“So everybody in the family has learned just to kind of stay away from her, or not to engage her in anything but trivial conversation, because she lives in an alternative reality.”
Unfortunately, that’s the key sentence, and that’s the decision the majority of whites have made, at least as regards any hope of discussing 1) documented facts and 2) sane policy approaches that might address those facts. This refusal to weigh evidence isn’t across the board among black Americans, but it’s close enough as to make no practical difference. Why even go there?
I hate this reality—that *this* late in the game it still holds—but what can one do about it other than avoid it? The real wake up is going to have to come in the form of a return to actual classical liberal norms and actual education reform that leads to, uh, actual education.
I have a really good friend who is about half black. It is actually my wife's best friend. I told her that if I ever saw a restaurant where an old black lady was the cook I would eat there because I knew the food would be good. She told me that was racist but she knew I was not a racists. I still understand how that can be considered racism.
Nope. She is a great person who has and would stand by us through thick and thin. I only brought that up to show how black and white people view things about race differently
I once told a black coworker that a new (black) employee looked like someone famous (I don’t remember who), and her demeanor changed immediately. It was obvious that something had angered her. Now, I went to school with blacks (in a couple of those schools, whites were the minority) and worked with them, so I already knew that I had to really monitor even the most harmless things I said in front of them, but I couldn’t figure this one out. Turns out, someone told me later, that she took my remark to mean that I think all black folks look the same. If people have enough interactions like this (and I’ve had many), they are naturally going to avoid any unnecessary conversations and interactions with black people, even though they know some blacks aren’t so sensitive.
It’s funny to me that so many people really think that the cops have it out for black people in this country. I can assure you that cops, red, yellow, black or white have had so many horrible interactions with black people that they would rather not deal with them at all.
It's interesting to consider something: the very fact that you made the connection with whichever famous person was on your mind should have implied pretty clearly that you _didn't_ think "all black folks look the same," because there's obviously more than one famous black person. God forbid you had said that your new coworker looked like, say, JFK or some other famous _white_ person, because then the line would have been that you were so closeted that you couldn't even think of a single dark-skinned person to whom to compare this new arrival.
What I think this shows is a predisposition on your coworker's part, at least at that time, to assume the worst, maybe because it felt easier or even paradoxically safer to her to take that route.
Your anecdote is a perfect blend of the themes in Rod’s entry. There is the fact that the overwhelming majority of those in the black community are very sensitive and almost prefer to view themselves as perpetual victims. Plus, throw in the fact that the black community is highly feminized in many respects as roughly 70% of children in that community are born to single mothers, then you have a perfect storm of dysfunction. The fact that so many young black men were not raised by their father’s explains why they have such a defiant tone with the police. After all, they’ve never had to really submit to any authority.
When I read about various problems in America, I think “classical education would solve most of this!” My oldest is at a classical Christian school and I’m blown away by the underlying philosophy of education. It’s so better than modern education. It’s hard to get even Christians to see it’s value though, because it’s so different to what they experienced when they themselves were in school.
Helen Andrews is a Putin stooge, so it’s difficult to know exactly how she wants her sons to thrive in a feminized world. Does she teach her sons to stand up to injustice, or does she teach them to start unjust wars?
Yeah he's one of the "We'll fight the Russians to the last American soldier! TO the last American dollar!. ..Uh not the dollars we own though" Europeans.
'Putin stooge' is a bit strong, but Helen definitely is one of those New Right types who is anti-anti-Putin, which is frankly a gutless position. At least have the backbone to go 'full-McGregor'.
You were at TAC Rod when she basically was cheerleading for Putin. I may have missed it, but I haven’t seen any retraction. I’m sorry, but I do remember per tone and her position.
I have a hard time having respect for someone who actively cheered on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I like all her anti-boomer columns, but it’s kind of like Tucker and Candace. You can’t just pick and choose the good stuff – you gotta look at the whole person.
Rod is guilty of many things, but can you point out one article where Rod "actively cheered on the Russian invasion of Ukraine"? Or if you only meant that for Helen Andrews, then for her. This isn't a CNN panel, you can't just claim outrageous and inflammatory things that fit your biases without evidence.
Not Rod – Helen Andrews. She was so in the tank for Russia – really hard to stomach.
Rod has at least acknowledged that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was immoral. I disagree with his overly defeatist attitude toward Ukraine‘s fight to survive as an independent nation. this is pretty much the only thing I disagree with Rod on – I think my prior posts would support that assessment.
Rod is mostly a person characterized by anxieties and sentiment. Rod loves Russia and Russian culture and thus has a strong emotional bond to both Russia and Ukraine. He is not the type who could exile either nation to the outer wilderness of "evil nations" for the sake of being a good soldier for his side. That is also why he can't help but feel uneasy at any excessive ostracism of Russia, even if he probably does very strongly disapprove of Putin.
And I am admittedly mind-reading him a bit, but it's not much of a stretch. It's not a secret Rod likes his Tarkosky, his Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn. Arvo Pärt is not a Russian, but he does attend a church that originates from Russian Orthodoxy. It would be hard for him to turn his back on all of these cultural treasures just because current Russia is led by amoral Machiavellians.
And to be clear - in some cases the anti-Russia side does go after aspects of Russian culture that has nothing to do with Putin's authoritarianism. Plenty of concerts won't play Russian composers. Russian conductors who are on friendly terms with Putin (as they have to be, for obvious reasons) are ostracized. There are also some nations trying to shut down the Russian Orthodox Church in their countries even when these churches are willing to make concessions to relieve local anxieties. Deterring Putin is fine and necessary, but there is plenty of sinister overreach that unjustifiably goes after all things Russian.
"in some cases the anti-Russia side does go after aspects of Russian culture that has nothing to do with Putin's authoritarianism"
Just about everything George Weigel writes about the Orthodox falls into this category, except when he's praising the EP, that perennial stooge of the CIA:
My point here was simply that you don't dismiss an entire essay and its argument, which has nothing whatsoever to do with Russia, because you don't like the Russia politics of its author. Let's be grown-ups, mmmkay?
If Candace Owens told me the sky was blue, I’d ignore her. Don’t matter if she’s telling the truth. She’s an evil individual and I’ll take notes from someone else.
Helen isn’t Candace, not by a long shot, but I ask again - what is she teaching her sons? Behave like Putin? I wonder if her sons are bullies.
I read her speech. It’s quite solid, but my question on the Original post remains - what is she teaching her sons? I think her opinion on Russia is relevant to how seriously I take her overall viewpoint.
“I am also someone with a lot of disagreeable opinions”. Well, she can tolerate my lack of respect for her Russia opinions. I get it - she went through Russia and was struck by what she saw. She did not like our actions which may have exacerbated the human misery that was evident.
But it’s the classic excuse factory. Russia, since the time of Ivan the Terrible, has been a victim of itself and its leaders far more than any external forces, least of all from NATO and the US. We didn’t create the oligarchs - they did. We didn’t create communism - they did. We didn’t create the Gulag Archipelago - they did. We didn’t create the Holodomor - they did. We didn’t create the Red Terror - they did. We didn’t do Katyn - they did. The Russian people have some agency in all this. The Ukes know it, and know what’s coming if Russia wins.
“Net” is all relative, and not limited to the US. Right now the biggest challenge is / will be social security collapse. For example, France’s boomers will continue to vote tax increases on the young to fund their unsustainable largesse.
I don't often read Helen Andrews and her forte isn't foreign affairs but I doubt that she is a Putin stooge. There are certain conservatives with nuanced thinking like myself who thinks America handled the post-Cold War realities poorly. The Russian-Ukraine boundaries should have been redrawn from the 1956 Khruschev boundaries that reflected the ethnicities of the border areas, Russia should have been integrated into the European system economically and militarily, and NATO should have been devolved into a European security system that included Russia.
I am not familiar with her views on the Ukraine war. I am familiar with her other writings, and on subjects like this and economics she is one of the most insightful and honest writers around. And in this case I think she is right.
Who benefits from this feminization of the culture? I don’t mean that in a snarky way. I mean someone besides women benefit, or else it would not have happened.
Yes. Akroyd's Jimmy Carter impersonation was hilarious. He did a very good Richard Nixon as well. John Belushi may have been a bigger star than Akroyd but Akroyd had more talent.
Like it or not (I'm 58) men in general become low testosterone as they age. And T levels are dropping across the board, possibly the result of plastic breakdown products.
Anyone with power loves big government. The MAGA movement is anything but an exception. Libertarians they are not. Hayek? Mies? Who the frack are they?
Over the years, I’ve known a certain type of young man who becomes very liberal because he’s got a crush on some hippie chick. Indeed, I know a guy who is now a doddering old man dying of the effects of a stroke who spent his life pining after such women since the 1960s. Poor guy never had a regular relationship with any of these women.
That’s part of it, maybe not so overtly in many cases.
My best friend (he still is, this is back in the '70s) used to say that he was a feminist because it made it easier to get laid. And he was only half kidding.
