One of the experiences I’ve had tolerably often, over the more than nineteen years that I’ve been writing these weekly essays, is the discovery that a series of apparently disconnected posts I’ve written were all talking about the same thing. Yes, that’s happened again. It’s going to take some work to trace out the connection I have in mind this time, and unpack its implications; I also have no doubt that some readers are going to be upset or outraged by what follows—though of course that’s nothing new. Climb in and buckle up; it’s going to be a wild ride.
Regular readers may recall quite a few posts, scattered across the last couple of years, in which I talked about the disastrous mismatch between common assumptions embraced by the managerial elite in Western industrial societies and the hard facts that confront them, and us, on every side. I’ve noted the way that rhetoric about “invasive species” has blinded decisionmakers to normal ecological changes that are actually helping, not hurting, the biosphere; I’ve discussed the weird way that imagery lifted from pop culture has made it impossible for too many political leaders to deal with the realities of international conflict, and the fact that a certain very famous fantasy trilogy has turned into a widely used template for thinking, with disastrous results.
All this while, especially but not only in the fifth-Wednesday posts for which my readers get to nominate and vote for subjects, I’ve also written about the tangled and toxic mess that relations between men and women in our society has turned into during the last few decades. The most recent helping of that was in a post about the invention of the concept of matriarchy late last month; one reader noted toward the end of the comment stack that she didn’t remember ever seeing so much raw pain on display, by men and women alike, in my comment pages.
That post was followed by an essay inspired by a weird 1970s science fiction movie—not an obvious segué, I freely grant, but one that ended up unexpectedly giving me the last thing I needed to make sense of it all. Did you ever see the science-class trick where the teacher dissolves a lot of salt in hot water, waits until it cools a little, then drops a single crystal of salt into the solution? If the teacher times it right, that crystal triggers a process that turns the whole beaker into a mass of wet salt crystals. Of all the things that might have caused this particular solution to crystallize—well, all I can say is that I didn’t expect that to be done by a flying stone head that preaches zero population growth, but that’s what happened.
The movie Zardoz, you see, is a parable about the power of stories. It’s when Zed finds out that the flying head he’s worshipped is a metaphor borrowed from an old story that he can replace that story with another, and change his world. The lesson is straightforward enough: stories have immense power, and the stories you don’t recognize as stories can still dominate your life.
Back in the first few years of my blogging career, I used to rile up the more scientifically minded members of the peak oil community by commenting on the importance of myths in modern thinking. Every time I did that, I’d field outraged comments from people insisting at the top of their lungs that they didn’t believe in myths—no, they believed only in facts! Of course they were wrong, and most of the time it wasn’t hard to demonstrate this to everyone’s satisfaction but their own, but that attitude remains welded into place in a great many minds these days.
It might help a little if we set aside the fine old word “myth” and replace it with “narrative,” which means the same thing but doesn’t have the same invective piled atop it. Narratives, then, are the tools by which we understand the world; we think with stories as inevitably as we walk with feet and eat with mouths. Philosophers and psychologists showed long ago that the universe doesn’t present itself to us as a coherent whole—we encounter it as a “buzzing, blooming confusion,” as William James called it, a jumble of sensory inputs that we have to assemble bit by bit into patterns that make sense to us. Human cultures provide the instruction manual for making a world out of the jumble, and at the heart of every culture is a collection of stories.
That’s why children are such omnivorous consumers of anything even remotely like a story, and why so many of them like to hear the same story over, and over, and over again. By being born, they’ve been flung into a whirlwind of unfamiliar experiences they have to learn to cope with, and stories are the tools they use to accomplish that Herculean task. Most of their play consists of inventing and acting out stories. Most of their thinking follows narrative patterns, and this sort of thinking remains in place straight through life, though it can be overlaid with other ways of thinking through education. We’re the storytelling apes, and nearly everything we’ve done since the bonobos kicked us out of the forest and told us to go play on the savannah connects in one way or another to our inveterate fondness for storytelling.
Most of the downsides to that habit have an interesting detail in common. Traditional societies always have a very broad array of stories with sharply different plots and outcomes. If you had the good fortune to grow up reading or, better still, being told old-fashioned fairy tales, you know this already. In some fairy tales—Puss in Boots comes to mind—fortune favors the bold and brash. In others—Cinderella is a good example—it’s the quiet, patient one who wins. No matter what kind of situation you’re in, there are stories that echo it, and also stories that contradict it. You can usually count on finding a story that offers good advice, but you have to pay attention to circumstances and choose the right story.
I suspect we’ve all run into this same effect in our own lives. We approach some situation with a narrative firmly in mind about how we expect it to go, how we want it to go, or how we fear it will go. Then we end up blindsided because things go some completely different way. If we’re nimble enough, we figure out what the new narrative is and jump to it without too much flailing. If we’re not—and I suspect we can all think back to times when we weren’t nimble enough—we blunder around aimlessly, lost in a fog of our own making, because the narrative we’ve imposed on the situation prevents us from seeing what’s actually going on.
Long ago, on a blog platform far, far away—it was literally in the first weeks of my blogging career—I posted an essay on this theme entitled “Knowing Only One Story.” The point at the heart of that essay is that if you use stories to make sense of the world, as our species inevitably does, you’d better know plenty of them, because no one story provides an adequate explanation of the cosmos. As I pointed out, if you only have one story, and insist on applying it to the world no matter what, you can count on two consequences. The first is failure; the second is blind, unthinking rage, as you scream at the cosmos for not behaving the way your one and only story insists it should.
That point comes forcefully to mind as I consider the utter mess that relationships between men and women have become in recent decades—a theme, as I noted above, that’s been central to a good many essays here. It so happens that both sexes have ended up fixated on dysfunctional stories about love, sex, and relationships. They’re different stories from different sources, but the surface diversity of those sources covers an underlying uniformity of plot, and the failure and rage I mentioned in that earlier post are certainly on display.
It so happens that there’s been plenty of discussion in recent years of the male half of the problem, and with good reason. The dysfunctional narratives that men have been fed about sex, love, and relationships, while they appear in many settings, are most clearly seen in pornography. There the actors and actresses—and especially the actresses—behave in ways that simply don’t happen in the real world, writhing in simulated ecstasy in response to things that never get that reaction in any less fake and tawdry context. These days a great many young men grow up watching pornography, and so it’s no surprise that so many of them are such inept lovers, with no clue how to please an actual woman in bed.
Yet there’s an exact equivalent to this on the other side of the gender line, which has not received anything like so much discussion. Women also have dysfunctional attitudes toward sex, love, and relationships, and get fed those attitudes by an equally corrupt and commercial industry, which targets their vulnerabilities as ruthlessly as the porn industry targets men. The vulnerabilities in question are emotional rather than sexual, but the results are comparable. Like the habits of thought enshrined in pornography, they appear in many settings, but if you want to see them in full spate, you can do it best by having a look at today’s fashionable romance fiction.
It so happens that I have a little more background in this than most men. My late wife was a passionate fan of Jane Austen’s novels, and also of those later writers who were inspired by Austen’s example, above all Georgette Heyer, the author who invented the 20th century Regency romance. She also read some 21st century romance fiction, and despised it. Since long conversations on odd topics were one of the strengths of our marriage, we talked about romance fiction quite a bit. As a result, I read and enjoyed several of Heyer’s novels as well as all of Austen’s, and took the time to delve into some recent romance fiction as well.
It’s quite an eye-opening experience, and I recommend it to men who want to understand why so many women are so lousy at relationships these days. Austen and Heyer liked to include quite a variety of male leads in their stories, and by no means all of them fit the standard stereotypes of masculine desirability. In most of today’s romance fiction, by contrast, the male lead is a big, buff bad boy, well over six feet tall, preposterously muscled, dominant and fierce, oozing testosterone from every pore, and built like a horse in the relevant region. That is to say, he’s as absurdly unrealistic as the silicone-enhanced bimbos who play comparable roles in pornography.
Yet it’s the behavior of these overstuffed Ken dolls that deserves closest attention. There are not many plots in current romance fiction, and all of them go out of their way to falsify the realities of interaction between men and women. Perhaps the most common is the one where an ordinary middle-class woman meets some member of the species of inflatable pseudomasculinity just described. After the usual teasing preliminaries are out of they way, they have sex, and the male lead then sheds all his objectionable qualities and proceeds to make this very ordinary woman the center of his world, constantly catering to her emotional needs and wants while expecting nothing from her but what she happens to want to give him.
(This is a very old plot, by the way. It appears in the very first romance novel in English, Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, and was overused generation by generation thereafter by authors who knew they could find a market for what we may as well call emotional pornography. Its absence from the novels of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer is no accident; they were wearily familiar with that sort of cheap manipulative trash and went out of their way to write something more interesting, and even to satirize the narrative just described. But of course tripe springs eternal, and there are always people willing to make a fast buck by pushing the predictable buttons in the hope of getting the predictable response.)
The results of saturation with such narratives are as predictable as they are pathetic. Just as a great many men, since they take their ideas about sex from the constellation of narratives most clearly displayed in pornography, have no idea how to please a woman in bed, a great many women, since they take their ideas about love from the constellation of narratives most clearly displayed in romance fiction, have no idea how to please a man out of bed, and quite often have no notion that they should try. They think men ought to look and behave like romance-novel heroes, and end up miserable and lonely when those who do resemble that pattern use them as disposable sex toys and walk away. Meanwhile they spurn and ridicule men who don’t look like romance-novel heroes, and then complain bitterly because those same men don’t want to date them.
We could pursue this line of discussion a good deal further, but I think I’ve probably inspired enough screaming meltdowns on this theme for the moment. Mind you, I have no objection to screaming meltdowns, as they’re a reliable indicator that something genuinely useful has been said—it’s when you start taking flak, as the saying goes, that you know that you’re over the target. With that in mind, let’s take the theme of fixation on a single dysfunctional narrative in a different direction, and talk about the accelerating decline and fall of the Democratic Party.
Those of my readers outside the United States may not have any idea how rapidly that decline and fall is unfolding; those who are in the United States and get their information from what remains of the hyperpartisan legacy media—well, I don’t even have to fill in the blanks, do I? The point at issue is that popular support for the Democratic Party has fallen to historically low levels and is still dropping. Very few Americans genuinely support the policy positions being pushed by Democratic politicians these days.
That’s the crucial subtext to the revolution currently under way in American politics. It’s not all about Donald Trump, however enthusiastically retailers of a specific canned narrative try to define the situation in those hackneyed terms. Trump himself is about what you’d expect from a former reality TV star who found a new performance venue in the political sphere. Two factors unrelated to him give him his considerable power over the American collective consciousness. One is quite simply that he’s giving the American people things that a large majority of them want very badly: an end to unrestricted illegal immigration, an end to endlessly metastasizing bureaucratic overreach, and most recently, an end to policies that go out of their way to encourage street crime and homelessness in the largest American cities.
Yet this wouldn’t be enough to empower him without the other factor, which is the narrative that Democratic politicians and their sock puppets in the media use to interpret today’s politics. That narrative, as I’ve discussed before, insists that the sole source of all the world’s problems is that a Bad Person wants to change things. Whether you call the Bad Person Sauron or Voldemort or Palpatine or Donald Trump, it’s always the same narrative, as rigidly clichéd as the plot of a porn flick or a bodice-busting romance novel. It leads the people who believe it into the self-defeating notion that all they have to do is get rid of the Bad Person and nothing else has to change.
What the Democrats are refusing to deal with is that a substantial majority of Americans are bitterly unhappy with the results of what, until Trump’s rise, was a bipartisan policy consensus in American public life. They’re not flocking to Trump for no reason at all. They’re flocking to him because he’s the only figure in the political scene offering them an alternative to a state of affairs they find intolerable. Democrats who say, “Yes, I know people are unhappy, but…but…Trump!” are missing the point; it’s not as though they’ve offered any other option to the millions who have been harmed and impoverished by the policies they prefer.
Thus the narrative the Democrats are using guarantees that they will do nothing to address the problems that made the rise of someone like Donald Trump inevitable, and will most likely lead to the rise of someone even worse if they find some way to drag Trump down. The unintended message of their narrative, after all, is that anyone who’s dissatisfied with the existing order of society ought to rally around the Bad Person, because that’s the only way change will happen. This is how authoritarian regimes take power: democracies collapse when, due to the usual mechanisms of oligarchic capture, they stop even trying to solve society’s problems, and finally people turn in desperation to somebody who will take power, clear away the obstacles, and actually fix things.
Behind the narrative of Fighting the Bad Person, in turn, is a broader narrative perhaps best summed up by all that doubly dishonest rhetoric about “speaking truth to power.” That rhetoric is dishonest in one way because it claims that one’s own side has exclusive possession of the truth. It’s dishonest in another way because it claims that the other side has exclusive possession of the power. You can see the hypocrisy here in high relief in the antics of millionaire socialist Bernie Sanders, who’s been flying across the country in an expensive private jet claiming to fight the oligarchy, when what he’s actually doing is trying to rally support for one set of oligarchs in their losing struggle with another faction of oligarchs.
We’re long past the point where it makes any sense at all to pretend that all the power in society, or even a preponderance of it, is concentrated in the hands of any one person, party, or class. The logic of intersectionality—the recognition that power and prejudice in society act along many competing lines of division, never just one—needs to be applied to the entire field of political economy. Once this is done, it becomes instantly clear that the bureaucratic class that forms the backbone of the waning Democratic ascendancy has a great deal of power that it’s trying to protect, the entrepreneurial class that has recently seized control of the Republican party also has a great deal of power and is trying to increase this at the bureaucrats’ expense, and many other groups in society—some of them notionally “disadvantaged”—also have considerable power, which they are also trying to defend and increase in the usual way.
There’s a body of thought that can make it easier to see through the rhetorical haze and grasp what’s going on in this complex intersection of warring political factions. Regular readers of mine doubtless won’t be surprised that it’s fairly obscure, though it’s received a little attention in odd corners of the internet now and then. Its name is Situationism; it was the product of a small group of thinkers on the uttermost fringes of mid-20th century European radical politics; like most of the products of those fringes, it staggered under a heavy burden of unhelpful Marxist ideology, from which it never really escaped; and its most useful publications had more to say about urban design than about politics. Except for fifteen minutes of modest fame during the French student riots of 1968, it had next to no influence on events.
That doesn’t sound very promising, doesn’t it? Nonetheless some of the ideas pioneered by the Situationists have enormous relevance to the final crisis of the bureaucratic state now unfolding around us, and to the broader landscape of dissolution and decline that faces industrial society as a whole. To explore that relevance, we’ll have to apply the Situationist tactic of détournement—basically, hijacking an existing set of imagery and ideas, and reworking it to undercut the manufactured Spectacle of which it is a part—to Situationism itself. We’ll begin that project in two weeks.
At this page is the full list of all of the requests for prayer that have recently appeared at ecosophia.net and ecosophia.dreamwidth.org, as well as in the comments of the prayer list posts (printable version here, current to 8/11). Please feel free to add any or all of the requests to your own prayers.
If I missed anybody, or if you would like to add a prayer request for yourself or anyone who has given you consent (or for whom a relevant person holds power of consent) to the list, please feel free to leave a comment below.
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This week I would like to bring special attention to the following prayer requests, selected from the fuller list.
May Hippie Viking’s wife and soon-to-be-born baby experience a smooth, low-stress birth that brings their family together.
May DJ’s newborn granddaughter Marishka and daughter Taylor be blessed, healed, and protected from danger, and may their situation work out in the best way possible for both of them.
May
J Guadalupe Villarruel Zúñiga, father of CRPatiño’s friend Jair, who suffers from terminal kidney and liver damage, respond favorably to treatment and be cared for at home. May he also remain in as good health as possible, beat doctors’ prognosis, and enjoy with his wife and children plenty of love, good times and a future full of blessings.
May 12 year old Sebastian Greco of Rhode Island, who recently suffered a head injury, make a prompt and complete recovery with no lasting problems.
May MindWinds’ father Clem be healed of his spinal, blood and cardio infections and returned to good health and wholeness; and may he and his family keep up a robust sense of humor and joy in each others’ continued company.
May Marko’s newborn son Noah, who has been in the hospital for a cold, and Noah’s mother Viktoria, who is recovering from her c-section, both be blessed with good health, strength, endurance, and protection, and may they swiftly they make a full recovery.
May Brother Kornhoer’s son Travis‘s fistula heal, may his body have the strength to fight off infections, may his kidneys strengthen, and may his empty nose syndrome abate, so that he may have a full and healthy life ahead of him.
May Princess Cutekitten, who is sick of being sick, be healed of her ailments.
May Jack H.’s father John continue to heal from his ailments, including alcohol dependency and breathing difficulties, as much as Providence allows, to be able to enjoy more time together with his loved ones.
May Audrey’s friend’s daughter Katie, who died in a tragic accident June 2nd, orphaning her two children, be blessed and aided in her soul’s onward journey; and may her family be comforted.
May Kevin’s sister Cynthia be cured of the hallucinations and delusions that have afflicted her, and freed from emotional distress. May she be safely healed of the physical condition that has provoked her emotions; and may she be healed of the spiritual condition that brings her to be so unsettled by it. May she come to feel calm and secure in her physical body, regardless of its level of health.
May Pierre and Julie conceive a healthy baby together. May the conception, pregnancy, birth, and recovery all be healthy and smooth for baby and for Julie.
May SLClaire’s honorary daughter Beth, who is undergoing dialysis for kidney disease, be blessed, and may her kidneys be restored to full functioning.
May 1Wanderer’s partner Cathy, who has bravely fought against cancer to the stage of remission, now be relieved of the unpleasant and painful side-effects from the follow-up hormonal treatment, together with the stress that this imposes on both parties; may she quickly be able to resume a normal life, and the cancer not return.
May Kallianeira’s partner Patrick, who passed away on May 7th, be blessed and aided in his soul’s onward journey. And may Kallianeira be soothed and strengthened to successfully cope in the face of this sudden loss.
May Linda from the Quest Bookshop of the Theosophical Society, who has developed a turbo cancer, be blessed and have a speedy and full recovery from cancer.
May Corey Benton, whose throat tumor has grown around an artery and won’t be treated surgically, and who is now able to be at home from the hospital, be healed of throat cancer.
(Healing work is also welcome. Note: Healing Hands should be fine, but if offering energy work which could potentially conflict with another, please first leave a note in comments or write to randomactsofkarmasc to double check that it’s safe)
May David Spangler (the esoteric teacher), who has been responding well to chemotherapy for his bladder cancer, be blessed, healed, and filled with positive energy such that he makes a full recovery.
May Giulia (Julia) in the Eastern suburbs of Cleveland Ohio be quickly healed of recurring seizures and paralysis of her left side and other neurological problems associated with a cyst on the right side of her brain and with surgery and drugs to treat it, if providence would have it, and if not, may her soul move on from this world and find peace with a minimum of further suffering for her and her family and friends.
May Liz and her baby be blessed and healthy during pregnancy, and may her husband Jay (sdi) have the grace and good humor to support his family even through times of stress and ill health.
May Debra Roberts, who has just been diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer, be blessed and healed to the extent that providence allows. Healing work is also welcome.
May Jack H’s father John, whose aortic dissection is considered inoperable and likely fatal by his current doctors, be healed, and make a physical recovery to the full extent that providence allows, and be able to enjoy more time together with his loved ones.
May Frank R. Hartman, who lost his house in the Altadena fire, and all who have been affected by the larger conflagration be blessed and healed.
May Open Space’s friend’s mother
Judith be blessed and healed for a complete recovery from cancer.
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Guidelines for how long prayer requests stay on the list, how to word requests, how to be added to the weekly email list, how to improve the chances of your prayer being answered, and several other common questions and issues, are to be found at the Ecosophia Prayer List FAQ.
If there are any among you who might wish to join me in a bit of astrological timing, I pray each week for the health of all those with health problems on the list on the astrological hour of the Sun on Sundays, bearing in mind the Sun’s rulerships of heart, brain, and vital energies. If this appeals to you, I invite you to join me.
Thank you for featuring the novel, Cotillion, my favorite of all Heyer’s Regency romances.
Nice post.
I mentioned before how I loved your old post from 2015 distaining how Sanders simply awakened the same messianic fantasies as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama during their first presidential runs. If I were an American (I am Canadian), I could see myself voting for Sanders as a protest vote absolutely against Hillary’s coronation (kind of like Eugene McCarthy in 1968) but certainly not as a messiah!
I would love to see how many liberals/leftists would react had Sanders been elected in 2016 and 2020 and simply made the same “compromises” in power as his predecessors. Would their have been mass protests, riots, etc? Maybe a breakdown of the two-party system.
I’m up for a discussion about the situationist’s ideas on how to highjack existing imagery and ideas to undercut a dysfunctional narrative. That sounds both relevant and useful.
Just to give another example of how people, even adult and highly educated people, usually default to thinking in stories. When I sat down with my thesis advisor and colleagues to plan my first scientific publication, my advisor, a scientist I highly respect, started by literally drawing a story line consisting of sketched figures with pen on paper. What does the story begin with, how does it continue in a compelling fashion, and how do we want it to end? We had all the data and most of the analyses we need, but they could have been selected and ordered in many different ways.
