching anal sex and child dismemberment as mandatory aspects of the school system from elementary onward.
Maybe the worst fate they could suffer is the Biden admin. winning again.
We can look at it, if that happens, as ‘As long as it takes’.
The Biden administration seems to be an example of be careful of what you wish for, you just might get it
A talk with Zman & David Stein Cole is requested
Lordy. Entirely relevant.
(Didn’t Arshad link to this? I think he did, credit due.)
https://gaiusbaltar.substack.com/p/why-is-the-west-so-weak-and-russia
I can certainly see everyone nodding; they know what they’re seeing.
You are the dangerous rational group.
For Ostei: “…has abandoned rationality and replaced it with subjectivism (formally designated as “post-modernism”).”
Why is the west so weak and Russia so strong? Because Saint Joseph Djugashvili built a wall around the East and protected the Easterners from the Mind Virus. That’s why Russian & Eastern European men are still masculine, why Russian & Eastern European women are still feminine, and why Constantinoplean priests still honor the gospels [unlike Roman priests, who were ruined by the Mind Virus, and now all believe in castrating the altar boys and inverting the altar boys’ penises into fake vaginas for the satanic pleasure of the priests]. No Mind Virus == Healthy Society Mind Virus unleashed ==… Read more »
The article isn’t about Russia.
That post was phenomenal. Thank you.
If it is David Brooks’ job to supply the NYT readership with insight into Dirt psychology, then the divide is indeed too great to ever be crossed. Basically, we inhabit a continent half filled with foreigners, and I don’t mean just the darker/immigrant ones. Irreconcilable differences. Yesterday something showed up on my internet homepage from Salon, about how Richard Hanania had been outed as a RACIST!!!!!, “just like everybody at the maga rallies.” That’s the way they define dirts, and there is no road back from this condemnation, no possible pardon, commutation, forgiveness, gesundheit, or even a hall pass. You… Read more »
Hanania’s got a book out: https://tinyurl.com/mwrxy3dw I’m not on Twitter but back when you could read it w/o an account Hanania was famous for being anti-Christian and being a dead-ringer for the guy who slaughtered the coeds in Idaho.
How much of the problem is generational. Like it used to be you had the nice (male) high school teacher who was liberal but a nice guy. Maybe he was in the peace corps. I’ve heard recently retired supreme court justice Stephen breyer was like that too.
Losing that demographic is a serious problem. The pmc class has become voxified (the website vox)
Yeah the average (supposedly) friendly, nice, liberal, educated, white dude is gone.
He’s either full on commie/retard now, or just on the center/right wing (ie. I don’t hate LGBT but….), moving further right every day. There’s really no space for white guys in liberal politics, at least those coming into the system now.
It’s not a bad thing. White guys are going to be forced into being conservative or being eaten. What else is there to do these days other than have a family and be conservative when they took away all our bread and circuses?
Conservative is the new liberal (free speech, antiwar, anti-mega corp, etc.) What everyone still calls “liberal” is actually “progressive”, which is the moral majority of the left. Karenesque scolds that want to control every aspect of your life.
As a product of the Canadian public school/indoctrination establishment, we were taught that one of Hitler’s major attractions to the disgruntled dirt people of Weimar Germany – was his assertion that the German people were better than others and that gave them the moral authority to wage war on them and subjugate them. They were supposedly supermen and the master race. Thank goodness I was able to learn from that! Our moral, intellectual and genetic superiors are actually jews, illiterate blacks, browns and chicken-headed white liberal women! Who woulda thunk it??? GAH! What’s that fetid STINK that’s suddenly fallen over… Read more »
Germans claiming to be the “master race” and demanding a nation for the Aryan volk = The Most Evil Thing in Human History, and GI Joe needed to die to end it.
Jews claiming to be “the Chosen People of God” and demanding “the Jewish state” = the Noblest, Noblest, Purest and Most Beautiful Thing Ever, and you goyim need to fund it and defend it.
Yep, got it.
One thing the Nazis got right, however, is that they didn’t confuse their racial shibboleths with the reality of getting things done..Hitler protected his doctor and other jews he liked and needed, the German Army never bothered its many jewish officers or enlisted, and the SS was more than half undermenschen by the end of the war… What Brooks and the rest of these clowns don’t understand is that it’s White Men who get things done, including all the physically or intellectually hard or grubby tasks that are essential to maintaining the world of the chattering, overeducated class..When they are… Read more »
Must be nice to have your own ethnostate to fall back on.
