Generational politics are useless, for the most part, but you can see certain trends when comparing generations. Marriage and fertility rates are the two best examples. Go back to the generation that fought the Great War and you see very high marriage rates, even among blacks, high fertility rates and low illegitimacy rates. Examine subsequent generations and you see how all of those measures changed. The childless urbanite cat lady was many generations in the making.

You can tease out something similar by looking at how people ruled over people in the past versus the present day. A century ago, most men were directly ruled by other men in their daily lives. This is not about political structures, although that was often true, but rather the interpersonal relations of daily life. Men worked for other men. Whether it was in a factory, at the docks, in agriculture or anywhere else, men worked for men in a very direct and personal way. They had a boss who bossed them around.

A man working on the docks, unloading ships, would show up for the daily muster and a supervisor would assign him to a gang. He and the other men in the gang would be directed by some other man. Correction was in the form of yelling and threats. If there was some confusion, the man in charge took control and told the other men what they should be doing. There was no committee that issued a bland directive or a bit of software that compelled a certain type of behavior.

That is a big difference compared to today. While most people have a boss in their work place, the boss has no real authority. He is just a conduit for company policy. He gets trained in people skills, the sorts of passive-aggressive cajoling that passes for management skills in the modern corporation. Increasingly, he does not actually manage his people. He uses software to measure productivity and issues bland e-mails to his staff. He measures compliance with the software system.

This is most obvious in a warehouse facility. In the old days, men would pick pack and stack items in the warehouse, at the direction of a supervisor. If they screwed up or screwed off, the boss would yell at them. Today, they are directed by an algorithm that guides their work. A hand held corrects their mistakes in real time and provides structure to their movements. Software tracks their productivity. The people inside an Amazon facility are ruled by robots, not men.

This is not just the result of technology and the drive for efficiency. A big driver is the declining personal skills of modern people. Each generation becomes less secure in confronting their fellow humans. A century ago, the boss enthusiastically corrected his people and his people just accepted it. Getting reamed out by the boss was just a part of life on the job. Today, getting corrected by the boss could very well result in counseling sessions for both parties.

You see the generational aspect to this on the campus. This story about the University of Missouri monitoring their students like pets is a good example. Within living memory, instructors took attendance and confronted the tardy and chronically absent. Since neither side of that transaction in the current age could withstand the emotional strain of such a confrontation, software will do the job. The students will happily comply, preferring to be ruled by their mobile devise.

This is a dynamic, of course. As technology allowed businesses, for example, to improve error rates, they began to subtly select for different types of people. The hands-on, direct style of management slowly fell out of favor.  Similarly, the best people to hire as workers were those comfortable using technology. Each generation was more tuned to the impersonal styled than the prior generation. This has continued over a few generations to where we are now.

Where we are now, however, is a curious place. Spend time on a college campus and some things jump out at you. One is the students are surprisingly compliant. The days of college pranks and rebellion are largely over, especially at the elite colleges. The students are consumed with adhering to the rules, as well as currying favor with their human superiors. The woke rage heads get headlines, but college life is now mostly a culture of banal conformity.

It has also made young people socially awkward. Young people have grown up interacting with one another through the medium of technology. Participation in sports, for example, is at all-time lows. Free play is unheard of today. Instead, the young generation has been raised to have a robot master gently nudging them along, even in their interactions with their fellow humans. One consequence has been the sharp decline in sex. It turns out that socially awkward weirdos have less sex.

A preference for impersonal rule and the collapse of interpersonal skills does not bode well for the future of western society. Prisons function along these lines. The guards are rule-following functionaries in a system. The system is designed to reduce socialization among the inmates, in order to maintain control and reduce conflict. A society built on such principles will inevitably lead to a similar authoritarianism. After all, there are no elections inside a prison.

That may be what we are seeing with the rise of the tech giants. The old organizational systems of liberal democracy no longer fit a people, afraid of one another, but comfortable with machines. Instead of a revolution and new political order, the machines are simply filling the vacuum. The politicians no longer have the will to create and enforce rules, so the tech giants have their robots do it. Again, most young people prefer it. They want the machines running their lives.

It has always been assumed that if mankind is going to off itself, it will be through the accidental use of technology. Something like a nuclear war or a man-made plague are the most popular options. It may be that our demise will simply be due to technology dehumanizing us to the point where we no longer have enough interest in one another to bother mating. Instead of fire, it will be ice, the icy stare of people looking at one another through the lens of technology.

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One of the unique features of the current year is the very large gap, the great divide, that separates conventional wisdom and its critics. On one side, the conventional side, people still operate inside the moral framework that formed up in the 1960’s and blossomed in the 1980’s. On the other side are the critics and dissidents, who are operating under an entirely different framework. Not only is there no overlap or areas of agreement, there’s little contact between the two sides.

