I read through some of this, quite a bit – and one great question kept coming up, again and again…..
‘Has this writer ever had an actual job where he did actual work?
I am a tradesman, I do hard construction – late 60s and I still can haul shingles up the roof and nail them down… The view from up there is so very different from this guys……. I do not think his ilk can see past the walls they live between and see the real world…….
An Academic or a Politician….. they usually never have actually worked, had a job – but they know how we should live, how we do live, what is best for us, and what we think, and should think.
I can not use Walmart self checkout if I have to look up the loose vegetables because the touch screens will not work for me – my hands are too hardened – I have to get the employee there to work the self checkout, I can stroke, hit, touch – fast, light – it can no more read my touch than it can a piece of wood – I bet this guy can get a touch screen to work like magic…..
Yes, you build things by muscle for people with money. But … muscle and money, on their own, can never build anything of consequence … they need the drawings. Rich people commission brains (in your case called Architects) to think stuff up, assisted by their touch-screens, and then give the drawings to employ muscle. Academics and Politicians certainly have question marks, but don’t knock us soft-fingered Engineers!
My husband has had a long career as a book cover illustrator, using traditional methods like pencils, oils, and acrylics along with digital tools. He has also remodeled several bathrooms, built a large brick patio, installed a folding ladder to the attic, and countless other “muscle” jobs. It’s a good idea to be capable of doing both. (I’d love to know if the author of this article completed his Lego Hogwarts castle all by himself).
We’re building several home additions at the moment. Yes, an architect is necessary, the drawings are necessary, but over the years we have observed how very limited they are as well. They don’t know how materials ‘go together’ or work, because they have never ‘crafted’. We have found them caught up in ideas and the design but often ignore the practicality (not to mention the budget). When to comes to appliances, they might have a ‘favorite’, usually based on the look, not the function, and they really can’t parse the new or any technology at all. It’s all about ‘the look’, the design. As for the builders & craftsmen – we are continually amazed by their years of acquired experience with their crafts & materials & site work. They are the ones that usually will say how things will work or not. Our property is built on ledge, so the foundation, the drilling to get the pipes below frost level, the duct work etc….we had to rely for all of that knowledge on the builders. The architects had absolutely no clue, no experience with how to really make it happen and how to change direction if need be. Architects & builders/craftsman need each other, but I remain in complete awe of the craftsmen.
You only “need” an architect because we’ve convinced ourselves we do. Buildings went up for thousands of years without architects, and many of them still stand. You could sketch out what you want in a house yourself, and any halfway decent contractor could build it.
I said “of consequence”. Craftsmen have been cobbling together shelters for thousands of years but they have all gone. From the pyramids to my local Cathedral, all that is left standing was Architect built. Study old maps of your area and then look around.
“Has this writer ever had an actual job where he did actual work?”
You didn’t realize whingeing is a real job, a real profession?
Unherd needs to up it’s game. Seems to be letting in these teat sucklers on quite a regular basis.
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago
At least Lasch recognised the central problem: that western societies increasingly reserve their most lavish rewards for their least useful citizens whilst pauperising those who make things work.
Brett H
1 year ago
At first, on beginning this article, I was hopeful of it going somewhere. But then this;
“What we need, to escape this vicious cycle, is a politics that makes us capable of politics.”
And this:
“It is perhaps on the political Right that such ideas are most forcefully expressed today. Lasch emphasised that his new typology superseded the political binary, but fantasies of simple agrarian living, unprocessed food, and escape from modern technology now strike many as “conservative”.”
That may be conservative in the sense of supporting agrarian living, individualism, unprocessed food and technology, but it’s also a sentiment of the left. Can both the left and right be conservative? Are both sides after the same thing? Maybe, but for different reasons. “the search for a new kind of meta-politics aimed at the restoration of the psychological resources necessary for normal life.” But what’s “normal” life?
In the end, for me, nothing comes of this piece, which is a bit disappointing. I wanted something. But then again time and time again I read these opinion pieces and time and time again they seem to end it with “I don’t know”. Which is the real truth. Nothing’s working anymore. We’ve tried the same things over and over, in so many different ways, (economies, for example) and it’s shifting nothing.
Last edited 1 year ago by Brett H
Christopher Chantrill
1 year ago
Who is this “we” Kemosabe?
Well, I will tell you. The “we” is the “Creatives,” to use my reductive Three Peoples theory. You could look it up.
And the article is all about the to-ings and fro-ings of the Creatives over the last decades. Bless their hearts.
But the Creatives have nothing to do with the populist emergence.