The fundamental problem of our age is that the always question is “How can we frame and mold perception to keep doing what we’re doing?” and never “Maybe we should stop doing what we’re doing?”
Brooks is the word cell who fellates the former camp. That’s his function.
(Particularly egregious right now as hundreds of thousands are dying in Ukraine and the press serve the first narrative with no thought to the second)
[…] ZMan says the quiet part out loud. […]
“Dirt People will be gone ” Clearly they want this literally. they destroyed the “dirt people economy” ie small businesses , with the covid lockdowns . some rogue statisticians have looked at fertility in countries with high vaccination rates and it has fallen off the tabel. I personally know of at least half a dozen people with very serious side effects, two that are medically disabled and no longer work. One 58 yr old martial arts instructor with no history of heart issues and with good body weight and fitness who died suddenly a few days after his first booster.… Read more »
Vaccinations are the least of the issues. The economy before covid was pretty imbalanced wealth wise. During covid there was a wholesale government initiated wealth redistribution from everybody else to the top %1. Since than has not sparked off a wholesale revolution, I have little hope anything will.
Ronehjr: “Vaccinations are the least of the issues.” Au contraire. Vaccines are not only the moast important issue; VACCINES ARE THE ONLY ISSUE. Nothing else matters. I live in a universititty town, surrounded by myriad h0rny young blonde nurses & doctor-ettes at the universititty hospital, all of whom would gladly take muh seed, but I’m scared to death to impregnate any of them, for fear of miscarriage & stillbirth. And then there’s the existential question of whether simply French-kissing them would render me infertile [and/or give me pericarditis/myocarditis]. This old Moderna leak to /pol/ indicates that the children of the… Read more »
Sometimes I have a hard time telling the difference between Bourbon and Whiskey
don’t underestimate the vax. protiens , including spike protiens are extremely durrable . those sharp spikes are going to run arround inside the bodies of the vaxed for the rest of their lives. continuing to cause increasing dammage whereever they accumulate. we are getting on about two years from the first vaxing, and the all cause excess mortality
continues it’s climb. the fertility continues to fall. When , or more importantly weill they ever , peak and start to decline. I am not optomistic.
Hell, here in Japan there were a number of cases of *youngsters* (13-17) suffering nasty side effects of the vax and in a couple of cases people died. Pfizer did a pretty widespread propaganda blitz with media and in-store advertising trying to repair their rep. Pretty common story but even when separating the horseshit claims about the vax versus the verified, there’s still enough justification to put some people up against the wall.
Ever see the UK miniseries Utopia or the Amazon remake?
Predictive programming at its finest.
I was reading an article over the weekend, “Matt Pottinger, the Intelligence Agent who Shut Down America.” This member of the Cloud class of people is a prime example of the screw-ups who rule over us. He went to a private eastern school, became a journalist, then got a special waiver to join the Marine Corps (resume-gilding), worked with Gen. Flynn, got elevated to the highest levels of the administration as a security adviser, then was instrumental in shutting down the country during the pandemic hysteria. The best that can be said of him is that he isn’t Pete Buttigieg… Read more »
I also read Henrich’s book. For all the Jared Diamond like hand wringing, and the oppressive teleology of the acronym WEIRD, I still thought he was really saying “We’re better than you”.
I never heard of “Matt Pottinger”, but in Early-Life’ing him just now, I noticed that his father, John Stanley Pottinger, b@nged (((Gloria Steinem))), (((Kathie Lee Gifford))), Connie Chung, and some other chick I’d also never heard of [“Joni Evans”].
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stanley_Pottinger#Personal_life
The way these celebutards jump in and out of bed with one another sure does make you wonder whether elite society is just one long never-ending bacchanalia devoted to Baal or Gog or Magog or Moloch or Massa Lucifer hisself.
Yeah, that acronym WEIRD bugged me too. I just thought of it as marketing but “oppressive teleology” is a better way to put it.
Pottinger is a Chicom and Han wannabe wearing a fellow white skinsuit.
I’ll skip the fedpoast about what he deserves.