Oddly enough, it seems to have shifted. Now the guys who treat girls like crap have girls all over them. Girls no longer like the weak Beta male who is in touch with his feelings.
That isn't exactly what went on, unless nodding vigorously when the girl asked you if didn't think Lillian Hellman's Julia wasn't the greatest thing ever written counts. I wouldn't do it.
Now it has been 20 or so years since I was in college but if you ignored a girl when talking to you, did not text her back regularly, and in general just were not kind but not cruel the women liked it. What they liked was a guy who did not care much about them, was strong, tall and athletic, seemed to take their affections as a take or leave it kind of thing.
Chad Alpha Male types have always been attractive to women. Beta males are less attractive because now that women make the same as, or more than, your average man, they don't need to marry those type of men any more to survive.
Beta females are unlikely to attract alpha males-- if they don't settle for beta males they will end up old and alone. It was never just about money. It's about knowing the limits of your possible. Just as one is unlikely to win the lotto, a man is unlikely to marry a beauty queen, and a woman is unlikely to land a billionaire.
I meant that if I meant that women DON'T do a lot for male attention I would have said so. I didn't say that, I didn't suggest it So NO, I DO think women do a lot for male attention.
Well, Big Business for one. Feminism has been a bonanza for them. And the Inner Party. At the end of the day the goal of all these types is the destruction of the family, the atomization of the population, replacing the family with the individual as the unit of the State. There is a school of thought that says Big Buggery is just a dupe of feminism and I'm not so sure I disagree.
In the late 1950s, the National Association of Manufacturers made getting women out of the house and into the workforce a vital goal. Having women making their own money allowed NAM to force down the wages of the men. Adding to NAM's benefit was that women had more money to spend on appliances, clothes and other goods.
I wonder if that's looking at the issue the right-way-round. I would suggest that perhaps it's more that in massive changes of women entering the workforce en masse at so many levels, and drive that many in government had to force this to happen, the culture has simply shifted. In other words, the culture shift is an unforeseen consequence of other shifts. And naturally, many have in fact profited greatly on the consequences, and so seek to defend and enlarge the consequences as a net-benefit, while denigrating anyone who worries about the consequences as sexist retrogrades.
There is an analogy to the environmentalism debates. Industrial pollution is real and damaging if not properly handled. Industries have a natural desire, therefore, to deny that the pollution exists, or is severe enough to warrant action, and in some cases will even defend the pollution as some sort of new benefit (this really does happen). Many who want to eliminate it would do so only through the removal of all industry, and no small number of that group have found their own ways to become very wealthy and powerful in "opposing" pollution (the Baptists and Bootleggers alliance). Those in the middle, who want regulation without destruction, and want that regulation to be flexible, are often made powerless. The bureaucrats, meanwhile, need to justify their jobs.
So it is with the feminists, and with the growing number of Andrew Tate types: they need each other, and the normies in the middle, who need the flexibility and nuance to just be human with each other, without litigation, culture wars, and government bureaucrats, are made to pay for it all.
This is the correct way to look at it. No one intended it. But other trends caused each small step to make sense along the way.
It also helped that many of those trends benefited the wealthy: a growing labor pool of women pushed down hourly labor rates while masking the decline. Non-college household income gains over the last 50 years were driven by women (who previously hadn't worked) entering the labor force.
I also see a parallel to Patrick Deneen's thesis about liberalism: given feuding European theological tribes, it made sense to forge a society who's guiding principle was "let's stop killing each other over rival views of God and just go make money." It worked! America prospered greatly because of John Locke. No one intended to create a society in which preserving virtue was impossible.
Similarly, no one pushing feminism in the 1940's intended to crater the birthrate and create a society run by the wimpy, overbearing, childless, cat-ladies of HR. It was accidental.
What liberals tend to forget about mass movements is that the ones they are thinking of (like the French Revolution or the 1848 Revolutions) happened because the liberal class made a powerful informal alliance with the poor and working class. If you kick dust in the face of the working class and hold them in contempt because of politically correct nonsense, they aren't going to make an informal alliance with you, they will make it with the right. They have made it with Trump.
For at least 300 years Russia has treated its neighbors, like Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, etc with not so subtle contempt. It seems that Ukraine has inherited this attitude, at least in relation to Hungary, i.e. we’re big, you’re small, so we can treat you with disrespect. A number of Ukrainian far right groups like Azov, Bratstvo, Right Sector are harassing the Hungarian minority (ca. 100,000) in Transcarpathia as a payback for Orban’s opposition to Ukraine joining the E.U., and over other issues. It doesn’t help that in the West the NY Times, including Thomas Friedman, is always raving about Ukraine. The fact that Ukraine is one of the world’s most corrupt countries (e.g. specializing in forging documents like passports, diplomas, birth certificates - no document originating in Ukraine can be trusted) is never mentioned.
Interestingly, under Zelensky Ukraine and Israel have become close allies. When Russia invaded in 2022, Zelensky’s parents immediately escaped to Israel. It’s also been revealed that Israel supplies weapons to Ukraine. One reason for this closeness is that the town Uman in central Ukraine attracts 30-40,000 Hasidic pilgrims, all men, from around the world every year for the Jewish New Year. They come to visit the burial place of Rabbi Nachman who founded one of the branches of Hasidic Judaism. Unfortunately, this has created friction since the pilgrims treat the local Ukrainians with disdain, sexually harass the Ukrainian girls, and leave a mountain of trash.
Hasidic Judaism is rooted in Kabbalah, including the belief in reincarnation. In fact, some Jewish scholars argue that the belief in reincarnation is an essential feature of Judaism. On the practical side, Hasidic Jews often have 8-9 children. and practice underage marriage (although the latter is typically disguised from the authorities). Hasidic Judaism is the fastest growing branch of Judaism in both the U.S. and Israel (see Kiryas Joel in upstate New York).
There are bits there that I agree with, such as Zelenskyy’s ties with Israel. I also have little sympathy with the Ukrainian cause.
However, I’m highly sceptical about reincarnation being more than a fringe position within Judaism. You also don’t mention that the branch of Hasidism that has taken over Kiryas Joel is Satmar, which is intensely anti-Zionist, so you lump disparate issues together.
I didn’t know about the problems the pilgrims cause at Uman. The video I watched made it look all sort of joyous and picturesque.
The fact that Hasidic Jews believe in reincarnation surprised me as well but once you realize that Hasidism is rooted in Kaballah, it all begins to make sense.
The unruly behavior of the Hasidic visitors in Ukraine (and other Hasidic holy sites) is actually much worse than I described. There was a long article about it, I think in the NY Times, which you can probably find online
Dr SL is into some odd Ocult beliefs he picked up from the New Age. Edited: I did follow up on it and apparently there is some concept of reincarnation in the Zohar.
Well, I am sympathetic to any nation which has suffered aggression and invasion, with slaughter and rapine, from a neighbor. And before anyone starts "But the US would also..." I will counter that right off with the fact that we put up for decades with Cuba as a Soviet satellite. We weren't nice about it (and ludicrously we still aren't many years later), but we did not send in our troops.
Ukraine, even a NATO member Ukraine, was no threat to Russia-- the nation with the most nuclear warheads of any.
The belief in reincarnation is not confined to the Chasids, depending on what you mean. All practicing Jews believe in the resurrection, and it is one of the first prayers in the Amidah, which is repeated three times a day, every day. As far as actual reincarnation goes, I have heard lectures from many Orthodox, but non-Chasidic rabbis, discussing it. What they say makes sense, but it's way above my pay-grade.
Many countries have ties with Ukraine, consider themselves close allies, and supply them with weapons, some of them quite a bit more than Israel does, and Israel does so as part of its partnership with the US.
To be fair even to Russia, Russia's neighbors were not nice peaceniks. Poland-Lithuania, Sweden, France and of course Germany all invaded Russia and often did not behave well when they did.
Eastern Europe suffers the defect that it has no natural geographical borders, nor long established traditional borders behind which most populations assimilated to a national identity even if they did not start out that way.
The Austrian economist Leopold Kohr had a principle derived from Systems Analysis, “Size is the root of all evil” (paraphrasing the New Testament verse “Love of money is the root of all evil”). He found that when systems fail, it’s usually because one parameter is too large. In the same way, all very large countries like Russia, China, India, the U.S., Brazil, etc have a destabilizing effect on their smaller neighbors. Moreover, how do you become an obscenely large country? Typically by invading your neighbors. But Jesus said, “Love thy neighbor.” He didn’t say. “Invade thy neighbor.” Historically speaking, there is hope though. The age of empires (i.e. prisons of nations) is over. Very large countries tend to fall apart due to extreme centrifugal tendencies and lack of cohesion - they become ungovernable by democratic means. For example, China and Russia are only governable by autocratic means, and India is moving toward an autocracy.
I think that's true about large countries. I used to hope that the EU could resolve Europe's difficulties. I thought it could be a loose overstate that prevents war and facilitates trade and travel. That would enable Wales, Scotland, Catalonia, Brittany, etc., to be independent nations within that framework. Unfortunately, it turned into just another imperialist power, and one dominated by a woke ideology, and obsessively anti-Christian. It's all rather sad.
