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In 1968, the film Planet Of The Apes ended with the then-shocking shot of a half-submerged Statue of Liberty, revealing that the future dystopian world was none other than our own. The revelation has been part of Western consciousness for quite some time. The Bible continuously warns that if the Land does not have its Sabbaths, the Lord will impose them. It is a fixture of Western consciousness that some day the West, like every other civilisation, will die.
Every Victorian reader understood allusions to The New Zealander, a rhetorical figure in Thomas Macaulay’s 1840 essay. He was a traveller to a long-vanished civilisation, and gazes, uncomprehendingly, on the ruins of St Paul’s Cathedral. At around the same time, Marx believed that capitalism was a necessary stage of decay, from which communism could come into being. We see his prediction proved correct — in Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela and, now, in the United States. But his vision was of decay-into-perfection; rather than into chaos, savagery and dissolution, which we see to be the case.
Marx stopped too soon in his equation. For if force was necessary to replace Capitalism with Communism, it would be necessary to ensure its continuation. Tsar Nicholas was replaced by Stalin, and Batista by Castro; the Philosopher King was not on the ballots as there were no ballots. The people were “saved” through the imposition of a force — no less necessary after their unconvinced salvation.
In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, the firemen of the future exist to set fire to books, the reading or possession of which is a crime. Books are, today, being censored and banned by destructive forces, and, soon, these will take to their burning, as, today, they burn flags. The joy of their licensed rage is augmented by their unity with a zeitgeist, or time-spirit.
We might understand this as an era-specific fashion that runs in a cycle. But, from a greater remove, the zeitgeist can be seen as a progression. Here, however the quiddities of politics or fashion appear as the result of human reason, civilisation, being an organism, evolves towards its own death and dissolution.
Some day we will be gone, and the monuments we have built will be one with those we have desecrated. Even those books which might remain will eventually share the fate of the little plastic phones. How are we to behave while we’re here? It’s no wonder that our operating manual, or quick-start guide, the Bible, is denigrated by anarchists and dismissed as absurd by intellectuals. They are both on the same team, unconsciously in the service of acceleration.
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SubscribeAn indicator of decline not identified would require a glance at the leadership of the western world and all of the potential alternatives. Do you need a list?
Dismal.
Xi and Putin must discreetly exchange eye rolls when they meet.
Xi and Putin are doing more than exchanging eye rolls. They are making plans.
To elope?
We have been here before. It was Nietzsche who skillfully described and prophesied the crisis of Western culture, and it is probably his specter, more than Marx’s, that has haunted the West ever since. The crisis was obvious during the 20th century: Spengler’s Decline of the West, the discussions about traditional values, the destruction of old ethics/morals and extreme narratives such as social Darwinism, left- en right- wing radicalism, futurism and economic instability. And all of these things have their contemporary counterparts, although not nearly as extreme so far. In that sense postmodernity – as the name also implies – seems like a rather weak reenactment of the 20th century.
It is probably good we are not that extreme anymore. Considering the world wars and episodes of totalitarianism it is understandable why radical- and Utopian grand narratives are taboo. On the other hand, the doctrine that we should remain docile and passive during stagnation and decline is also a good way for the status quo to protect their position. Especially because the pain of supposed decline never seems to fall on their shoulders, they have only massively enriched themselves in the past 40 years. During that time we have heard again and again that There Is No Alternative. That we had – as Fukuyama claimed – reached the end of history. But this has been claimed many times and never been true.
“There’s nothing Nietzsche couldn’t teach ya ’bout the raising of the wrist….” Sorry, but after a wordy article and some wordy comments, I thought we could all use some Monty Python.
the slash and burn cultivation techniques of the Australian Aboriginals.
If you say this, David, why should I listen to anything you say? Slash and burn is about agriculture. I’ve not seen any evidence if this being practised by Aboriginals. It’s pathetic.
There’s a whole book about the slash-and-burn technique: Bill Gammage’s The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines made Australia. Gammage argues that this was a very sensible form of non-sedentary farming. You’re definitely wrong there. However, Mamet is still guilty of inaccuracy: he’s erroneously credited Sir Walter Scott with a poem (So we’ll go no more a-roving) actually written by Lord Byron.
Land management, reviewed in that book, is not slash and burn, which is the agriculture use of the land. The burning of the land has nothing to do with slash and burn and was never considered by Aborigines to be such.