I see no reason to dispute his opinion that scientists will mostly read and cite papers that tell a clear story. It’s not the ideal way to transmit unbiased knowledge, but it is the way it is.
Hi JMG,
A very good article. I look forward to your post about Situationism, as I’ve never heard of it before.
To extend your analogy… I’m looking over in your direction. My, but the flak intensity where you are is extremely heavy this week. . Could your post possibly have caused some issues? 😉
I think one fairly interesting way to see the hold that narratives have on people is watching the reactions to the Air Canada strike we had here in Canada. It’s not over yet (I’ve seen a lot of tentative deals go up in flames; so it’s entirely possible the strike will resume soon enough). What matters though is that this story no longer matches any of the standard narratives I’ve seen. A lot of other people tried to declare this as Carney’s “Reagan Moment”, a reference to the air traffic controllers’ strike in 1981. They were blindsided when Air Canada settled, because that was not part of their narrative: in their narrative, the government had all the power.
I think Air Canada’s actions make sense if they thought they were in a different story: the story of how they held all the power and could crush the union. In the story they seemed to be following, they had already won by ensuring the head of the CIRB (Canada Industrial Relations Board) was in their corner: she spent seven years as their chief council and worked at law firms representing them for many more. Since they could ensure that any legal questions would be resolved in their favour and that the government would be on their side, they could ensure that the union could not legally win this fight. They were right: less than a day after the strike began the union was ordered back to work, but here the story fell apart. It looks like the idea the union would say “frack the law!” caught them by surprise, and their sudden pivot seems to me to be that of people who suddenly realized they had a lot more to lose than they had thought.
Meanwhile, the broader labour movement seemed to have embraced a story about how this was an opening move by the Carney government to break the backs of organized labour, and so started gearing up to fight, and fight hard. It’s looking to me like a lot of them were blindsided by the way this strike looks like it ended without resolving any of the systemic issues: Air Canada and the union hammered out a deal should not have been possible in this story: the story about how the government and large companies were coordinating and prepared to fight hard to break them.
I have no idea how this will play out, because of two wild cards I see: the first is that the tentative deal could fall apart, and the second is that depending on how vindictive the Carney government feels like being, it has enough to send the leaders of the union to jail: they blatantly and publicly broke the law. I’ve seen at least one talking head suggest the government ought to do just that.
In other words, it’s still far too early to tell what story we’re in here. It might be the story of a large company that got arrogant and got brought to heel by organized labour; it might be the start of the story of a much larger political crisis; or it might evolve into a completely different story entirely.
John Michael Greer, do you have any advice for young people in the US surviving in a declining economy or possibly moving somewhere else to avoid it?
JMG,
To my knowledge women’s frequent access to romance novels significantly predated the current collapse in relations between men and women. Could the Romance novel narrative require the influence of 2nd wave feminism as a catalyst to really kick off the current situation? Or was there something else that acted as a catalyst ( from the women’s side of the issue).
“Situationism”? Never heard of it.
That’s not surprising though – I have never been all that impressed with French philosophy, from Rousseau forwards (yes, I know, Rousseau was Swiss). Lacan, Foucault and Derrida leave me stone cold, while Sartre and Camus smell of psychopathology. Overall, modern French philosophy strikes me as intellectually self-referential and onanistic.
It will be interesting to see what you make of Situationism. Perhaps there is more “there” there than I thought.
Great post, JMG!
Situationism is new to me, and I look forward to seeing what useful grains you are able to glean from a field that seems at first blush to be mostly chaff.
I’ve frequently seen misapplied stories cause problems in the lives of people close to me. For instance, I know of a woman who is unable to rebuild any sort of relationship with her estranged adult son because she expects a big daytime-TV-style apology before she can move forward, while from a disinterested third party perspective it is neither warranted nor likely to happen.
As for the current U.S. political system, I’ve been unimpressed with the entrepreneurial class’s attempts to solve domestic problems, though they do have an advantage in that they at least acknowledge that the problems exist and are interested in at least appearing to attempt to solve the problems. If they remain in undisputed power, it’s only a matter of time before a future entrepreneurial techbro makes a tremendously foolish foreign policy blunder because AI suggested it. If it hasn’t happened already.
The current democrat party leadership still has their heads plunged deeply in some dark and moist places. Our government structure still tends towards two parties, so I’m curious in seeing what manner of creature takes shape from the inchoate bones of last decade’s Democrat party. It’s strange because I remember the internal power struggles on the right wing ~2009-2015, with a cacophony of competing ideologues trying to determine the best way forward, while this time on the left it seems to be either old guard mono-mind consensus believers or a buzzing radio silence.
David Ritz @ #3, I did vote for Sanders in 2016 as a protest vote, just as you say. I regarded Mme. Clinton as actively dangerous, in the way a poisonous snake in your house is actively dangerous. That was a notion some us had, that we ought at least prevent her from being able to claim a landslide. I think the most prominent person to articulate that notion may have the late, and much lamented, African American public intellectual Glen Ford.
It is widely, and I think, correctly believed that Sanders as the Democratic nominee would have won against Trump. His presidency would likely have been one term. In domestic policy, I think he might have done rather well, appointing competent and qualified people to important positions and doing what he could to alleviate the sufferings of the poorest Americans. Foreign policy has never been Sander’s strength; there I think he might not have distinguished himself. I was, and remain, of the opinion that what his two presidential campaigns lacked was a strong anti-war, anti-intervention message. Had he had such a message, I think it is at least arguable that he might even have been able to overcome Democratic establishment dirty tricks.
BTW, speaking of private jets, Evangelical mega-church preachers also own and use them.
Excellent! I’m very much looking forward to seeing the coming posts in this series. And I loved your post, “Knowing Only One Story,” when I first found it in late 2006.
This all correlates very neatly with male erotic fantasies of formal power and female erotic fantasies of informal power, each kind of power to be exercised over people of the opposite sex.
Terry Pratchett seriously maintained that stories exist in their own right, outside the material world and quite independently of any actual humans who might hear or tell them. See his academic lecture, “imaginary Worlds, Real Stories” (1999), available for download on archive.org. (archive.org/details/pratchett-2000-briggs-lecture),
I am strongly inclined to agree with Pratchett, and maybe to take it a little farther than he did in his lecture. Stories are an aspect of sentience, and sentience (IMHO) existed even before the creation of matter and energy, time and space.
This post comes along at a fortuitous time for yours truly. Thank you for writing, John Michael. The ideas expressed here are helping me tease out my thinking about the predicament, and while my time is waning here, I do care about the world that will be left in my absence. So much to digest here.
Are the stories always the same because the struggle and will to survive is the same? Will the stories change to reflect the underlying reality of the predicament?
I personally think that a lot of the “issues” that occupy modern people will evaporate once our circumstances change due to the cumbersome details of life in this society. When people are preoccupied with survival, and are struggling to find something to eat, things like gender will be reduced to their appropriate levels.
Oh wait, we are going to Mars, and then the STARS. Forgive me for forgetting about that myth.
I supported Sanders the time he ran. I have noticed, however, that he is at his feistiest when the Republicans are in power. The logical conclusion then, is that in order to support the best Sanders that we can get, we should vote Republican so that he stays feisty! (Just kidding! I’m tired of his nonsense.)
Thanks for the essay, JMG. I’ll be thinking this one through this afternoon.
JMG, regarding the importance of stories: When I was programming computers back in the 60’s, a joke was making the rounds:
A programmer asks his computer “when are you computers going to start thinking like we humans do?”
The computer replies:” that reminds me of a story…”
Your post on the war of the sexes and all the insights, and pain,from the comment community really have sharpened my understanding of why I’m so reluctant this past 10 years to chance any romantic relationship. My brainwashed fellow Canucks fear/hatred of Trump without looking in the darn mirror , spitting on their palms,hoisting the black flag and cutting some PMC down is enough to drive me to drink. But I’ll refrain from that ditch and work on my art and violin.
first of all, it’s a hoot seeing your first blog’s earliest baby pictures and only FIVE comments! 19 years and countless hours later and WOW.
also,
i’ve been thinking of this (re-posted below as a form of prayer–again– from what you last posted in Magic Monday’s comments, because i’ve long seen these SAME EXACT things as you– real theatre and a real location library/school/institute) in the background of all i’m doing now because i see you getting more weird/artistic in all the best ways and i feel and see real art (that’s actually aware of what it’s SAYING for a change), regarding situationism (although i’m not sure what you mean yet) seems relevant, connected, part of the trajectory of us taking back Story twisting it back to our own ends. experimental magic theatre ritual, YES YES YES:
https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/338036.html?thread=56716404#cmt56716404
1) Most of my books would make lousy movies. Twilight’s Last Gleaming would make a good political-military thriller flick, and The Hall of Homeless Gods would work on the big screen. I’d also love to see Studio Ghibli do an animated version of The Shoggoth Concerto, though I can’t imagine anyone else doing it without making me want to puke. The rest? As the last rejection slip I got from a big publisher said, my stuff is too quiet and too weird.
What you’re suggesting, as something more like avant-garde ritual theater, is quite another matter. The problem with my books as cinema is that making them believable in realistic cinema wouldn’t work at all. But if that’s set aside, and it becomes a matter of enacting things in a non-representational fashion — semi-abstract masks, interpretive dance, music improvised around a set of established themes — that could work, and work well.
Along those lines, I once worked up n outline for a performance piece with TS Eliot’s “The Waste Land” as its script. Four performers, an abstract set, plain dance wear with a few costume scraps to be put on and taken off onstage, a very abstract musical accompaniment mostly from hand drums — it could have been cool. Of course I never tried to get it produced.
2) Me, I’ve long admired what Manly P. Hall did when he ended up with absurd amounts of money. He built a center for occult studies, with a big library, some meeting rooms, and a bookstore, and used it as a center for teaching. It’s still there in Los Angeles, doing pretty much what he wanted it to do.
“David Ritz @ #3, I did vote for Sanders in 2016 as a protest vote, just as you say.
It is widely, and I think, correctly believed that Sanders as the Democratic nominee would have won against Trump. His presidency would likely have been one term. In domestic policy, I think he might have done rather well, appointing competent and qualified people to important positions and doing what he could to alleviate the sufferings of the poorest Americans. Foreign policy has never been Sander’s strength; there I think he might not have distinguished himself. I was, and remain, of the opinion that what his two presidential campaigns lacked was a strong anti-war, anti-intervention message. Had he had such a message, I think it is at least arguable that he might even have been able to overcome Democratic establishment dirty tricks.
.”
I wonder if Sanders would have shaken hands with the leader of North Korea in that reality though!
It is worth noting that for all his faults, Trump in his first term at least saw no new American military interventions under his watch , which certainly distinguishes him from his predecessors (although the conflict in Yemen was escalated). Yet, ISIL was eradicated and nothing like it has returned since (even in the wake of COVID and the War in Gaza which one would expect ultra-radical Islamists to take advantage of).
In Mansfield Park the Bad Girl also got kicked to the curb.
On the other hand in The Lady Susan (movie version retitled Love and Friendship) the bad girl wins where wins is defined as acquiring the rich idiot, while the good girl and nice guy end up together. That story has more feminine scheming per page/minute than anything else I’ve read nit that I read a lot of romances.
Conspiracy theories are popular because they tie odd events into a coherent story. People do not like randomness at all. Of course lately the conspiracy theories have been doing rather better than the official narratives.
Subotai says:
August 20, 2025 at 1:08 pm
“John Michael Greer, do you have any advice for young people in the US surviving in a declining economy or possibly moving somewhere else to avoid it?”
—
SUBOTAI:
that’s funny because HIS ENTIRE BLOG 19 years ago from his earliest posts to this very second are all about this! because do you just passively move without DOING anything and with whom???
(smile)
all aspiring writers here please look at how long ago he started and how doggedly Papa G kept on writing what he wanted to without parades and petting.
i also think Sara is the reason Papa can’t sleep for 1-1/2 years and she’s also the reason he has anything believable worth saying. i’m starting to trust people who’ve been in solidly good relationships for a long time, and trust the ideas that branch off from that ability and solidity. anyone else anymore seems like just more mastaburatory writerly “theory” to me. wanking off alone in our bedrooms jumping on the bed with untested fantasies that never can limp crawl or even leap beyond our own private bedroom door.
erika
I wonder about the degree to which the issues between men and women are exacerbated by having later and fewer children. Caring for children can certainly be something of a pressure cooker for a relationship, but certainly the importance of both romantic ego-stroking and erotic passion are usually reduced in the minds of both parties. Although those demographics having more children earlier are not doing so well in terms of functional relationships, come to think of it. I suppose it requires a robust and relatively rigid institution of marriage in order for children to have a salutory effect on the parental relationship. Risky for the kids, too, if it doesn’t work.
Quin, thanks for this as always.
Mary, you’re most welcome! My personal favorite of the Heyer novels I’ve read is Venetia — another deconstruction of the “bad boy” cliché, though it cuts deeper — but Cotillion is a fine romp, and Jack richly deserves his comeuppance.
David, no, there wouldn’t have been mass protests. The Democratic base made it very clear during Obama’s two terms that they’re perfectly fine seeing their political darlings betray everything their party supposedly stands for. It’s all performative liberalism, a kind of political cosplay in which politicians pretend to help the poor and downtrodden the way mimes pretend to be stuck in a phone booth. But then you have plenty of that up in Canada, too.
Pygmycory, we’ll certainly get to that!
Aldarion, your thesis advisor was wise. There is no such thing as unbiased knowledge; there are just people who are honest about their biases and people who try to conceal them. Science is ultimately just another way of storytelling — it has special rules in its stories, mostly that all the characters and incidents have to be found somewhere in the data, but it still tells stories of the kind many children love best, such as “Why did this happen?”
Bird, here’s hoping!
Moose, excellent. Yes, exactly — the negotiators figured out that there was at least one other story to tell, the story of “How we settled our disagreement like adults,” and told it.
Subotai, please post this in the monthly open post, which will be going up next Wednesday. As the squib above the comment window says, this comment thread is for comments on the current post — not for random question about anything and everything. (That’s what the monthly open post is for.)
Clay, ah, but romance novels now are not like romance novels fifty years ago. The genre has changed, just as pornography has changed — and it’s in those changes, and the broader changes in cultural narrative that inspired them, that I see the roots of the current mess.
Michael, oh, there’s plenty of self-referential onanism in Situationism. We’ll talk about that (among other things) in another couple of weeks.
Sirustalcelion, granted, but the current tech-bro entrepreneurs are only the advance guard of the rising entrepreneurial elite. As for LLMs (“AI”), the latest Fortune article on that indicates that no fewer than 95% of all corporate attempts to use LLMs have made no money at all — this despite an average investment per company of US$40 billion. My guess is that sometime in the next couple of years, the LLM bubble will pop catastrophically, the current high-flying tech-bros will be humbled, and those entrepreneurs who have had the common sense to focus on providing real goods and services will take their place.
Robert M, it does indeed — and Pratchett’s theory has a lot going for it. I recall the opening line of Hermann Hesse’s first novel, “Im Anfang war der Mythos” — “In the beginning was the Myth.”
John, the stories aren’t always the same. That’s just it. When the stories become the same, that tells you that people have their head tightly wedged in a sunless place and are waiting for reality to kick them good and hard. You’re right, though, that a lot of First World problems will go away in a hurry once that boot arrives…
Chris, interestingly enough, we’ll be talking in two weeks about the way that so many notional radicals combine tolerably keen analyses of what’s wrong with hopelessly weak notions about what to do in response. That’s no accident!
Michael, yes, I recall that one from back in the day!
Longsword, so noted, but I don’t think the situation is all that dire — or maybe it’s just that the winds of change are starting to blow very hard on this side of the 49th parallel.
Erika, thank you for this! Here’s hoping — or, rather, willing…
Siliconguy, Austen used Mansfield Park to target more than one set of romance clichés, and of course she did it very crisply. As for Lady Susan, that was a very early of hers and one that she never revised for publication, the way she turned First Impressions into Pride and Prejudice and Elinor and Marianne into Sense and Sensibility. I wish she’d gone back to it — her mature skills applied to Lady Susan would have produced something utterly delightful.
Jennifer, I don’t think it’s that — the couples I know who’ve dodged the usual relationship bullets and made happy marriages are by and large no more prolific than anybody else. I really do think it’s the ability to step outside the dysfunctional narratives our culture pushes on us so forcefully!
‘The Society of the Spectacle’ was always one of my favorites when studying poststructuralism, postmodernism, etc in college. The other main one was Deleuze & Guattari’s ‘A Thousand Plateaus’, but I haven’t looked at any of that stuff in quite a while. It’s funny how your posts lately are bringing up all stuff I studied 18 or so years ago. Maybe it has something to do with my nodal return.
Looking forward to seeing how you use that lens.
And the thing with narratives is, you can use different ones to make sense of the world in different ways, but none of them are exactly right. For instance, looking at things through a hero, poet or saint narrative, or through an astrological narrative, etc etc. “The way that can be spoken is not the true Way” and all that. That’s why buying into any narrative whole hog can be such a impetus for failure, but yet we need them to make any sort of sense of this strange world.
John ONeil says:
August 20, 2025 at 1:27 pm
“This post comes along at a fortuitous time for yours truly. Thank you for writing, John Michael. The ideas expressed here are helping me tease out my thinking about the predicament, and while my time is waning here, I do care about the world that will be left in my absence. So much to digest here.”
—-
John O’Neil:
you’re on fire lately! cool.
i don’t know whether it’s because i went to high school around a lot of Jewish folks in Cherry Hill, NJ, but i have that fear of being reincarnated in a future holocaust like they collectively also seem to. But seeing what’s happening in Gaza takes away the fear and makes it more of an inevitability that unless we can fundamentally add a new story to occasionally derail the binary pendulum crashing either side, it’s inevitable that we’ll be reincarnated into any number of future holocausts.
i’ve no children and like Papa G and Miss Lady Queen Kimberly Steele, it means i’ve got the TIME to do what the parents cannot as they tend to the Future of Humanity: to fight for the ones who come AFTER us.
the capital “R” Republican vision of their binary version of seeing us childless as distrustful with no buy-in to society is based on a weird premise that i understand but it’s way more nuanced than they think.
my job as a mixed bougie ghetto girly girl that other girls don’t trust because i’ll call ’em out, is to not be likable but jam up your assumptions so The STORY can include me and other current future weirdos as relevant teachers prophets artists visionaries philosophers without “S”s necessarily in their names.
but it’s for ME now and when i come back, whether it’s real or just via our children. i GET to be like this because of the ones who took it for ME, with them having had children or not.
The wiZARD of OZ teaser was good. When will you flesh it out a little?
I took a look at the book on Situationism that JPM mentioned a while back. Quite an interesting dust cover, by the way. One that puts most LP covers to shame. Of the authors that got mentioned there, the only one that resonated for me in a positive way was Celine. The others are way out of my league.
Richard Thompson wrote and recorded a brilliant song about the effects of porn. It’s on his album “Rumor and Sigh:”
[Verse 1]
Asked my daddy when I was thirteen
“Oh Daddy, can you tell me what a lover really means?”
His eyes went glassy, not a word was said
He poured another beer and his face turned red
Asked my mother, she acted the same
She never looked up, she seemed so ashamed
Asked my teacher, he reached for the cane
He said, “Don’t mention that subject again”
[Pre-Chorus]
(Read about love)
I read it in a magazine
(Read about love)
Cosmo and Seventeen
(Read about love)
In the back of Hustler, Hustler, Hustler
[Chorus]
So I know what makes girls sigh
And I know why girls cry
So don’t tell me I don’t understand
What makes a woman and what makes a man
I’ve never been to heaven
But at least I’ve read about love
[Verse 2]
My big brother told me when I was fourteen
“It’s time I showed you what a lover really means
Girls like kissing and romance too
But a boy’s got to know what a man’s got to do”
He gave me a book, the cover was plain
Written by a doctor with a German name
It had glossy pictures, serious stuff
I read it seven times then I knew it well enough
[Pre-Chorus]
(Read about love)
And now I’ve got you
(Read about love)
Where I want you
(Read about love)
I got you on the test bed, test bed, test bed
[Chorus]
So why don’t you moan and sigh?
And why do you sit there and cry?
I do everything I’m supposed to do
If something’s wrong, then it must be you
I know the ways of a woman
I’ve read about love
Well, well, well
When I touch you there it’s supposed to feel nice
That’s what it said in Reader’s Advice
I’ve never been to heaven
But at least I’ve read about love
before i change my mind i want to post this:
Papa i wonder if YOU’d be a good theatre director now because i’m noticing your writing your ideas are getting more …well, mimes pretending they’re in a photo booth… you’ve recently been full of these very ACTIONABLE directions/notes to actors that would give them ROOM to interpret your IDEAS their ways.
your notes have definite actions but leave room for the ARTIST to have something to play of their own.
you’ve been full of ’em lately, that’s why i see YOU evolving into more of a shaper of your own stories as they go to another of play in real life.
just something to tuck in the back of your mind and see if it … brings collaborators to you to help make this happen.
but that’s what Next Year at Adocentyn is about.