I don’t follow sportsball at all — let alone women’s soccer (LOL) but nothing exemplifies the smug attitude and meritlessness of the Ruling Class more than the reaction of the repellent lesbian Megan Rapinoe after her she missed a penalty kick and her team lost: “I think this team has always fought for so much more, and that’s been the most rewarding part for me,” Rapinoe said Sunday, adding that her most memorable moment might have been hearing “equal pay” chants during the 2019 World Cup final.” https://nypost.com/2023/08/07/megan-rapinoe-reveals-why-she-was-laughing-after-world-cup-penalty-miss/ In other words, demand more money for being a failure while congratulating… Read more »
“…adding that her most memorable moment might have been hearing “equal pay” chants during the 2019 World Cup final.” You can look this up, but let’s not forget how and why this vile Lesbian Feminist became famous. Most folk don’t understand/know, but the women’s team chose/negotiated a *different* contract than the men’s team. Basically, the women’s team wanted guarantees of benefits and income *aside* from a winning season or not! The men’s team chose a contract full of performance goals and pay for performance stipulations. Well, the men’s team performed poorly—as in they didn’t hit the performance marks—and were indeed… Read more »
The role of women wanting all the benefits of a successful society but none of the consequences or responsibility for their actions is one of the more defining aspects of modern society. This won’t end well.
The most cringeworthy aspect of last week was the Hannity-cons red-faced sputtering over the team’s alleged refusal to sing the national anthem. One presumes even they have noticed our country’s military prioritizes cross-dressers, fags, and coloreds. That the GAE is determined to export the rainbow flag and associated degeneracy, and will start wars to that end with the ancillary goal of enriching the oligarchs. That we are now officially a banana republic after the apparatus of the state tried to depose a sitting President through the Russian collusion hoax; rigged an election to unseat him; and is now going to… Read more »
I just want to thank the lovely Swedish women for doing us all the favor that we hoped Ana Capeta would.
Also note that GAE sportsball media is blaming hetero Alex Morgan’s lack of finishing rather than the toxic and past it Rapinoe for the loss.
We’re living in an era where the elites have basically becomes evil Jiminy Crickets. If you wish upon a star anything is possible. Pay no attention to reality, which never intrudes. If you wish hard enough we’ll have “racial healing. If you wish hard enough “green energy” will power the world. Etc. They have an entire litany. Touching on energy again, the western world has spent about $ 4 Trillion going from energy dense production to non-dense”renewables.” This is money we would have spent on actual drilling etc. We’re careening into a MAN MADE energy crisis and no one even… Read more »
I was listenening to Condoleeze Rice and her successor at NSA on a podcast defending their policies through the Bush years. Iraq? A young democracy that needs our help. Afghanistan? The American people ran out of patience but it would be a developing democracy otherwise. Russia? Good thing we expanded NATO. We can use the help in Ukraine, and in fact, we should have made Ukraine a member. Money sent to Africa? They love us! We saved 25 million lives. Benefits to the American people? A rules based international order. Ain’t it great?! No remorse, except that people just don’t… Read more »
Reminds me of the Twitter meme:
GWOT Veteran Progression
2008: “They just want democracy!”
2016: “They don’t give a sheet about democracy.”
2022: “I don’t give a sheet about democracy.”
There is a lot to that. For myself, At the time I thought the idea of the Freedom Agenda was fresh thinking. Twenty years on, only a fool would think it was anything but a wasteful fantasy that got a lot of people killed for no meaningful benefit.
And I guess the idea of stopping mass muslim immigration and strict immigration enforcement as a way to not have to “fight them over here”, never occurred to Bush and Condi.
And as for America being a Democracy? Biden, Garland, the FBI and CIA, mail-in ballots make that proposition a bad joke.
“no meaningful benefit” – apart from the billions funneled to military contractors!
Brooks and his friends can pen beautiful, perfectly written articles full of fifteen letter words from another galaxy, but probably couldn’t pour piss out of a boot with the instructions written on the heel. Deep down I think they’re jealous of dirt people because we can actually fix things.
‘couldn’t pour piss out of a boot with the instructions written on the heel,
Thats a new one to me. Excellent!
That’s a Lyndon Johnsonism.
Mikebravo – you must not live in, or have visited TX lately
And they do seem to like the ‘dirt people’s’ females as opposed to their own. It’s no wonder why they are so full of hatred towards the dirt people’s women and children and like to see them be abused and like to keep the men from defending them. They like to think Epstein used the girls he did because they were from powerless families and while that was a part of it the bigger part was that they just liked the dirt girls better in general. It must infuriate them. All kinds of women from all classes throw themselves at… Read more »
And all shiksas too.
Maybe the cloud women think if they get rid of all the white girls, or at least make them all fat, sickly, or miserable then their men won’t prefer the replacement black, hispanic, or asian females over them and the cloud women will rule supreme.
Are the cloud men really sure they want to go along with this plan? lol
It depends on what you mean by the dirt people. I find lumpenprole white girls to be by and large ugly. The more middle class girls or the “well off but not wealthy” are more attractive.
