John, This is easily your best piece yet -- poetic in the reading, profound in the substance, I cannot wait to read the second installment. Many thanks for thinking so deeply and conveying it so well.
Brilliant writing as usual. You keep knocking it so far out of the park that it's difficult to know what to say.
Your description of the loose coalition at the turn of the decade (2010) prompts me to share one of my best friend's work that has been in my mind lately.
This one is ten years old -- she goes to interview "Tea Party" folks during the Obama presidency.
Ha! It took me a minute to get the gag. Brilliant stuff. Your best friend is as talented as she is beautiful.
At the time I remember being confused because it was very obvious to me that the basic complaints of both Tea Party and Occupy were basically identical, and that if they just made common cause they could achieve them.
It's funny because at the time, although I really liked her humor, most of her pieces felt (at least) premature. That was 2012. She really nailed this one. "Tea Partiers are racist terrorists." If you go through some of her other vids at the time you'll see that she was dead accurate, before her time in the types of things she was able to see.
Racist terrorists is basically the stereotype of anyone right of center now.
Yeah that's why it took me a minute. She was playing it fairly straight, plus that was a few years before "everything I don't like is white supremacy" became so ubiquitous. Clever lady.
What was even more irritating was that when I mentioned this observation to friends they would nod their heads in agreement but prefer to stick with their
Wonderful read as always! I'm hoping the anti-American elements of the alt-right (e.g. wignats) can be brought together with the anti-war left under the banner of Americanism. They would have to jettison the anti-American components of their beliefs, and I don't know how realistic that is to expect ideology being what it is. If it can be achieved, I don't think it will be something the managerial class is capable of contending with.
Absolutely. So far as I can tell, wignats are a spent force. The anti-American sentiment on the right seems to me to be primarily anti-American government, due to the accurate perception that it's an occupation government that does not reflect the will of the people. The antiwar left isn't much of a force anymore, either; insofar as it is, it seems to be gradually merging into the hydra.
I've never been plugged into the dark corners so I don't have my finger on the pulse of such things. If your assessment of the current state of the right is accurate, I think we're in good shape. I'm sure there are people who are anti-war that consider themselves left wing still feature prominently in U.S. demographics. I agree that they seem to be merging considering folks like Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi. I imagine which ones come over will be a function of what they hate worse, war, or America?
You know, it's funny (and something I've been meaning to write about at some point): I got a lot more optimistic when I lost 60 lbs and got down to 16% body fat. How much pessimism is just unbalanced endocrine systems?
Shared this on my Twitter and they're hungry for seconds. Was going to say females are forthright all the time and never mysterious, but then I remembered Babylon the Great and pretty much every woman everywhere. Our genitals look like the mouth of a snake for a reason, mused Molyneux. Ha. True. Men acting like women (liberals) and women acting like men (muh empowerment, muh body muh choice, muh ability to force vaccinate you for that the sake of a damp abuelita denied $100,000 from Matt Walsh) is turning our inverted world upside down. Great stuff, though. We do live in interesting times. What long, strange trips I hope we continue to make.
We see the emergence of a world forseen and warned of which after Covid-19 Terror turns to great power warfare over the Ukraine. Perhaps the Transhuman future blue print was set forth in Bernard Wolfe's Limbo. It’s the post-apocalyptic 1990’s, thanks to a late 70’s nuclear third world war brought on by the giant computers that had been delegated by humans to handle geopolitics. (They sound a little like the micro-trading computers that now handle the much of high finance.) It turns out that the computers weren’t any better at keeping the peace than humans were. https://thefinchandpea.com/2012/03/16/apocalypse-1952-bernard-wolfes-limbo/
Let me add the problems are not merely ones of consciousness or culture. This has also very much been about the transformation of the body: people are becoming chronically unhealthy, dependent on Big Pharma, and so increasingly also less autonomous: politically, socially, economically, and more.
For anyone concerned with rising trend of Polypharmacy, “the use of multiple medications by a patient,” I break down the most recent CDC data here:
Fascinating article. So focused on the accelerating mass madness of the left the last decade, the progress of the alt-right I have mostly ignored, so accustomed to thinking of conservatism as that which conserves nothing but the right of the wealthy to do as they like and the many to make a mess of the earth. I have been thinking a lot more about conservatism lately, the left having tilted toward a very deadly, vengeful authoritarianism, descending into race and gender barbarism to bring civilization to ruin, enslaving humanity to global corporatists.
As a kind of Neo-anarchist, a appreciate balance between the liberal and conservative in myself, and imagine that would make for a healthy society. I am most definitely not a collectivist, in any Marxist sense.
Keep up the good work. I recently discovered your writing, and I appreciate it.
Chaos magicians, more like. Kek did not show up for them in 2020, sadly. I don't think they will need him for 2022, though I wonder sometimes if we will need the help of all the gods to keep the empire from installing another Brandon.