Burning did play a part though. A lot of Australian plants don’t even drop their seeds until a fire has gone through.
Yes, it’s obvious burning is part if their land management. But to call it slash and burn is either lazy or ignorant.
As is the use of “Aboriginals” instead of “Aborigines.”
Quite correct, although Brett H might not be Australian, so can probably be forgiven for using terminology that is “no longer current”.
‘Aborigine’ is generally perceived as div > p > a”>insensitive, because it has racist connotations: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2015/08/why-saying-aborigine-isnt-ok-8-facts-about-indigenous-people-in-australia/
I misread Geoff W’s post. I see he was suggesting that “Aboriginies” was the correct term (which it hasn’t been for 40 years).
Personally I’m not concerned about it. There are so many ways of interpreting their usage depending on your political and cultural leanings. Aboriginal is not very specific (being universal) and Aborigine is now a no-no. Now it’s First Nation, even though there’s no such thing.
Abortion ad drug use are choices not signs of decline. Abortion is practiced bec its expensive to have and bring up children. Capitalism is responsible for that. Drug taking is a hedonistic response to the meaninglessness of contemporary existence. Capitalism is responsible for that too because it as commodified everything. Mamet may hope that adherenice to ” Judeo Christian values” presumably enforced through laws, will affect this but it won’t because these are symptoms. Ideally people need a connection to the divine to live meaningfully and in joy but forcing outdated values on people won’t do that. People will only experience these if they master yoga and meditation which should be taught in schools.
Drug taking is a hedonistic response to the meaninglessness of contemporary existence.
Drug taking and drinking alcohol have existed as long as time so every generation in history must’ve found their existence meaningless.
Quote right. And to blame Capitalism is simply laughable.
I’ve read read some amusingly-contrived anti-capitalist rants in my time on social media, but this one is borderline deranged. It’s almost like you don’t actually live on Earth at all.
The disease: unlimited profit making mentality on finite organism.
Cure: cooperation, technological innovation, and creativity.
I have never read Spengler’s Decline of the West but the idea that every civilisation will eventually – sooner or later – fall apart seems axiomatic… and borne out by history. The laws of entropy will apply…why would an exception be made of Western Liberalism? But equally, any but the vaguest predictions and timescales for that future melt down seem foolish and hubristic. It is surely impossible – given that our personal journey from youthful optimism to elderly nostalgia is but one epocal single day – for us to judge exactly where on the great arc of history we currently are. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/the-madness-of-intelligentsias
I would suggest that while we may not know what the particular day might be we can certainly tell the season.
And while we can’t tell exactly where western civilization is on the S curve, it’s pretty obvious progress has leveled off, perhaps even started to decline. For example the economist Robert Gordon notes that progress between 1870 and 1940 was far greater than between 1940 and 2010.
That’s hard to believe, given the massive technological advancement that has taken place since the 1950’s.
Our entire society has moved light years ahead in transportation, medicine, farming, manufacturing, communication, poverty reduction and charitably. The common man now has access to air travel, dining out, air conditioning, medical care, automatic transmissions, dish washers and smart televisions. Not nearly so in 1950.
Some may argue that all this is not “progress” at all from a sociologic perspective, but certainly from an economic standpoint.
You’re not wrong. However- with the implementation of DEI into all those noble professions/trades mentioned above we are becomong more and more mediocre by the day. Especially medicine and transportation. When you have planes almost colliding on the runway at as greater percentage than any other time and med schools prioritizing diversity above merit this is a huge problem. Those are just a couple examples.
Mark Steyn, in After America/America Alone also invites the reader-as-time-traveller to imagine sitting in the family home of 1890 and considering its acccoutrements and the life that goes on there…. and then contrasting that with the same home 65 years later (I believe he suggests 60 years). A telephone on the wall, television and radio and refrigerator, all undreamt of in 1890; a car or two in the driveway. Airplanes fly overhead, space exploration begun. Polio, measles, smallpox, diphtheria eradicated, life expectancy expanded by 20 years, the workweek shrunk to 40 hours from 60, racial equality enshrined, if not completely enforced.