This is a new thing. In the 1980’s, as the neoliberalism was coming together, critics and enthusiasts occupied the same physical and cultural space. On TV chat shows, old school conservatives could challenge new school conservatives about trade and immigration policy. Paleo-libertarians could challenge both sides of conventional politics on money, economics and social policy. Newspapers would run columns by columnists, who questioned the emerging orthodoxy.

That’s not something you see these days. For example, read conventional conservative websites and they are nothing but the same dull mush they have been churning out for the last few decades. There are no lively discussions about immigration or the impact of the demographic changes. National Review hardly bothers to cover Trump. They just seem to be waiting it all out, hoping the bad man goes away. Otherwise, they carry on like 2016 never happened and that mob to their right does not exist.

The Left is actually much worse. Take an evening and watch the left-wing cable chat shows and you will find yourself in a world of make believe. It’s a useful only in that it is a glimpse inside the very weird world of the Washington chattering classes. Again, the days of having on contrary opinion are long gone. Instead, these shows and the print publications that fuel them are like choirs. They sing familiar tunes to the faithful in order to drive away all doubt. The one true faith is all you see.

This strange insularity is, in part, what is driving the dissident right. Every day refugees from the other side turn up on this side, looking for answers. After the six millionth recitation of the catechism, even the timid start to wonder why things never seem to get better for the bulk of Americans. The funny guys with the frog things at least offer some comic relief. Traditional Christians find themselves on the same side as racists, because the people on the other side made it so.

An illuminating example of this hard divide between orthodoxy and dissent is this post by Steve Sailer, reviewing a book by conservative thinker Christopher Caldwell. Sailer describes his book as “an explosive rethinking of history since JFK’s assassination that comes to the reactionary conclusion that the only salvation for American conservatism is to repeal the sainted 1964 Civil Rights Act and restore the constitutional right to freedom of association.”

Right away, that should cause most dissidents to stop and wonder how it is possible that such a conclusion is novel in anyway. As recent as the 1980’s, critics could openly talk about the negative consequences of the Civil Rights Act. Into the last decade, legal scholars could publicly question disparate impact, which is one of the deformities that has arisen from the arguments behind the civil rights. Today, none of this is possible on the other side. Those things can only be spoken of on this side.

That’s why Caldwell’s book will be treated like an original document by the people on the other side of the great divide. The sorts of topics and modes of thought increasingly common on this side of the great divide are completely forgotten on the other side of the great divide. So much so that many people on that side, even the smarter ones, are barely away such thinking exists. It is as if they live in a universe that now operates by a different set of natural rules. It truly is a great divide.

Now, it must be noted that Caldwell probably does pay attention to what happens on this side, as best he can. He has to dodge the morality police, so perhaps that is why he chooses to frame his critique as he does. Still, it has the feel of someone, after having done everything they could to get their way and silence their critics, discovering they were wrong all along. Instead of rehabilitating their critics, however, they proudly claim their arguments for their own.

That’s not what’s at work here. Caldwell, as far as anyone can tell, has not been standing with the harpies, as they drive out the unbelievers. He’s always been a skeptic of the prevailing orthodoxy. He is, however, an insider, a house approved critic, who speaks to that audience. His book is not aimed at dissidents, but at the sorts of people he socializes with at book parties and conferences. He is one of them, not one of us, even if he does not share their loathing for us.

This does reveal a truth about any possible reform movement that could arrest the decline of the West. If the other side is to regain their wits and begin to turn back from the abyss, they will have to do so believing they are the ones sorting this all out. They will not credit the people they drove away, for the crime of questioning what turned out to be a defective orthodoxy. Reformers need the legitimacy of insiders, which means maintaining the gulags for the old heretics.

Even so, what Caldwell’s book suggests, however, is that there is some leakage between the dissident right and the prevailing orthodoxy. It is not a one-way mirror that divides the two sides. Some of things on this side are slowly making their way over. For those hoping for a peaceful transition back to normalcy, there’s the white pill. One book here, one speech there and before long, the other side has their Khrushchev. It is a thin reed, but it is some hope for a soft landing.

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Minority populations in any society have faced the twin problems of expulsion and absorption by the majority population. On the one hand, they need to play an important enough role to be needed by the majority, but not become a threat. On the other hand, they need to maintain enough separation between themselves and the majority in order to keep their people from fully assimilating and disappearing. Assimilation in America, for example, has erased much of late 19th century immigration.