Well, it used to be not that long ago that even if poor, and sometimes especially if poor, young women were thin, fit, beautiful, healthy and happy. They had an innocence about them, an adventurous spirit, and a positive outlook on life. They believed they could make their life better even if they came from the dirt. Unjaded to an extent even when dealing with poverty and being of a lower class. (Even in pop culture we saw that with Ellie May Clampett or Christina Applegate in Married with children.) But, well, here we are, back to where we started,… Read more »
Interesting perspective. I did not think about that.
Brooks turned 50, dumped his wife of 27 years, then married his mid 30s something “research assistant” 23 years his junior.
I’ve no doubt he can justify this “trade her in for a younger model” with breathtaking eloquence and justification.
The elites serve us – medium rare.
Well, those of us made of pork are safe, then.
“Soylent Green is made of (Dirt) People!”
As our esteemed host and many around here have observed, there is no reforming this corrupt cloudy managerial system currently oppressing us. These Brooks types don’t give two s**** what dirts think (unless it’s really bad think) or want. It didn’t used to be this way, at least not so overtly, but it sure as hell is now. I think one of the problems is there’s so much money sloshing around in the system, which allows select individuals and institutions to become obnoxiously and undeservedly wealthy. They then use that ill-gotten lucre to foist F’d up ideas upon society and… Read more »
“…another blow on the shofar…”
That was almost subtle.
Shofar, shogood…
so what!
(sorry. It’s the name of an album and I couldn’t resist.)
Todays essay nails it Z man.
“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.” This line tells you all you really need to know about the ruling elite. The only people they care about are themselves, homos, ethnic minorities and women who want to be men. The vast majority of Americans don’t even warrant a mention of consideration. They don’t care that the… Read more »
Their incessant boosterism for these supposed long-suffering groups appears morally motivated, and that is the cover story. In reality, these groups, and their aggressive activists, form a series of defensive structures between the dirt people and ruling class. The blacks, feminists, gays, and especially the new Tranissary class, would need to be defeated before dealing with the (((final boss))).
I was wondering about that myself. That Daily Mail article about some black femme hustling anti-whiteness DEI seminars in schools, paid $50,000 per day by the teacher’s unions?
What gets me is the sheer malinvestment.
An absolute squandering of capital painfully accrued across centuries.
What does she accomplish? “Votes”? Nobody believes a word of the tripe. Another temple to Jupiter would at least leave something behind.
No past, no future, no history. Only an endless present, like animals. Like their mythical Eden.
Retvrn to monke!
I mean really, Quinn Martin and all the old showbiz jewish people rocked…why in the hell would they want to hide their identity?? We loved them. It makes me sad.
We no longer subscribe to the NYT but I have an old high school buddy (Class of 1963, no less!) who does and is forever posting on social media some David Brooks’ gem he thinks is worth my attention. I ignore these entirely. DB is boring, and his efforts at being one of the Cool Kids are pathetic! If he had been around in ’63 we would have mocked his a$$! BTW the posters here at Zman have all used wonderful descriptions for his work! He’s like Ralph “Lauren” creating “fashion” by copying what he observes as his social superiors’… Read more »
I’m guessing Braunstein.
Maybe a stupid question – but is this name changing a common thing/tactic?
Any examples to share?
Yes. Changing their names is pretty common. If they were all named Goldberg, people might notice. Noticing is bad.
Jon Stewart, George Soros come immediately to mind. Both made up stage names.
It was actually quite common in film/music entertainment business in the old days for jews to at least nominally hide their ethnicity behind a goy name change. Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Steve Lawrence, George Burns and Edward G. Robinson come to mind. Granted if you had a major honker, it’s harder to sell…
If one with a true heart filled with Odin’s love were to learn their true names and pronounce them with will and determination, then the evil goblin Jew would scream and vanish in a puff of smoke.
So they change their name to Stewart, Garland, or Brooks.
How shameful after America helping them get a homeland and fighting a war to help them and afterwards they feel the need to be shady. So weird.
David ‘Cole’ over at Takimag.
Garland family name changed from Garfinkel a few generations ago.
The coterminous point of democracy with the celebration of sexual perversions and sexual mutilations is instructive. I suggest that the only proper morality is to despise both deviants and democracy with equal, white-hot hatred.
In the past, I have been indifferent to the one and a complete booster of the other. I repent of the moral blindness.