Now zip ahead a further 65 years. Aside from the cellphone – admittedly a huge impact, and not completely for the better – what has progressed since 1955? Are art or music or literature improved? What common diseases have been defeated or truly helpful inventions applied? Are social relations better in the 2020s than in the 1950s?
Sure, a handful of improvements. But it’s clear that progress on every front has slowed to a crawl, or even regressed. Now get off my lawn while I yell at this cloud.
Ibn Khaldun, Arnold Toynbee, C Northcote Parkinson and Maj Gen John Glubb all have written about rise and fall of Empires. Glubb’s description is the most precise.
Basically a lack of vitality, courage and robustness by the leaders; the growth of a intellectual class which consumes but does not produce and a large lumpen proletariat.
Like all empires, it is the evening of their empire, with woke and the internet putting the final nail in the coffin of a society that has turned ” anyone can achieve anything” into a society where people, in order to look after their own financial interests and well being, will lie, backstab, and cheat: Britain is neatly following in these footsteps. Who, say 30 years ago would ever imagine Ford, GM and Chrysler actually going bust?
It so saddens me, recalling the legendary bright, charming, educated, smart WASP bankers who came here for and after big bang, the most impressive people that I have ever had the pleasure to meet and work with… now all gone and replaced with tribes of seething mediocrity.
Instead of focusing on the State Sector and its Dependencies, and expecting any inspiration, we need to support small businesses and even medium sized businesses. More are growing some of their own food and supporting small shops. More are realising the truth of diminishing returns and rearranging life to optimise return on effort.
And the fight against the NET Zero Delusion and other forms of wokery is going to be a hard slog, especially if you come into contact with the State Mentality.
When governments support unrealistic union demands, as they have in the past, then take absolute control over family transport, no wonder those car companies fall apart. They are meant to!
Backstabbing, lying and cheating served the builders of the British Empire very well. What averted disaster is that the servants of the Crown (i.e. the “regulators” protecting the interests of the State) were their equals in intelligence, deviousness, guile, and cunning.
The problem is not the dishonesty of today’s “Masters of the Universe” – based on centuries of experience, our political systems were built around this feature. It’s their stupidity and mediocrity.
Yes, but these are details in Mamet’s terms. Technology will win in the end over the Constitution and Faith, and Nature will win in the end over Technology. If anyone is left, they can figure it out from there. And only from there.
Akin to distant ancestors likely observing summer and winter solstice at Stonehenge with solemn dance and ceremony, I have observed the solemn “end of democracy” ceremony each and every four years in America…and yet the sun still shines the next day after the presidential election with folks carrying on with mumbling about their 1st world problems (and worrying about whether Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are really a thing).
The high priests of merchandise politics need to sell their visionary end-of-world something, I suppose, in order to scrape together a living from off the people living in the Western World who otherwise carry on with enjoying their lives.
I agree, but many people have bought into the dooming narrative that the media on both sides has incessantly perpetuated. Every election now is the LAST ELECTION OF DEMOCRACY, or whatever other hyperbolic BS. Look, I’m not saying everything is peachy right now, but things ebb and flow. Right now is just a speck in time, and if you zoom out far enough, you realize that humanity has faced and defeated many more insidious challenges. At the moment, we are wrestling with the impact of the media (traditional but mostly social) on our lives. We are in the thick of it. Everything seems crazy. But it isn’t. Most of us are rational, normal people, trying to wade through this mess and sort it all out. And we will, as long as the majority of us sane folk don’t lose our god damned minds. Don’t buy into the BS!
One who lives in the Western World might consider performing the following sampling experiment to confirm their reality:
Turn off all smart devices and computers for five daysGo about each of the five days interacting with the typical people in one’s life – at the gym, the grocery store, at work, school, the pub, home, etcAfter five days have passed (and before powering up smart devices and computers), stop and keenly observe one’s driveway and look up at the sky
If one observes that an unruly mob with pitchforks and torches isn’t marching up the driveway and, equally, that the sky doesn’t appear to be in the process of falling, then one can be reasonably assured that their cyber-hyperventilating, coupled with the deluge of their tears falling upon their waterlogged keyboard, probably wasn’t worth their personal time nor their emotional effort.
And – upon conducting a series of such experiments – one can reasonably conclude that one is far more likely to die in their sleep as the result of a heart attack than due to movie-like visual effects due to “the end of democracy” (TM) sloganeering.