One cannot expect to control a chaos god. Be careful who you beseech. I'm not sure Covid controls, famine and hyperinflation were precisely the chaos the alt-right was hoping for.
I disagree a bit with the timeline, the discussion about disagreements got more intense with each wave of dissidents, 2016 first, and later 2020. It actually persists to this day but is getting more coherent. Nonetheless, well put summary of the history of the children of the ashes.
Oh, the disagreements could be bitter, I agree. The perennial Christian vs. Pagan threads ... *shudder*. But that's all part of the agon. Vicious, yet open disputes, with only that which is true or useful surviving the bloodshed.
John, back in the 70s, at the Univ of South Carolina, on the "Horseshoe" we used to have lively discussions on every subject with groups merging, splitting up, on the fly.
The guy you were debating on Capitalism vs Socialism might now be by your side defending Freedom of Speech in the evolving debate!
But never, never, did anyone try to shut down the discussion.
It was the quickest way to lose all credibility.
This now, is madness, if you don't support A, you must support B!
Indeed. And debate is fun. People like it. That's why our side, as messy and chaotic and incoherent as it is, keeps attracting people, and the censorious prudes keep losing them. They're just boring.
By far one of the best articles I’ve read in a decade. It covered everything concisely with relative brevity, excellent metaphors, astute observation, and passion.
I would put the gatekeeping of the right back to William F Buckley from the beginning of National Review. He outlawed the right from the beginning and promoted only a gentlemanly style of the right that would lose gracefully. He exiled other earlier Right forms,.
Ike and Nixon and Goldwater were not men of the Right.
John, This is easily your best piece yet -- poetic in the reading, profound in the substance, I cannot wait to read the second installment. Many thanks for thinking so deeply and conveying it so well.
Thanks man. I'm blushing.
Much of the time, I lack much hope for the future. Pieces like this help restore it for another day and another week.
Brilliant writing as usual. You keep knocking it so far out of the park that it's difficult to know what to say.
Your description of the loose coalition at the turn of the decade (2010) prompts me to share one of my best friend's work that has been in my mind lately.
This one is ten years old -- she goes to interview "Tea Party" folks during the Obama presidency.
Very cute and funny. Hope you enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Sb8o1VaY7I
Ha! It took me a minute to get the gag. Brilliant stuff. Your best friend is as talented as she is beautiful.
At the time I remember being confused because it was very obvious to me that the basic complaints of both Tea Party and Occupy were basically identical, and that if they just made common cause they could achieve them.
It's funny because at the time, although I really liked her humor, most of her pieces felt (at least) premature. That was 2012. She really nailed this one. "Tea Partiers are racist terrorists." If you go through some of her other vids at the time you'll see that she was dead accurate, before her time in the types of things she was able to see.
Racist terrorists is basically the stereotype of anyone right of center now.
Yeah that's why it took me a minute. She was playing it fairly straight, plus that was a few years before "everything I don't like is white supremacy" became so ubiquitous. Clever lady.
All of her humor is dry like that. :D
And she nailed the stereotype of the sensationalistic journalist, too!!!
Irritating wasn''t it? Tea party marches on DC while Occupy marches on Wall Street, neither side realizing that it's the same thing.
It was incredibly frustrating to observe, but I think dissidents have largely learned their lesson about the true nature of power in this system.
What was even more irritating was that when I mentioned this observation to friends they would nod their heads in agreement but prefer to stick with their
'tribe'. Well, where else was there to go?
“There is an alternative to corporate media BS, and we’re it!”
—Peter Nayland Kusk
Wonderful read as always! I'm hoping the anti-American elements of the alt-right (e.g. wignats) can be brought together with the anti-war left under the banner of Americanism. They would have to jettison the anti-American components of their beliefs, and I don't know how realistic that is to expect ideology being what it is. If it can be achieved, I don't think it will be something the managerial class is capable of contending with.
Absolutely. So far as I can tell, wignats are a spent force. The anti-American sentiment on the right seems to me to be primarily anti-American government, due to the accurate perception that it's an occupation government that does not reflect the will of the people. The antiwar left isn't much of a force anymore, either; insofar as it is, it seems to be gradually merging into the hydra.
I've never been plugged into the dark corners so I don't have my finger on the pulse of such things. If your assessment of the current state of the right is accurate, I think we're in good shape. I'm sure there are people who are anti-war that consider themselves left wing still feature prominently in U.S. demographics. I agree that they seem to be merging considering folks like Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi. I imagine which ones come over will be a function of what they hate worse, war, or America?
Speaking for myself only, it's not hating America -- it's hating what is happening to America.
GREAT essay (and not just because of the plug you gave me LOL)! I like the optimism tempered with a realistic view of events.
Thanks!
You know, it's funny (and something I've been meaning to write about at some point): I got a lot more optimistic when I lost 60 lbs and got down to 16% body fat. How much pessimism is just unbalanced endocrine systems?
I hope this is Part 1?
Yes.