“The fact that Ukraine is one of the world’s most corrupt countries (e.g. specializing in forging documents like passports, diplomas, birth certificates - no document originating in Ukraine can be trusted) is never mentioned.
Interestingly, under Zelensky Ukraine and Israel have become close allies. When Russia invaded in 2022, Zelensky’s parents immediately escaped to Israel. It’s also been revealed that Israel supplies weapons to Ukraine.”
Ukraine was and is vulnerable because it has been ungovernable, controlled by international crime organizations trafficking in arms, weapons, drugs, antiquities, women and children. Among the bad actors are Israeli citizens of Russian descent.
Hasidic Jews sometimes compete with Muslims for bizarre cultural customs.
One of my relatives worked at a hospice which was owned by Hasidic Jews. When they met with her they made a big show of not shaking her hand because contact with women is not allowed apparently.
Another curiosity is that they refused to be in the building when a person dies, which made their decision to own a hospice very odd
I guess Brooks wasn’t concerned about rising totalitarianism when the Biden administration was threatening and coercing social media companies to limit free speech and distort the information that was acceptable and therefore permitted on these platforms. And I guess Brooks wasn’t concerned when the legal system was weaponized to “get Trump.” Everyone who reads this newsletter recognizes that Trump is a rough tool. And I daresay that no one who reads this newsletter agrees with everything Trump does or how he does it (I don’t). But given the policies that have been adopted over many years to undermine our political, cultural and educational institutions, and the conditions we now face, Trump, and, shall we say, his “unique” and unconventional approach to governance, may be what is needed to change direction and improve our deteriorating society. Let’s hope so. But whatever happens, I won’t be whining about rising totalitarianism given what occurred under the Obama and Biden administrations.
Exactly. Remember in the days of vinyl when you’d balance a nickel on the tone arm when the record got stuck? Someone, please, do this for Brooks. He’s entirely unaware, much like the crew in Crowder’s barbershop. That he retains his position just underscores the similar willful suspension of awareness by his employer and its waning readership.
I don't see why people keep reading Brooks. He may not be a bad person, but he's clueless and seems unable to tell why society has changed. There is no value to reading him.
Excellent post, sir. I do wonder what Brooks said about President Biden's red flame speech in 2022. As for Brooks' attitude, I wonder if Brooks is shocked at Trump in the same manner John Quincy Adams was shocked by Andrew Jackson in the 1820s. Adams is almost forgotten and Jackson is on the $20 bill.
Brooks’ blindness raises questions about personal intellectual responsibility. It’s one thing to differ over ambiguities about how to interpret certain astronomical phenomena; it’s quite another to miss the entire Copernican Revolution. At a certain point, two and only two possibilities remain: disqualifying stupidity or the moral taint of fundamental dishonesty. One may be mentally complex in some ways and yet be thoroughly unable to process perceptions available to even very simple people. I suspect that describes Brooks. He does not strike me as an ideologue. But I may be naive.
The New York Times and the Corporation of Public Broadcasting. Brooks may also speak on what was once called the rubber-chicken circuit. I don't know what it is called these days, eating habit have changed. Maybe the rubber-tofu circuit.
Your comment is very short, but also very important. No one on the payroll of The New York Times or The Atlantic is going to get those steady paychecks unless they consistently work to oppose Trump and undermine the Republican Party. That's simply part of the job description. These outlets get to say, "Oh yes, we have Conservative writers!" but, of course, those writers have to fulfill their mission. Most of the time, aside from this Substack, when I see a Brooks article appear in my Facebook newsfeed, it is posted by a Progressive outlet or organization or individual who introduces it by saying "CONSERVATIVE David Brooks says . . . ."
Brooks lives in a rather small bubble. He has no understanding of 95 % of the country in which he lives. He's as isolated from Americans as King Charles is from the British.
This is well said. Disqualifying stupidity or fundamental dishonesty.
So why does he get paid? To make others like him feel good and self-righteous. He's a shill. Also, as Twain(?) said, it's hard to get a man to understand something when misunderstanding is the source of his income.
What a great comment. A lot of current Never Trumpery is just refusal to admit to having taken an extreme and wrongheaded position--i.e., it's emotional CYA. I have my issues with the Free Press but one thing they're really good on is looking at Trump's results, seeing past his admittedly rebarbative exterior and seeing what he's actually done. Niall Ferguson is kind of open-mouthed at the success of the Mideast initiative, and Nellie this morning is really pretty funny about how the Budapest meeting simply cold-cocked Trump's, erm, critics.
Racial (ir)reconciliation, excess feminism, religious schism, oh my! Our esteemed host bringing the big topics today. But I think the attitudes expressed in the Stephen Crowder video are what's most revealing, and depressing, at least regarding America.
I don't know if anything could ever bridge that divide. "Black fatigue" is unfortunately very real, and growing as not just whites have to deal with this continuing dysfunction within the black community. At what point will they stop blaming other groups and take in-group responsibility and honest self-reflection? Are we even capable as a nation of that?
The separation quote was, frankly, an admission that the dream of MLK has failed. I would say maybe Christ could bridge the gap, but Sunday morning is the most segregated time in America.
I despise giving the woke any credit, but maybe they were right when they said that slavery was America's original sin. Racial differences (and grievances) have proven largely intractable; perhaps a form of separation really is the only way amicably part ways.
And yet black immigrants from Africa bear none of these issues. As for the concept of race, let’s also look at the geography of indigeniety: human populations grade into one another. People from Kenya have physical similarities with those from Uganda, who have similarities with those from Ethiopia, who have similarities with those from Yemen, who have similarities with those from the Hejaz, who have similarities with those from the Levant, who have similarities with those from Asia Minor or Egypt, who have similarities with Greeks, who have similarities with Sicilians, who have similarities with Neapolitans, who have similarities with those from central Italy, who have similarities with Lombards, who have similarities with Tyrolleans, who have similarities with Bavarians, etc.
Point taken! My labeling of "black" greatly oversimplifies what is at heart a cultural issue.
We have an African woman from Trinidad in our church, and she is noticeably different in both attitude and posture compared to the African-Americans.
While the gradation comment is clever, I don't believe anyone in Uganda would take nicely to saying they were the same as Kenyans. It's a similar case in Europe; no Frenchman would tolerate being mistaken for a German. Tribal loyalties and differences still pervade vast swathes of the African continent; the same issue (but to a lesser degree) affects Europe. Differences of melanin really can't convey the whole impact of culture on an individual's behavior and attitude.
Something like 7 percent of the Atlantic slave trade went to North America. The vast majority ended up in the Carribean and Brazil. Is our leftist concept of original sin a viable topic in those places or is it more prevalent where the woke shout the loudest?
We stayed in an Airbnb owned by an elderlu American in the US Virgin Islands. Very interesting woman. She told us that it was very difficult to hire reliable help from among the locals. Those from the British Virgin Islands were far more willing to work. The woman attributes the differences in attitudes towards work to the different educational systems. The USVI emphasize slavery in its curriculum, the BVI less so.
But by the far the most reliable help -- housekeeping, construction -- was from imported Dominicans. Go figure.
Absolutely true and absolutely irrelevant to my point, which is that there are no sharp dividing lines between white and black in terms of indigenous populations, not to mention American intermarriage rates.
Talking about "original sin" in a political context gives the game away. It's not politics, it's romantic fate tragedy. Edmund Burke: "I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people," from the great speech on Conciliation with America.
I seem to remember reading that Malcolm X was arguing for separation from whites and blacks going their own way. I think you know the answer about when will responsibility be taken. It won't happen and hasn't happened for decades. Slavery is a sin of humanity and not just America. Racial differences can be bridged if people drop the concept of race and focus on us as a nation. But if that doesn't happen, they it won't change.
Slavery was regarded as a natural evil, not a moral evil, until the 18th century, when a few moralists in England and America began to question the necessity of the institution. They, however, had been living in an advanced money- and credit-based economy for centuries by that point. Slavery, by contrast, is the labor arrangement that exists in societies without strong financial institutions. Its survival in the U.S. South was an anomaly.
I had never heard the term "black fatigue" until a few weeks ago, but it accurately captures my behavior if not my mental state.
I am wary of highly groups of blacks in person. I have taught my daughters the same for their own safety. Were I working in a white-collar office, I would avoid interaction with black colleagues as much as possible.
5 years ago, those behaviors would have struck me as blatantly racist and utterly disqualifying. Now they strike me as unfortunately necessary. And I suspect my children will accept them as self-evident.
we would likely not have had the Trumpening if the Left had not driven the systematic degradation of American institutions in the name of what we used to call “social justice,”
Actually I'd say the one thing that swung the election to Trump was immigration. Had Biden done a thing to stem the tide of illegal immigrants, Kamala might now be president. But the left, blinded by the sentiments in Lennon's "Imagine," deemed any and all immigration enforcement racist. And here we are.