But living such lives of relative lux and in peace within the Western World can be boring for some people who imagine themselves to be the sole Superhero Activist ordained by the clergy at some failing university to ‘Save Democracy!’…so here we are….
In the wise words of George Carlin… It’s all BS folks, and it’s bad for ya!
It was Byron, not Walter Scott, who wrote that the sword outwears the sheath and all the rest of it. Just saying.
And rightly so. How do these people get these things wrong?
Thank you for re-arranging the deck furniture.
Made my morning.
Symptom of everything that’s wrong…
The comments to this article have been so heavily censored/removed as to make one inclined to think that Unherd is becoming part of the problem, not the solution.
Yeah. Having trouble posting a comment right now.
I didn’t think UnHerd went in for censorship.
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
Very cathartic ….. he speaks well for the acutely aware intellectuals of our generation. Yes, we mourn pitifully, but he’s correct: it needn’t happen on our watch. Thankfully Mamet will leave behind a treasure trove of films, books, personal observations and analyses which our children and grandchildren and their descendants can soak up and continue the resistance to the process of decay. Their generations will grow as healthy tissue in the organism of American society. My son and I share a love of Mamet’s movies and writings. I shall forward to him Mamet’s paean to our common religious and political heritage at this very moment, so that he can continue the resistance.
“Thankfully Mamet will leave behind a treasure trove”
Er, your’e assuming the woke Puritans will allow us to warch/read/hear it…
America’s relative decline is inevitable – in the sense that as the gap between the US and other nations shrinks, her relative pre-eminence is less pronounced. Even if the US were “overtaken” by another country, whatever that means, that would not mean the end of the US. Countless societies and civilisations have gone through ups and downs.
Certainly we have in the Western nations created messes that we need to tackle, and the process will be painful. But Planet of the Apes it is not.
Communism, Nazism and Islamism have caused the problems.
No, the end of the Enlightenment instantiated in the French Revolution effectively caused all of those problems. When Rousseau’s concept of the General Will took hold, the Endarkenment began — and has made an abattoir of the last 250 years.
Ooh – a lot to unpack there…
We’re not in decline. We’re just resting up and enjoying ourselves before the next round.
If America and Europe are dying, then why is the rest of the world desperately trying to move there?
Perhaps for the same reason the passengers of the Titanic grasped at anything that floated by or why airline passengers put on the flotation device under their seat as the plane rapidly descends into the sea during a crash.
Actually, no: Tsar Nicholas was replaced by a pluralistic government headed by Alexander Kerensky. The Bolsheviks toppled Kerensky, not the Tsar.
Just because things turned out the way they did does not mean the outcome was inevitable. Choices were made at various points along the way which – if made differently – could well have changed the outcome.
Civilisational decline is a direct product of population growth as the required energy and materials to sustain a growing population deplete with State institutions becoming increasingly complex and self serving and less likely to acknowledge the truth whilst trying to manage population growth for political ends.
Within this context there are becoming apparent two forces, at least within the West. One is Liberal and Progressive whose trajectory is unipolarity, centralisation and technocratic with a view of holding dominion over the West in order to protect its own interests and provide itself with maximum survival opportunities in the coming collapse.
The other force is Conservative and Traditional whose trajectory is the Westphalian System in which multipolarity and self determination enables nation states to uniquely build up resilience, sufficiency and sustainability.
Each can be viewed as a form of cooperation, the former forced, the latter unforced but mediated. However the Progressive strategy is brittle through its inflexibility and rigidity, at least in resilience theory terms.
https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-news/2015-02-19-applying-resilience-thinking.html
The Conservative strategy on the hand provides more opportunities for diversity, flexibility and redundancy to absorb shocks across the Westphalian system.
This might mean deviating from equality laws, abandoning mass immigration, strengthening borders and industrial policy as well as bolstering defence but simultaneously it provides opportunities to network diverse practices rather than conform to the ideological edits of Progressivism which are largely self serving.
Harris is symbolic of one trajectory, Trump the other.
I’ve often wondered how one might weave zeitgeist and quiddities into the same paragraph. Now I have my answer.
Mr. Mamet is a deft wordsmith whose prose is always enjoyable. As a clarion call to the battlements to defend Western Civilization, though, this essay simply recapitulates the many pitfalls of others’ efforts to declare, “We’re doomed!”