Social Traditionalists have long been cowed into silence by the fact that Progressivism produces a lot of changes that, at least in the actuarial sense, can be considered salubrious. This may seem counterintuitive at first, but once you think about it for awhile, you see the point. Legalizing all the rackets (which is essentially what Progressivism does) really does reduce crime and violence, at least of the more dramatic sort. Instead of shootouts at the OK corral and whorehouses at the edge of town, we just have lawfare and adult websites, which are much less likely to lead to people… Read more »
I don’t think the arguments are really necessary. What we need is the will to impose our preferred social structure on our world. By whatever means are necessary.
Arguments are for the debate club.
In that case, have fun storming the castle. But if you don’t want to end up forgotten in prison like the Jan. 6 folks, you might want to try explaining yourself first.
“Progressivism promotes a cleaner version of vice that allows us to avoid the visible consequences and pretend it isn’t really vice at all.” Perhaps it does reduce some crime. However, it’s like pressing in on a water balloon. Progressives cause a lot more crime in other areas, for example. Instead of shoot-outs at the OK Corral, we get them in the middle of cities with kids playing on their porch being the unfortunate victims of criminals who can’t shoot. Or the crazy schemes they run on the schools. We get a higher graduation rate than we otherwise would, but at… Read more »
You can see the effects of the this especially well in Portland (well really all the cities of the PNW). The shitlibs call it “harm reduction”. Between the tent camps, the endless petty crime, the inability of anyone to enjoy walking down the street without being confronted by someone screaming at people only they can see, they’ve pretty much “harm reduced” the population of productive taxpayers right out of the state. I can’t wait to leave myself. Inasmuch as these people plan anything, I suppose their long term plan is to just get the federal government to directly fill in… Read more »
Uh huh. So, essentially decriminalizing activities formerly classed as crime, and compelling LEOs to stand down in the case of negro criminality, reduces violence, does it? I suggest you take that up with the denizens of every slum in AINO.
It reveals we are entirely incompatible. We share no common ground, no first principles. They transfigure diversity, perversion and egalitarianism. We abominate all of those things. We have nothing left to say to one another but “so long.”
Perhaps it strains the ZMan analogy of “children of Israel camping in the wilderness of Sinai awaiting final instructions” – but Joshua 8:24-26: When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the open wilderness where they pursued them, and all of them to the very last had fallen by the edge of the sword, all Israel returned to Ai and struck it down with the edge of the sword. And all who fell that day, both men and women, were 12,000, all the people of Ai. But Joshua did not draw back his hand with which he… Read more »
What do they have in mind for us, SISL?
As I’m in a glass half full state of mind today – I gave the benefit of the doubt that not all Cloud people want all Dirt people dead. Aks me again tomorrow when I’m not in such a positive frame of mind.
Do they have anything in mind for us, though? And if so, what is it?
Better that Dirts die and reduce the surplus population (and carbon footprint), else remain sentient to perform those icky, yet necessary tasks required to keep the lights (non-incandescent variety) turned on, swab the decks, and such.
They don’t want us dead or separated. They want us as a perpetual punching bag because sneering at us is the only thing that gives their miserable lives any meaning. I have expressed to them your sentiment above (“We have nothing left to say to one another but “so long.””). I get a look of bewildered sadness, like the abusive husband when his wife finally walks out the door.
Some commenters seem to see meritocracy as a viable organizing principle for our society. As John Derbyshire has noted, if meritocracy is accompanied with meritocratic immigration, then you just import a new class of foreign rulers. Whites have a difficult time seeing this because they cannot imagine the ethnocentrism that most non-whites feel. They imagine that a group of really good engineers or really good auto mechanics can make their shared competency their deepest bond. If these groups include non-whites, this shared competency is unlikely to command their deepest loyalty. For example, the billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who was the largest… Read more »
I still recommend Brooks’s 2000 book Bobos in Paradise unreservedly, for two reasons. The first is that it’s a dead-on portrait of the Cloud People back when they were first achieving Revolutionary Class Consciousness. Imagine if we’d had the minutes from the first few meetings of the People’s Will or the Red Guards; it’s like that. An extremely valuable historical document. The other reason is that Bobos in Paradise is one of the funniest books I have ever read, even though he’s 100% serious at all times. Brooks is so hilariously self-unaware that it actually raises some fundamental epistemological issues… Read more »
It has a companion piece released around the same frame: “Rise of The Creative Class.”
I agree with that 100%. Bobos is a great book, and it’s a big part of the reason why I never completely discount anything David Brooks has to say, even though I don’t agree with his political platform.