Not only does the left consider immigration enforcement racist, the elite of the Democratic Party knows they need a flood of Third World immigrants for future votes. The Democrats haven't won a majority of the white voting population in a presidential election since 1964 and likely never will.
Well, and add to that the bipartisan desire for cheap labor.
One of the most risible things after Trump's immigration crackdown began was hearing the left say - who's going to pick the fruit? Who's going to cook your McBurger? In other words, the same group that wanted to raise the minimum wage was now touting the indispensability of low-wage labor.
So right. The Chamber of Commerce is suing the Trump Administration over ICE enforcement right now. I had my business two blocks away from the Chamber's formidable headquarters of Lafayette Square. They sported huge posters at how wonderful the immigrants were. You'd think the Chamber was really the Ford Foundation or George Soros' Open Society.
The US has had to bring in agricultural labor since the first years English was spoken on these shores. At least we aren't shanghaiing slaves for that now.
Exactly. When someone in Bolivia decides to come to the US, they don't buy an economy ticket on TACA Airlines. They contact the local cartel or human trafficker, who provides passage at great cost. Once in the US, the indebted Bolivian must pay the monthly bill. If payment is late, the family back in the village receives a visit from the cartel, you know, a friendly reminder. The late payment duly arrives a few days later.
Not by constantly talking down to them they certainly won't and pushing unpopular social issues. Forced busing decades ago, reparations, trans, etc. today.
Yes. And of course it's worse than that. Biden, I mean Merrick Garland, I mean Obama, just let the southern border rip. And Trump's immigration policy is his most popular.
Immigration and the economy. And the latter appears to be weighing heavily on public opinion of Trump's administration now since inflation remains a big issue, and jobs have become as hard to find as in the aftermath of the real estate bust c. 2009. Trump now owns this economy, and he seems unconcerned with it. Some of his policies are even conducing toward those bad numbers.
Consider too what happens when the epistemic closure demonstrated by those black gentlemen collides with the feminized society, where feelings are deemed just as important - or moreso - than facts.
The justice system in particular will be more apt to giving weight to "lived experience" over statistics; it's not what you did, it's what you FEEL you did, and why. And of course all this goes hand-in-hand with the left's warped notion of empathy, where we have empathy for the poor criminal but his victim (particularly if he/she is white), not so much.
There's a popular quote, variously attributed. "You are entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts." We all get what is meant by the quote because, ironically, all sides of every argument agree with that sentiment and gleefully "share" it on social media as though it is the end of any argument.
But the quote is simply not true. We ARE entitled to our own facts. What we're not entitled to is our own truth. Every important issue over which we are sharply divided is merely an interpretation drawn from variously and carefully selected facts. It's why the central battle of the current age is over the control of information. We fear the facts that the other side might be able to make evident and thereby weaken the resolve of the coalitions upon which we are so dependent in order to continue in the comfort of the beliefs we wish to cling to.
It's also why arguments MUST be cut short by name calling. But the name calling is merely evidence of the terror in the heart of one abjectly uncertain of the truth behind what they have committed their life to.
Re: What we're not entitled to is our own truth. Every important issue over which we are sharply divided is merely an interpretation drawn from variously and carefully selected facts.
What about when the "facts" are just deluded lies?
Re The Great Feminization, if you want to have a few hours of sizzling fun, pick up a copy of Lionel Shriver's recent novel "Mania." It's a satire about wokeism and DEI, in an alternate history where "tolerance" was applied to intelligence rather than race or sexuality. It's a hoot, and Shriver takes no prisoners, she herself being a recipient of woke targeting.
All communities have sacred beliefs, taboos, and moral narratives that shape how they understand the world. When facts or statistics challenge those beliefs, reasoned debate rarely follows. This isn’t unique to the African American community.
Consider a young-earth creationist arguing with an evolutionary biologist, an economist debating immigration with a nativist, or a pro-lifer disputing medical necessity for abortion with a gynecologist.
Blacks aren't going back to Africa and whites aren't going back to Europe. The bones, blood, sweat and muscle of both races are firmly in our shared soil. American soil. But our cultures are diverging at a great rate and both races see the world much differently. We'll muddle along because we have no choice.
I don’t see such a divergence. I see the birth pangs of a more common culture. That’s where I find hope. For every barbershop group like the one Crowder is talking to there are many other black people who simply don’t think the way they do or, more likely, are too busy thinking about other things than to concern themselves with these attitudes.
My experience with my financial career in a southern city has been that black and white bankers have far more in common with each other than either does with many of the young people you mention. Certainly if class comes into the picture.
It's true that a lot of black people don't think that way at all. The problem for cities is that a lot of the black urban poor think that way -- and it's one big reason they remain poor. In this country, they exemplify what is generally considered "black culture." Tends of thousands of black Americans get out of that culture, but when they do they become culturally invisible--"just like everyone else." As far as I can tell, it's often very hard on them. But the entrenched urban poor serve a purpose to a lot of agencies and politicians, who have a vested interested in keeping them that way.
Don't focus on political flaks and ivory tower popinjays. Focus on ordinary people. Black and white dialects of English have numerous borrowings from each other (and black English itself is derived from lower class Southern English). Black music and fashion, for better or worse, seeps into white ways. Black religion (apart from hothouse oddities like Nation of Islam) is obviously a fraternal twin to white religion. Intermarriage rates continue to increase.
"Black English" is mostly the way jailbirds from Devon were talking when they were transported to America in 1609 or so. But talking about "my ass" or "your ass" is derived from Igbo dialect -- just read Chinua Achebe.
I wonder what the men in the barbershop say when no white person is around. I remember reading an article during the Obama years by a black journalist that complaints about Obama in the barbershops were loud and abundant but as soon a white man walked in they would go silent.
While this is true in the particulars, it's the overall trend that makes the diagnosis accurate, even if it's not all-encompassing.
You can always find outliers. But as a group, women are vastly more censorious than men.
Women nag; men hit. However, we've made hitting illegal, so now we live in a world of nags.
“So everybody in the family has learned just to kind of stay away from her, or not to engage her in anything but trivial conversation, because she lives in an alternative reality.”
Unfortunately, that’s the key sentence, and that’s the decision the majority of whites have made, at least as regards any hope of discussing 1) documented facts and 2) sane policy approaches that might address those facts. This refusal to weigh evidence isn’t across the board among black Americans, but it’s close enough as to make no practical difference. Why even go there?
I hate this reality—that *this* late in the game it still holds—but what can one do about it other than avoid it? The real wake up is going to have to come in the form of a return to actual classical liberal norms and actual education reform that leads to, uh, actual education.
And that’s the pretty outcome.
I have a really good friend who is about half black. It is actually my wife's best friend. I told her that if I ever saw a restaurant where an old black lady was the cook I would eat there because I knew the food would be good. She told me that was racist but she knew I was not a racists. I still understand how that can be considered racism.
Because that’s the same poisonous filter that’s in the barbershop and in their tribe.
Be careful. All is not as it seems.
View her twisted statement as a gift.
Nope. She is a great person who has and would stand by us through thick and thin. I only brought that up to show how black and white people view things about race differently
I once told a black coworker that a new (black) employee looked like someone famous (I don’t remember who), and her demeanor changed immediately. It was obvious that something had angered her. Now, I went to school with blacks (in a couple of those schools, whites were the minority) and worked with them, so I already knew that I had to really monitor even the most harmless things I said in front of them, but I couldn’t figure this one out. Turns out, someone told me later, that she took my remark to mean that I think all black folks look the same. If people have enough interactions like this (and I’ve had many), they are naturally going to avoid any unnecessary conversations and interactions with black people, even though they know some blacks aren’t so sensitive.
It’s funny to me that so many people really think that the cops have it out for black people in this country. I can assure you that cops, red, yellow, black or white have had so many horrible interactions with black people that they would rather not deal with them at all.
It's interesting to consider something: the very fact that you made the connection with whichever famous person was on your mind should have implied pretty clearly that you _didn't_ think "all black folks look the same," because there's obviously more than one famous black person. God forbid you had said that your new coworker looked like, say, JFK or some other famous _white_ person, because then the line would have been that you were so closeted that you couldn't even think of a single dark-skinned person to whom to compare this new arrival.
What I think this shows is a predisposition on your coworker's part, at least at that time, to assume the worst, maybe because it felt easier or even paradoxically safer to her to take that route.
Your anecdote is a perfect blend of the themes in Rod’s entry. There is the fact that the overwhelming majority of those in the black community are very sensitive and almost prefer to view themselves as perpetual victims. Plus, throw in the fact that the black community is highly feminized in many respects as roughly 70% of children in that community are born to single mothers, then you have a perfect storm of dysfunction. The fact that so many young black men were not raised by their father’s explains why they have such a defiant tone with the police. After all, they’ve never had to really submit to any authority.
Why not strive to be color-BLIND? That is, don't see color at all. Eat at her restaurant, but ONLY IF the food is good.