(this is a seed thought more for OTHERS HERE, rather than Papa. there are The Quiets here, quietly idling, waiting for their moment to step up…)
Referencing Mary Bennet (#2) and Clay Dennis (#9) and the opening paragraphs of this week’s blog post: man, if we get an analysis of romance novels by JMG on how the glittery hoo haw and the might wang have contributed to the breakdown of male-female relationships — oh, boy!!! words fail me– Can’t wait!!! I vote for this topic for a 5th week essay!
Love Cotillion! Love all of Heyer’s romances and golden age mysteries. I think an author in the Austen/Heyer lineage is Jayne Ann Krentz. (I admit the Harlequin romance/Mills & Boon stuff from the 70’s/80s is not worthy of Heyer but Krentz starts hitting her stride and comedic chops in the 90’s. I also admit, that somewhere in the 2010’s, even Krentz was having trouble navigating what romance readers wanted to read. The audience was splintering. I look forward to it all being explained in a 5th week post. Curious, how many of us here read both ecosophia and romance novels?)
Back to the main point of this post — I have trouble, so I don’t even try, explaining to my blue friends/family why Trump is the lesser evil when compared to Biden/Harris. The DNC is imploding right before our eyes every night on television for those who care to watch. Nicole Wallace on MSNBC has had a furrowed brow since November 2024 and her voice expresses constant disbelief and dismay at the way the U.S. seems to be willingly going.
Here’s hoping Subotai (#8) gets an answer on what young people can do to adapt to this changing world. I don’t think moving would help but plenty here have ex-pat plans.
JMG,
That’s interesting! Most of the functional couples I know are having notably more kids than usual, and the most neurotic and dysfunctional tend to be PMC DINKs. But it may very well be that both factors are downstream of their respective narratives rather than the kid factor being causative.
P. S. Venetia is my favorite of Heyer’s as well! What fun. I may have to pick it up again.
@Jennifer Kobernik (#22):
I got to know a student, some 20 years back, who came to my university from the Dine (the Navaho/Navajo), and she told me a little about her culture. If I understood her rightly, among the Dine a woman may have a child from whatever man she wants to, but that man will play little or no role in its raising. Rather, its mother’s male relatives, especially her brothers, will help her raise her child. (Meanwhile, the child’s biological father will be helping his sisters raise the children they bear.) That way works just as well as ours, too; each Dine child has both female and stable male role models within its family..
It does require extended families that live near to one another, and thus it would be hard pressed to work in a culture like ours, where people routinely move far away from all their close relatives for the sake of careers.
Looking forward to this series. I’ve read a little about Situationism and came away entirely unimpressed by all the pompous sloganeering I encountered, but I’m open to the idea of salvaging something from it.
“No matter what kind of situation you’re in, there are stories that echo it, and also stories that contradict it. You can usually count on finding a story that offers good advice, but you have to pay attention to circumstances and choose the right story.”
That reminded me of the style favoured in policy discussions by Ming China’s Confucian bureaucracy, as described by Ray Huang: they would often advocate for one course of action or another by drawing on examples from Chinese history. Chinese history being millennia long by then and written up by countless acclaimed historians, there was no shortage of historical anecdotes that could be cited to favour practically any policy position (paying tribute to nomads or waging war against them; appointing generals from the military ranks or from among educated officials; and so on… any choice is backed up by historical classics).
I’m as far from them culturally as from Confucianism, but I understand that a similar approach is popular in the more fundamentalist sects of Abrahamic religions: the holy scripture has no shortage of quotes that could be fitted to situations as required. References to histories or scripture can either present stories directly or hint at them through shared cultural knowledge. Either way, it sets a story: things will go now as they supposedly did then, so long as (or unless) we follow the same course. Of course, historical narratives have scarcely less power today, the endless parade of Adolf Hitlers and Neville Chamberlains being the most obvious example.
Jennifer Kobernik @ 22, What a robust institution of marriage requires is economic stability. Which neither of the two dominant economic ideologies, Marxism and free market unregulated capitalism, are capable of providing.
A large number of new entrepreneurs seem to be women. I am seeing woman owned small businesses everywhere, often run on shoestrings, even on a cash basis, no sitting at home and whining because the bank won’t loan them money for these gals. It is a lot more fun baking cakes, growing flowers or crafting jewelry than being somebody’s executive assistant.
This discussion of the power of narratives helps make sense of another odd mystery in Canadian politics: the extremely small number of people outside of specialized fields (such as lawyers advising technology companies) who are talking about bills C2 and C8, and why most of the opposition to the bills are trying to tie them to Trump, despite the absurdities required. These two bills will effectively destroy what remains of our civil liberties in Canada; and the notion that it is the Liberals pushing it, not Trump, cannot occur in a framework in which all actions must be being driven by a single person.
Gonna do some bug fixin’
>One is quite simply that he’s spinning the illusion of giving the American people things that a large majority of them want very badly
FTFY.
Like many Republicans, he’s good at striking poses, terrible at getting anything done. Did you know that there were MORE deportations during the BushClinton Era than now? He’s hoping you don’t notice, just like he wants the Epstein stuff to go away.
>democracy’s already collapsed, due to the usual mechanisms of pedoligarchic capture
FTFY
It’s not just oligarchy or bribery, it’s blackmail too. It’s definitely corruption however you look at it. And all the younguns can see it.
Isaac, I’ve stayed away from A Thousand Plateaus because it has a reputation for causing psychotic breaks in people who study it took closely. I’ve been reviewing The Society of the Spectacle, but also Vaneigem’s The Revolution of Everyday Life and a good anthology of Situationist essays and position papers; it should be a fun journey.
Phutatorius, watch the movie or read the novel! As for the Thompson piece, I hadn’t encountered that yet, but yeah, that looks like classic Thompson. He pulls no punches.
Erika, I’d need a director, a manager, and actors who could take some very rough ideas, flesh them out, and do something original with them. My sole experience with the realities of theatrical production was a few minor roles in junior high school drama class. That said, if it happens, I’m open to it — I’ve been down weird roads before and they always lead someplace worth going.
Elizabeth, the problem with that as a 5th Wednesday topic is that I’d have to read a few of the current crop of bestselling romances, and I’d rather gargle sudsing ammonia! I don’t think my late wife ever encountered Krentz, more’s the pity.
Jennifer, duly noted. As for Venetia, I can think of many worse ways to spend a few hours!
Daniil, that’s exactly why a classical education is so useful to a governing class. If they’ve got plenty of traditional narratives on hand, whether those are from the Confucian classics or the Greek ones, the products of that system are more likely to make good choices than the products of a “relevant” education that crams them full of a single fashionable narrative in endless rehashed forms.
Moose, true enough.
Other Owen, sure, if you insist on defining democracy as an abstract utopian category and comparing Trump unfavorably to your particular political wet dream, you could make both those arguments. It’s exactly that kind of fetishization of the unattainable that got us into the current mess, and leads to what Vico calls the barbarism of reflection — the violent partisan insanity that brings nations crashing down. There are alternatives, you know.
>Science is ultimately just another way of storytelling — it has special rules in its stories
The real innovation was what I call the Story Factory – with math you can capture a whole bunch of stories in one line of symbols. The history of science has been going on an equation hunt, nailing portions of reality down with those equations. The final goal is to capture everything, all of reality in one very special line of symbols, the so-called Theory of Everything.
Cynically, I think they already did that with the Principle of Least Action, dS = 0.
And I would repeat Monty Python – “It’s only a model”
“Erika, I’d need a director, a manager, and actors who could take some very rough ideas, flesh them out, and do something original with them. My sole experience with the realities of theatrical production was a few minor roles in junior high school drama class. That said, if it happens, I’m open to it — I’ve been down weird roads before and they always lead someplace worth going.”
—
GOOD.
(you are so much FUN and becoming even more so.)
x
>It’s exactly that kind of fetishization of the unattainable
Oh, he’s an improvement over the alternatives. You talk about stories – there are no heroes in this story. I’m curious though, if most politicians are blackmailed, can you still call it democracy? Why?
I started reading romance novels in the early 1970s, when Barbara Cartland’s stories were popular, and read them into the early 1990s or so. Even in that short period of time, they changed in a direction I didn’t care for, early versions of the dynamic you highlight in the post.
I’m also looking forward to learning about Situationism and its potential relevance to addressing our current situation. I went to college in the 1970s but never heard a word about it – but then I didn’t take the kind of courses in which it might have been brought up. What publications about urban design are you referring to in which its influence was positive?
Dear Subotai at #8,
I have young adults still living at home, this is the advice I give them. I do not think there is anywhere in the world that will not have effects from current events-our cousins in Africa are very profoundly tied to the globalized economy even now, and affected by governmental shenanigans in other countries as well as their own. Having climbed less high up the consumption ladder they have less far to fall, but assuming you are used to USA-type goods and services you would simply take a large jump down at once then continue the slow decline by moving to such a location.
My advice is to find a specific location, not too urban-you want local production of food to be possible for the population within walking distance, and not too rural-rural is very insular and currently has few work options, then plant yourself there, dig in deep, work hard, volunteer with local organizations, become a known and reliable contributer to your neighbors. If you are an entreprenrureal type being a known quality will serve you well, if you prefer to work for someone else it will get you hired in businesses too small for computer-based hiring. If you’re already in such a spot and known as someone with a good family reputation you have it made: don’t blow the reputation and you’ll be called on for whatever needs doing. Keep your expenses as low as you can and charge fairly for your labor. Don’t try to tell people what to do if they are not your employees and didn’t ask until you’ve worked with them some years. Maybe your vision for how the volunteer park clean up and pancake breakfast should work would be objectively better, but they have a system that works and coming in trying to change things triggers hostility and rejection of you as well as your ideas. If you’re from an area with a bad reputation in an area you move to, note the stereotypes and deliberately do the opposite (Californians locally to me, for ex, are stereotyped as demanding government services and trying to control their neighbors’ actions on their own property, while trying to impose government allowence for public noxious behavior on the common property).
Mostly think about what kind of person you would want to call if you needed someone to show up and do a task for pay, then be that person. Being known to be reliable and hard working will serve you better in a downsliding economy than anything else you can do.
If you tell people that the only alternative to your awful political platform is Lord Orangeymort, guess who they’re going to side with? (Hint: it won’t be you.)
Also, I found your analysis of women’s smut novels very cogent. Plenty of concern and criticism has been (rightfully) heaped on the male fixation with pornography, but almost nothing has been said about the smut novels, even though they serve the same purpose. Women often read such novels out in the open in public and discuss them with others online and in person, and this behavior is normalized. If men behaved the same way in public with pornography, things would be handled a lot differently…
Another Heyer novel I love is “A Civil Contract,” which deconstructs the Romantic Heroine with a very sharp knife. But, yes, Venetia is utterly delightful!
Off topic, but the portrait of Venetia’s younger brother is also delightful, exasperating as he can be – she accepts him as he is, unlike the designated Good Guy.
Mary Bennet,
I actually think the issues preventing a robust institution of marriage are deeper and more numerous than economic instability, but certainly economic instability hasn’t helped! Nor will I argue that either political party is offering up anything notably efficacious in that regard.
Entrepreneurship has its downsides, but it has worked out very well for our family while allowing both my husband and I to be at home with our kids much of the time. I certainly wouldn’t trade it for employment, but my work history is admittedly rather uninspiring, including retail, a brief stint as a secretary (my boss was at least gay, a notable advantage compared to some of my friends’ lecherous superiors!), a nurse’s aide in a nursing home (which I quit in protest after being told to forge documentation that we’d actually fed the residents), and a bonded contract babysitter for diplomats and celebrities in fancy hotels and venues. I am grateful every day that my economic interactions are now confined primarily to cattle!
P.S. I believe I have been leaving the terminal “t” off your surname is previous weeks’ replies, for which I apologize.
JMG, I would like to read about alternatives to violent partisan insanity. I think Other Owen had a true and valid point, that politics appears to be the last refuge of not just scoundrels but functional incompetents as well. Immigration is a good example. Voters thought they were getting an end to illegal migration into our country; what we did get was performative cruelty inflicted on the most obvious targets, with cameras rolling. Meanwhile the real criminals, the drug and people traffickers are no doubt in hiding, laughing their heads off. There have been NO indictments, much less prosecutions of employers who pay less than minimum wage. I hope this commentariat does understand how the hiring of migrant semi (if that) qualified “jacks of all trades”, masters of none, hurts reputable businesses. When did we see ICE vans in, oh, the Hamptons, rounding up maids and gardeners? Oh, right, never.
Other Owen, that is, “it’s only a story.”
Erika, duly noted!
Other Owen, a representative democracy is a political system in which formal power is conferred on elected officials. That definition says nothing about how honest the officials are (hint: they generally aren’t), or for that matter how honest the elections are (hint: they generally aren’t). It’s purely a description of the mechanism by which formal power is assigned and exercised. If you come back with, “But that’s not real democracy,” that just shows that you’re pitching abstract utopian fantasies rather than discussing a system of government in the real world.
SLClaire, oh, the Situationists didn’t publish in mainstream urban design publications — quite the contrary. They had their own journals, which perched on an unsteady fusion of avant-garde art, psychogeographical criticism, and radical politics.
Nephite, exactly. The sheer crass sleaziness of a lot of current romance novels rivals that of the grubbiest pornography, and yet most women insist that it’s just harmless entertainment — which is of course what most men said about pornography up until the 1970s.
Patricia M, to my mind A Civil Contract is among her best — I don’t enjoy it quite so much as some of the others, but it’s a tour de force of cliché-busting. As for the designated Good Guy in Venetia, Sara always used to refer to him as “the Turnip.” We both wondered, for that matter, whether the name of his manor — Netherfold — was as off-color in Heyer’s imagination as it seemed to us…
Mary, that is to say, you’re outraged at the Orange One because he isn’t pursuing the policies you think he should be pursuing. That’s certainly your right — but I’d suggest that his administration is walking a very narrow line between those of his supporters who think he’s doing too little and those who think he’s doing too much. Meanwhile the crucial activities are going on in private, in grand juries well outside of Washington DC and in changes in funding and policy that are cutting off the corporate mechanisms for mass importation of illegal immigrants.
Every time I hear the word narrative, I reach for my Browning.
Another banger of a post from JMG. We touched upon a few of these themes when our favorite Archdruid appeared on our podcast: https://www.notesfromtheendofti.me/p/eurabiamania-117-the-end-is-nigh
One of the big narratives that still have an outsize grip on the American psyche is the Austrian Painter. 80 years after Der Führer’s passing, he’s still the go-to insult you sling at every opponent. Every geopolitical conflict is a war with LITERALLY HITLER. Every political election is a Manichaean struggle between the forces of Democracy and Freedom against ACTUAL NAZIS who are only a few steps away from sending their opponents into the gas chambers. And, of course, you have a small but loud coterie of people who want to emulate the caricatured cartoon Nazis that never existed outside of Hollywood films. There have been lots and lots of tyrants throughout history, yet for some reason Uncle Adolf has become the bugbear of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Another Great American Bugbear is Jim Crow. Yes, racism still exists in America, but hardly on the same scope as in 1885 or 1955. America is more integrated than it has ever been, and the Ku Klux Klan hasn’t had any kind of real political or social power for several decades. But a whole cottage industry has grown up to wage war against “White Supremacy” and the largely impoverished White folks who still cling to it. White Supremacy, in fact, is the only reason they voted for Orange Hitler instead of the party that openly despises them.
LGBTQ+ activists went especially hard on the Jim Crow narrative, and decided that anybody who criticized things like trans women in women’s prisons or Drag Queen Story Hours was just a hateful bigot who wanted to lynch them. They spent years engaging in this kind of provocative behavior simply so they could have persecutors. (It’s telling that this shift happened not long after gay marriage, when it became increasingly difficult to convince prosperous gay men that they were an endangered and hated minority — and to get donations for gay activist organizations).
For the record, I am neither a Hitler fan nor a Segregationist, though I’ve been accused of both. I have no particular problem with what consenting adults do to or with each other, though I think both “consenting” and “adult” are non-negotiable. I simply question how much these narratives apply to our current situation, and think they’ve done far more harm than good.
Looking forward to the next post in this series. Those narratives are teetering at this point and the danger-haired wokescolds are becoming about as relevant in the mid 2020s as hippies were in the mid 1970s. I’ll be happy to learn some Situationist tactics on narrative-hijacking.
Jennifer Kobernik, I think will discard the terminal ‘t’ on my user name, not my real name, but a minor character from a famous novel, so no apologies are necessary. Thank you for your thoughtful response and best wishes for success in your family’s entrepreneurial endeavors.
Hooray for Jane Austen & Georgette Heyer! Every so often, I try finding some other romance authors I’ll enjoy as much as them, but it never really works. Good thing they were sufficiently prolific, and with good readability.
Not sure if you’ve read “We Have Never Been Woke” (https://bookshop.org/p/books/we-have-never-been-woke-the-cultural-contradictions-of-a-new-elite-musa-al-gharbi/21362385?ean=9780691232607&next=t), but I’d like to recommend it. I enjoyed the sociological insights into the perplexing behaviors of my PMC friends over the last few years, and it’s pleasantly non-screed-y, especially for a book with the word “woke” in the title. And it gives an interesting take on why the Democratic party has grown so far out of touch with so much of the country.
Anyway, thanks for another interesting post. I look forward to the next one you mentioned.
Having read the comments (and sorry I can’t figure out how to get line breaks to appear):
– Re smut for women: growing up evangelical Christian, the romance novels in our house were all by Grace Livingston Hill. There were no sex scenes, but many / most of them involved the virtuous woman ultimately converting the previously non-born-again man. So, the same emotional porn, but with a missionary dating twist which apparently redeemed it sufficiently for my parents.
– Re guys not watching & discussing porn publicly: I think this has changed, or perhaps varies by context, location, &/or age group. I’ve seen a few guys watching porn on mass transit over the past decade, and not always using headphones. In colleges, if you sit toward the back, I understand it’s not uncommon to see porn playing on a student’s smartphone screen or two. And my college classmates (back in 1999-2003) were definitely discussing & recommending publicly, though admittedly the college was extremely male-heavy as an engineering school (my class of 24 people had 2 women).
“Meanwhile they spurn and ridicule men who don’t look like romance-novel heroes, and then complain bitterly because those same men don’t want to date them.”
I have a good friend in his late 30s who has completely given up on dating more than once a year because he feels he cannot match that expectation. It is a shame because it is a silly desire for others to have.
Reminds me of this little comic. The fact is no matter how much a Rhino could train, they can never be a unicorn. It is a unachievable goal.
https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.797554889.2584/flat,750x,075,f-pad,750×1000,f8f8f8.u2.jpg
As for Trump, yep, 100% agree. I have mentioned before that an issue had with MAGA is that a lot of it does ride on Trumps ability to catalyse the movement, but it isnt just him, he is the last salt crystal in the science experiment. All the right conditions can be there but if those that come after take it for granted, they can disillusion folks.
I do suspect that when the Rebublicans lose next, when ever that is, it is most likely because they fumble rather than facing a decent alternative. I hope not because that is a grim situation.
I’ve read romance since my teens. I’m 65 now.
It has changed A LOT. You can buy hardcore pornography at the supermarket.
No matter how lurid a novel was (“Love Me, Marietta” a classic! or “Sweet, Savage Love” or “The Flame and the Flower”) it did not descend into the idiocies that you get today.
Indie writing and the internet probably spurred much of it. Anyone here remember Ellora’s Cave, which published all kinds of women writers, all romance of all kinds, predating Amazon?
I think this is where Happy Ever After broadened to include groups in which gender and species were unimportant. Love is Love, you know? Even if that love includes an orc, a dragon shifter, Bigfoot, and sea-monster.
In ye olden days, you’d NEVER see dark bully reverse harems (wildly popular!) in which our rather average heroine is passionately adored by a large group of men (or beings) whom she services. She’s their sole outlet and they’re happy with it. They get along beautifully, even doing the housekeeping, depending on whose book you’re reading. Now, they’re everywhere.
It really IS different.
Another weird mentality I see is that if the odds are one in a million, then I’m guaranteed the win!
Proving that we really do need to teach statistics better.
I read a little bit about Situationism and yes, I can see that this is very relevant here. “On the Poverty of Student Life”… some of it sounds as if it has been written by a previous incarnation of you (have you? 😉 ). And then there’s Guerilla communication… “Isn’t the best act of subversion to misrepresent codes instead of destroying them?” (my translation) – that does stir memories to certain essays of yours dealing with some basement dwelling individuals who may already have had much more influence on your elections than the Russians will ever achieve. Hmm… I’m looking forward to reading what you have to say about it!
The above quote nicely sums up the art of meme-fu (or narrative-fu in a broader sense, or could I even say magic?). If you accept the astral as an objective reality with it’s own natural laws which rest on the same foundation as the laws of the material plane, it becomes clear that you can’t just change a narrative or your position relative to a narrative because everything has it’s astral equivalent to material inertia.