Good! 'Cause it ended much too soon:)
Shared this on my Twitter and they're hungry for seconds. Was going to say females are forthright all the time and never mysterious, but then I remembered Babylon the Great and pretty much every woman everywhere. Our genitals look like the mouth of a snake for a reason, mused Molyneux. Ha. True. Men acting like women (liberals) and women acting like men (muh empowerment, muh body muh choice, muh ability to force vaccinate you for that the sake of a damp abuelita denied $100,000 from Matt Walsh) is turning our inverted world upside down. Great stuff, though. We do live in interesting times. What long, strange trips I hope we continue to make.
Cool!
The sexes are generally mutually incomprehensible. As a guy, I find other men eminently transparent. Yet women are always confused by our behavior....
We see the emergence of a world forseen and warned of which after Covid-19 Terror turns to great power warfare over the Ukraine. Perhaps the Transhuman future blue print was set forth in Bernard Wolfe's Limbo. It’s the post-apocalyptic 1990’s, thanks to a late 70’s nuclear third world war brought on by the giant computers that had been delegated by humans to handle geopolitics. (They sound a little like the micro-trading computers that now handle the much of high finance.) It turns out that the computers weren’t any better at keeping the peace than humans were. https://thefinchandpea.com/2012/03/16/apocalypse-1952-bernard-wolfes-limbo/
Your name is not John, its Word.
Let me add the problems are not merely ones of consciousness or culture. This has also very much been about the transformation of the body: people are becoming chronically unhealthy, dependent on Big Pharma, and so increasingly also less autonomous: politically, socially, economically, and more.
For anyone concerned with rising trend of Polypharmacy, “the use of multiple medications by a patient,” I break down the most recent CDC data here:
"Americans are taking more and more prescriptions drugs. How much more? Let's see the data!" https://americanexile.substack.com/p/americans-are-taking-more-and-more
Great overview of the chemical warfare being waged on the American population.
Fascinating article. So focused on the accelerating mass madness of the left the last decade, the progress of the alt-right I have mostly ignored, so accustomed to thinking of conservatism as that which conserves nothing but the right of the wealthy to do as they like and the many to make a mess of the earth. I have been thinking a lot more about conservatism lately, the left having tilted toward a very deadly, vengeful authoritarianism, descending into race and gender barbarism to bring civilization to ruin, enslaving humanity to global corporatists.
As a kind of Neo-anarchist, a appreciate balance between the liberal and conservative in myself, and imagine that would make for a healthy society. I am most definitely not a collectivist, in any Marxist sense.
Keep up the good work. I recently discovered your writing, and I appreciate it.
Heh. The alt-right was many things, but 'conservative' was never one of them.
Chaos magicians, more like. Kek did not show up for them in 2020, sadly. I don't think they will need him for 2022, though I wonder sometimes if we will need the help of all the gods to keep the empire from installing another Brandon.
Looking at what's unfolded since 2020, I rather think Kek did show up. In an unexpected way, as is a chaos god's habit.
One cannot expect to control a chaos god. Be careful who you beseech. I'm not sure Covid controls, famine and hyperinflation were precisely the chaos the alt-right was hoping for.
I disagree a bit with the timeline, the discussion about disagreements got more intense with each wave of dissidents, 2016 first, and later 2020. It actually persists to this day but is getting more coherent. Nonetheless, well put summary of the history of the children of the ashes.
Oh, the disagreements could be bitter, I agree. The perennial Christian vs. Pagan threads ... *shudder*. But that's all part of the agon. Vicious, yet open disputes, with only that which is true or useful surviving the bloodshed.
John, back in the 70s, at the Univ of South Carolina, on the "Horseshoe" we used to have lively discussions on every subject with groups merging, splitting up, on the fly.
The guy you were debating on Capitalism vs Socialism might now be by your side defending Freedom of Speech in the evolving debate!
But never, never, did anyone try to shut down the discussion.
It was the quickest way to lose all credibility.
This now, is madness, if you don't support A, you must support B!
Madness!
Indeed. And debate is fun. People like it. That's why our side, as messy and chaotic and incoherent as it is, keeps attracting people, and the censorious prudes keep losing them. They're just boring.
And look at the variety of people joining us.
It is very encouraging.
Great article, we need many many more like it!
THANKS
By far one of the best articles I’ve read in a decade. It covered everything concisely with relative brevity, excellent metaphors, astute observation, and passion.
We’ll done.
Thank you.
Just reread this. Such a great read.
I would put the gatekeeping of the right back to William F Buckley from the beginning of National Review. He outlawed the right from the beginning and promoted only a gentlemanly style of the right that would lose gracefully. He exiled other earlier Right forms,.
Ike and Nixon and Goldwater were not men of the Right.
sigh. another of you fine writers to add to my list of subscriptions.
I sometimes wonder when reading substack if this is what people felt like in the heyday of newspapers. I'm old but not that old.
I must say. I love you. But not in that kind of way....lol
Great essay. My simple double neuron soluble connection has been trying to think of exactly this.