Never seen an old black cook who was not good. That is how I made the connection
When I read about various problems in America, I think “classical education would solve most of this!” My oldest is at a classical Christian school and I’m blown away by the underlying philosophy of education. It’s so better than modern education. It’s hard to get even Christians to see it’s value though, because it’s so different to what they experienced when they themselves were in school.
You're absolutely right. I used a classical education approach to homeschool my four kids, and they have thrived.
Helen Andrews is a Putin stooge, so it’s difficult to know exactly how she wants her sons to thrive in a feminized world. Does she teach her sons to stand up to injustice, or does she teach them to start unjust wars?
"Putin stooge" -- ah, I see we're capable of sane and meaningful discourse this morning.
Yeah he's one of the "We'll fight the Russians to the last American soldier! TO the last American dollar!. ..Uh not the dollars we own though" Europeans.
I care about our borders, not Ukraine's. Like the climate, when have European borders ever not been changing?
'Putin stooge' is a bit strong, but Helen definitely is one of those New Right types who is anti-anti-Putin, which is frankly a gutless position. At least have the backbone to go 'full-McGregor'.
You were at TAC Rod when she basically was cheerleading for Putin. I may have missed it, but I haven’t seen any retraction. I’m sorry, but I do remember per tone and her position.
I have a hard time having respect for someone who actively cheered on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I like all her anti-boomer columns, but it’s kind of like Tucker and Candace. You can’t just pick and choose the good stuff – you gotta look at the whole person.
Rod is guilty of many things, but can you point out one article where Rod "actively cheered on the Russian invasion of Ukraine"? Or if you only meant that for Helen Andrews, then for her. This isn't a CNN panel, you can't just claim outrageous and inflammatory things that fit your biases without evidence.
Not Rod – Helen Andrews. She was so in the tank for Russia – really hard to stomach.
Rod has at least acknowledged that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was immoral. I disagree with his overly defeatist attitude toward Ukraine‘s fight to survive as an independent nation. this is pretty much the only thing I disagree with Rod on – I think my prior posts would support that assessment.
Rod is mostly a person characterized by anxieties and sentiment. Rod loves Russia and Russian culture and thus has a strong emotional bond to both Russia and Ukraine. He is not the type who could exile either nation to the outer wilderness of "evil nations" for the sake of being a good soldier for his side. That is also why he can't help but feel uneasy at any excessive ostracism of Russia, even if he probably does very strongly disapprove of Putin.
And I am admittedly mind-reading him a bit, but it's not much of a stretch. It's not a secret Rod likes his Tarkosky, his Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn. Arvo Pärt is not a Russian, but he does attend a church that originates from Russian Orthodoxy. It would be hard for him to turn his back on all of these cultural treasures just because current Russia is led by amoral Machiavellians.
And to be clear - in some cases the anti-Russia side does go after aspects of Russian culture that has nothing to do with Putin's authoritarianism. Plenty of concerts won't play Russian composers. Russian conductors who are on friendly terms with Putin (as they have to be, for obvious reasons) are ostracized. There are also some nations trying to shut down the Russian Orthodox Church in their countries even when these churches are willing to make concessions to relieve local anxieties. Deterring Putin is fine and necessary, but there is plenty of sinister overreach that unjustifiably goes after all things Russian.
"in some cases the anti-Russia side does go after aspects of Russian culture that has nothing to do with Putin's authoritarianism"
Just about everything George Weigel writes about the Orthodox falls into this category, except when he's praising the EP, that perennial stooge of the CIA:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-cias-man-in-constantinople/
https://www.orthodoxhistory.org/2019/12/11/ousting-the-ecumenical-patriarch/
https://www.orthodoxhistory.org/2023/03/23/patriarch-athenagoras-the-cia-and-the-state-department/
The only excuse, and it's a bad one, is that Weigel is an ethnic Pole. Is he? I don't know, but it ought to have nothing to do with ecclesiology.
Russia and Russians are great at a few things:
- Art
- Orthodox liturgy
- Literature
- Tasarov style hockey
- Genocide
It’s been the story since Ivan Grozny.
My point here was simply that you don't dismiss an entire essay and its argument, which has nothing whatsoever to do with Russia, because you don't like the Russia politics of its author. Let's be grown-ups, mmmkay?
Yep -- "Tchaikovsky was homosexual, therefore I won't listen to his music." That's baby stuff.
Yes. Linda Ronstadt is left-wing crazy so I'll toss ten of her CDs in the trash right this minute.
If Candace Owens told me the sky was blue, I’d ignore her. Don’t matter if she’s telling the truth. She’s an evil individual and I’ll take notes from someone else.
Helen isn’t Candace, not by a long shot, but I ask again - what is she teaching her sons? Behave like Putin? I wonder if her sons are bullies.
Or Baron von Steuben was homosexual, therefore the USA should humbly request to resubmit to the British Crown.
Why not just let them get into their Kilkenny Cats vibe and have a quick one?
I read her speech. It’s quite solid, but my question on the Original post remains - what is she teaching her sons? I think her opinion on Russia is relevant to how seriously I take her overall viewpoint.
“I am also someone with a lot of disagreeable opinions”. Well, she can tolerate my lack of respect for her Russia opinions. I get it - she went through Russia and was struck by what she saw. She did not like our actions which may have exacerbated the human misery that was evident.
But it’s the classic excuse factory. Russia, since the time of Ivan the Terrible, has been a victim of itself and its leaders far more than any external forces, least of all from NATO and the US. We didn’t create the oligarchs - they did. We didn’t create communism - they did. We didn’t create the Gulag Archipelago - they did. We didn’t create the Holodomor - they did. We didn’t create the Red Terror - they did. We didn’t do Katyn - they did. The Russian people have some agency in all this. The Ukes know it, and know what’s coming if Russia wins.
Broad brush much? Sheesh.
Here's a great example of Helen's laughable analysis of Putin:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/i-can-see-why-they-didnt-want-this-tucker-interview-to-happen/
Why do you like her boomer columns?
I agree in principle with her suggestion that the baby boomer generation is a net negative.
I apologize on behalf of my entire generation (1946?-1964) for our net negative impact on the entire world.
“Net” is all relative, and not limited to the US. Right now the biggest challenge is / will be social security collapse. For example, France’s boomers will continue to vote tax increases on the young to fund their unsustainable largesse.
Not Rod - Helen Andrews.
I don't often read Helen Andrews and her forte isn't foreign affairs but I doubt that she is a Putin stooge. There are certain conservatives with nuanced thinking like myself who thinks America handled the post-Cold War realities poorly. The Russian-Ukraine boundaries should have been redrawn from the 1956 Khruschev boundaries that reflected the ethnicities of the border areas, Russia should have been integrated into the European system economically and militarily, and NATO should have been devolved into a European security system that included Russia.
I am not familiar with her views on the Ukraine war. I am familiar with her other writings, and on subjects like this and economics she is one of the most insightful and honest writers around. And in this case I think she is right.
Helen's an immensely talented writer, but her writings on History are hack-ish clickbait.
Stop trying to make "Keev" happen. It's not going to happen
Nigel, it’s great that you were able to get a signal from your front line trench in Ukraine to send out this message.
Stay safe!
Ataraxis, I'm relieved that you could take a break from patrolling ERs for illegal immigrants to offer us your deep thoughts on the war in Ukraine.
Just remember the ICE tip line is 866-DHS-2-ICE.
I keep it handy because I want all the illegals gone. Every single one.
Excuse me now while I kick back and relax by watching videos of ICE arresting the criminals.
Make sure to leave time for your Our Lady of La Salette novena.
Kudos to Crowder. I hadn't paid attention to him since the Obama days but I'm due for a return.
This 'barbershop session' deserves wide distribution.
Who benefits from this feminization of the culture? I don’t mean that in a snarky way. I mean someone besides women benefit, or else it would not have happened.
It's "Mean Girls" writ large. The in-group benefits
Not just mean girls. Men who would otherwise not rise benefit from an attack gang of girls.
The rise of the Wimpy Man, now seen everywhere, check your commercials
Yes. I don't often watch television and don't see many commercials but all the white men in the commercials are big sissies. Wimps.
That's been true for a long time. TV ads are meant to infantilize people, so the better to entice them to buy Prodxct X, good for what ails you.
And clueless.
Momdani
Jimmy Carter had a forced (maybe coached) smile. Dan Akyroyd did a great impression of it on SNL. But behind the smile was a decent human being.
Momdani's bigger, feminine, more fake, smile, disturbs me. How did we get here? He's got the race in NYC wrapped up.
Yes. Akroyd's Jimmy Carter impersonation was hilarious. He did a very good Richard Nixon as well. John Belushi may have been a bigger star than Akroyd but Akroyd had more talent.
I don't think the men on the Left are "wimpy". They can be quite severe when they want to be (so can the women).
I think the vast majority of them are low-testosterone. In fact, wasn't there a study a while back asserting this?