David Brooks has an almost unsurpassed gift for being an accurate describer of social trends. Perhaps the price to pay for such clarity into the social mood is to be doomed to have nothing but blasé opinions of one’s own, which kind of sums up Brooks pretty well.
There’s a lot of useful information to be found in Leftwing “cultural critics,” depending on your tolerance for bullshit (and the strength of your blood pressure medications). Chuck Klosterman can be phenomenally insightful about pop culture, for instance (and whether or not you’re interested in pop culture — I hate it with the heat of a thousand suns — pop culture is interested in you; forewarned is forearmed). But his shtick can drive a man to drink in about two paragraphs; I rarely have the strength. See also: Bill Simmons on sports and pop culture; that Freddie de Boer guy… Read more »
Bill Simmons was mildly interesting to me 20 years ago, as he seemed to represent the same Gen-X demographic as I did. But after a time one starts to see how devoting one’s life to such unserious past times throws open the front door for the wholesale conquering of your society.
I feel bobos reproduce through osmosis. Like why is it that former gop strongholds like dupage county are dem now. Maybe there are more bobos there then 20 years ago.
I have to begrudgingly give credit to the mainstream media concerning Trump. They morphed him from someone that most Americans looked up to into the next Grand Dragon of the KKK.
That transmogrification is only in the minds of the Power Structure. Those who loved, or even tolerated Trump before, hardly view him as Simon Legree now.
ADL
Grifting The Circle Game
kikel *flinch* *punch* repeat
I am not quite onboard with today’s message. I did not see Brooks’ column as a cynical clarion call for the meritocracy to close ranks. To me, it actually sounds ominously reminiscent of a “Summoning of the Estates General.” This is the elites thinking that they can handle the current situation with the same long-accustomed pageantry that they’ve employed since anyone can remember, and of which they understand little besides. They know they need to account for some discrepancies in the social compact, but they still think they have the situation very much in hand. They’ll make a few concessions,… Read more »
I somehow don’t think “concessions” are in the offing, any hesitant bows in that direction by David Brooks notwithstanding. Not until we put the fear of God into these archfiends in the most graphic and conclusive way, will concessions even make the agenda.
It would be more accurate to say that Brooks resents the dirt people not because they want to live in monocultural enclaves that harken back to the early 60s, but that they think they are entitled to such a life despite being working or middleclass. How many black people do you think Brooks sees in a week who aren’t either columnists with un-calloused hands kvetching about slavery, or negroes flashing teeth and holding doors open for him? Most people think living in peace—not having to worry about their neighbor’s wandering pitbull mauling their child’s face—is a perquisite in “the best… Read more »
One of the big pushes elites are making is that working/middle class people in the developed world have no right to a better life or higher standard of living than third worlders. Their solution to this is to lower the standard of living for non elites in the developed world as much as possible.
Alas, even if he makes 500K per annum and moves to a toney outer burb, or makes 50K and relocates to a white hamlet in the boondocks, he still cannot recreate 1963 because the “culture” bears no resemblance to the one that existed then, and it is imposed upon him relentlessly. Even to dabble one’s big toe in the postmodern dreck is to defile onesself with a pollution that was absolutely unimaginable in those halcyon days of yore.
Best comment of the day in a very tight field.
They aren’t meritocrats. They are credential-crats. Merit implies a system where the quality of your work is adjudicated according to how they pan out in reality according a proper and just definition of good. Of course, who decides the good is determined by who defines the ends, is the key. Given that this system operates behind a shroud, who is determining the good and on whose behalf it is defined must be ascertained by the results after the fact. Its ends are not stated forthrightly to the public, they can only be determined by seeing who is winning and who… Read more »
This is topical to my closing point today. https://imperiumpress.substack.com/p/linear-history-not-even-once
I just opened my ACM email for the mid week. It is getting unbearable as they have adopted the new religion. Of course this new religion has its commissars who must be placed everywhere. Today’s ACM featured this wonderful person: https://responsibleinnovation-summit.com/speaker/catherine-flick The bio states that in 2000 she was working on a project and she saw a bunch of security holes. So, she decided to do something about it. She realized that someone who worked on this needed to be highly ethical to not expose pop and rock stars personal information. Did she become a security expert and fix the… Read more »
“Those who can’t do, teach.” ‘Unknown’. “Those who can’t teach, teach P.E.” ‘Woody Allen’
Those that can’t teach P.E. go into politics. -Me
I feel meritocracy inevitably evolves into a credentialocracy and/or technocracy
“They aren’t meritocrats. They are credential-crats. Merit implies a system where the quality of your work is adjudicated…”
Exactly. There needs to be a better definition of “merit” and meritocracy—at least one we (dirt people) can understand and live under. Becoming the *perfect* toady in Cloud world is not my definition of merit.