Civilizations don’t really end. Like the empires of China historians often declare fall every three hundred years, the foundations of a culture merely evolve into something new.
Whatever the actual existential crises du jour, we will persist in our flawed Capitalistic ways of progress, and things will get better. They always do. Then things will get worse again for a while. The latter most probably in order to provide the necessary fodder for brilliant essayists suffering from fin de siecle tristesse to express their despair.
Ignoti nulla est curatio morbi” (There is no cure for an unknown disease). What’s happening eludes our grasp — either through its confounding complexity or our own misdiagnosis. We avert our eyes or excuse today’s pathologies because the future of this trajectory is too mortifying to contemplate. It’s akin to watching creeping lava — easily skirted for now, yet setting a seemingly inescapable trap. Declinism engenders feelings of anger, frustration and helplessness — but fatalism and tonic immobility will not arrest the downfall. If a cure escapes us, then maybe we should consider a vaccine, courtesy of Saint Augustine: “And you all say, ‘The times are troubled, the times are hard, the times are wretched.’ Live good lives, and you will change the times by living good lives.” Perhaps that’s how to beat the fearful odds.
Curious whether the second ‘abused’ in this very interesting sentence is a typo: “The abused child always sides with the abused against the passive parent…” should it be ‘abuser’?
Only makes sense if read like that.
Thought the same. Or he might be referencing, “Hurt people hurt people”.
It is the Asian century. And will be for sometime. China has a history of 5,000 years. There is no urban decay. Religion is not part of the the political system, nor the educational system, nor the fabric of Chinese culture. It is safe, clean, energetic and strong with family values.It is not communist. China is a unique mix of Capitalism, Socialism, free market place with strong central controls. It is this mix that will help keep China from sliding into the decay and decline of places like USA
It takes a *lot* kool-aid drinking to think that China is the way to go or is building a decay-free urban present
The problem with central planning is that if the country doesn’t need the million tractors the Central Committee told the Shanghai Machinery Company No.1 to build, you just end up with a lot of surplus tractors.
Commenting on anything here atm is close ti impossible
Mamet will be sorry when he gets what he wishes. We are moving away from democracy and moving toward authoritarianism worldwide. Both the left and the right are dangerous and now have little use for free speech and representative government. Mamet is a crackpot because he believes Trump is in favor of these thing and would bring a renaissance of classical liberalism. Trump is repellent and it takes willful blindness to think he has the character to lead the United States.
It takes equally fantastical thinking to believe the left and Democratic party will be any better they will be just as horrid, if in a different way. I have never felt so hopeless about the future.
Whatever authoritarian future comes, whether from the left or the right, it will not be a pleasant place for writers.
Benjsmin rails against willful blndness as he stumbles around in self imposed darkness.
I interpret our current situation with Martin Gurri and his Revolt of the Public.
The last century has been the Age of Mass Media and top-down bureaucracy and regulation and world wars and crazy lefty cults.
But with the Commoner Rebellion led by Trump and Farage and Orban and Wilders and the Age of Talk-Back replacing the go-along media age… well let’s just say that it looks like we are going to get a new dynasty around here.
There are few who recognise what Strauss and Howe saw coming in 1997, but David is one of the few who get it. There is a cycle. It is inevitable. And it is upon us.
Wow. A modern playwright with substance. Thank you. Real food for thought.
Marx thought capitalism was a necessary, progressive step towards capitalism. I don’t know where Mamet gets this decay business from.
Eh?
The thing about these “catastrophic end of everything” essays (and this one is a keeper!), is that they’re not about the end of a world, but only a system; one which always benefits a small minority of “takers” far more than the people who actually do the work.
There is an opportunity for genuine flourishing in the wreckage. If we learn to measure success not in skyscrapers and giant corporate machines but in satisfaction, belonging and (dare I say it?) joy.
Of course there’s no way to predict what form this flourishing will take. We might have to learn to grow our own vegetables, keep a few chickens, maybe even a sow…
I am a US natural born citizen and have felt it is a country in decline for a couple of decades, but I was fortunate to obtain dual citizenship in the EU and have made my home here for the last 10 years. I have never been happier… and I avoid US culture as much as possible.
I can’t help feeling that the EU is going to “go to hell in a handbasket” long before the US does.