Like it or not (I'm 58) men in general become low testosterone as they age. And T levels are dropping across the board, possibly the result of plastic breakdown products.
Big government is a winner in the feminization of the culture.
Anyone with power loves big government. The MAGA movement is anything but an exception. Libertarians they are not. Hayek? Mies? Who the frack are they?
Over the years, I’ve known a certain type of young man who becomes very liberal because he’s got a crush on some hippie chick. Indeed, I know a guy who is now a doddering old man dying of the effects of a stroke who spent his life pining after such women since the 1960s. Poor guy never had a regular relationship with any of these women.
That’s part of it, maybe not so overtly in many cases.
My best friend (he still is, this is back in the '70s) used to say that he was a feminist because it made it easier to get laid. And he was only half kidding.
Just half?
Oddly enough, it seems to have shifted. Now the guys who treat girls like crap have girls all over them. Girls no longer like the weak Beta male who is in touch with his feelings.
That isn't exactly what went on, unless nodding vigorously when the girl asked you if didn't think Lillian Hellman's Julia wasn't the greatest thing ever written counts. I wouldn't do it.
Now it has been 20 or so years since I was in college but if you ignored a girl when talking to you, did not text her back regularly, and in general just were not kind but not cruel the women liked it. What they liked was a guy who did not care much about them, was strong, tall and athletic, seemed to take their affections as a take or leave it kind of thing.
Well, some girls like the chase, same as men. I liked chasing more than being chased back in the day.
But you could recite from Paradise Lost, which is pretty effective I would think!
Chad Alpha Male types have always been attractive to women. Beta males are less attractive because now that women make the same as, or more than, your average man, they don't need to marry those type of men any more to survive.
and all your feminist men are beta males.
Beta females are unlikely to attract alpha males-- if they don't settle for beta males they will end up old and alone. It was never just about money. It's about knowing the limits of your possible. Just as one is unlikely to win the lotto, a man is unlikely to marry a beauty queen, and a woman is unlikely to land a billionaire.
Lots of women don’t aim for millionaires. Lots of men don’t want beauty queens. In both cases, for both sexes, that’s too much work!
Men will do a lot for female approval, not just women they want to sleep with either.
And you think it doesn’t work the other way around?
If I thought that I wouls have said it.
Well, you are wrong.
I meant that if I meant that women DON'T do a lot for male attention I would have said so. I didn't say that, I didn't suggest it So NO, I DO think women do a lot for male attention.
Is that clear to you?
I feel like Rosanne Rosannadana—never mind.
Well, Big Business for one. Feminism has been a bonanza for them. And the Inner Party. At the end of the day the goal of all these types is the destruction of the family, the atomization of the population, replacing the family with the individual as the unit of the State. There is a school of thought that says Big Buggery is just a dupe of feminism and I'm not so sure I disagree.
In the late 1950s, the National Association of Manufacturers made getting women out of the house and into the workforce a vital goal. Having women making their own money allowed NAM to force down the wages of the men. Adding to NAM's benefit was that women had more money to spend on appliances, clothes and other goods.
Girly men.
I wonder if that's looking at the issue the right-way-round. I would suggest that perhaps it's more that in massive changes of women entering the workforce en masse at so many levels, and drive that many in government had to force this to happen, the culture has simply shifted. In other words, the culture shift is an unforeseen consequence of other shifts. And naturally, many have in fact profited greatly on the consequences, and so seek to defend and enlarge the consequences as a net-benefit, while denigrating anyone who worries about the consequences as sexist retrogrades.
There is an analogy to the environmentalism debates. Industrial pollution is real and damaging if not properly handled. Industries have a natural desire, therefore, to deny that the pollution exists, or is severe enough to warrant action, and in some cases will even defend the pollution as some sort of new benefit (this really does happen). Many who want to eliminate it would do so only through the removal of all industry, and no small number of that group have found their own ways to become very wealthy and powerful in "opposing" pollution (the Baptists and Bootleggers alliance). Those in the middle, who want regulation without destruction, and want that regulation to be flexible, are often made powerless. The bureaucrats, meanwhile, need to justify their jobs.
So it is with the feminists, and with the growing number of Andrew Tate types: they need each other, and the normies in the middle, who need the flexibility and nuance to just be human with each other, without litigation, culture wars, and government bureaucrats, are made to pay for it all.
This is the correct way to look at it. No one intended it. But other trends caused each small step to make sense along the way.
It also helped that many of those trends benefited the wealthy: a growing labor pool of women pushed down hourly labor rates while masking the decline. Non-college household income gains over the last 50 years were driven by women (who previously hadn't worked) entering the labor force.
I also see a parallel to Patrick Deneen's thesis about liberalism: given feuding European theological tribes, it made sense to forge a society who's guiding principle was "let's stop killing each other over rival views of God and just go make money." It worked! America prospered greatly because of John Locke. No one intended to create a society in which preserving virtue was impossible.
Similarly, no one pushing feminism in the 1940's intended to crater the birthrate and create a society run by the wimpy, overbearing, childless, cat-ladies of HR. It was accidental.
In both cases, the question is how to undo it.
I just don’t think that those childless overbearing cat ladies are truly the ones running society—they are more powerful people’s useful idiots.
The elites who want to divide society benefit.
What liberals tend to forget about mass movements is that the ones they are thinking of (like the French Revolution or the 1848 Revolutions) happened because the liberal class made a powerful informal alliance with the poor and working class. If you kick dust in the face of the working class and hold them in contempt because of politically correct nonsense, they aren't going to make an informal alliance with you, they will make it with the right. They have made it with Trump.
"happened because the liberal class made a powerful informal alliance with the poor and working class"
Whereas today the "woking class" has made an alliance with the lumpenproletariat, Marx's "social scum."
Re: Growing conflict between Ukraine and Hungary
For at least 300 years Russia has treated its neighbors, like Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, etc with not so subtle contempt. It seems that Ukraine has inherited this attitude, at least in relation to Hungary, i.e. we’re big, you’re small, so we can treat you with disrespect. A number of Ukrainian far right groups like Azov, Bratstvo, Right Sector are harassing the Hungarian minority (ca. 100,000) in Transcarpathia as a payback for Orban’s opposition to Ukraine joining the E.U., and over other issues. It doesn’t help that in the West the NY Times, including Thomas Friedman, is always raving about Ukraine. The fact that Ukraine is one of the world’s most corrupt countries (e.g. specializing in forging documents like passports, diplomas, birth certificates - no document originating in Ukraine can be trusted) is never mentioned.
Interestingly, under Zelensky Ukraine and Israel have become close allies. When Russia invaded in 2022, Zelensky’s parents immediately escaped to Israel. It’s also been revealed that Israel supplies weapons to Ukraine. One reason for this closeness is that the town Uman in central Ukraine attracts 30-40,000 Hasidic pilgrims, all men, from around the world every year for the Jewish New Year. They come to visit the burial place of Rabbi Nachman who founded one of the branches of Hasidic Judaism. Unfortunately, this has created friction since the pilgrims treat the local Ukrainians with disdain, sexually harass the Ukrainian girls, and leave a mountain of trash.
Hasidic Judaism is rooted in Kabbalah, including the belief in reincarnation. In fact, some Jewish scholars argue that the belief in reincarnation is an essential feature of Judaism. On the practical side, Hasidic Jews often have 8-9 children. and practice underage marriage (although the latter is typically disguised from the authorities). Hasidic Judaism is the fastest growing branch of Judaism in both the U.S. and Israel (see Kiryas Joel in upstate New York).
There are bits there that I agree with, such as Zelenskyy’s ties with Israel. I also have little sympathy with the Ukrainian cause.
However, I’m highly sceptical about reincarnation being more than a fringe position within Judaism. You also don’t mention that the branch of Hasidism that has taken over Kiryas Joel is Satmar, which is intensely anti-Zionist, so you lump disparate issues together.
I didn’t know about the problems the pilgrims cause at Uman. The video I watched made it look all sort of joyous and picturesque.
The fact that Hasidic Jews believe in reincarnation surprised me as well but once you realize that Hasidism is rooted in Kaballah, it all begins to make sense.
The unruly behavior of the Hasidic visitors in Ukraine (and other Hasidic holy sites) is actually much worse than I described. There was a long article about it, I think in the NY Times, which you can probably find online
Dr SL is into some odd Ocult beliefs he picked up from the New Age. Edited: I did follow up on it and apparently there is some concept of reincarnation in the Zohar.
Well, I am sympathetic to any nation which has suffered aggression and invasion, with slaughter and rapine, from a neighbor. And before anyone starts "But the US would also..." I will counter that right off with the fact that we put up for decades with Cuba as a Soviet satellite. We weren't nice about it (and ludicrously we still aren't many years later), but we did not send in our troops.
Ukraine, even a NATO member Ukraine, was no threat to Russia-- the nation with the most nuclear warheads of any.