Cheers,
Nachtgurke
Dear JMG,
I believe the magazine from the ’00s, Ad Busters, was Situationilism philosophy based. I use to buy the magazine every month at the bookstore. It was anti multinational corps / WTO / globalism (but not in a woke or anti-racism way bcz that wasn’t a thing yet). It was very professional made, and they were making memes before they were ever a thing on the internet. Once the Great Awokening started around ’12, and White men became evil incarnate, they folded (plus magazines in general folded w the internet). I’m pretty sure it came out of Quebec. Good times reading it cover to cover each month.
No, JMG, I don’t expect the Orange Menace or his following to consult me about policy or anything else. Several points:
1. I don’t like incompetence. In anyone, especially folks who aspire to be in charge. I can remember a time when one knew that Republican leadership were capable people. I might not have agreed on every point with the likes of Bob Dole or Charles Percy or Mark Hatfield, but they and many other Republicans had earned my respect. Senator Dole was arguably the best Majority Leader in my lifetime.
2. I believe I have every right to object to performative cruelty being carried out in my name. I equally object to money and materiel being sent to Ukraine and Israel in my name, by any of the recent presidents.
3. What I see so far from this admin is same old same old favoritism for rich people. Such as HB-1 visas for Elon and no rich witch has to mop her own floors because the illegally in our country maid got deported. Yes, I do find this objectionable.
As for “the crucial activities are going on in private, in grand juries well outside of Washington DC and in changes in funding and policy that are cutting off the corporate mechanisms for mass importation of illegal immigrants.” If you say so. Where is that being reported? I can remember when Obama was “playing 11-dimensional chess” when in reality he was likely wondering why didn’t someone tell me it was going to be this complicated.
Once again, you have me looking forward to your future posts.
Yes, in the beginning was the narrative.
If I spent more time writing, I’d continue campaigning for changing our specie’s name to Homo Narrativus
https://cluelesshonky.blogspot.com/2021/08/homo-narrativus-our-species-present.html
‘Our species’ present name, “Homo sapiens” (“Wise Hominid”), is more than a little misleading. “Homo narrativus” (“Hominid of Narrative”) is dramatically more appropriate.’
Thanks again.
Perhaps I am not reading the comments closely enough to pick up on the subtext, but I have never seen a true “meltdown” here on account of the contents of your posts. What I have noticed though is an increase in your assertion that what is about to follow will cause one. There was (in my opinion) not a thing controversial about your description of male/female porn and its consequences. There was nothing new in your views that the Democrats are rudderless and Trump is doing something and is the inevitable result of every can we’ve kicked down the road to now. What I have noticed, for my self, is that this rhetoric puts a chill on my enjoyment of your posts. The tone implies that those who dare disagree with your views are irrational and will be crushed by your superior insight, so don’t even try it. Your insights are valuable, often superior! They have helped me navigate this world and validated and reinforced what I have discovered on my own. But I do not understand the necessity of your posturing here and in other posts. Why anticipate conflict? Why forestall dissent?
Thank you for introducing Heyer. I will look into her novels.
BoysMom #41, thank you for this inspiring advice which I found useful for anyone at any age.
Mayr Bennet #45, thank you for your observations and questions about the state of migration in the United States.
The whole idea of the MonoMyth also, I think, shows up in discussions of various technologies. I’ve started learning how to work with electrical equipment, and at have decided I really ought to learn more about electric cars. This has proven very frustrating, because it now means I can end up in fights with both proponents and opponents of the technology, sometimes at the same time (as happened today)!
At this point, my views on them are that both the supporters and opponents of the technology are right: they are simultaneously an obvious improvement over the standard internal combustion engine (ICE), and an obviously worse technology. It depends on how they are being used, and crucially where. There are three major variables, but two of them tie together. The first variable is the reliability of the electrical grid. In areas where the grid is reliable, which chiefly means cities, electric cars can work great; while in areas where the grid is unreliable, an ICE is preferable because it is more reliable, and electricity generation is one of those things which works much better at a large scale. Even in areas where the electricity is reliable, though, the answer to which is preferable is “it depends”.
The second variable is the range: the further the vehicle needs to be able to travel, the more battery capacity it needs. This has various knock off effects, but the most important problem this introduces are it rules out a lot of battery technologies which work wonders for storing smaller amounts of energy, but cannot be scaled up to the scale needed for a range of 100 miles, let alone 250 or even more. Larger batteries also store more energy, which means if they do discharge it quickly by, for example, catching fire, then the ensuing mess is a lot worse. Finally, because a large battery is quite heavy, higher range means the motor needs to be do more work, which reduces the efficiency. All of this together means that vehicles which aim to compete with ICE with regards to range need a lot more battery capacity than those which do not, but because so many proponents of electric cars are trying to prove their cars are superior, there is a push to try to match the range of ICE vehicles, which makes these far more dangerous, expensive, and inefficient due to design constraints on the batteries.
This also ties into the third major variable: charging speeds. I know someone who has an electric car which gets plugged in to a standard outlet when he gets home from work, charges until he needs to go somewhere, and this works just fine. Since he almost never drives more than 30 miles a day and never more than 50, this provides enough power for him to be able to get by without any issues at all. Two issues that emerge with charging speed is that the faster the vehicles charge the more of the energy is waste, and the second is that there are extra complications that come with faster power draw. Even ignoring that the cars are far less efficient, an extra 1.5 kilowatt of electricity (which is roughly what the standard outlet draws) sustained overnight is a lot easier for the grid to deal with than the hundreds of kilowatts that many of the fast chargers use because even though in theory those charging times could be tiny fractions of what they are from standard outlets, the momentary demands are much higher.
There are various other variables, and I’d be happy to discuss this further, but in general, ICE are far superior for larger vehicles or anything involving traveling great distances; while electric cars work best in small vehicles traveling smaller distances (say, less than 50 miles a day as a very rough ballpark figure). If they are designed with those limitations in mind, then most of the drawbacks that they currently suffer from would either not exist or be far more manageable; but at this point this is no longer a replacement for the typical car, but a different technology with its own distinctive strengths and drawbacks.
I think the massive advantages from things such as less air and noise pollution would, in urban areas, make even these fairly limited electric cars an obvious improvement over ICE (as well as the fact that electric cars do a lot better with the common stop-and-go traffic in many urban areas); while at the same time they make absolutely no sense at all in more rural and suburban areas, nor for long distance travel.
However, as long as proponents of electric cars remain caught in the trap of thinking of them as cars, they are unable to see the true advantages and push for the cars where they make sense: and also to make them in a fashion which makes a lot more sense than trying to make them in the image of the ICE vehicles.
Very interesting essay JMG and an interesting case of synchronicity. I read The Society of the Spectacle when I was an undergraduate. From what I remember there were observations that seem even more appropriate to the current climate than then, though the language at times was turgid. I have largely forgotten about it until recently when it has popped up in different contexts, including yours. I look forward to your comments.
@WatchFlinger #47, are you reaching for a firearm, or a poetry book?
A very thought provoking post, thank you JMG! The collapse of so many narratives in my 69 years has been breathtaking. One that fell hard here in Canada was the one of a competently run country, so much better than the colossus to the south. J.T. killed that one. We now have the honour of being just as much messed up as our neighbour, just in different way
“As for LLMs (“AI”), the latest Fortune article on that indicates that no fewer than 95% of all corporate attempts to use LLMs have made no money at all”
There appears to be a 5% error of margin on that. 😉
Regarding the talk of Canadian politics here. From what I can tell, from the opposite side of the planet, the last election wasn’t a vote for Carney but a vote against the opposition. This leads to a short term win but a long term loss and people just get sick and tired of their rhetoric and actions and resentment grows. Many had a sense of relief but are now awaking from the hangover and realised that they are still in the pressure cooker.
As we are talking myth/narratives. It is possible to succeed short term without a story but those that can inspire via myths of the future, they are the ones that have longevity.
Part of why I like Solarpunk, even with all its flaws and occasionally completely hopeless belief of techno-progress; those usually get put in their place thankfully. At least they are trying to make stories of a future that people can aim at. Those that enact it in the real world show it in all the messy and gritty details of reality and set expectations realistically. That is a wonderful thing.
The good thing is that narratives that are destructive in the long run or are in direct conflict with reality always fall victim to the march of time.
If there are two countries next to each other and one believes in early marriage and having lots of children, while the other has the dating, marriage and childbirth problems of current American culture their is only one way that rivalry will turn out over time.
The same thing is happening in the short term with the Democratic Party. If your only policy is opposing everything done by the orange man, whether it is popular and constructive or not than they doom themselves to oblivion.
Kenan FIlaz,
I’m not worried about the average American. They seem to be non-racist and well integrated with each other.
I’m worried about the American youth, since that represents the future of America. And Gen Z white youths of America seem to be a lot more outright white nationalist, racist, anti-Semitic, and openly Nazi than the generations that preceded them, largely as a reaction to all the anti-white woke stuff being thrown at them, as well as Israel.
America might be well integrated now but keep in mind it’s the most prosperous empire in the world right now. When America’s empire collapses, will America still be as well integrated racially as right now? Every other empire that has collapsed in the past 100 years has seen some ethnic / racial warfare, population exchanges, genocide, et cetera. Why do you think that America will be an exception?
There seems to be a form of the myth of progress happening here, the myth of racial progress. That America has put its racist past behind itself and progressed beyond it. But that is all due to the civil rights movement and the federal and corporate bureaucracies that arose from the civil rights movement to enforce all of this in the American population. John Michael Greer believes that these managerial bureaucracies are going to be taken down by the rising entrepreneurial elites. Without these managers acting as enforcers of the ideologies, why do you believe that America will continue acting with its current norm of non-racism, as opposed to returning to its historical norms of open normalized racism and white and black hostility towards each other?
> Back in the first few years of my blogging career, I used to rile up the more scientifically minded members of the peak oil community by commenting on the importance of myths in modern thinking. Every time I did that, I’d field outraged comments from people insisting at the top of their lungs that they didn’t believe in myths—no, they believed only in facts!
The 2000’s saw the rise and peak of the New Atheist phenomenon. Those people insisted that we believe in “science” now, and not “myths”, where myths = old superstitions invented by people who didn’t know better, as opposed to what myths really are, which are stories – fictional, factual, or usually a mix of both, that a culture uses to explain itself.
Of course, the New Atheists didn’t invent this idea – it was a couple hundred years old at this point, but perhaps that’s when it peaked in popular consciousness. The insistence that we’re a scientific civilization where only facts mattered, among other things, made subjects like history, religion, and literature completely boring. Because then it’s all about memorizing a bunch of random factoids like dates and names of places and of characters, and maybe in college your professor imposing THEIR preferred narrative on it. Sorry, I meant engaging in literary and historic criticism… please give me a good grade, I need to preserve my 3.8 GPA for graduation!!!
I remember specifically lessons in school about the Book of Jonah and all the focus was whether what ate Jonah was a fish or a whale, or whether it was really possible to live inside one for three days. Which, of course, totally missed the point! The more religiously minded teachers would make it about (dis)obedience to God; nobody ever got to _why_ Jonah refused the mission in the first place. He wasn’t afraid that he’d fail, but he was afraid that he’d _succeed_ and the Ninevites would repent (which they did), when what he wanted was for God to kick the Ninevite’s butts. Now, THAT would be an uncomfortable moral for our contemporary culture!
I know you don’t watch TV, but I thought I’d mention Mythbusters, one of my favorite programs and perhaps the last great pop science TV show. The premise of the show is replicating stuff from folklore – everything from old sayings to urban legends to Hollywood movie cliches and then in the latter episodes, internet memes – and judge whether the “myth” was physically possible (“confirmed”) or not (“busted”) or could happen under a set of very specific circumstances that they are unable to reproduce (“plausible”). They even had a folklorist on the show early on to explain the possible origins of the myth, which they later dropped in favor of focusing on the spectacle of building and then deploying their elaborate contraptions. The title is very much a product of its time, and in my opinion very unfortunate, as it assumes that myths are “busted” by default. The show should have been called “Mythtesters”; the opening intro even says “They don’t just tell the myths, they put them to the test.”
Just as a side note, perhaps one of my favorite Mythbusters myths was on an early episode where they “tested” the phrase “like a bull in a china shop” to see what happens if you actually put a bunch of them next to densely packed shelves of fine china. The “myth” was “busted”, the bulls knocked over one shelf in the beginning, but then quickly adapted and started daintily strutting back-and-forth around the shelves carefully avoiding hitting any of them. It was quite the fun watch.
There’s a tweet by @turrible_tao that I can’t find now that sums up the situation between the Democrats and Trump pretty succinctly: “When you throw the mandate of heaven in the trash, don’t be surprised when the trash succeeds in a coup against you.”
It’s a very timely post. The shrill of certain narratives is getting louder and louder, together with a concomitant shrill “la la la can’t hear you,” as the bottom is cratering under us. The mismatch between assumptions and reality is usually resolved through suffering. That’s why the hero’s journey is commonly that of an idealistic young person going through life while being disabused of their ideas in a very painful way. That’s also why it’s not a bad strategy “throwing up … hands and deciding to stop expecting things to make sense, just muddle through,” as Patricia Mathew suggested last week. The same holds true for society at large. That’s why the best politicians are the ones who just know what to do right here, right now, regardless of the blah-blah-blah of their political campaigns. The ideologues are the worst.
The narratives will change. As the industrial society unwinds, online porn, silicone D cups, and penile implants will get out of reach for most people. Muscular strength will go up in value; the ability to cook from scratch and mend clothing will become a non-negotiable necessity; and men and women will reacquaint with each other as they are.
There will be no resources to fight “invasive species,” and they will make themselves comfortable in their new homes. Funny how the narrative switches. If it’s new gadgets, yeah… progress; if it’s new species, neah… invasion.
“LLM bubble will pop catastrophically, the current high-flying tech-bros will be humbled” – one would hope. In the meantime, I found one good use for LLM. When dealing with government bureaucracy, sometimes one has to write a lot of hogwash. I was recently in such a situation. I stared at my assignment for hours. I remembered my childhood when I had to write essays on Brezhnev’s memoirs. I felt lost. And then it dawned on me – LLM to the rescue! Boom… and it was written and submitted. Nobody complained. I guess they didn’t waste their lives reading it. I just muddled through. Check.
Thanks for writing this post, JMG!
I can’t wait to read the next post about Situationism. I came across a few short Situationist pieces while living in Berkeley in the early 1970s. I couldn’t make anything of it, but it seemed important.
About a week ago my spam filter got updated. I had been getting twenty spam email a day. My email handle gives no indication of my sex. Nearly a third of the spam I received had headings about how to get my penis Really Long and Really Hard so I could Ram it into women and keep them Crying for More.
As to whether there are ever new stories, I’m reading a book by Jonathan Kirsch called God Against the Gods
. He makes a good case that the Maccabees, during their rebellion against an unusually intolerant Hellenist king, invented the narrative of being a martyr for one’s God. This particular motivation for extreme bravery later became the model for persecuted Christians in Imperial Rome..
Gather around everyone, it’s story time with ‘Uncle JMG’ – yay! Who can resist? (Sorry, I just couldn’t resist myself)
I’m sure that this week’s post will cause a lot of sparks to fly. I hope not literally: with so much of our forests in North America being dowsed with inflammable glyphosate these days, I wouldn’t want the commentariat to be responsible for an inferno! (Even though, in Canada, the sentence for arson in a forest is a slap on the wrist, but that’s another story entirely…)
Quite the lively romp of an essay, JMG. As of late I have been suffering from ‘America envy (“popular support for the Democratic Party has fallen to historically low levels and is still dropping” – how I wish this was true in Canada as well – but, of course, Canada is to be the ‘anti-America’ which kowtows to Britain and Europe and its jaw-dropping authoritarianism wherein right-leaning parties or politicians are outright arrested or made illegal because they have the ‘wrong views’). As for the treatment of porn vs raunchy novels – this is about as much a double-standard as declaring that only Whites can be racist or that only Christians should be prosecuted.
Sadly, the “narrative of Fighting the Bad Person” infected Canadian politics big-time during the Freedom Convoy (the ‘Frack Trudeau’ flags and signs were everywhere) and later the political crisis at the end of 2024 in which nearly every Canadian was thinking ‘Frack Trudeau’. The solution was simple: substitute the WEF Clown with a WEF Evil Genius who was able to channel the built-up frustration and hatred to focus on The Orange One. And now we are paying the price in spades. Sigh…
You’ve certainly piqued my interest with your teaser about Situationism. Personally, I have found that memes have been an extremely effective tool for piercing rhetorical haze, though due to its simple messaging it has not been effective in exposing the complex intersection of warring political factions in contemporary Western democracies. It’ll be interesting to see how and why Situationism can boldly go where no meme can.
Walt @ 62: Everyone except Zen teachers know where that comes from; are you a Zen teacher?
JMG,
I read a lot of self-published gay romance and it’s great. I recommend Borrowing Blue by Lucy Lennox for someone looking to dip their toe in. There’s a wide variety out there but authors like Lucy write balanced and loving, communicative and sensual relationships between equals.
The only thing unbelievable about Lucy’s work is that she herself is upper-middle class in the US and writes from that perspective. Her characters can sometimes come from humble origins but overall they tend to have the kind of economic stability I can’t imagine because I’ve never experienced it. Characters who become veterinarians or dentists. Characters who can afford rent in Berkley!
So if anyone wants to read contemporary romance that’s healthy and kind, step off the beaten path and go try something like Borrowing Blue by Lucy Lennox.
I read in one of the Seth books by Jane Roberts that: “Humans are story telling creatures.” and that “Myths are the stories by which we turn our animal impulses into culture.”
While I enjoy reading fairy tales (for myself and to my children), I feel inept and self-conscious when trying to tell them rather than read them. Anyone have any advice on becoming a better storyteller?
@Brandi #59
Your assertion that our hosts ” warm up” warnings about his coming comment reminds me of a kind of narrative and behavior that I have experienced unfolding over the entirety of my life.
I have seen the world of intellectual and political discussion go from one of rough and tumble discourse to one in which feelings and perceptions take on more importance than the content of ones argument. I think that this is one of the things that has destroyed the American educational system. We have become obsessed with everyone feeling good and not being confronted with anything that conflicts with ones built up internal narrative.
When I went to engineering school many of my professors were cranky ranting old coots who had seen their time in the Manhattan Project, or Apollo program. They cared not a whit if what they said offended or triggered their students. We didn’t spend our time worrying about posturing or if they were looking down on us. We learned what they taught us or we flunked. And we went on to build the world.
If we are to survive the future we need more of that and less time spent worrying about if what we are reading makes us feel good.
WatchFlinger, so noted. Me, I tend to reach for Yeats or Eliot instead, but to each their own.
Kenaz, thanks for this. It’s a very revealing sign, I think, when people insist obsessively that whatever they oppose is identical to the evilest evil that ever eviled; it shows that they aren’t comfortable talking about the actual issues.
Heather, no, I haven’t read that book yet — I should see if the local library system has a copy. Your line breaks are just fine, btw; for some reason they disappear from the preview. As for Grace Livingston Hill, good heavens — that’s a name I haven’t heard in ages. My late wife read some of her novels and had similar views to yours.
Michael, it’s a very silly goal, not least because expecting people to live up to some obviously fake standard like that is a great guarantee of misery and failure. I wonder how long it will take women to realize that.
Teresa, thanks for this perspective!
Nachtgurke, no, to the best of my knowledge I didn’t spend any of the 1950s and 1960s hanging out in smoke-filled student hangouts in Europe with the Situationists. On the other hand, I first read them back in the 1990s…
Karl, I had a very mixed reaction to AdBusters. I thought they did some very good work and some very flawed work.
Mary, there’s no 11-dimensional chess going on. I’m surprised that you missed hearing about the grand juries or the shutdown of funding for USAID and similar funding pipelines, though.
Chris, I like that! Still, my vote is for Homo blatteratus, “babbling hominid”.
Brandi, no, you haven’t seen them, because any attempted comment that doesn’t follow my courtesy policy gets deleted by me before anyone else sees it. In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t delete dissenting comments — there are several of them in this comment thread already, including yours. What I delete are tantrums, tirades, and fist-pounding, spit-slinging diatribes, and I do field quite a few of those. If being reminded of that fact chills your enjoyment of my posts, why, that’s ultimately your problem, not mine; as I’ve noted before, I write what I want to write, for those who want to read it, and if you object to what I’ve written, why, there are thousands upon thousands of other blogs out there.
Moose, that’s exactly the sort of nuanced discussion I wish we saw more of. If I drove, I’d almost certainly have a small electric city car — I live in cities by preference and would use a car to run errands that are too far or inconvenient for walking, which is my preferred local transport method — but for people who live outside cities, electric cars are essentially useless.
Belacqua, it’s been more than thirty years since I first read Debord’s book, and yeah, it’s more relevant now than it was then.
Raymond, these days hardly a day goes past without the echoing thud of another narrative hitting the ground!
Michael, no doubt!
