Ernie:
You can't be serious. You of all people -because you are, in some ways
anyhow,
an RC antidote to James Fallows. Or maybe you were exactly that in the past
but are not that, any more
I say this as a (former) fan of James Fallows, whom I have been reading
since some time in the 1990s. But he isn't what he used to be. Which was?
A serious social critic who has contributed important ideas to everyone
with an interest in, among other things, the US military, American journalism,
and East Asia and its politics and economics.
Alas, in his dotage he has increasingly become a wimp.
And more and more out of touch with reality.
To be sure, there are all kinds of good things to be said about America
and about "average Americans." But where he now sees a nation at peace
with itself where everything is on the rise, where every dark cloud has a
silver lining,
it is quite possible to discern a very different picture:
Where various pathologies / social pathologies are the new normal,
like sado-masochism, like law of the jungle laissez faire economics,
like reverse racism now run amok, where dishonesty about our problems
is now endemic wherever you look, where women who have been
sexually molested may agree to settlements of $130,000 or a million dollars
or multiples of a million dollars to keep quiet, which they gladly accept
knowing full well that the moral thing to do would have been to turn down
the money and spill their guts to the press.
Fallows raves about how a normal income is $50,000 and bemoans
the fact the some people must scrape by on $30,000. What a laugh.
Some people need to make do with $12,000 or thereabouts and
this is to discuss not only a scarce few souls but a small multitude.
Which is not even to talk about health care that is, while excellent
in some respects, in others is one of the worst in the industrial world.
There is an attitude afoot that is anything but new but that seems increasingly
prevalent in our era, namely, "I've got mine and screw you." Not that Donald
Trump
lacks all virtue but on this matter he epitomizes the problem. Plus, certainly
in the recent and further past, he has shown disrespect for the law whenever
he has money at stake. But it is hardly only Trump who embodies the problem.
It is everywhere.
I saw a segment on TV about Google a few days ago. There were scenes from
inside the Google complex in Silicon Valley. Everyone was young; I doubt
if anyone shown in the video clips was older than 40; most looked like
they were 20 somethings. Is is any wonder that Google searches
yield the kinds of results they often do, where the default for,
as an example, James Bay, is not the lasting and important
geographical feature named James Bay in Canada, much larger
than any of the Great Lakes, but a certain entertainer
named James Bay who, while maybe he has some talent,
simply doesn't come close in significance.
But this sort of thing is pervasive on Google searches. And what does
anyone expect when the people creating the algorithms
know so little about the world and seem to have close
to zero comprehension of the realm of ideas?
Jordan Peterson has lamented the fact that there are fewer and fewer men
in the Humanities in college anywhere in the US or Canada; this trend
is now at least 40 years in the making. Yet of people who comment
about education no-one at all seems to appreciate what this means
as our common culture gradually goes down the toilet. After all,
nothing matters (to men) except STEM. And high level incomes. And so
the culture is turned over to Cultural Marxists and feminists.
Not to self-sacrificing true Christians, but Cultural Marxists and feminists.
About all of which Christians are dumbfounded. After all, how can culture
make them any money?
Besides, they have pretty much bought into the Cultural Marxist and feminist
social narratives themselves, so why bother with cultural issues?
To be sure, I do not see failure everywhere. There is a helluva lot that is
right with America. Regardless, there is, in fact, a looming crisis of major
proportions and believers are hopelessly ill-prepared to deal with it
precisely because they are cultural illiterates.
This is an over-generalization, you certainly are an exception,
but to make a point
But I am less and less inclined to provide my opinions here because
whatever I may say is ignored as a matter of routine. And your word
to the contrary is, so to speak, pretty much nothing but "Confederate money."
That is, we need far more than one more new version of Plato's Republic
to make a difference in the world. We need far more than another 10 year plan
that, 10 years later, has only resulted in a lot of words and no action.
In case you want my opinion.
Billy
From: radicalcentrism@googlegroups.com on
behalf of Centroids
Sent: Friday,