At times like this I always try to imagine what my parents were thinking in 1968. Assassinations, race riots, LSD, incomprehensible music, copulating kids with long hair, failure in Vietnam. Surely it must have seemed like end times for them. (And the carnage of the 1970s yet to come!) Let’s all keep things in perspective. It may be that the decline and fall Mamet fears is nothing more than just another by-product of social media inspired hysteria.
That article takes an extremely conservative perspective, and yet it is extraordinarily well written. You don’t see that every day.
Join the Trump sing along for a new golden age of American revival, the decline will end in 2025.
Yeah. All the Lefties in the gulags, and the Obertrumpenfuhrer at the helm of a 1,000 Year Reich.
It’d be a first, wouldn’t it, given that the gulags were implemented by lefties in the first place.
The ones in Russia were, but the term can be applied generally. Trump has already said he will lock up his opponents, and I’m sure Hugo Boss can make a uniform for a fat guy like him (after all, they made one for Goering).
This elegy to the West is, I hope premature, and I have reason to believe that it will not age well.
The reason I say so is that the pace of progress has not stopped or slowed, in fact it is accelerating. It is true that the West is in political crisis but that is as likely to be a sign of creating solutions to decline as much as a symptom of decline itself: we’re in political crisis because we recognise the dangers of decline, not because we’re powerless to prevent it.
I’m not of course claiming that we can stop worrying and revert to sailing the clear blue waters of the post-Communist world after 1989. The West has idiotically wasted the golden opportunity of the largely peaceful world that briefly existed during the past 30 years, we have allowed our governments to bloat themselves on cheap credit and then when the cheap credit ran out, to have the cheek to turn to their own taxpayers to keep them in the style to which they have become accustomed, and we have allowed political activists of all hues free rein to attack our institutions at no personal risk to themselves.
All these things can be fixed. I don’t say that they definitely WILL be fixed, I merely remark that the remedies are technically, politically and institutionally feasible, it’s simply a matter of deciding to carry them out.
We are rotting because we have made every mistake about which deTocqueville warned at the end of his treatise. Hence, we are becoming a mere country, a land mass with boundaries drawn on a map, as opposed to the nation of people with a shared vision we were designed to be.
We are not too close to see the decline of the West. It’s all around us from inept political leadership to the meek surrender of the West’s manufacturing base to China to massive Western indebtedness as a result to crazy social policy.
David Mamet’s monthly rant here. He gets headaches and jaw cramps, feels grouchy, then generates another verbal menstruation like the above. After which he feels much better and is once again a fun person to have a beer with.
Uhuh. In which millenia?
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
More savage than the Aztecs? Really? Well, maybe, when one considers the establishment’s lust for the blood of the unborn.
Stop and think about the decline of civilization. What is the root cause? In every instance, it can be traced back to the analysis of the rejection of Marxism in the Frankfurt School and the revision of Marxism into Cultural Marxism. The academics from the Frankfurt School were welcomed into US Universities and the indoctrination began.
Only one candidate offers an objective, incisive prophecy: “The Enemy From Within.”
I love David Mamet! His expressiveness confers a horripilation that few other writers induce.
“The abused child always sides with the abused against the passive parent,…”
Don’t you mean that “the abused” sides with “the abuseR”?
Which reminds me of Churchill writing of sitting in the yard of Stalin’s dacha, and Stalin grabbing a chicken walking by and plucking its feathers by the handful as the chicken shrieked in pain and terror. When he was done, Stalin put the chicken on the ground, and rather than run away, it cowered at his feet.
Mamet always writes prophetically and his vision is expansive. Not many writers get away with a ton of mythological references in their Op-Ed’s, but he does. He obviously knows his material. He obviously is also arrogant, for he makes the blunder which so many on the right do, always so convinced that their ideology gives them unquestionably precise moral radars, that his own thought has no resonance whatsoever with the fault lines he so vehemently decries. Impossible, so he believes, that he himself could strain from one of those sides comprising this battle he hates so much. Not a chance that he has any bias, none whatsoever, no way that he’s capital C capitalist, no way! It always makes me sad when geniuses decide to wear such opaque sunglasses.
David don’t despair we still
Raise tough kids.
https://x.com/gunsnrosesgirl3/status/1847584998951448950?s=46&t=Qj9VqaTUxi_8gDHkf8EhXA