Clay, granted. As I mentioned in last night’s podcast, I tend to think of reality as being like Orson Wells in his latter years, very obese, with a basso-profundo voice and a cigar in his hand, saying, “Eventually, they will have to come deal with me.”
Carlos, that’ll probably explain it. Mind you, I had plenty of fun with New Atheists, too. 😉
Slithy, ha! Yeah, that sums it up very nicely.
Inna, hmm. I wonder if it would be possible to start feeding LLMs large sections of Brezhnev’s memoirs, or equally memorable (sic) text, and see if that’ll bring the whole thing crashing down!
Deborah, how odd. For some reason I’ve stopped fielding penis spam here. These days it’s mostly cut-rate pharmaceuticals, cryptocurrency scams, and whole paragraphs in Russian. (Now I’m wondering if the latter are quotes from Brezhnev’s memoirs…)
Ron, thank you — I like telling stories, but prefer to do so in print. I hope Canada gets a clue before it gets seized and stripped of resources by the EU — if they can’t get Russia, you’re probably the next target.
Moonwolf8, hmm! Score one for a channelled entity.
Jennifer, most people get that reflex hammered into them in school. I find it helps to recite things while washing dishes or doing other routine chores — that makes the experience of telling stories aloud more familiar and so more comfortable.
I think we’ve been sharing the same bandwidth lately because my mind has been on the book Building a Better World in Your Backyard Instead of Being Angry at the Bad Guys by Paul Wheaton and Shawn Klassen-Koop. The premise of the book is to ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING instead of signing online petitions, running around yelling and waving signs, and developing ulcers about the wicked people ruining the world. Though the book has its flaws, the advice within it and the spirit it is written in are the only way to thrive in the decay of industrial civilization. In my most recent essay, I talk about building upon the positives you already do to save the environment instead of getting upset over what other people are doing or what you are not able to do at this time. When we tell ourselves the story that we can never be as good of an environmentalist as so-and-so, or that we have to move to a doomstead commune on the edge of civilization in order to save Earth, it is an excuse not to do anything at all. Looking at what we have already done and continuing down the same positive path is how we can change the story we tell ourselves. For instance, since I am already cooking most of my meals at home, I can give myself some small kudos for doing that and also add ingredients for homemade burritos I can wrap and freeze for later to my grocery list. It’s not a big deal, but my gentle self-encouragement when turned into practical planning will save me some time and money one day when I need a meal on the go and can reach in my freezer and get a nice, homemade burrito.
Oh my goodness! Look at what I missed out on by living my entire adult life in a non-Western country!
A friend was examining the reasons for the West’s passionate unreasoning hatred of Russia, and he brought up Russiagate. I told him the Democrats I know in my family have all along wanted very very badly to believe that story, because it fits their narrative, which completely blinds them to the reasons the Deplorables might have had for voting “against their own interests.”
Insightful essay, JMG! You frequently provide new insights like this. I’m looking forward to its continuation in two weeks. And I’ve got a nice nifty question thought up for next week, so I’ll jump in early this time.
“3. What I see so far from this admin is same old same old favoritism for rich people. Such as HB-1 visas for Elon and no rich witch has to mop her own floors because the illegally in our country maid got deported. Yes, I do find this objectionable.”
The key point Mary Bennet missed is that the H1-b program is a Legal way to bring in workers. The H2-a program is a Legal way to bring in agricultural workers. Letting every drug dealer bring in his or her backpack of fentanyl was a bad idea.
The other flaw with electric cars is winter, a point that the Californians can’t grasp. After all, they don’t live on Donner Pass. If you have to keep the car plugged in overnight to keep the battery warm enough to get you to work are you really saving energy?
As for cranky professors, one of mine said, “I’ve never had to fail a student, they have always done a perfectly good job of failing on their own.”
@JenniferK #74
I certainly can’t make a claim to expertise in the storytelling department and I have fallen out of the practice a bit with my own kids. This latest series of posts is reinspiring me to get back at it though.
In the past, with my two girls when they were around 4 and 6 I would tell them stories every night before bed. These stories included such things as Billy Goat’s Gruff, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, as well as multi-night epics such as The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, The Iliad, Beowulf.
I always picked stories I more or less knew and put my own spin on them. For something like the Iliad, which I hadn’t read in years when I sat down one night to start telling it to them I left out about 80% of the details of the story (it still took like ten nights). I took the major plot points out of the story and then I just filled in the gaps or skipped over the portions I couldn’t recall. When it comes to something kids will like such as the showdown between Hector and Achilles I don’t bother with any details from a source, I just told them my own made up version of the badass duel unto death between two exceptional men. They absolutely loved it!
I also like to stop and ask them what they think about things or why something played out the way it did. You can learn a great deal about how your kids actually think from that. I will always recall my oldest daughter telling me that Hector should just have returned Helen to Menelaus after he discovered she had come on the boat with Paris. ”
“But if he were to do that, Menelaus would almost certainly kill his brother Paris.”
“Yea, but the king and queen can just have another kid.” Pretty icy for a six year old!
I think you may have perfectly described why im so… bored. I feel like every conversation, every movie, every novel these days is so predictable – rehashes of the same stories over and over again. I can’t remember the last time something surprised me.
“Meanwhile they spurn and ridicule men who don’t look like romance-novel heroes, and then complain bitterly because those same men don’t want to date them.”
Yup. That sums it up perfectly.
————-
We just this evening had a discussion, prompted by the tiff at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) wherein they pulled, then reinstated a film about the 7 Oct ’23 massacre. A long while back you wrote about the problem of bringing disparate groups, some of which are incompatible, some antithetical, into the big tent of “social justice” and then engage in a ‘circular firing squad’. Popcorn isn’t just for movies, it’s for the evening news these days. You also wrote about the fate of Outremer, and that is unfolding, too, with its own inevitably bloody conclusion. 1187 all over again.
Watching the reality-challenged Republicans storming about, and reading the supposedly perspicatious commentators by turns tearing their hair out, or gleefully anticipating a violent overthrow of some sort (you pointed out back in ’16 that mockery of a man who doesn’t care is, like Epictatus said, like mocking a boulder — pointless, futile, and you end up looking very, very silly in those pink hats) and I cannot help but think of what you wrote about the morphology of history. Thus what I perceive is the modern version of the Greens versus the Blues as Rome sank into oblivion. Both sides are reality-challenged, and act like children, screaming when the world doesn’t go their way.
What is needed, and is sorely lacking at all levels, are actual adults. People who, as Seneca said, “Inwardly, we ought to be different in every respect, but our outward dress should blend in with the crowd.” Adults who push to modify society and promote ideas, not grown-ups with the emotions of a 10 year old who cannot distinguish between their wishful fantasies and reality. Unfortunately, until that happens, a lot of chaos will reign.
And I thank you once again for the clarity of thought that allows me to see the patterns and thus escape any emotional stress from the chaos.
@Jennifer Kobernik (#74) on story-telling:
When my brother and I were young and out for a long car-ride with our parents, my mother would keep us endlessly entertained with big-brother and little-brother stories. Very cleverly she would set a scene with the two of us, and then prod us to make up and tell some sort of story ourselves by asking suggestive questions like, “And what do you think big brother did next?” or “Did little brother make it out of the cave in time?” or “What do you think was in the pirate chest that the two brothers found?” Our childish imaginations did all the rest of the story-telling work for her. And in this way she got us to make up and tell endless stories to keep ourselves entertained throughout the long car ride. I, for one, have been telling stories ever since.
Much, much later I happened upon Albert Bates Lord’s wonderful book, The Singer of Tales. Lord went to Yugoslavia to study the (then) living Serbian tradition of illiterate traveling bards, informed by some insights by an earlier scholar on the half-line formulas that recur throughout the Homeric poems (likewise formerly sung by illiterate bards of Ancient Greece). He discovered that any given oral story such a Serbian bard told was told somewhat differently every time he told it. To be more specific, such a bard would re-create his tale in the very process of his telling it, and he would craft its details to suit the available time for the telling and the mood of the audience for his story in the tavern where he was telling it. The bard knew the outline of the particular tale he was telling (for example, King Marko and the Battle of Kosovo Field), and the sequence of episodes that comprised it. He also had a vast repertoire of traditional half-line formulae in bardic meter — like the Homeric poems originally, these bardic performances were in verse, and were sung to traditional tunes — which he skillfully deployed to give the audience the details he sensed they wanted to hear. Thus the tale of King Marko and the Battle of Kosovo Field could be compressed into a few hours in just one evening at the tavern, or it could be extended over three or seven or ten successive nights in one and the same tavern.
So I built on that insight as I told stories to students at my university and neighborhood children. For example, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s tale of King Vortigern’s inviting Horsa and Hengist to come to his kingdom, and the role Merlin — a boy who had no father, living or dead — played in Vortigern’s downfall has a fixed series of episodes. Some of these episodes (for example, just how Merlin was conceived, or how his mother was treated by her father once she was seen to be with child) are not really suitable for young audiences, so you can include or omit them according to who is there as you tell it. You can also shorten or lengthen each episode by elaborating or curtailing the details in its telling. And not every detail needs to come from Geoffrey’s book, either. Invention on the spot is a story-teller’s friend, and I freely invent when it seems useful or appropriate.
I would tell this story in prose, but here and there I throw in simple verses for variety: “One dragon’s red, the other’s white / By day they sleep, by night they fight / ‘Tis the fierceness of their fight / That knocks your tower down each night,” as Merlin explains things to Vortigern to escape being killed as a human sacrifice in order to keep the partly-built tower intact from one day to the next.
So you can tell a story by improvising it as you go along, not by reciting the words you memorized from some published book. Do that with confidence, and your audience — your children — will be enthralled.
JMG, I hope LLMs go quietly into the night without Brezhnev’s help. I wouldn’t force-feed his memoirs to anyone, even LLMs. You cannot imagine how excruciatingly boring they are! That being said, as a last-century guy, he probably wouldn’t mind giving them a shove in the right direction 😉
A nitpick, but I think you left out one major reason for the recent disastrous decline of the Democratic Party: That they really embraced Covid-authoritarianism as their baby, and it turned out to be a tar-baby. When President Biden made his speech that garnered a ninety-percent “dislike” rating on YouTube (and YouTube responded by hiding the amount of dislikes videos on their site getk) declaring his intention to force Covid vaccination on the entire country, I knew then and there that Donald Trump, who defended Covid-vaccine freedom of choice, would be in the Oval Office again in 2025.
Just as a side note, perhaps one of my favorite Mythbusters myths was on an early episode where they “tested” the phrase “like a bull in a china shop” to see what happens if you actually put a bunch of them next to densely packed shelves of fine china. The “myth” was “busted”, the bulls knocked over one shelf in the beginning, but then quickly adapted and started daintily strutting back-and-forth around the shelves carefully avoiding hitting any of them. It was quite the fun watch.
If there’s anything we Taureans detest, it’s those who deliberately ruin nice things.
The whole phenomenon of people narrowing their range of narratives to the point of dysfunctionality reminded me of those people who ask same-sex couples “Which of you is the man and which of you is the woman?”
I want to suggest a notion that developed from a speech Isaac Asimov gave a few years before his death in which he said that the reason his blonde-haired blue-eyed daughter was considered beautiful was because in the year 1066 a bunch of blue-eyed blonds called the Normans conquered England and made themselves its ruling class, and their descendants can be found among the English aristocracy to this day. (Meanwhile in Asimov’s ancestral Russia, the original inhabitants were blue-eyed blonds from Scandinavia who were later conquered by the Mongols, so black hair and black eyes were part of the beauty standard, at least until the USSR began promoting what it called peasant beauty.) Collective notions of desirability (as contrasted with individual personal tastes) are inevitably going to be entangled with social rank.
When I first began to read, not the romances and he-man fiction of the 1960s (which my mother would never have allowed) but deconstructions thereof by second wave feminists (which looked scholarly, so she let them pass), I was struck by the fact that the viewpoint character, whether male or female, was a person of humble background while the love interest was of significantly higher rank. These were sexual fantasies that were also, in one sense or another, upward mobility fantasies.
I suppose there might have been a time in there when some people fantasized about egalitarian love, but in a time of economic precarity, the fantasy of upward mobility through romantic partnership is going to be stronger than ever. I remember feminists criticizing the plot point in 50 Shades of Grey where the wealthy love interest bought the viewpoint character’s company just because of his obsession with her. The critics saw it as control-freak behavior, but to me it presented a fantasy of absolute economic security. As economic security is less and less available in real life, seeing more of it in popular fantasy is to be expected.
I’m gonna use “fetishization of the unattainable” every time I have to argue with a Marxist.
JMG, thank you so much for clarifying WatchFlinger’s comment. I was trying my darndest to figure out why hearing the word ‘narrative’ would make him want to reach for one of these:
https://www.browning.com/products/firearms/rifles/x-bolt-2/xbolt-2-medallion-maple.html.html
My Aspergers is probably worse than your’s. The stories I could tell…
–Lunar Apprentice
@Anonymous: “Without these managers acting as enforcers of the ideologies, why do you believe that America will continue acting with its current norm of non-racism, as opposed to returning to its historical norms of open normalized racism and white and black hostility towards each other?”
Maybe because racial integration was already happening in the North and the West well before there was any bureaucratic backing for it. The bureaucratic enforcement was, in a sense, a result before it was a cause. Politics is downstream from culture. Racial integration had to achieve a certain level of popularity before government could start imposing it on those who still resisted.
The historical norm of racism was a product of the plantation economy. I suppose there is a possibility that said historical norm might return in the wake of the end of the fossil fuel economy, when farming is once again based on the animal-drawn plow, but I don’t expect to see it in my lifetime.
We had friends and relatives from the USA come up to Canada for a visit a couple of weeks ago. There was a discussion about how surprising it was that ‘a fascist like Donald could have such support.’
Another chimed in, “Germany didn’t see the Fascists take over until a large number of Germans were impoverished and had no hope for the future–And there’s nothing like that going on in the US…”
I tried to point out the despair in US rust-belt cities, and the tragic decline of many small towns in Iowa, and got looked at like I had two heads. There are a lot of folks who can’t see decline that’s right in front of them. I suspect, JMG, that you will soon have more to say about narrarative-induced blind spots.
Interesting post. As always. It strikes me that perceptions and narratives are always dependent on the observer’s point of view. Having never read Tolkien, and him being lower down on my “to read” list, your analysis using his writings doesn’t quite resonate with me, but I sort of get it. You continue to throw change ups and screwballs when I’m expecting a fast pitch down the middle. Not complaining, just keep getting surprised.
I’m of the opinion that the ongoing gender battles are a result of intentional programming centered on artificial polarities and crowd control, and also due to the legalization of marriage as an institution. Where .gov intrudes, lawyers soon follow, and bad things happen. The good-idea-turned-into-racketeering called “child support” comes to mind. It will be interesting where this all goes, as the masses have definitely fallen into the various narrative traps, and most have tossed any effort at self thought aside as part of the process…..
I wouldn’t count out the Dems. The AI bubble will likely pop well before the 2028, ruining the economy, and the electorate might swing for Dems if the crisis is handled badly by the Trump admin.
Trump & the GOP seem to be bleeding support (largely for the reasons Other Owen & Mary Bennet gave) but the Dem Party is collapsing. So if the economic damage is not too bad and cost of living for regular Americans doesn’t get much more expensive than it is already, I expect J.D. Vance to be the next president as the progressives fade into irrelevance.
You alluded to your vices a few times in the comments the last few weeks JMG, personally one of my biggest vices is stories.
I can easily binge-read novels for most of a day and into the night. Recently I’ve been watching movie recap channels on YouTube. I think all of it is fuelled by a desire to listen/read stories.
As vices go, it’s probably not as harmful as hard drugs, pornography, or video games, but sometimes I do find myself neglecting other things in life to read.
If you’ve encountered something similar, how do you deal with it?
@67 Carlos
Joah believed that Jehovah was the small-minded God of the Israelites and no one else, It goes further: the prophet automatically assumed that God is not small-minded but only exists in one location. He thought that if he fled fast enough, God wouldn’t be able to catch up to him and he would successfully escape his mission.
@JenniferK #75
I would recommend a variation on the old saying “Let not the pining for the perfect prevent the good to be born.” . And then to give it teeth; My mother use to say to me “When you are going to grow up you are going to be as bald and undesirable as your father”. In high school, even after she died, I had nightmares of my hair turning into a wig and falling off. Until I decided to buy a shaving machine and proclaiming, that when it starts happening , I’m shaving my head and rocking it. Now if per chance I see someone (and it is usually female) making remarks on mens, mine or someone else’s, hairline they get a patronising grizzled old bear look and an unspoken line “Oh you poor superficial puppy’s mama”.
When I read my son a story, and I do bad voices, I misread some phrases, we get interrupted and have to start over, the setting never fits, … Blablabla. I read my kid a story, I’ll get better with time and until then he has been getting stories and what a wonderful opportunity to practice my patronising grizzled old bear look. 🙂
@JMG
1. ) I am loving this new direction you are taking and have been thinking along the lines of how to repair the myths in our culture, certainly story time can do that for children, and playing the story teller can do that for the teller. But what about other adults in one’s environment. Certainly some need it.
Maybe finding examples out of shared history, emotionally charged example narratives, that have been lived and cannot be denied.
I look forward to this series of thoughts you are mulling over.
2.) On a different note I have noticed a shift in perspective when dealing with stories (Star Wars and LotR are good examples; I have been comparing Aragorn from the book to the one in the 2001 adaptation), I seem to see elements of them in different perspective. Some elements have started to seem superficial, where I did not notice that before. Also I am starting to question the intentions of the creators, or adaptors, for putting them in there.
3.) Speaking of tantrums, hissy fits and meltdowns. Dear sir, as a long time reader and literary customer I would like to file a formal complaint of misleading advertising. You have been promising to incite such reactions for several controversial posts now and I am saddened to report being asymptomatic. Even the most personally pointed part of this essay, about corrupted interpersonal relationships, has only triggered a somewhat irritated regret.
“This really could have been useful in my twenties!”
I have yet to experience that wanted aerodynamic quality of your writing, where one throws a book across the room. 😉
Best regards,
V
I’ve been following your blog for a few years by now as a lurker, from outside the West, and I would like to add my two cents:
– When we spend years writing our opinions about reality, it’s easy for other people to see through our cognitive biases, we only need to wait long enough for it to happen.
– What make your own cognitive bias stand out is the fact you seem to believe Trump is an unavoidable phenomena that, by unavoidability, will tackle the current US issues the way you think they unavoidably will be tackled, and that somehow the superficial measures that only fuel the culture wars are a sign of this.
– I would not be surprised if a significant part of the US elites “chose” Trump to tackle the problems they see ahead, but there are many, many, many different ways it could play out, which make your assumptions feel like wishful thinking.
– You particularly seem to ignore the consequences of the fact the US is a global empire, and the fact that US elites also depend of a globalized economy to exist, having become “rootless cosmopolitans” in a way. When you focus too much in domestic policy, you may lose track of how what the political actors seem to publicly support may be different of what they actually intend with something (or someone).
I’m looking forward to the post on Situationists, having briefly looked into them I’m interested to see where it will go.
I’d like to thank this blog and fellow commenters who seem to have also tasted the dagger of certainty about how the world works that oozes from the PMC. I’m about to go back and read your blog on Knowing Only One Story as I reckon it’ll explain some of what I’m about to say: but someone in my own life, a sister in law, who defines in my mind the archetype of the laptop classes (also leans towards Harry Potter over Lord of the Rings, [a worthy piece of evidence?]) once when we were on holiday together and reached a relatively exploratory conversational tone she put a sudden stop to it by saying: “once I realised the world was just made up of atoms I stopped thinking any more about it”… I’ve never forgotten that conversation, and I think serves as a neat pivot point for where she and I depart realities. I’m much more inclined to Muriel Rukeseyer’s perspective that: “The world is made up of stories, not atoms.”
I’m only just getting my bearings, through my own personal losses at 21, then we had Brexit here, Trumpykins, Covid, Ukraine, LGBTQ, I have to say I’ve been surrounded by terrible companions in this time for open discussion, having been raised mostly around PMC types.
Sorry for harping on about them, but I breathe a sigh of relief when anyone offers up this kind of perspective here having been swallowed in that world for some time. I’m regaining my intuition with each post!
@Robert Mathiesen
Thank you for that note on Terry Pratchet thats fascinating! I’ve just finished my Masters Disstertation wherein I interviewed storytellers on their perspective on stories as alive or not… This would have been great material to dive into but alas its a week too late. I found some interesting Native American scholars that adopt this approach: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290950729_The_story_is_a_living_being_Companionship_with_stories_in_Anishinaabeg_studies
“Daniil, that’s exactly why a classical education is so useful to a governing class. If they’ve got plenty of traditional narratives on hand, whether those are from the Confucian classics or the Greek ones, the products of that system are more likely to make good choices than the products of a “relevant” education that crams them full of a single fashionable narrative in endless rehashed forms.”