The Amish are a popular example used by people interested in demography as well as human behavior. Beginning in the early 18th century, these mostly German Anabaptists began moving from southwestern Germany to Pennsylvania. They were rural people, so they settled into rural parts of the colony as farmers. They setup their unique communities and exist to this day as a unique and separate minority. Amish in America number about four hundred thousand.

A theory for why this tiny minority that lives outside modernity has managed to survive is that they have become more Amish over time. That is, the traits that make them Amish have become more intense in the population. This has been a natural counter to the increasing pressure of the modern world, which seeks to homogenize everything to death. As the tentacles of cosmopolitan globalist get stronger, this defense mechanism of the Amish has grown stronger as well.

The theory works something like this. Let’s assume a range of Amishness that runs from one to ten. One is the least Amish and ten is the most Amish. In the early years, the average Amishness of the group was around five. Some people were attracted to the community for reasons other than the rural, separatist lifestyle. Others were extremely attracted to the whole package that defines the Amish community. Let’s assume a normal distribution of Amishness in the community.

Over time, the people closer to the low end of the scale would peel off for one reason or another, deciding to leave the community. The sorts that were just in it for religious reasons would find a community of people who shared their beliefs, but also engaged in the modern world. Every generation, the people lacking the Amish trait would be tempted to leave the community. In time, the average Amishness would increase as the low score left and the high score multiplied.

This is not just a cultural issue. There is a biological component. Just as height is a function of genes, personality traits are also rooted in our genes. This unique sense of belonging was most likely part of this people before they embraced their particular religion in the Reformation. Inside the group, the more intensely Amish will be more fertile, while the rest will be less productive. Every generation, the most Amish of the Amish would outnumber the least Amish, increasing over all Amishness.

That’s the very shorthand version of what is called boiling off. Something similar has probably been happening with ultra-orthodox Jews. Those Jews with the traits that are selected for by the cult rise in status, get married to a female inside the cult and have lots of children. Those lacking these traits, are not only less desirable, but less interested in wearing fur hats in summer. They will be less likely to marry a member of the cult and reproduce. They may leave and take their genes with them.

These populations of ultra-orthodox Jews have developed a natural barrier between themselves and the host society. Anyone who has had dealings with the ultra-orthodox knows they are like space aliens. In fact, they are like extremely obnoxious space aliens, who seem to oblivious to their surroundings. Their hostility to outsiders is so intense and instinctive, it presents a barrier between them and everyone else. Even other Jews, maybe especially other Jews, find them impossible to tolerate.

This raises the question as to whether some form of this has played out in the more secular Jewish community. Ethnocentrism most certainly has biological roots, growing out of endogamy, the habit of marrying within the group. This was true of Ashkenazim for a long time until they reached America. In the 20th century, these Jews were faced with a set of conditions for which they had no natural defense. That is, they faced no strong hostility from the majority society.

Beginning in the middle of the 20th century, the Ashkenazim could marry outside the group and participate in all aspects of society. The result being lots of the less Jewish members simply blending into the surrounding population. First, they lost their connection to the faith and then they lost their connection to the identity. Lots of Americans have a Jewish grandparent or great grandparent, but have no connection to Judaism or Jewish identity. That was lost in the past.

Unlike the Amish or ultra-orthodox, over all fertility among Jews has plummeted, so the highly ethnocentric are not producing children faster than Jews are defecting. The overall size of the Jewish community has declined of late and current fertility numbers suggests a sharp drop in this century. Still, if the highly ethnocentric marry within the group, the result over time could be an increase in ethnocentrism. Those with strong Jewish identity will be the those with extreme ethnocentrism.

Of course, without the more secular and assimilated Jews around to police the ranks for excessive expressions of ethnocentrism, the hyper-Jews begin to dominate. That could be why the modern media age seems to be festooned with Jews like Michelle Goldberg and Ben Shapiro. There are no moderate Jews around to muzzle these people or at least moderate them. From the perspective of outsiders, these extreme voices of ethnocentrism become the voice of the entire Jewish community.

This raises another angle. As America becomes majority-minority, the same sorts of pressures will shape white populations. Southern whites, for example, will probably become more Southern. Those with a strong sense of community will marry others with the same traits and have lots of kids. The Southern whites, who wish to live as urbanite bugmen, will head off to urban areas to die. This will repeat in all regions and over time, the regional culture will become more intense.

That’s not the only possibility, of course, but it is good reminder that numbers are not all that matters in demographics. The Amish have survived in a hostile world by becoming more intensely Amish. Jews have survived all over the world through endogamy and ethnocentrism. Cultural and spiritual intensity, like fanaticism, are force multipliers. They allow small groups to punch well about their numbers, even less intelligent people like the gypsies.

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