The populists are my “Responsibles,” ordinary people that just want to obey the law, go to work, and follow the rules. They are, in the opinion of the Creatives, a “benighted” Other that needs to be kept in check lest it spoil the creative experience of the Creatives.
Per my comment to Gordon, above: one can be both Creative and Responsible. I recommend it.
Alan B
1 year ago
Was The True and Only Heaven never written?
Aaron Argive
1 year ago
This is the last of Blake Smith’s articles I will waste my time with.
Unherd – You need to clear out the whingers.
Karl Juhnke
1 year ago
Interesting and keep them coming. Nice to know how others think.
Mr Blake is certainly the laptop Virtual type as explained in Mary Harrington’s recent article on that class wanting an amnesty from all the nonsense they ditched upon the rest of us during the recent pandemic.
Well. Where to begin? ‘We follow the elites because they advance our material interests.’ Is that right? For the Virtual tribe this makes sense. Then the author states ‘Lasch did not follow after Minimal Self (1984) ……. a new kind of meta-politics aimed at the restoration of the psychological resources necessary for normal life.’
Actually, he kinda did in his 1990 book (The Culture of Narcissism) which the author quotes and gleans that Lasch discredits the Narcissism’ he previously (1984) had the ‘greatest empathy’ for. Lasch is said to have called on America to rediscover populism (or should that be Nationalism?) based on competence, discipline and work ethic.
For Lasch there is no contradiction. In ‘The Nature of Narcissism’ as Lasch remains committed to America and the needs of the people, who he recognised as still having values more important than money.
It is the Deplorables the author is talking about without using that word. Lasch believed that aspects of the old order would be indispensable. So do many others.
So the contradiction from Lasch the auther speaks of arrives six years after The Minimal Self. It is proof that Lasch moved on. So should Mr Blake. Then it just gets weird.
Enough.
Last edited 1 year ago by Karl Juhnke
Steve Jolly
1 year ago
Populism isn’t based on or animated by some nostalgia for some imaginary ideal past, or agrarianism, or even libertarianism. It’s not animated by any ideology or political doctrine. It is a reactionary and deconstructive movement defined not so much by what it is, but by what it opposes. It is animated by anti-elitism, anti-globalism, anti-immigration, and a number of other anti-somethings. Like the Jacobins of the 1790’s, their goal is basically to destroy the current ruling class and dismantle the current structures of power that enable them to rule. It is more of a revolutionary movement than a political movement, and the nobility of our modern age are correct to fear it as such.
I read through some of this, quite a bit – and one great question kept coming up, again and again…..
‘Has this writer ever had an actual job where he did actual work?
I am a tradesman, I do hard construction – late 60s and I still can haul shingles up the roof and nail them down… The view from up there is so very different from this guys……. I do not think his ilk can see past the walls they live between and see the real world…….
An Academic or a Politician….. they usually never have actually worked, had a job – but they know how we should live, how we do live, what is best for us, and what we think, and should think.
I can not use Walmart self checkout if I have to look up the loose vegetables because the touch screens will not work for me – my hands are too hardened – I have to get the employee there to work the self checkout, I can stroke, hit, touch – fast, light – it can no more read my touch than it can a piece of wood – I bet this guy can get a touch screen to work like magic…..
Yes, you build things by muscle for people with money. But … muscle and money, on their own, can never build anything of consequence … they need the drawings. Rich people commission brains (in your case called Architects) to think stuff up, assisted by their touch-screens, and then give the drawings to employ muscle. Academics and Politicians certainly have question marks, but don’t knock us soft-fingered Engineers!
My husband has had a long career as a book cover illustrator, using traditional methods like pencils, oils, and acrylics along with digital tools. He has also remodeled several bathrooms, built a large brick patio, installed a folding ladder to the attic, and countless other “muscle” jobs. It’s a good idea to be capable of doing both. (I’d love to know if the author of this article completed his Lego Hogwarts castle all by himself).
We’re building several home additions at the moment. Yes, an architect is necessary, the drawings are necessary, but over the years we have observed how very limited they are as well. They don’t know how materials ‘go together’ or work, because they have never ‘crafted’. We have found them caught up in ideas and the design but often ignore the practicality (not to mention the budget). When to comes to appliances, they might have a ‘favorite’, usually based on the look, not the function, and they really can’t parse the new or any technology at all. It’s all about ‘the look’, the design. As for the builders & craftsmen – we are continually amazed by their years of acquired experience with their crafts & materials & site work. They are the ones that usually will say how things will work or not. Our property is built on ledge, so the foundation, the drilling to get the pipes below frost level, the duct work etc….we had to rely for all of that knowledge on the builders. The architects had absolutely no clue, no experience with how to really make it happen and how to change direction if need be. Architects & builders/craftsman need each other, but I remain in complete awe of the craftsmen.