Having many small stories certainly beats having one or two big ones (like Infinite Progress or the inevitable triumph of Communism/Democracy). Even better when you know that those are ultimately stories competing with other stories (which is another point where having many helps, I suppose) and not universal realities…
@ Erika #21
“i’m starting to trust people who’ve been in solidly good relationships for a long time, and trust the ideas that branch off from that ability and solidity”
Well, yes… for a start, getting into a solidly good relationship for a long time (or even an intermittently good relationship that has had its ups and downs, but has BUILT through them over a long time), requires two people being willing to step outside of the corrupted stories our society ladles out to us long enough to write another story, together, that includes (at least) themselves co-operating and creating, and developing *shared* (not conflicting) interests.
Ironically for this post, one of the most common ‘narrative vs reality’ clashes is in child-rearing: the child has its own interests and talents, but Mum or Dad’s narrative says different. Mum wants a girly-girl, Dad wants a sports star: if they can’t get over it and see their child as they really are, the kid has a miserable time.
Anonymous #66: Most of the “racism” you’re seeing from Gen Z is as performative as the heartfelt “anti-racism” of the Dangerhairs. For example, you can trace the birth of “oven memes” (Holocaust humor) to ongoing efforts by various organizations to educate children on why the Holocaust is the WORST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED and they MUST NEVER LAUGH OR MAKE JOKES ABOUT IT. As anybody who is a parent or who was a child knows, all this does is ensure a steady stream of spicy jokes that make the adults hop up and down in an entertaining fashion.
100 years ago Ellis Island natives were greeted with suspicion and open hostility. Every WASP knew that the Irish were stupid, lazy drunks and that the Italians were greasy congenital criminals. Today very few people indeed would distinguish between Irish- and Italian-Americans and Real White Folks. We’re already seeing that process play out with Hispanic-Americans. And while there’s still a good bit of tension and suspicion between White and Black Americans, there’s also a lot more engagement and interaction than there was in the days of Jim Crow.
Be careful about the fallacy of the Excluded Middle. It’s possible to believe that racism still exists or even that there will always be some degree of underlying tensions between different groups sharing space. (Exhibit A: Eastern Europe) without believing that we’re only a few short steps away from cross-burnings and daily lynchings. We’ve spent over a decade at this point hearing shrieks about White Supremacists, up to and including efforts in 2020 to blame White Supremacists for the George Floyd riots. We’ve seen a few mostly young people who want to take up that mantle to play virtual Sith Lords because White Supremacists are Scary and Powerful — and what young person doesn’t want to be scary and powerful?
I certainly expect we will see some atrocities in the wake of the American Empire’s collapse. But I think it will look more like the Soviet Union’s fall than anything else. At some point the American government is forced to admit they are bankrupt and dead broke. This results in a deep economic crash and a decade or two of malaise that ends with several new countries. And while there may be sporadic ethnic tensions in some areas, I’m not expecting any killing fields or ethnic cleansing. Granted, anything is possible when an empire collapses. But I think the American split will be largely among cultural lines and in time those cultures will be recognized as different ethnicities.
As for the White/Black divide, I expect to see something more like the Hispanic model rather than the English “one drop” rule. Instead of “White people” and “Black people” we’ll see Blacks, Whites, Asians, South Asians, Mulattos, Hapas, Castizos, Mestizos, etc. You will see tensions between the different groups here, just as you see it throughout Central and South America. But you’ll also see a great deal of cooperation and intermingling between these groups.
@ Elizabeth, #28
I agree with you about Jayne Ann Krentz and her books from the 90’s. And yes, she seems to have lost her way, along with all the other romance writers. I love it when the bad guy gets what is coming to him. Also the bad girl. I have given up on any romance novels written after about 2005.
Another writer, this time of mysteries, that I find very satisfying because the bad guy always gets a comeuppance, is Caroline Graham. She wrote the books that inspired the Barnaby TV series that has 30 or so seasons — all of that from a total of 7 books! The TV series doesn’t even come close to the books, which are wonderful. “The Ghost in the Machine” is my favorite and is the last one (I think). It was published in 2004.
As for the story that best expresses what is going on in the USA, I think it is “The Godfather” by Mario Puzo. We have been ruled by a bunch of constantly battling crime families for many years. If you read The Godfather, everything happening and that has happened in Washington, DC makes sense.
Gosh,
I have been reading about how quantum physics is the new reality. We affect others through observing them, and they us. It works for Astrology. There is the randomness of the universe that we find ourselves in.
Meanwhile, since classical physics is embedded in our psyches, we see things in terms of measuring and orderliness. Time is absolute, whereas according to Einstein’s Special Relativity Theory, the speed of light is absolute.
Anyway, quantum physics stopped Einstein in his tracks because he felt it was too spooky. He preferred the orderliness of classical physics. As one Nobel Prize Laureate put it, if you think you understand quantum physics, you should be terrified.
Having a brain injury has changed my stories and how I perceive things. The stories are different in my new world. More random and less orderly.
Could it be that many stories are like classical physics which embedded themselves inside of us contradict actually reality?
I did want to discuss illegal immigrants, ICE, and the Democrats. Why are they more concerned about them then their own citizens?
The story that is told is that we live under Nazism, with Trump as dictator (or a more vulgar spelling). ICE is the Gestapo, and the illegal immigrants are the Jews. The detention centers are the concentration camps, where people disappear. Therefore, if you are a noble resistor, you do what you can to rescue these poor folk.
Underneath that is the ugly reality. Illegal immigrants are big business. A lot of money flows into city coffers and NGO coffers to care for these people. Much of it never reaches them. Then there are the employers who abuse these folk by not paying them or underpaying them, etc. In other words, the reality is different from the story, but the story is told to keep the money coming.
Meanwhile, innocent resistors believe in the heroic myth, little thinking about the reality.
For me your emphasis on the power of narratives was especially timely as I had just felt compelled to coin the term “leftlexic” to describe a friend of mine (an ex-pupil actually) who, though personally amiable, is so utterly leftist that she not only can’t agree with but actually cannot read texts which show wokies/leftists in a bad light.
I had recently posted on Facebook an article from The Free Press about judges in debating competitions openly displaying ideological bias. The following dialogue with my leftlexic friend ensued:
Me: [posted the article in the Free Press [https://www.thefp.com/p/judges-ruin-high-school-debate-tournaments] with the comment “br-r-r-r”.
Thelma: That picture was taken in the USA, surely, where all debate is being rapidly eroded by their fascist regime? (Can’t access the article)
Me: (after copying it onto Word) Here’s the article, in two parts.
Thelma: Yes, USA – otherwise unnecessarily wordy & designed to obfuscate! Thank you for typing it out for me, though
Me: During a match of Left against Right, somebody objects because the referee has announced that he’s playing for the Left while continuing as referee; whereupon your brow creases in bafflement at the “obfuscatory” complaint!
Thelma: If I failed to read all the nuances it is because I found it a boring word salad which I skimmed through – still think it was written to sound cleverer than it is
Me: Nuances?? I didn’t notice any. Just a plain indictment of egregious bias. How you can “fail to read” that is a mystery to me.
Thelma: Because I am becoming too old to try harder! My brain needs simpler stuff – and there’s SO much more desperately serious stuff to worry about going on in the USA.
Me: In that case let me summarise for you: those who are supposed to judge debating competitions according to the contestants’ debating ability are, instead, judging them according to the judges’ own political prejudices. That’s the article’s point. Couldn’t be simpler, whatever your age. It is you who are making heavy weather of it.
[No reply from Thelma.]
Timely to this post, those who don’t mind audio and video might find this interview of a guy named Auron MacIntyre interesting.
It covers a lot of ground discussed on this blog. They discuss the PMC, elites, the decline of US empire, and lifecycle of civilizations, among other things. MacIntyre seems to know his Oswald Spengler.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I3VPamDEU2E&pp=ygUWdHVja2VyIGF1cm9uIG1hY2ludHlyZQ%3D%3D
From time to time, I watch Steven Bannon’s “War Room.” At the beginning of each broadcast, he shows clips from MSNBC (MSNOW) and CNN, with some from other corporate media broadcasts. Then he says, “These are the screams of a dying regime.”
What strikes me is how his stories and CNN stories are as if one is from Pluto and the other is from Mars. There is no connection between the two in how they see the world. What I am finding is that under his stories, there is a sense of reality as it exists (even though he may not like it). However, under CNN and others is a sense of reality as they want it to be.
I wonder how to reconcile the two, or if there is no middle.
“if you only have one story, and insist on applying it to the world no matter what, you can count on two consequences. The first is failure; the second is blind, unthinking rage, as you scream at the cosmos for not behaving the way your one and only story insists it should.”
In the same line, I think Disraeli said or wrote “Beware of the man of one book”.
Ok John, another wise and provocative post on your blog. Congratulations!
I didn’t know I was facing a narrative crisis when the following events happened to me, but now I see it exactly as that.
In about 2002 I had to face a narrative that had completely failed me: that if you work hard, go to college and get a good STEM degree then you will be financially successful in life. That narrative had been crashing like a slow-moving train wreck since the 1970s and it accelerated when offshoring jobs and importing low-wage laborers took off in the 1990s.
I was then given a choice for a new narrative. I could become a NPC working for a global multinational, perhaps as a pharmaceutical sales rep, or I could embrace the arts and live lower middle class. Since I did not have any kids, I chose the latter. How many people who are part of the PMC embraced the new narrative? For many who had kids to raise, it was probably the latter. Who can fault them for that?
Most people born before the 1940s cannot understand why people with science degrees end up working in retail, because for them, the narrative worked. They look at people like me as slackers who just haven’t lived up to their potential. Narratives are often generational.
‘Those of my readers outside the United States may not have any idea how rapidly that decline and fall is unfolding; ‘
It’s true, Here in Spain we had no idea of it…
If you are wondering what the sneering class is thinking about;
https://ritholtz.com/2025/08/atm-buying-your-own-jet/
Half a million a year in fixed costs, 200 gallons an hour in fuel which is included in the $7000 per hour of variable costs when actually flying.
The problems of the rich.
The article has not one mention of CO2 emissions. Why am I not surprised.
@Phutatorius #72: There is no Zen teacher. I’m the Zen substitute, but they didn’t give me the lesson plan and the enlightening stick is locked in the superintendent’s office, so please sit quietly at your desks while I show this filmstrip about *reads label* Transportation And You.
Related to the discussion of porn and its effects on people, does anyone else sense that people today have a much harder time separating reality and fantasy than we did 20+ years ago?
Growing up, my parents made sure that I understood that fiction was fiction: the blood wasn’t real, the violence was staged, and just in general it wasn’t reflective of reality. Now it feels like the zeitgeist has gone all the way over to the opposite extreme and in many ways treat fiction as more real than reality.
Partly this is political, to justify censorship, but I think there’s a spiritual malaise to it, as well: the consensus view of reality is so intolerably meaningless that many people retreat into a fictional substitute in order to cope.
For the last half century I’ve trained as a ninja, because I believe you can write your own story. In the words of the Dhammapada, ‘The fletcher straightens the arrows, the engineer leads the waters, the wise man fashions himself’.
Kimberly, excellent! And of course the popularity of protest marches, fantasies about running off to a doomstead, and the rest of it is precisely that these serve as excuses to justify doing nothing. That’s a very popular choice in times like these.
Patricia O, I’ll look forward to it.
Sam, bingo. Nothing is so frightening to the inmates of a culture in decline as genuine originality, because that requires coming to terms with the failure of the old cherished fantasies. That’s why we’ve been deluged with the same old crap, endlessly rehashed. That said, what are you doing to break the boredom and do something different? That’s the only way it will change, you know!
Renaissance, ah, but becoming adult means you have to take responsibility for your failures. It’s much less traumatic to put on pink hats, or for that matter, red ones.
Inna, oh, I’m feeling sufficiently jaundiced at the promoters of LLMs that I want them to suffer. Having to listen to their cherished programs spouting whole paragraphs out of Brezhnev strikes me as a suitable torment. 😉 (That said, you almost tempt me to see if there’s an English translation. I find Proust quite readable…)
Mister N, granted, but if I wanted to make a good comprehensive list of all the reasons why the Democrats’ brand is gurgling down the drain, it would have required pages. That’s an important one, but it’s symptomatic of a broader issue: to shore up their belief that they are the Smart People and everyone else is ignorant and stupid, the Democratic elite has gravitated toward every set of beliefs that the majority rejects. What better way to show how different you are? Unfortunately that gets awkward come election time.
Joan, Asimov was a master at oversimplifications of that kind. The Normans weren’t all blue-eyed blonds — much of William’s army in 1066 came from Brittany, and many of his knights were dark-eyed and dark-haired — and the preference for blonde hair and blue eyes can be traced in plenty of places in Europe that weren’t overrun with Vikings. For that matter, blue-eyed blondes are wildly popular in Japan, which I don’t believe was ever conquered by the Norse — and the Americans, who did conquer it, are not exactly a blue-eyed blond-majority nation. No, what makes blue-eyed blondes popular is the scarcity value always accorded to the exotic; it’s the same thing that makes Asian women so popular with many American men these days. Your comment about upward mobility, on the other hand, is spot on — there were so many romances along those lines in mid-20th century England that joke titles such as Only A Factory Girl show up in other works that wanted to parodize that habit.
Lunar, I’m not at all sure he didn’t mean that, but I know how I decided to take it!
Emmanuel, yes, and that’s a classic. It’s normal for the members of a decadent privileged class to insist that everyone is happy under their rule, after all…
Drhooves, it’s certainly very profitable for the economy to keep men and women at each other’s throats, since miserable people are more likely to console themselves by shopping. More on this as we proceed.
Patrick, oh, I don’t discount the Democrats. I’ve got arrangements in place to leave the country if they take power again, since they’re very openly talking about ignoring the Constitution and punishing their enemies in extralegal ways if they do regain power.
Alvin, will is like a muscle. The only way to develop it is to use it; start with small things that you can do without too much strain, and work up from there.
Vitranc, well, all I can say is that I’m hanging my head in shame. I’ll do my best to be more infuriating in future posts!
Capybara, it’s a source of wry amusement to me when people who claim to be longtime readers come barging in here to accuse me of believing things I don’t believe, saying things I haven’t said, and ignoring things that I’ve addressed at great length. While I think that the rise of someone like Trump was inevitable, I’m quite aware that events from this point on could play out in many different ways — did you miss my comment in the post about the possibility that the Democrats might find some way to defeat him? Furthermore, I’m bemused by your claim that I’ve somehow never gotten around to talking about the US as a global empire, when it’s literally been a central theme of my blog for the last nineteen years — here’s a post of mine on the subject from October 2006, just for starters. I have no objection to disagreement, but it would be helpful if you took the time to find out what I’ve actually said before you set out to disagree with it; otherwise, you know, you’re going to end up looking like a fool.
Toby, my head is spinning. “The world is just made up of atoms” — I’m trying to figure out how that makes any sense of anything at all. What did she think it was made of?
Daniil, exactly. It’s easier to realize that the map is not the territory when you have many different maps.
Kfish, yeah, I know. Oh, do I know.
Neptunesdolphins, yes, exactly. We love to imagine an orderly cosmos, and lose track of the fact that we’re projecting that order onto the cosmos, and falsifying things to do it. Your example of the illegal-immigration industry is a case in point.
Robert G, that’s a great example of the way that mental filters screen out the unacceptable. It’s especially common when the filters are blatantly contradicted by everyday experience — heroic efforts have to go into deleting unwanted facts and substituting desirable fictions.
Blue Sun, thanks for this.
Neptunesdolphins, in your place I’d look for a third option that conflicts with both — a view from Saturn, for example.
Chuaquin, Disraeli was no fool!
Jon, I recall trying, and repeatedly failing, to explain to my father that a BA degree was no longer a guarantee of a middle class income, as it was when he graduated in 1960. It never did get through the brick wall of “my experience is universally true.”
Chuaquin, I’d be surprised if any European media is covering it, since it contradicts the most basic presuppositions of the myth of progress.
Siliconguy, sad. If someone wants to waste that kind of money I’m sure I can suggest other options.
Slithy, I think you’re quite right. That malaise has been building powerfully for most of a century now.
Tengu, I probably should have guessed that you were a practitioner of Ninpo from your handle, but I didn’t; good to know. In an age of expansion, most people neglect self-development in the rush to affect the world; in an age of decline, like the one we now live in, self-development is not only the best option but the only one left.
Your description of the typical romance novel male lead reminds me of the name that a YouTuber named Thinking Ape has given to the archetype of modern idealized masculinity: Chad Thunderschlong.
Something profoundly odd has just clicked into place. I was mulling over the madness around electric cars, and it occurred to me that it’s not electric cars, per se, but electric everything. There’s an underlying push to electrify everything, whether it makes sense or not. The odd thought then occurred to me that this is an attempt to apply one of the core myths of modernity: in the past, people burned fuels; smart people worked out how to use electricity instead; and so society has ditched the old fashioned fuels in favor of clean power. This is why there is such a strong push for electrifying cars, stoves, heating, etc., even in cases where it makes no sense.
This got me thinking about these stories, and it occurred to me that Mono-Myths are actually quite rare, even among people who claim to have one. Just because someone says that this single story makes sense of everything in the world does not mean that someone actually believes it: I know a few atheists with “lucky numbers” for the lottery, and a Fundamentalist Christian who does not take the Bible completely literally about some of the parts where it talks about how God will provide for anyone with faith. In fact, actually believing a Mono-Myth is a very quick way to slam face first into disaster: and yet many of these Mono-Myths persisted for over a century, while a number of the current crop of Mono-Myths seem likely to lead to complete disaster within years at most.
This seems to be what occurred with tech: despite the claim of the electric world, cars remained powered by gasoline, heating is often fueled by natural gas, and wood burning ovens remain popular in a lot of restaurants that cater to food snobs. In other words, our society does not act like it should if it truly believed the mono-myth about electricity being superior to everything else.
Over the last twenty years or so, a lot of people have shifted: they have gone from claiming to believe in a Mono-Myth, but acting like it is just one narrative out of many, to actually acting as if they believe the mono-myth. Examples abound: the push for electrification, the shift in the medical system towards obsessive vaccinations and replicating the methods used to eradicate smallpox on respiratory viruses, the ongoing breakdown in American politics as Democrats increasingly follow through on their claims that Republicans are Nazis; and I could go on at length.
I find it striking that it looks like a lot of the problematic Mono-Myths were somewhat less destructive during the Plutonian Era because a lot of people who said they believed in a single narrative still acted as if they had multiple narratives; and this sort of division between stated beliefs and actions looks an awful lot like a Plutonian influence….
Trump said he is going to ban mail-in voting to stop voter fraud. That will be very bad news for the Democrats. My question is this: what will emerge if and when the Democrats disappear? The system is designed to squeeze out third parties. What do you think will take the place of the Democrats and will they offer any real threat to the status quo? While Trump has shaken things up a bit, many things have remained in place, and many of his base are unhappy with his Israel First policy, the Big Beautiful Bill and hiding the Epstein files. They could defect if they were offered something better and cleaning up the electoral system could hurt the Republicans too, though not as much as the Democrats.
Patrick @ 93, I would not be confident about Vance’s chances to become president. The guy is not at all well liked, and has little in the way of for real accomplishment to show. His Senate career seems to have been mostly undistinguished. The Republican party does have other possible candidates, especially among governors. I would not necessarily rule out DeSantis, for example, providing he can rally a significant portion of the Hispanic community behind him. If Greg Abbott can realistically claim to have stopped or significantly slowed illegal migration across the Rio Grande, he also can appeal to Republican primary voters.
There is only one Trump, after all. I doubt his imitators and sycophants will get very far. After Ceasar came Octavian, the workaholic who actually built the Principate, ably supported by his genius best friend, Marcus Agrippa. It was one of the most effective partnerships in all of Western History.
I would also not necessarily rule out Harris, either. If the present leadership does even more to offend American women, such as pardoning La Maxwell, a loud slap in the face to every non-rich, non-looker woman who is trying to hold down a job, build a business, and/or keep a family afloat without the help of an inherited fortune and accompanying social position–well you do perhaps remember the losing Romney campaign, no? Afterwards, Karen Hughes, chief of staff to Pres. Bush the Younger, threatened to personally cut out the tongue of any Republican politician who mentioned the word ‘rape’ without immediately calling it a crime. You do remember, I hope, that we are half the electorate. If the Dems. nominate some full on Zionist like Josh Shapiro, I could consider voting for someone like a DeSantis or Abbott. Vance, never.
I hope to God that you are right and that Trump actually wants to, and has a plan to, address the three things you claim he is addressing. I personally don’t think so, more plausible is that all this will be used simply to consolidate power for himself/allies, with no intent at addressing the desires of Americans. To me the strange thing is the the center right has decided to go along with the far right Trump, while the center left refuses to join the far left. All of this shows that no American political figure or system is to be trusted. However I firmly believe the watered down, bs, bureaucratic democrat government as seen nationally and at the state level, gives more people a better life. Both parties say “F” you, the left at least gives you some beneficial public spending. Anyone that gives this administration any credit really needs to look at the last budget and what it does to and for our country.