The belief in reincarnation is not confined to the Chasids, depending on what you mean. All practicing Jews believe in the resurrection, and it is one of the first prayers in the Amidah, which is repeated three times a day, every day. As far as actual reincarnation goes, I have heard lectures from many Orthodox, but non-Chasidic rabbis, discussing it. What they say makes sense, but it's way above my pay-grade.
Many countries have ties with Ukraine, consider themselves close allies, and supply them with weapons, some of them quite a bit more than Israel does, and Israel does so as part of its partnership with the US.
To be fair even to Russia, Russia's neighbors were not nice peaceniks. Poland-Lithuania, Sweden, France and of course Germany all invaded Russia and often did not behave well when they did.
Eastern Europe suffers the defect that it has no natural geographical borders, nor long established traditional borders behind which most populations assimilated to a national identity even if they did not start out that way.
The Austrian economist Leopold Kohr had a principle derived from Systems Analysis, “Size is the root of all evil” (paraphrasing the New Testament verse “Love of money is the root of all evil”). He found that when systems fail, it’s usually because one parameter is too large. In the same way, all very large countries like Russia, China, India, the U.S., Brazil, etc have a destabilizing effect on their smaller neighbors. Moreover, how do you become an obscenely large country? Typically by invading your neighbors. But Jesus said, “Love thy neighbor.” He didn’t say. “Invade thy neighbor.” Historically speaking, there is hope though. The age of empires (i.e. prisons of nations) is over. Very large countries tend to fall apart due to extreme centrifugal tendencies and lack of cohesion - they become ungovernable by democratic means. For example, China and Russia are only governable by autocratic means, and India is moving toward an autocracy.
I think that's true about large countries. I used to hope that the EU could resolve Europe's difficulties. I thought it could be a loose overstate that prevents war and facilitates trade and travel. That would enable Wales, Scotland, Catalonia, Brittany, etc., to be independent nations within that framework. Unfortunately, it turned into just another imperialist power, and one dominated by a woke ideology, and obsessively anti-Christian. It's all rather sad.
“The fact that Ukraine is one of the world’s most corrupt countries (e.g. specializing in forging documents like passports, diplomas, birth certificates - no document originating in Ukraine can be trusted) is never mentioned.
Interestingly, under Zelensky Ukraine and Israel have become close allies. When Russia invaded in 2022, Zelensky’s parents immediately escaped to Israel. It’s also been revealed that Israel supplies weapons to Ukraine.”
Ukraine was and is vulnerable because it has been ungovernable, controlled by international crime organizations trafficking in arms, weapons, drugs, antiquities, women and children. Among the bad actors are Israeli citizens of Russian descent.
Hasidic Jews sometimes compete with Muslims for bizarre cultural customs.
One of my relatives worked at a hospice which was owned by Hasidic Jews. When they met with her they made a big show of not shaking her hand because contact with women is not allowed apparently.
Another curiosity is that they refused to be in the building when a person dies, which made their decision to own a hospice very odd
Is the thing about not having contact with a woman because they might be menstruating?
I guess Brooks wasn’t concerned about rising totalitarianism when the Biden administration was threatening and coercing social media companies to limit free speech and distort the information that was acceptable and therefore permitted on these platforms. And I guess Brooks wasn’t concerned when the legal system was weaponized to “get Trump.” Everyone who reads this newsletter recognizes that Trump is a rough tool. And I daresay that no one who reads this newsletter agrees with everything Trump does or how he does it (I don’t). But given the policies that have been adopted over many years to undermine our political, cultural and educational institutions, and the conditions we now face, Trump, and, shall we say, his “unique” and unconventional approach to governance, may be what is needed to change direction and improve our deteriorating society. Let’s hope so. But whatever happens, I won’t be whining about rising totalitarianism given what occurred under the Obama and Biden administrations.
Exactly. Remember in the days of vinyl when you’d balance a nickel on the tone arm when the record got stuck? Someone, please, do this for Brooks. He’s entirely unaware, much like the crew in Crowder’s barbershop. That he retains his position just underscores the similar willful suspension of awareness by his employer and its waning readership.
'when you’d balance a nickel on the tone arm when the record got stuck?'
Oh, my, Betsy. I don't think I've thought of that since the 20th century.
I don't see why people keep reading Brooks. He may not be a bad person, but he's clueless and seems unable to tell why society has changed. There is no value to reading him.
Habit? Actually, he's way easier to quit than cigarettes.
Excellent post, sir. I do wonder what Brooks said about President Biden's red flame speech in 2022. As for Brooks' attitude, I wonder if Brooks is shocked at Trump in the same manner John Quincy Adams was shocked by Andrew Jackson in the 1820s. Adams is almost forgotten and Jackson is on the $20 bill.
Brooks’ blindness raises questions about personal intellectual responsibility. It’s one thing to differ over ambiguities about how to interpret certain astronomical phenomena; it’s quite another to miss the entire Copernican Revolution. At a certain point, two and only two possibilities remain: disqualifying stupidity or the moral taint of fundamental dishonesty. One may be mentally complex in some ways and yet be thoroughly unable to process perceptions available to even very simple people. I suspect that describes Brooks. He does not strike me as an ideologue. But I may be naive.
Who signs his paycheck?
The New York Times and the Corporation of Public Broadcasting. Brooks may also speak on what was once called the rubber-chicken circuit. I don't know what it is called these days, eating habit have changed. Maybe the rubber-tofu circuit.
Your comment is very short, but also very important. No one on the payroll of The New York Times or The Atlantic is going to get those steady paychecks unless they consistently work to oppose Trump and undermine the Republican Party. That's simply part of the job description. These outlets get to say, "Oh yes, we have Conservative writers!" but, of course, those writers have to fulfill their mission. Most of the time, aside from this Substack, when I see a Brooks article appear in my Facebook newsfeed, it is posted by a Progressive outlet or organization or individual who introduces it by saying "CONSERVATIVE David Brooks says . . . ."
That you define 'conservatism' as embracing Trump's agenda is rather telling, Jonathan. Three cheers for tariffs... I guess.
That's a good question now that PBS has been yanked from the federal nipple.
Brooks lives in a rather small bubble. He has no understanding of 95 % of the country in which he lives. He's as isolated from Americans as King Charles is from the British.
At least Charles knows he’s king and therefore isolated. Charles doesn’t presume much.
This is well said. Disqualifying stupidity or fundamental dishonesty.
So why does he get paid? To make others like him feel good and self-righteous. He's a shill. Also, as Twain(?) said, it's hard to get a man to understand something when misunderstanding is the source of his income.
What a great comment. A lot of current Never Trumpery is just refusal to admit to having taken an extreme and wrongheaded position--i.e., it's emotional CYA. I have my issues with the Free Press but one thing they're really good on is looking at Trump's results, seeing past his admittedly rebarbative exterior and seeing what he's actually done. Niall Ferguson is kind of open-mouthed at the success of the Mideast initiative, and Nellie this morning is really pretty funny about how the Budapest meeting simply cold-cocked Trump's, erm, critics.
Racial (ir)reconciliation, excess feminism, religious schism, oh my! Our esteemed host bringing the big topics today. But I think the attitudes expressed in the Stephen Crowder video are what's most revealing, and depressing, at least regarding America.
I don't know if anything could ever bridge that divide. "Black fatigue" is unfortunately very real, and growing as not just whites have to deal with this continuing dysfunction within the black community. At what point will they stop blaming other groups and take in-group responsibility and honest self-reflection? Are we even capable as a nation of that?
The separation quote was, frankly, an admission that the dream of MLK has failed. I would say maybe Christ could bridge the gap, but Sunday morning is the most segregated time in America.
I despise giving the woke any credit, but maybe they were right when they said that slavery was America's original sin. Racial differences (and grievances) have proven largely intractable; perhaps a form of separation really is the only way amicably part ways.
And yet black immigrants from Africa bear none of these issues. As for the concept of race, let’s also look at the geography of indigeniety: human populations grade into one another. People from Kenya have physical similarities with those from Uganda, who have similarities with those from Ethiopia, who have similarities with those from Yemen, who have similarities with those from the Hejaz, who have similarities with those from the Levant, who have similarities with those from Asia Minor or Egypt, who have similarities with Greeks, who have similarities with Sicilians, who have similarities with Neapolitans, who have similarities with those from central Italy, who have similarities with Lombards, who have similarities with Tyrolleans, who have similarities with Bavarians, etc.
Who’s Black and who’s white?
Point taken! My labeling of "black" greatly oversimplifies what is at heart a cultural issue.
We have an African woman from Trinidad in our church, and she is noticeably different in both attitude and posture compared to the African-Americans.
While the gradation comment is clever, I don't believe anyone in Uganda would take nicely to saying they were the same as Kenyans. It's a similar case in Europe; no Frenchman would tolerate being mistaken for a German. Tribal loyalties and differences still pervade vast swathes of the African continent; the same issue (but to a lesser degree) affects Europe. Differences of melanin really can't convey the whole impact of culture on an individual's behavior and attitude.