You only “need” an architect because we’ve convinced ourselves we do. Buildings went up for thousands of years without architects, and many of them still stand. You could sketch out what you want in a house yourself, and any halfway decent contractor could build it.
I said “of consequence”. Craftsmen have been cobbling together shelters for thousands of years but they have all gone. From the pyramids to my local Cathedral, all that is left standing was Architect built. Study old maps of your area and then look around.
“Has this writer ever had an actual job where he did actual work?”
You didn’t realize whingeing is a real job, a real profession?
Unherd needs to up it’s game. Seems to be letting in these teat sucklers on quite a regular basis.
At least Lasch recognised the central problem: that western societies increasingly reserve their most lavish rewards for their least useful citizens whilst pauperising those who make things work.
At first, on beginning this article, I was hopeful of it going somewhere. But then this;
“What we need, to escape this vicious cycle, is a politics that makes us capable of politics.”
And this:
“It is perhaps on the political Right that such ideas are most forcefully expressed today. Lasch emphasised that his new typology superseded the political binary, but fantasies of simple agrarian living, unprocessed food, and escape from modern technology now strike many as “conservative”.”
That may be conservative in the sense of supporting agrarian living, individualism, unprocessed food and technology, but it’s also a sentiment of the left. Can both the left and right be conservative? Are both sides after the same thing? Maybe, but for different reasons.
“the search for a new kind of meta-politics aimed at the restoration of the psychological resources necessary for normal life.”
But what’s “normal” life?
In the end, for me, nothing comes of this piece, which is a bit disappointing. I wanted something. But then again time and time again I read these opinion pieces and time and time again they seem to end it with “I don’t know”. Which is the real truth. Nothing’s working anymore. We’ve tried the same things over and over, in so many different ways, (economies, for example) and it’s shifting nothing.
Who is this “we” Kemosabe?
Well, I will tell you. The “we” is the “Creatives,” to use my reductive Three Peoples theory. You could look it up.
And the article is all about the to-ings and fro-ings of the Creatives over the last decades. Bless their hearts.
But the Creatives have nothing to do with the populist emergence.
The populists are my “Responsibles,” ordinary people that just want to obey the law, go to work, and follow the rules. They are, in the opinion of the Creatives, a “benighted” Other that needs to be kept in check lest it spoil the creative experience of the Creatives.
Per my comment to Gordon, above: one can be both Creative and Responsible. I recommend it.
Was The True and Only Heaven never written?
This is the last of Blake Smith’s articles I will waste my time with.
Unherd – You need to clear out the whingers.
Interesting and keep them coming. Nice to know how others think.
Mr Blake is certainly the laptop Virtual type as explained in Mary Harrington’s recent article on that class wanting an amnesty from all the nonsense they ditched upon the rest of us during the recent pandemic.
Well. Where to begin? ‘We follow the elites because they advance our material interests.’ Is that right? For the Virtual tribe this makes sense. Then the author states ‘Lasch did not follow after Minimal Self (1984) ……. a new kind of meta-politics aimed at the restoration of the psychological resources necessary for normal life.’
Actually, he kinda did in his 1990 book (The Culture of Narcissism) which the author quotes and gleans that Lasch discredits the Narcissism’ he previously (1984) had the ‘greatest empathy’ for. Lasch is said to have called on America to rediscover populism (or should that be Nationalism?) based on competence, discipline and work ethic.
For Lasch there is no contradiction. In ‘The Nature of Narcissism’ as Lasch remains committed to America and the needs of the people, who he recognised as still having values more important than money.
It is the Deplorables the author is talking about without using that word. Lasch believed that aspects of the old order would be indispensable. So do many others.
So the contradiction from Lasch the auther speaks of arrives six years after The Minimal Self. It is proof that Lasch moved on. So should Mr Blake. Then it just gets weird.
Enough.
Populism isn’t based on or animated by some nostalgia for some imaginary ideal past, or agrarianism, or even libertarianism. It’s not animated by any ideology or political doctrine. It is a reactionary and deconstructive movement defined not so much by what it is, but by what it opposes. It is animated by anti-elitism, anti-globalism, anti-immigration, and a number of other anti-somethings. Like the Jacobins of the 1790’s, their goal is basically to destroy the current ruling class and dismantle the current structures of power that enable them to rule. It is more of a revolutionary movement than a political movement, and the nobility of our modern age are correct to fear it as such.
Indeed, only a revolution could displace the current transnational aristocracy.