Longtime reader first time commenter. Thank you for these thoughts.
I think something to understand about modern day romance novels is that they are by and large the product of women who came of age in the late 80s, 90s, and early 00s, either directly as authors or indirectly in the form of what the current majority romance novel readership (i.e., this cohort) wants. Advertising and mass culture targeted at young men and women in those years were very much based in the pornography-addled notion of relationship described here, that is to say, the ever-pliant woman “always up for a good time” and perpetually young, fun, and thin. This age cohort was also the first cohort of fully online adults, and the women faced a barrage of targeted messaging, both passive (even more of the advertising) and active (men propositioning for sex, etc) as teenagers and young women. Young women have always faced the unwanted attentions of men, but the post-Cold War near-pornographic aesthetic of womanhood heightened the feeling, and the Internet ratcheted up the volume and intensity. One key blind spot among age cohorts, as well as gender cohorts, is that unless they’ve experienced it firsthand, I don’t think that people grasp the impact of the sheer ocean of sexual attention, constant and largely unwanted, that has been targeted to women who face it largely alone, behind the screens of their phones.
I think the critique of modern day romance novels and associated critique of women’s attitudes toward men in relationships today are apropos but should be taken in this context: these are impacts of the heightened sexualization of women from very early ages that has occurred since the late 80s. Women who faced this barrage have come to accept 1) constant, relentless, unwanted desire from men as fact, and therefore to believe they should not need to do anything to maintain that level of desire for them, and if a man isn’t willing to “do anything” for them, regardless of what they themselves do in return, there is always another man or men in general aren’t worth it; and 2) the new cultural normal that they’ve worked to create, in which men must be simultaneously hypermasculine and hypersubmissive, as their return fire to the men’s attack visited upon them at their most vulnerable. Like, “**** you, because sexism, I can do what I want, but you have to do x, y, and z. **** me with singular passion, and then do all my dishes.” Of course, we can see that this concept is the same as the expectations of women that this current female adult cohort were subject to as young girls, but swapped. But the young men of today are readying and deploying their own barrages in return, largely in the form of a turn toward conservatism and forced traditional gender roles.
Of course, the goal is to unravel these cultural phenomena and relate to one another as individuals with our own unique strengths and subjectivities. And to stand together to make a better world for all rather than allow the powers that be to divide us and take our wealth and make us all feel bad about ourselves. But it’s easier said than done.
Something else just clicked: there’s another narrative at work that is preventing a lot of people from being able to disagree with each other, and sometimes even coexist with each other when disagreements happen, namely a very common self-narrative. Plenty of people, whatever their stated views, have this idea that they are reasonable, rational people who assess the evidence and come to the logical conclusions based on the evidence they have. All the other factors that shape human thinking are excluded: emotional responses rooted in childhood, intuition, self interest, value judgements, disputes over how much trust each source should have, cognitive biases, all of these are flattened away.
One of the beautiful things about logic is that it is absolute: if X, then Y. If not X, not Z. Once we know X is true, we know for a fact that Y is true, and Z is not, and we can act and reason accordingly. What this means is that the logical corollary of the self-narrative that says “I am a logical thinker who has come to my opinions through rational, logical means”, is that anyone who disagrees about anything can only be one of three things: too stupid to see what is clearly in front of them, outright malicious, or sadly misinformed. Since efforts to “educate” people usually do not work for the simple reason it misses the actual cause of the disagreement, this leaves only the first two options.
JMG @ 116: “I find Proust quite readable…” Quite readable, but lacking any sense of proportion. I found a sentence that went on for a whole page, a paragraph about eight pages long, and a chapter that took up three quarters of the novel.
Walt @ 113: I should’ve prefaced my remark with “in my experience.” My very own Zen teacher, a few years back before I wandered off the path, read from a piece in the NY Times in which Paul Kingsnorth was quoted as saying, “when I hear the word hope, I reach for my whiskey bottle.” My teacher’s response to that clearly showed his unfamiliarity with the source, 1930s Weimar Germany. Groucho Marx had his own version: “when I hear the word culture I reach for my wallet.”
@Inna #85 Don’t forget that it was ghostwritten by a small band of ideologically-correct Soviet journalists, with some limited involvement from the man himself and scrupulous political editing. I can’t help feeling that this sort of work – created to fulfill a specific user request, with necessarily minimised role of personality – prefigures the LLMs in some way. They’re there to replace the kind of “writing corps” that produced the memoirs.
That said, from all I’ve read about Brezhnev, I’m sure he would’ve approved. He seems to have been both more cunning and more complex than he looked.
Since this odd intersection has come up, I’d note that the concept of machine-written nonsense seems to have been reasonably popular, at least as a target for spoofs, in later Soviet years. I’ve seen it in Strugatskies’ Tale of the Troika, with the question-answering machine (that has to be operated manually for now, but just you wait!), but I also recently read Danilov, the Violist, which features machine-written music (evidently undistinguishable from the most mediocre human work)…
Anonymoose Canadian (#118): oh, I think it’s simpler than that. The PMC just think: “Fossil Fuels Are Going to Run Out and They Create Global Warming” but “Windmills and PV Will Make Electricity as long as the Wind Blows and the Sun Shines.” They will, too – just nowhere near enough.
(And as our esteemed host has noted in the past, it’s a lot easier to shut off the electricity than the gas!)
@Chuaquin #109 Ha! I don’t know whether it was Disraeli who first said it, but I do remember it being one of the slogans of the Ural State University’s History Department. Wise indeed. It taught me to read at least two books, but preferably a dozen, before thinking I have any kind of grasp on a subject.
Regarding Richardson’s “Pamela.” I thought it was utter drek. It was assigned reading in my undergrad class in 18th Century British Lit. It was mostly women taking the class, (and the prof. herself admitted to having once been a Playboy bunny). “Pamela” was so popular in its day that there were “Pamela” parodies; one we read was called “Shamela.” Unfortunately, “Tristram Shandy” was not on the required reading list (and I read it later, on my own). Reading that would have been lots of fun, in a class made of mostly of women. The question is, exactly what sort of tale or narrative is he telling? It may belong to the category we know as “cock & bull stories.” A fine category, indeed.
@Alvin #94 – Me, too! It’s as bad as any other addiction …. as I look of from my book and note the time, and the things undone. Bookaholic, me.
@Bridge #119 – an end to mail-in voting will also be bad news for those who can’t stand in line for any length of time due to pain or disability. Like child-proof caps, it’s also senior-proof.
BTW, Florida does have paper ballots.
Oy… JMG, in case you are curious to explore what kind of suffering you wish to inflict on the promoters of LLMs, I’ll tempt you a bit further. For the price of one monthly Patreon subscription, one book of the trilogy may be yours:
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=32126899326&cm_sp=Searchmod-_-NullResults-_-BDP
For the princely sum of $500, you can fish the whole trilogy out of the Filthy River (I don’t see you going this route, so no link).
As for readability, I think A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu relates to Brezhnev’s memoirs in the same way as er… er.. let’s say the Ariel Moravec series relates to A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu. Though mercifully for us, Russian school kids in the early 80s, it was a trilogy, not 7 tomes.
Virgin Lands linked above is a thin book. If you read it, you’ll probably be the only American who has ever done so. Please consider!
Kyle Davidson, the Democrats are, IMHO, feckless but not, as you point out, incompetent. They can in fact govern. This is in contrast to some on the other side for whom loud mouthed incompetence is a virtue–us regular folks can so do complicated foreign policy, etc.–except they can’t and then New Orleans is drowning and X hundred thousand Iraqi civilians who never harmed us are dead. Oh, and there is an ongoing brutal ethnic cleansing going on in the ME with our implied permission because Our Leader made a deal with the devil to get elected.
I see two problems with the Democratic Party, both philosophical. This is addition to what our host has pointed out about over production of elites and PMC hatred for working class Americans. One fundamental error, found on the leftward side of the Democratic Party is these folks can’t figure out what country they live in. The Marxist Far Left, in particular, persists in believing that the United States is the western frontier of Europe. One wonders if these people have ever looked at a map. Related to that, the second problem, is their outrageous disdain for anything which happens outside of big city limits. Many are still LARPing, as our host put it, the French and Russian Revolutions, thinking they can simply “take to the streets” and end up in charge. In Europe, the spiritual homeland of the Left, the countryside was dominated by nobility, so our own agricultural regions being dominated by large scale commercial interests, in which their families have investments, feels just fine to them.
@Slithy Toves re: #114
I think the extended period of Neptune in Pisces (which actually began in 2004, thanks to Uranus in Pisces being in mutual reception with Neptune in Aquarius) also had a lot to do with the blending of fiction and reality, as did the ability of the Internet (itself a product of that similarly extended Uranus in Aquarius) to allow the cultivation of online personas independent of one’s real-life identity. Uranus in Aries advanced that trend – “I am who I say I am, not who society says I am.”
With Neptune no longer in Pisces, this seems to have receded somewhat, the most obvious (to me, anyway) manifestation of this being the increasing number of laws intended on age-gating online porn and NSFW (“not safe for work”) content. To many of the terminally online, these attempts are seen as at best a breach of privacy or (given the political leanings of the lawmakers under whom these laws are going into effect versus the political leanings common to, say, the typical Redditor) another example of encroaching “fascism” intent on de-anonymizing the anonymous for future punishment.
@JMG and all –
I’ve noticed the World War II narrative all over the place, especially when it comes to global world events. There seems to be this general belief in the myth of “get rid of the leader, end the regime” even where that doesn’t actually pan out, and I suspect this is likely associated with Hitler’s death so close to the end of WWII (never mind that “we” didn’t actually kill Hitler; he committed suicide and his decision to do so was more an effect of the impending fall of his regime rather than the cause of it).
But that’s the way it works in the storybooks, isn’t it? The hero vanquishes the villain; in doing so, he saves the kingdom, and they all live happily ever after – The End – and to some extent this is reflected by the so-called “Great Man” theory of history. So we have a belief that, for example, going back in time to kill Hitler before he came into power could somehow prevent World War II, that removing Trump would somehow resolve all the problems that got him to power int he first place and usher in a utopia, that removing Putin would immediately result in a rapprochement between the West and Russia, and above all that we are the good guys and thus BY DEFINITION shall win.
Seen many bestselling tragedies in bookstores recently?
Another narrative that seems to be running strong is what I’m going to call the People’s Inevitable Awakening, which I’ve seen on both sides of the political aisle, and whose origins, I suspect, are with the American Revolution. “The people,” it goes, eventually SHALL break out of their delusions/programming/brainwashing/complacency/whatever, “wake up,” demand “justice/accountability,” put a stop to oppression and a truth to lies. One variant of this I’ve seen in a surprising number of stories involves scientists/researchers who get wind of some impending disaster, but (A) the government or (B) a major corporation wants this news to be covered up, so the researchers must bravely evade their lackeys so they can stop the disaster and/or bring the truth about what’s happening to the media (which of course could never be corrupt, on the take, or ideologically predisposed themselves) so that “the people will know the truth.”
@120 Mary Bennet
I mean that progressive virtue-signalling and TDS are albatrosses around the Dems’ necks that hinders their ability to convince people on the fence that they care about anything else than their pet issues and hating Trump/Musk.
(You care about the Epstein scandal, War in Ukraine, Palestine, actually solving the illegal immigration issue, etc. A lot of progressives only care about finding material that makes MAGA look bad to feed their addiction to hating Trump. That ruins their credbility in my eyes, and I cannot be the only one who notices and dislikes this).
Until the party changes its platform and messenging to appeal to voters (IF they can), the Democrats will struggle to win elections.
Voters of either party genuinely outraged at their side action’s seem* to be small but vocal minorities, which is why our politicians don’t fear the wrath of the electorate when they violate campaign promises or pass deeply unpopular policies. Most voters are partisan and will fall in line and vote for their tribe’s candidate.
*An alternative explanation is that the disillusioned are not a small minority but a sizable chunk of the electorate but the elections have been completely fake for years to get people to believe the country is split ~50-50 and to hide how unpopular the bipartisan neoliberal/neocon agenda really is.
What am I doing to break the boredom and do something different?
I started a very serious occult practice! How much easier it is to meditate when you’re already bored out of your mind…
“Except for fifteen minutes of modest fame during the French student riots of 1968, it had next to no influence on events.”
In the UK, SI enjoyed a rather vengeful reprise in the mid 1970s, with considerable influence on society and culture. England’s punk phenomenon was deeply influenced by Situationist International thinking and used its détournement with gusto. Chief instigators such as artist Jamie Reid and Malcolm McLaren, the Sex Pistols’ mischievous manager, quoted Debord often and used SI tactics to devastating effect. Shepherded and populated mostly by art school dropouts, the punk aim was to create the ultimate unsettling spectacle, disrespecting and rejecting the prevailing narrative and those very foundations of the British myth: the monarchy, the class system (‘knowing your place’), the military and the church, politics (left & right), Oxbridge… No wonder the very first line anyone heard from the Sex Pistols was: “I am an Antichrist”. Or as the coda in their God Save the Queen went:
“There is no future in England’s dreaming
No future for you
No future for me”
Guess that’s one way of saying: your story is nonsense, and it’s moribund to boot. They also did it not with a loud shrill scream but with a shrug, a ‘nah’ rather than a ‘NO’, very much in a matter-of-fact we-hold-these-truths-to-be-self-evident sort of way, which made it so much more unnerving. The establishment backlash was furious but the genie was out.
Jon Savage’s excellent book ‘England’s Dreaming’ covers this link between SI and punk. Highly recommended. His extensive collection of Situationist writings and pamphlets now resides with the University of Manchester, link: https://shorturl.at/ZZPeD
I too recently re-read The Society of the Spectacle, and (the Marxist lens aside) it has proven to be surprisingly prescient. Looking forward to your timely take.
Slithy, JMG,
I think there’s another issue with the lack of ability to distinguish reality from fantasy. A lot of the pharmaceutical drugs being given to children has psychosis as a side effect: and I think a lot of the problems our society has with a lot of very basic things stem at least in part from a very large percentage of brains being too fried to work properly.
@Daniil Adamov #125,
You are right, of course. Even as a desperate kid, I wondered why his handlers couldn’t find a better ghostwriter – not that Russia was short on literary talent 😉 Regarding his work prefiguring the LLMs… maybe… you can make the case… in the same way these stands prefigure the wireless internet:
https://wishescards.ru/sovetskie/stendiy/
This is an odd intersection indeed. And yes again, machine-written content has been on people’s minds in both ways, as a serous thought and as a spoof.
@Lunar Apprentice, #89,
The original quote is “Whenever I hear the word ‘culture,’ I release the safety-catch of my Browning!” and it comes from a play by the German dramatist Hanns Johst.
It is often misquoted as, “Whenever I hear the word ‘culture,’ I reach for my pistol!” and attributed to Hermann Goering.
Ref: https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191843730.001.0001/q-oro-ed5-00006044
Anonymoose Canadian @60
The best solution re electric vs. ICE cars is to shoot the car and get a horse.
We’ll have to do that eventually. Instead of collapse now and avoid the rush–get a horse now and avoid the rush.
Here is a narrative idea that just stuck me. Lets say 20 years ago the leader ship of the Democratic Party and their financial backers decided that in the future they would need massive numbers of illegal immigrants to fill the voting roles and keep growth going in a demographic crunch. But they needed to come up with a way to make that palatable to a large group of ordinary people.
Cook up a narrative around empathy and inclusiveness. Convince everyone that the single most important thing in becoming a good person is to have empathy and support for any and all downtrodden people. LGTQ-A folks, ethnic minorities, neuro-diverse, and indigenous folks become objects of devotion.
Once that cake has been fully baked you are ready to open the floodgates and let the huddled masses come rolling in. If the narrative fully sticks all your loyal followers will embrace the Illegal emigrants , because empathy. They will fight tooth and nail to keep the undocumented from being deported because they are the downtrodden who must be supported, whether it. makes sense or not.
“I can easily binge-read novels for most of a day and into the night. Recently I’ve been watching movie recap channels on YouTube. I think all of it is fuelled by a desire to listen/read stories.
As vices go, it’s probably not as harmful as hard drugs, pornography, or video games, but sometimes I do find myself neglecting other things in life to read.
If you’ve encountered something similar, how do you deal with it?”
A to do list of things that need doing. Some need doing today, some in the near future. There is some flexibility. Carpet cleaning is in the list for the next 90 + day with low humidity, which here is all the 90+ days. The drying carpet cools the house quite well. Currently 89 degrees F and 17% humidity.
Politically speaking, the last full budget is Biden’s. All Congress has done is tweak the edges and the yelling over DOGE’s trivial cuts was truly epic. Real cuts are politically impossible until the economy collapses. That collapse will likely be caused by the Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition health care system. Medicare plus Medicaid equals the federal budget deficit.
If you think the Democrats can do better take a look at Washington State. The faster they raise taxes the bigger the deficits.
Dennis, that’ll do very well!
Moose, of course. Just as an astonishing number of people seem to think that groceries come from the store, not from dirt and mud and dead plants and animals, an even more astonishing number of people think that electricity can be magicked into being, and don’t realize that most of it comes from burning fossil fuels.
Bridge, if it follows the usual pattern in 2032 or 2036 some insurgent group will seize control of the corpse of the Democratic Party and use it to pursue solutions to whatever problems the Republicans aren’t willing to solve. That’s what happened to the Democratic party after 1920 and the Republican party after 1932.
Kyle, he doesn’t have a plan. That’s the hilarious thing about all this. Trump is an actor, and his policies are ginned up by anxious aides who are trying to figure out just how much plutocracy they can retain without being strung up from lampposts; the Democrats, meanwhile, aren’t willing to trim the plutocracy at all, which is why they’re about as popular these days as a week-old dog dropping. As for “beneficial governmental spending,” the United States is bankrupt and nearly all of that spending will have to be eliminated one way or the other. Nor is most of it beneficial to anybody but the bureaucrats who profit from it.
Mar, that’s certainly one of the factors involved.
Moose, excellent! Yes, and that’s why Vico talked about the barbarism of reflection — rationality is no guarantee of truth. Quite the contrary, it’s very often a guarantee of intolerance and mania.
Phutatorius, granted, but once you get used to it it’s fascinating stuff. As for Pamela, oh, it’s utter trash! So are all the other novels that rehash the same formula.
Inna, I just found a free PDF copy of Tselina aka Virgin Lands in English translation, so we’re good to go. As you note, it’s fairly short, so I can probably survive the experience.
Brendhelm, oh dear gods, yes. The myth of “There’s Only One Bad Person” and the myth of “Someday Everyone Will Agree With Me” are responsible between them for an impressive amount of our current stupidity.
Sam, excellent! That’ll do it.
Revelin, thank you for this — I wasn’t aware of it. I had a college girlfriend for a while who was a punk rocker, and a major Sex Pistols fan — I still remember most of the words to “Friggin’ in the Riggin'” — but I don’t recall her ever mentioning Situationism in that context, or any other.
Anonymous, there’s that!
Clay, a case could be made.
Per JMG: “Phutatorius, granted, but once you get used to it it’s fascinating stuff.” Uh, except for the endless discussions of the Dreyfus Affair. 🙂 I did like the way everything was turned upside down by the end, and I thought the first, second, and final novels were superior to the rest.
Patricia Mathews #130: “an end to mail-in voting will also be bad news for those who can’t stand in line for any length of time due to pain or disability. Like child-proof caps, it’s also senior-proof.”
Just fyi, Florida has a website on accessible voting for people with disabilities and several options are given, so I don’t think an end to mail-in voting will mean that seniors can’t vote: https://dos.fl.gov/elections/for-voters/voting/accessible-voting-for-persons-with-disabilities/
Hosea Tanatu @ 139: I’m more grateful to you for this than you might imagine. You’ve helped reassure me that I’m about as connected with reality as I thought. (I’m still reeling over my 2021 forecast that 95% of the medical profession would reject compliance with a certain mandated experimental injection. I got the number right, but the ‘reject’ wrong.) Having said that, Brownings are a bit pricey these days.
—Lunar Apprentice
Judging by the way Gavin Newsom has been retweeting anti-Semitic white nationalist Groypers in recent weeks, if the Democratic Party does end up surviving, it will probably morph into an anti-Semitic white nationalist party.
Revelin and JMG, thank both of you for bringing “Friggin’ in the Riggin'” to my attention – that was a pick me up I sorely needed – I can’t believe I made it this long without discovering this gem…
I don’t know what Situationism is any more than anyone else who read this week’s post, but if the Sex Pistols is Situationist, I want to know more about it.
>Trump & the GOP seem to be bleeding support (largely for the reasons Other Owen & Mary Bennet gave) but the Dem Party is collapsing
Those two parties are joined at the hip, if one of them goes, so will the other. As far as JD Vance goes, theoretically, he’s one of the few who can actually bridge the two worlds together, the Dirt People and the Cloud People – and he still wants to do so. If there’s someone who can pull a consensus out of this mess, he’s one of the few left.
