Victor Davis Hanson // Private Papers
Eeyore could continue, but what we are witnessing is unapologetic nihilism. We are engaged in a suicidal impulse to delight in primaeval tribalism, to destroy the entire concept of merit—and to erect in its place a Sovietized system largely overseen by middle-aged, privileged white people and minority elites, who as bureaucrats, lawyers, politicians, media functionaries, and academics dream up these apartheid systems, apply them to less well-off others, and then traverse around the very consequences of their own ideologies.
I am not cynical, but I do expect that homeless camps will not pop up next to Silicon Valley prep schools (as they do near Seattle public schools), that the walls of Montecito and Malibu were better erected than the pre-Trump rickety border fence, and that the pilots of John Kerry’s or Mark Zuckerberg’s private jets were and will be selected only on the basis of meritorious records of flying, period.
Where does it lead? A vast Lord of the Flies nation, worshiping a Boar’s Head, with victory going to the strongest tribe?
Fortified hamlets and pockets similar to the world of Augustine in the 4th Century AD, outside Hippo Regius?
Our major downtowns now the weedy streets and rubble-filled agoras of the abandoned heartland city-states of Roman-era Greece, as described by Pausanias and Plutarch?
The medieval keep and the peasantry hugging its outside walls?
A return to 1970s and early 1980s, popularized by Dirty Harry, Death Wish, and Escape From New York?
Or the Time Machine’s Morlocks and Eloi?
Or just our same old, same old juxtaposition of the pre- and post-modern slow decline, in which the rule of law has been replaced by the rule of the tribe. But then again as the great economist Adam Smith warned us, there is a lot of ‘ruin’ in a successful state to bank on, as we consume the inherited gifts from the hard work, investment, and sacrifice of our betters now long dead—and maligned for their generous inheritance to us.
Hello Victor,
How easily the “Republican” “leadership” cast aside the monuments and historic names assigned to public facilities. Ditto the very language and even the colors we assign to the political parties. If any group ever deserved the red flag favored by the communists, it was the Democrats, and yet we now consider conservative strongholds “red” areas, while the chaotic free-fire zones run by Democrats are considered “blue”.
I’ve been reading a lot of kindle novels lately. There is one very prolific author named Andrew Wareham who is currently embarked on a series of historic novels centered on the overthrow of Charles Stuart, and Cromwell’s New Model Army. I’ve read most of his work, and it is of varied quality. He writes for himself, and he uses some very blunt dialogue to illustrate the prejudices and and societal follies of the era selected for attention. He is British and he has a very scathing view of the aristocracy. I was a little skeptical of his characterizations, but the more I read of memoirs from WWI and WWII, the more I think he is on the right track. Two recent reads that I recommend are “By Tank into Normandy” and Keith Douglas’s “Alameint to Zem Zem”. The former explains the latter, as Douglas does not identify many of the officers he is critical of. It also illustrates the madness of the Brits in their fondness for sports.
I mention this latest series by Wareham, because he makes clear the kind of violence and misery that would accompany an internal revolution. The geographic separation of the red and blue areas into the coastal enclaves and the massive interior working class communities is real, but unlike the Civil War period, it is not so extreme. There are about 70,000 who vote Republican even in Seattle, and they would face a horrible future given the make up of the City Council should things come to blows. And then there is the extreme dependence of the urban areas on water and power that would be the first to go given any serious conflict. It hardly bears thinking. Wareham’s tales of the 1640s may be as much as I can tolerate.
Thank you for you continued efforts to focus our attention on the realities that confront us.
Bob Stewart
Lakebay (Home), WA
The Soviet analogy applies! Communist leaders demanded an adherence to ideas of revolution and eggs and milk from ruined collective farms. By total ignorance of reality and infrastructure needs USSR dissolved itself in economic ruin after surge of disasters that included Afghanistan campaign, Chernobyl, etc
Professor,
I read your AG column that the new anti-racism is the old racism. I wish that were true.
America prospered and grew with the older dispensation. Whites ruled confidently and we felt — literally — the stars were the limit for our civilization and outer children. Our birth rate reflected that optimism.
No longer with the new. Today everyone has come to admit that we are in decline, even you.
We have sacralized racial groups who have an historical grudge against whites (black people), against Christianity (Jews) and against the western states of the Union (Hispanics). All of them are officially protected classes, while we whites only possess Original Sin, the one kind of transgression that can’t be expiate by one’s self.
That’s very different from the old days. A resentful minority is now the sovereign; I.e., the one who makes all the exceptions to the rules. Our multiple double standards and open hypocrisies are proof of minority rule.
White America foolishly gave blacks the permission to despise us. They have taken up the cudgel we handed them. Please start writing to arouse people to yank it out of their hands — not by complaining how unfair it is or how much it hurts, but because we are best at holding such weapons.
Fortified hamlets and pockets similar to the world of Augustine in the 4th Century AD, outside Hippo Regius?
Sounds just right.
I do have to say, I’d rather be a Morlock, than an Eloi.
Perfect. Made me laugh out loud about Kerry’s and Zuckerberg’s pilots!!!! We have already decided that we will never fly United again. Gee. Why would anyone want the less qualified person to pilot and land their flight??
Dr. Hanson,
I greatly enjoy reading all of your posts and agree down to the last word with every one of them.
Thank you for your vigilance and keep up the good fight. I know you will. We have not lost by a long shot. There are millions of us who will not go down without a fight, whatever that might be.
All the best to you,
Don Krause – A California. native now living in Idaho.
I don’t believe that our circumstances are one dimensional, not that you have implied this; it is my construct. I believe that, as did our Founders, there will be a revolt, different than that of our Founders – more vengeful. That revolt, that new Revolution, one of 1776 and 1861, will be the doings of White conservatives, against the White “Woke” (I hate this new gutter language.), the corrupt politicians, the corrupt and entitled Deep State bureaucrats, the Tech Dandies, the Fake News people, and additionally, the so called people-of-color. It will not be pretty; the French Revolution was not; this new Revolution will be very vengeful.
Has anything ever come of the idea of removing Biden’s authority
to push the red button initiating nuclear end times?