“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 line is 100% pure projection on Brooks’s part. There is absolutely nothing at all, whatsoever, that Trump ever said or did on terms of returning the status of women, gays and blacks to 1963. Nothing. He never spoke out against gay marriage, he never wanted to outlaw anal… Read more »
What they hated about him the most was that he cut through the bullshit of the ruling class like a hot knife through butter, especially the feminist bullshit. Everybody with a lick of common sense knew that “Crooked Hillary” was not “equal” to Bill Clinton, she was merely grifting off his political prowess. Yet the ruling class insisted that she was the “smartest woman in the world” and must be taken seriously, and absolutely deserved to be president, whether the voters wanted her or not. . . . But it was a dagger at the heart of the Ruling Class,… Read more »
I agree that’s a big part of it.
The ruling class knows they look stupid, and in true beta-male fashion, they’re making themselves look even stupider by trying to reassert themselves instead of just letting the thing drop.
Even alphas don’t win all the time, but you can tell an alpha by the fact that he just takes his lumps and moves on. He doesn’t get all prissy and vindictive about it.
The increasing vehemence of the Cloud jesters and courtiers suggests to me that some significant portion of the actual Cloud types – Silicon Valley VCs, private equity folks, CEOs, technologists, financiers et al – understand that they’ve overreached a bit here. These are the world’s greediest people and they need to protect the Golden Goose. You cannot run an economy with trannies working from home or getting stimmies. Brooks didn’t suddenly get self-aware. Brooks’ recent lamentations really just say to his patrons: “No, you really need us ….these Dirts are horrible…..just look at them”. Meanwhile some of the real Clouds… Read more »
This was largely my reaction as well. Part of it was also to keep up morale with the cloud people as a few of them are starting to notice some sub optimal results from worshiping blacks. They also need to come up with some way to keep some dirt people around to do tasks they consider beneath them and cannot be automated. These people are obsessed with having mediocre restaurant food delivered to them and having other people drive them around. Their electric car scheme to save the planet is failing badly. Brooks and others are hoping sending Trump to… Read more »
While the disintegration of the Roman Republic is a useful parallel to our current situation (as Z alludes in today’s essay), I think it will behoove dissidents to closely study the Civil War and Reconstruction to really understand what we are up against. The cultural elite at that time decided they’d had enough of those backwards, unenlightened southerners, and decided to terrorize them for a few decades, through both overt, total war and then oppressive occupation. It only stopped once the ruling elite grew tired of the effort and costs, and perhaps some elite factions noticed how disastrous letting blacks… Read more »
How do we raise the costs to exhaust the ruling elite?
—
Cut rope-pulls and leave them around Nascar garages, hang “it’s okay to be White” signs around liberal areas, always check the wrong race on forms you won’t go to jail on, etc. Their transparently thin skin will probably exhaust them anyway even if no one does anything (I’m allowed to be a little bit optimistic).
I think we are at the point where just by rejecting their worldview, you are exhausting them. They demand total control and submission, straight out of 1984, and they’re not getting that. We got a glimpse of that with COVID but see how Trump goes up in popularity every time they gin up an indictment. Of course, not far down the road is they decide just to kill you for disagreeing with them. While I obviously hope and pray it doesn’t go this way, while I pray they run out of gas before this happens and we have a peaceful… Read more »
“ How do we raise the costs to exhaust the ruling elite?”
The Southern resisters broke laws (committed crimes) and didn’t get caught. Well some did get caught and paid tremendous personal costs, but it didn’t stop the overall movement.
Judging by the timidity I constantly see on the right, I don’t think you guys are up to it.
“ How do we raise the costs to exhaust the ruling elite?”
Showing my age here, but the essence of such resistance has been written down. Try obtaining a copy of Abbie Hoffman’s “Steal This Book”. It was used against the elites of that time (1970–us?) and should work again. Sure, objects under discussion need a bit of updating and refinement, but I maintain the overall concept remains valid—make the cost of being an elite unaffordable.
Some people would have to do some things. Why we do not see that happening is a legitimate puzzle.
Well, to begin with, there’s a certain amount of demoralization going on within our own ranks. I’m talking about black-pilling defeatists who whine and whimper whenever anybody speaks of, you know, actually taking action. They also speak of the Power Structure as if it was omnipotent and omnicompetent, which we know to be very far from the truth.