Something like 7 percent of the Atlantic slave trade went to North America. The vast majority ended up in the Carribean and Brazil. Is our leftist concept of original sin a viable topic in those places or is it more prevalent where the woke shout the loudest?
We stayed in an Airbnb owned by an elderlu American in the US Virgin Islands. Very interesting woman. She told us that it was very difficult to hire reliable help from among the locals. Those from the British Virgin Islands were far more willing to work. The woman attributes the differences in attitudes towards work to the different educational systems. The USVI emphasize slavery in its curriculum, the BVI less so.
But by the far the most reliable help -- housekeeping, construction -- was from imported Dominicans. Go figure.
East Africa is also very different, culturally, genetically, etc. from west Africa
Absolutely true and absolutely irrelevant to my point, which is that there are no sharp dividing lines between white and black in terms of indigenous populations, not to mention American intermarriage rates.
Talking about "original sin" in a political context gives the game away. It's not politics, it's romantic fate tragedy. Edmund Burke: "I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people," from the great speech on Conciliation with America.
I seem to remember reading that Malcolm X was arguing for separation from whites and blacks going their own way. I think you know the answer about when will responsibility be taken. It won't happen and hasn't happened for decades. Slavery is a sin of humanity and not just America. Racial differences can be bridged if people drop the concept of race and focus on us as a nation. But if that doesn't happen, they it won't change.
Slavery was regarded as a natural evil, not a moral evil, until the 18th century, when a few moralists in England and America began to question the necessity of the institution. They, however, had been living in an advanced money- and credit-based economy for centuries by that point. Slavery, by contrast, is the labor arrangement that exists in societies without strong financial institutions. Its survival in the U.S. South was an anomaly.
I had never heard the term "black fatigue" until a few weeks ago, but it accurately captures my behavior if not my mental state.
I am wary of highly groups of blacks in person. I have taught my daughters the same for their own safety. Were I working in a white-collar office, I would avoid interaction with black colleagues as much as possible.
5 years ago, those behaviors would have struck me as blatantly racist and utterly disqualifying. Now they strike me as unfortunately necessary. And I suspect my children will accept them as self-evident.
And that is how MLK's colorblindness dies.
we would likely not have had the Trumpening if the Left had not driven the systematic degradation of American institutions in the name of what we used to call “social justice,”
Actually I'd say the one thing that swung the election to Trump was immigration. Had Biden done a thing to stem the tide of illegal immigrants, Kamala might now be president. But the left, blinded by the sentiments in Lennon's "Imagine," deemed any and all immigration enforcement racist. And here we are.
Not only does the left consider immigration enforcement racist, the elite of the Democratic Party knows they need a flood of Third World immigrants for future votes. The Democrats haven't won a majority of the white voting population in a presidential election since 1964 and likely never will.
Old Uncle Cornpone is the gift that keeps on giving.
Well, and add to that the bipartisan desire for cheap labor.
One of the most risible things after Trump's immigration crackdown began was hearing the left say - who's going to pick the fruit? Who's going to cook your McBurger? In other words, the same group that wanted to raise the minimum wage was now touting the indispensability of low-wage labor.
So right. The Chamber of Commerce is suing the Trump Administration over ICE enforcement right now. I had my business two blocks away from the Chamber's formidable headquarters of Lafayette Square. They sported huge posters at how wonderful the immigrants were. You'd think the Chamber was really the Ford Foundation or George Soros' Open Society.
The US has had to bring in agricultural labor since the first years English was spoken on these shores. At least we aren't shanghaiing slaves for that now.
We've outsourced the shanghaiing to drug cartels and subequatorial states.
Exactly. When someone in Bolivia decides to come to the US, they don't buy an economy ticket on TACA Airlines. They contact the local cartel or human trafficker, who provides passage at great cost. Once in the US, the indebted Bolivian must pay the monthly bill. If payment is late, the family back in the village receives a visit from the cartel, you know, a friendly reminder. The late payment duly arrives a few days later.
Huh?
Funny how silent many on the left were when Obama was described as the Deporter-in-Chief.
Not by constantly talking down to them they certainly won't and pushing unpopular social issues. Forced busing decades ago, reparations, trans, etc. today.
Yes. And of course it's worse than that. Biden, I mean Merrick Garland, I mean Obama, just let the southern border rip. And Trump's immigration policy is his most popular.
Immigration and the economy. And the latter appears to be weighing heavily on public opinion of Trump's administration now since inflation remains a big issue, and jobs have become as hard to find as in the aftermath of the real estate bust c. 2009. Trump now owns this economy, and he seems unconcerned with it. Some of his policies are even conducing toward those bad numbers.
Consider too what happens when the epistemic closure demonstrated by those black gentlemen collides with the feminized society, where feelings are deemed just as important - or moreso - than facts.
The justice system in particular will be more apt to giving weight to "lived experience" over statistics; it's not what you did, it's what you FEEL you did, and why. And of course all this goes hand-in-hand with the left's warped notion of empathy, where we have empathy for the poor criminal but his victim (particularly if he/she is white), not so much.
It's a disaster, and it's only beginning.
There's a popular quote, variously attributed. "You are entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts." We all get what is meant by the quote because, ironically, all sides of every argument agree with that sentiment and gleefully "share" it on social media as though it is the end of any argument.
But the quote is simply not true. We ARE entitled to our own facts. What we're not entitled to is our own truth. Every important issue over which we are sharply divided is merely an interpretation drawn from variously and carefully selected facts. It's why the central battle of the current age is over the control of information. We fear the facts that the other side might be able to make evident and thereby weaken the resolve of the coalitions upon which we are so dependent in order to continue in the comfort of the beliefs we wish to cling to.
It's also why arguments MUST be cut short by name calling. But the name calling is merely evidence of the terror in the heart of one abjectly uncertain of the truth behind what they have committed their life to.
Re: What we're not entitled to is our own truth. Every important issue over which we are sharply divided is merely an interpretation drawn from variously and carefully selected facts.
What about when the "facts" are just deluded lies?
The answer is in the question I'm guessing you thought rhetorical.
Re The Great Feminization, if you want to have a few hours of sizzling fun, pick up a copy of Lionel Shriver's recent novel "Mania." It's a satire about wokeism and DEI, in an alternate history where "tolerance" was applied to intelligence rather than race or sexuality. It's a hoot, and Shriver takes no prisoners, she herself being a recipient of woke targeting.
Thanks for the suggestion. I'll read it.
All communities have sacred beliefs, taboos, and moral narratives that shape how they understand the world. When facts or statistics challenge those beliefs, reasoned debate rarely follows. This isn’t unique to the African American community.
Consider a young-earth creationist arguing with an evolutionary biologist, an economist debating immigration with a nativist, or a pro-lifer disputing medical necessity for abortion with a gynecologist.
True, but it's rare for it to extend practically culture-wide like it does in this case.
Blacks aren't going back to Africa and whites aren't going back to Europe. The bones, blood, sweat and muscle of both races are firmly in our shared soil. American soil. But our cultures are diverging at a great rate and both races see the world much differently. We'll muddle along because we have no choice.
I don’t see such a divergence. I see the birth pangs of a more common culture. That’s where I find hope. For every barbershop group like the one Crowder is talking to there are many other black people who simply don’t think the way they do or, more likely, are too busy thinking about other things than to concern themselves with these attitudes.
About the only thing I see in common culturally is that young whites seem to like that vile rap music. I suppose young whites grow out of it.
My experience with my financial career in a southern city has been that black and white bankers have far more in common with each other than either does with many of the young people you mention. Certainly if class comes into the picture.
They do have a lot in common. Take away constant discussions of race and public discourse would be so much better.
It's true that a lot of black people don't think that way at all. The problem for cities is that a lot of the black urban poor think that way -- and it's one big reason they remain poor. In this country, they exemplify what is generally considered "black culture." Tends of thousands of black Americans get out of that culture, but when they do they become culturally invisible--"just like everyone else." As far as I can tell, it's often very hard on them. But the entrenched urban poor serve a purpose to a lot of agencies and politicians, who have a vested interested in keeping them that way.
Yup, that's the way it looks to me. I don't have to depend on Crowder going into a barbershop to find out for me either.
Don't focus on political flaks and ivory tower popinjays. Focus on ordinary people. Black and white dialects of English have numerous borrowings from each other (and black English itself is derived from lower class Southern English). Black music and fashion, for better or worse, seeps into white ways. Black religion (apart from hothouse oddities like Nation of Islam) is obviously a fraternal twin to white religion. Intermarriage rates continue to increase.
"Black English" is mostly the way jailbirds from Devon were talking when they were transported to America in 1609 or so. But talking about "my ass" or "your ass" is derived from Igbo dialect -- just read Chinua Achebe.
I wonder what the men in the barbershop say when no white person is around. I remember reading an article during the Obama years by a black journalist that complaints about Obama in the barbershops were loud and abundant but as soon a white man walked in they would go silent.
Excellent point. Once Crowder and the cameras went away, I'd wager that the old blind man said, "Shoot, those honkies were right."