Not to worry. After the next election, to you know, avoid the bad press beforehand, Mitch and Kevin will swing into high gear and honor their campaign promises, saving the republic. Just like always.
“Meritocracy?” It is to laugh. Remember the Unz figures for admission to the top universities. Jews have a 1000 percent greater chance of admintence over a white applicant with precisely the same qualifications.
Jack Dodson is exactly correct. We live in a strict caste system. Jews, minorities and women comprise the upper caste. “Meritocracy” has nothing to do with it. In fact since this policy has become universal the opposite of meritocracy has been shown to be taking place. The Commander of the U.S. Navy anyone?
Well, a spoils (quota) system is always the enemy of meritocracy. Excluding Whites only makes it more so.
“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.” I don’t see any merit in these people. As Toynbee comments about senescent civilisations, the “creative minority” becomes a “dominant minority”, with no redeeming features. Brooks in particular I’ve always viewed as a drab and boring dullard with not a flicker of wit or insight. On a side note, this piece by “Gaius Baltar” may be of interest to you and the other ladies and gents who frequent this fine blog. It… Read more »
We’ll see what Russia looks like in 25 or 50 years after they incubate talent. Maybe it’ll look like what the Middle Eastern oil kingdoms look like now. Or maybe it’ll still be a shithole, except for parts of Moscow and St. Pete. Time will tell. I rather see the US as sinking to the level of modern Russia…full of crappy small towns and cities, drug-addled, depressing, incompetent, lazy, and corrupt to the hilt. Most people just getting by. Will Russia surpass the US and get less crappy? I dunno. Russia has innumerate problems itself, and it’s low birth rate… Read more »
Russia has a lot of problems, but smart people is not one of them. When the USSR collapsed, a whole lot of their well educated folk left for the West, no doubt about it—there simply was no alternative for employment. And today they suffer from some of the same malaise as the West with addiction and low birth rate. Nonetheless, they have a population that remains ethnically Russian and White—in many ways a better foundation than we currently have for ourselves.
Russia is a dreary dump.
Russian nationalism is not going to save you, or Russia.
Take a walking tour through a Russian resort in the area around Ufa near the Urals, about a thousand miles east of Moscow. I wouldn’t mind living in a “dump” like this. As opposed to a dump like New Jersey. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doNPzIHIscg. And here is a typical supermarket in the same region… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGtc-uj2QN8
Thanks to you, and I believe at least one other poster, for sharing this link. This post develops a powerful explanatory framework for gathering together various observations into a cognizable whole.
If only there were a meritocracy. The West has a rigid caste system now, and those at or near the top quite often are meritless, as you reference. The Cathedral provides credentials but usually not worth and actual value. Its primary mission is to cement power, engage in genocide of the masses at the expense of the few, and if the end result is fops (exactly!) such as Brooks as the middlemen it does not matter. They are the Eloi and the plan to replace and get new Morlocks seems to be on schedule. In addition to the unwarranted sense… Read more »
“They are Cloud-adjacent at best, but they never will be Clouds. At the end of the day they are even more disposable than Dirts. The Cloud-adjacent are little more than court jesters of old and more easily replaced.”
‘Meet the oligogues!’
https://amgreatness.com/2018/01/18/meet-the-oligogues/
As a preface, what the hell happened to American Greatness? That piece is excellent and based. Today AG is as limp-wristed as National Review, maybe a wee bit less buffoonish.
Yep, “oligogues” are a real thing. I prefer “whore” or “The Help.”
” He has no loyalty to his host country. He sent his son off to serve in the army of a foreign country.”
Well, shooting innocent, unarmed Palestinians is a lot safer than fighting in the neocon wars in Iraq and Afghanistan where his son would have risked death or serious injury.
Funny, isn’t it, how “nobody needs an assault weapon” — unless he is a Jew in a settlement on the West Bank…
The irony here is that even the US Army doesn’t need an assault weapon, as in the AR-16 based weapon system. Hence the invention and addition years ago of a burst trigger modification in recognition of the old saw, “you can never miss fast enough”. 😉
The Optimates are venal and self-serving. And they have millions of aspiring sycophants. Trying to get these gullible hand-maidens to understand this is almost impossible. Almost. Trump continues to insist on staying alive, and this really drives them nuts.
Brooks more or less is a sycophant. He is not and never can be a Cloud. At best he is Cloud-adjacent. This will matter and be brought home to him in due time. I think the term “Judeo-Puritan” is misleading in that it implies an equal partnership but the former only is a middleman for the latter no how much money acquired.