But if both parties are headed for collapse, I’d say you need to look at outsiders to both parties. You need to look for a Yeltsin type figure who bolted from the Communist Party 1-2 years before it all went *flump*. I’m not sure JD Vance fits that bill. If nobody is willing to take the collapse to the face, things could get very ugly indeed.
—
Ok, I guess that every Eastern Bloc country was technically a republic on paper, they held elections, people voted, etc. If you called any of them a democracy, people would laugh at you though for some strange reason. Sure, all the window dressing is still there, on paper, sure you can point to the system we live under as being a democracy (well, republic) but in practice?
Very interesting post JMG
Thank you! Remembered hearing somewhere that stories express a hierarchy of values, either to embrace or reject. I think that explains in part the results of our (USA) last presidential election.
Look forward to more on this mind- bending topic of narrative!
@Anonymoose Canadian #60:
If you want to see how electric vehicles could be adopted en masse outside the narratives that are popular in the affluent West, come to Southeast Asia. Electric motorcycles and rickshaws are absolutely everywhere, and people use them exactly as you describe, which is for short trips in dense urban areas. If you don’t need long ranges, or heck, doors, heat, and airconditioning, you can get away with sticking a rather small battery into it. Yes, we do have Teslas and BYDs here nowadays, but they’re outnumbered 100:1 (at least) by the bikes and rickshaws.
@Heather #51:
Back in the day I got baited into one of these missionary dating situations by a cute Evangelical girl in university. It simultaneously worked and backfired: I did end up going back to church, but instead of attending their church, I reverted *hard* to the Catholicism of my youth. It was kind of a strange time too, as Joshua Harris’ book “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” was huge and that particular church was super into it that they officially disallowed dating among church members who haven’t moved out of college/university yet. So you’d get baited into thinking you’re going into a date, when in fact you’re going into a rather high pressure situation to answer the altar call and acceptJesusintoyourheartasyourpersonalLordandSavior (I swear that’s just one word whenever Evangelicals say that to me).
And then they’d explain to you that you need to wait, God has His own time, and you’d want a future spouse who loves Jesus more than you. As I eventually ended up a (different flavor of) Christian anyway, I fully agree, but the whole thing is set up under false pretenses, leaves a bad taste in the mouth, and is probably some form of violation of the second/third (depending on how you number the Decalogue) commandment to boot. I know guys who’ve been “successfully” baited this way, but also at least as many who were simply confused/questioning who subsequently went hard-atheist after they figured out they’ve been set up.
@Patrick #95:
But we’re not asking the real questions here: What really is the taxonomy of the large sea creature that ate Jonah, and how could he have possibly survived three days inside of it? 😉
@Joan #88 and @JMG #116,
These past few weeks, a photo of a cute Japanese office lady smiling awkwardly at the camera absolutely blew up the Interwebs. A lot of people have pointed out that the woman, Saori Araki, isn’t just some random salarywoman but is a former pop idol and model. That said, as far as Asian standards go, she’s quite pretty but rather relatively ordinarily so (think “girl next door” or “everyone’s crush in school”), and it’s quite amusing to see the entire Internet go crazy over that one photo.
The blond-hair-blue-eyes fetish is absolutely a thing here in the Philippines, too. What’s particularly amusing is the tall hunky blond blue-eyed dudes who do come here usually end up skipping over all the conventionally attractive (per local standards) women, and end up falling in love with the most ordinary looking farm girl. All the white tourists go to the beach to get tanned, while the locals try to spend the least amount of time exposed to the sun and spend huge amounts on skin-lightening products. Granted, Northeast Asians are usually paler than us but also typically prefer light skin to darker skin, so that’s somewhat more complex than just exoticism, but it’s still interesting to see.
JMG, wow! You are a brave man to volunteer to read Tselina. Though not written by LLM for obvious reasons, it has (as Daniil Adamov noted above) a very similar flavor… some kind of vast emptiness stares back at you as you read this book. I still remember the eerie feeling. Anyway, good night and good luck!
@ Anonymous Moose: funny thing, about electrification being the wave of the future. I’ve been reading David Holmgren’s “Retrosuburbia”, a fantastic handbook about how to retrofit a suburban neighbourhood for a low-energy future. In it, he praises the virtues of wood cooking over electric. Wood! What a primitive and backwards technology! Holmgren has studies to say that with an efficient stove and the use of salvaged wood, it can be environmentally friendly. But it doesn’t fit into the narrative of the future at all.
Patrick @ 134, I doubt I can quarrel with anything you said. Most of those who do care about the things you mentioned are called independents. We call it Demexiting. I am not crying for the Democrats. They have now betrayed millions who believed in them, worked for them, voted for them and for no good reason.
AP is reporting that the administration will be reviewing some 55 million visas for overstays:
https://apnews.com/article/trump-visas-deportations-068ad6cd5724e7248577f17592327ca4
About time someone decided hows about enforcing the laws we already have. You will note the press release specified 55 million, a suitably large number to be impressive. What was NOT said is all visas. So, some are still getting special treatment. At a guess that includes CIA pets and proteges resettled here, as well as scions of rich foreigners with whom the president or other Republicans have business dealings and social relationships.
@Revelin (#136) and JMG (#143):
Frigging in the Rigging is actually a very old sea shanty, and there are many variant verses to it other than the ones quoted here from the Sex Pistols. Here’s one of the tamer variant verses: “The Skipper’s daughter Mabel, / Though she was young, was able / To fornicate with the Second Mate / Upon the chartroom table.”
I first heard this one when I was about 17, and had recently become fond of sea shanties. So there was a 33 1/3 vinyl of Oscar Brand’s “Old Time Bawdy Sea Shanties” under the Christmas tree for me that year. i put it on the record player. Cue, embarrassed confusion among the assembled women relatives, including my mother, and knowing chuckles among the men, including my father (all of them were former Navy men or sailors). A memorable and delightful Christmas that was indeed!!!
JMG,
More than a narrative the theme in the U.S. shifted from “win-win” to “zero-sum” well before Trump was elected and… you can already see the next theme of “negative sum game” moving around the periphery.
If “winning” is defined as the comfortable lifestyles of the U.S. in its heyday then no one is going to “win” moving forward, they are just going to “decide the way to lose that suits them best.” But… if “winning” gets other definitions well the future might not be so bad.
I noticed the narrative in 95 and I’ve been waiting for it to collapse ever since. And it just keeps getting louder. Maybe that’s how it goes.
Here’s a narrative about the present day difficulties with dating and partnering. We can model the process of satisfying needs as a polarity: gathering versus ordering. Gathering means to choose (or leave) what’s immediately available as you move in your environment. Ordering, you decide what you want and then “source” it (“source” became a verb around 1972, and I think that’s a significant milestone) using available infrastructure.
(It’s a polarity but not a binary. Of course you can decide you want something and deliberately go to where you think it’s likely to be available Even so, it seems systems tend toward the two extremes.)
Shopping at markets can be either gathering or ordering, depending on circumstances and expectations. In earlier times a market or general store would be something of both; you might expect certain staples to be available most of the time but other goods would be contingent on “there’s a trader from X here today” or “a shipment of Y came in last week.”
When I was a kid, shopping was my family’s main recreation, which is kind of appalling (at least we were all very budget minded) but I have to admit it was often fun when it was browsing for unexpected or unusual goods rather than filling a list. There are some vestiges of shopping-as-gathering still around, such as at yard sales and odd lot stores (and regular stores whenever “supply chain issues” arise). But there used to be many more: souvenir shops, dealers rooms at conventions, local artisans, even quirky stores in malls. Some of those still exist, but everything they sell is now available anywhere. And shopping is never fun or rewarding.
We can look much more broadly than buying stuff. Career choices used to be strongly guided (even long after they were no longer outright forced) by family experience and the primary local industries. Education choices likewise. Not too long ago in a small town your choice of doctor was “the” doctor in town, rather than choosing from a ranked and reviewed list of “providers” all in the same mediplex 60 miles away. Many old metaphors for the course of a life (navigating a river from source to sea; the seasons of a year; a passing parade) imply limited choices and unexpected turns. Today we have the “bucket list” that conceptualizes all of life’s potential experiences as items to be selected and duly sourced.
It’s easy to see what underlies these narrative changes. Gathering requires purposeful movement and engagement with one’s environment; ordering only requires access to sufficient infrastructure. The former has been dwindling in most people’s lives while the latter has become all but frictionless.
You see where this is going, though. For most people a compatible life partner just isn’t something that can be ordered and sourced, no matter how efficient the logistical infrastructure. Not at all. But present narratives don’t acknowledge that; instead, they dangle the illusion of a choice as unlimited as an online shopping cart. So people make choices impossible to fulfill, resulting in the failure and blind unthinking rage you mentioned when the order doesn’t arrive. That part of it, you’ve already explained. But there’s this kicker: many of those accustomed to the ordering approach to everything, when told the actual solution to their dilemma has something to do with purposeful movement and engaging with their environment, no longer know how to do that. Others start doing it, but solely for that one purpose, which has rarely been a good idea. The difference between meeting girls/boys while doing X, and doing X to meet girls/boys, is subtle but important.
Phutatorius, granted, it’s uneven. In some places, very uneven.
Mark, I’ve been saying for quite a while now that, since what you contemplate, you imitate, the mainstream Left’s obsession with the guy with the mustache may yet make them put on armbands and start goose-stepping.
Justin, glad to be of service. 😉
Jill, that’s a good point — all stories define values, and values are among the things nobody wants to discuss openly these days. Hmm…
Carlos, funny. Yeah, standards of beauty are remarkably variable from culture to culture.
Inna, if nothing else, it’ll be useful if I have trouble sleeping!
Robert M, good heavens. I was unaware of that — though I was able to find the Oscar Brand version’s lyrics promptly online:
https://genius.com/Oscar-brand-good-ship-venus-lyrics
Some of the other songs on the same album are pretty breathtaking. It’s probably just as well that I didn’t look those up while I was doing research for A Voyage to Hyperborea!
GlassHammer, that is to say, reality is seeping in despite all the media’s efforts to stop up every crack. In a society in decline, every game is a negative-sum game and the value of all investments moves asymptotically toward zero.
Piper, it’ll be entertaining to see how long it lasts.
Walt, hmm! Yeah, that makes a great deal of sense.
SCOTLYN! that was soooo beautifully put. thank you.
xxxxx
#100 Scotlyn says:
August 21, 2025 at 5:23 am
re @ Erika #21
“i’m starting to trust people who’ve been in solidly good relationships for a long time, and trust the ideas that branch off from that ability and solidity”
Well, yes… for a start, getting into a solidly good relationship for a long time (or even an intermittently good relationship that has had its ups and downs, but has BUILT through them over a long time), requires two people being willing to step outside of the corrupted stories our society ladles out to us long enough to write another story, together, that includes (at least) themselves co-operating and creating, and developing *shared* (not conflicting) interests.
Anonymoose #60, your conclusions about electric cars make sense. Insisting every electric car on the (US) market has to have a 300 mile or so range on a charge is like insisting that every internal combustion car has to accelerate 0-60 in under 5 seconds. The range spec is easy for an IC car but requires pushing-the-limits (expensive) engineering for an electric car. For the acceleration spec it would be the other way around.
The electric car that would best meet my needs would have a range of about 60 miles on a charge, and a top speed of 50 miles an hour uphill in a headwind. AC or heat not required (there’s none on a bicycle or at a bus stop, after all) but at my age I do want a roof, and a passenger seat for my wife. Of course it’s possible to engineer those, so I wonder why they’re not available in the US. I can think of several possible reasons…
– It’s impossible for such a lightweight vehicle to meet some mandatory crash safety requirement to be road legal? (A bicycle, motorcycle, trike, or pedestrian can’t withstand a crash either, so…)
– The US automobile industry honestly and unanimously believes very few Americans would buy such a vehicle? (If so, are they right? And why are they constantly “unveiling” no-frills vaporware vehicles supposedly to be priced around $10K?)
– No manufacturer wants their prestigious brand name associated with a product poor people would use? (Kia doesn’t seem to mind that, though, and making up new brand names for different lines is commonplace.)
– A conspiracy to protect the profitability of selling existing IC and electric vehicles by agreeing no one will sell subcompact electric ones?
OTHER OWEN
dirt people and cloud people!
You are sooo good at this!
Well, over here, calls to decleare the AfD illegal – which would result in its dissolution and cement the left powergrab forever (or until a violent uprising) – are becoming louder and more frequent as the party rises in polls. Currently it’s the strongest party, having overtaken even the formerly-really-now-only-nominally-conservative CDU. How they imagine the reception if they deprive currently 26% of the voter base of their choice of party will be I have no idea, but I’m guessing they’re taking their cue from the compliance during covid. Another strategy is to simply declare candidates to be unfit for being voted into positions even as low on the totem pole as mayor, and take them from the voting list by court order – such as happened recently in Ludwigshafen (eugyppius has written about that here: https://www.eugyppius.com/p/afd-mayoral-candidate-joachim-paul)
It seems that after the National Socialists of the Reich, and the International Socialists of the GDR, we’re now in for a third round of socialism with the forseeable disastrous results. I have no idea why my country feels compelled to repeat the same story over and over again, but isn’t repetition compulsion rooted in some kind of trauma? I wonder if much of our ailments stem from the Thirty Years War, which was truly apocalyptic for the German peoples. And maybe the Western phenomenon of locking yourself into a single narrative that you endlessly repeat no matter the outcome, is also a result of some collective trauma in the past.
Orwell’s 1984 contains machine-written lyrics for a proletarian pop song. “It was only an ‘opeless fancy . . .”
Robert Mathiesen #31
> where people routinely move far away from all their close relatives for the sake of careers.
I married in 1982 and, in 1990, left the New York City metropolitan area. We moved away partly because my mother-in-law (MIL) was a real, hmm, “female” wanker. (Is saying wanker okay?)
It was only in 2022 when, due to her being her late 80 years of age going on 90, she lived with my husband (her son) and me at which time I discovered she was way worse than a wanker — she was the equivalent of a komodo dragon🦎. A HUNGRY komodo dragon LOOSE in our house, 24/7, for seven months. In old age, she was no longer human.
Seriously. Whew‼️That was a close one.
MIL now deceased.
💨🤯Northwind Grandma
Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
70-something
Mary Bennet #120
> J. D. Vance
You and I differ. To me, J. D. Vance can do no wrong. He is the greatest. I adore the guy. He is awesomer than awesome. He gets my vote. To me, J. D. Vance happens to be none other than… you guessed it… Chad Thunderschlong🍆. (Yeah, I know. I am over 70.)
💨🇺🇸👖💪🏼Northwind Grandma
Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
Daniil Adamov #127.
It’s good to know that…Thank you for your comment.
Oh, situationists…”Situs” for friends. I started reading Situationist essays and books some years ago, and they surprised me a lot. I was younger and more far-left wing than nowadays, ahem ahem… I’ve been changing my ideas to a “traditionalist socialism” now, if you don’t mind the bad political joke.
There’s a web whose name is A.S.H. (Archivo Situacionista Hispano) with several essays translated from French to Spanish. If you’re curious and read Spanish fluently…
https://sindominio.net/ash/ash.html
I read The Society of the Spectacle many years ago, and though most of it went right over my head, I do remember feeling that there was some ‘truth’ or ‘wisdom’ in there. So, looking forward to what you have to say.
Thanks to Revelin #136 talking about the situationists and punk. Suddenly I understand more about why I actually like the sex pistols (and john lydon), as it was never really about their music.
Also thanks to Erika for her reaction on the Matriarchy post, talking about George P. Hansen’s book. I’m not autistic, but I’ve always been in a world just outside the ‘normal’ world, or at least on the edge of it and never really part of it. Need to read that book 🙂
–bk
Hey JMG
I just came across this amazing bit of news, that is probably more relevant to your Zardoz post than your current one.
It turns out that Anthony Galluzo has read your review of his book, and posted a reply on his Substack.
https://substack.com/@anthony464485/note/c-147887407
JMG,
I can see what you are getting at with young men these days, but I am not so sure about this take on young women.
I don’t think women under thirty-five read anything in print, let alone romance novels. In my experience they are far more likely programmed by their social media. It’s been very frustrating hearing so many of them parrot the same ideas these past couple of years! Maybe memes and short videos convey this emotional porn you speak of, but I don’t spend time in those corners of the internet.
They are also more likely to watch porn and actually mimic pornstars, by the way!
>So you’d get baited into thinking you’re going into a date, when in fact you’re going into a rather high pressure situation to answer the altar call and acceptJesusintoyourheartasyourpersonalLordandSavior (I swear that’s just one word whenever Evangelicals say that to me)
They like to sell Personal Jesus the way some fast food restaurants sell Personal Pizza. How convenient. How New Age, as Jello Biafra said back in the day. You can take religion out of the culture but you can’t take the culture out of religion.
You might want to type “flirty fishing” into your favorite search appliance and start reading. Religion got rather strange back in those days. I suppose it could get strange again. Maybe it already has and I don’t know.
Hi John Michael,
Maybe it is just my wiring, but Jane Austen’s books baffled me. Honestly, romance as a genre is probably entirely lost on me. Having lived through two of my mother’s divorces as a young kid, romantic notions as to how relationships should appear and work, are completely outside my world-view. They take hard consistent work to maintain, but I don’t shy from work. And porn, that’s a trap probably best to avoid altogether. But then there are a lot of traps to be dodged for the unwary, and video games got me in thrall as a mid-teenager. Oh well. Lesson learned, move on.
Did you happen to notice this just occurred: Ukrainian man arrested over Nord Stream pipeline ‘sabotage’ attacks in 2022. Now, the cynic in me suggests that if I were the Germun authoritas and funding a losing war, facing de-industrialisation, and probably a great loss of top notch manufacturing jobs putting lots of people out of work, I’d probably try and re-arrange the narrative somewhat. Look what they’s gorne and dun to our cheap gas! Hmm. It’s a bit like a two year old stomping around screaming: They started it!
Crazy days. And you might be right about Canada. We’re a lot further away down here and attempting to play all sides at once. Did you notice that the Japanese have been awarded the contract to build the latest navy frigates? I always laugh about our unusual history. When the Great White fleet rolled into Port Phillip Bay, did we attack them with the weapons installed at the heads to the bay? No. We got them all drunk and feted them instead. Much cheaper and easier. Everyone had a good time and left with happy feelings.
Cheers
Chris
Wer here
Well JMG I haven’t commented in a while but if you think about it it is time highest that those narratives die.
Over the last week or so the media in Poland had a meltdown over Putin and Trump with the amount of white noise being produced would make someone on acid to shame.
I am perplexed by what is going on in those people’s minds. Evidently Trump wants out of Ukraine but when he and Putin make some overtones the clown circus arrives at the White House and mocks everything up.
It is clear they want the war to continue in Ukraine but they have no army to continue it and are begging for stuff from the US to continue it for them…. (When trump told the EU no)
And I am not even going to comment the insane demands from the Ukrainian side. I am convinced they the are not concerned by they country well being they just profiting from the war and want them to continue it as long as they want.
JMG asking about the previous comment I don’t think the EU has the ability to do anything on their own. They want war with Russia but they are afraid to do it themselfs why do you have the Ukrainians acting as cannon fodder for them, and judging how Pokrovsk is surrounded they might not have Ukrainians for long…
Eu has so many problems on it’s own that the idea they can mobilize someone and fight someone without the US to hold their hands for them because actualy fighting is bad.
As far as feeding Brezhnev’s memoirs into LLMs I expect this has already happened.
I know there has been a study of Gustav Husák’s New Year addresses to the people of Czechoslovakia, comparing their content using a contemporary corpus and also with a corpus based on official Communist publications.
A Data-Driven Analysis of Reader Viewpoints: Reconstructing the Historical Reader Using Keyword Analysis (Masako Fidler , Václav Cvrček 2015 Journal of Slavic Linguistics)
The conclusion as I could see it, is to a modern reader, Husák’s addresses seem very formulaic and repetitive because there is so much of the characteristic Communistic official phrases etc, that seems marked to a modern reader, wheras when referenced against the corpus of official publications of the era, changes over time can be seen.
This parallels a bit with LLMs, because there is still something of a chracteristic turn of phrase of LLM generated text, where it is basically Google Autocomplete overlain with a simulation of conversationality, while equivocating on any possibly controversial topic.
You can for instance, ask a LLM to answer a question in the style of Gustav Husák, which you can do yourself, since I think our host’s rules probit the cut-and-paste of chunks of LLM output.
Athaia, it’s not just Germany. Over here a lot of people in our laptop class are in a complete frenzy over the fact that the populist majority is actually getting some of the policies it voted for put into place. “What’s wrong with them?” they scream. “Don’t they know that we’re supposed to get everything we want and they’re supposed to bow before the inevitable march of Social Progress?” I suspect that’s what’s behind your local example of the same thing.
Deborah, what a perfect epitaph for the AI bubble…
Chuaquin, it’s not a joke at all. We’re in one of those periods where all the old political alignments get fed into a blender with the lid off, and random chunks are splashing the walls in all directions.
BK, it takes some unpacking, which is going to be half the fun!
J.L.Mc12, thank you for this — very good to hear. What fascinates me even more than the fact that he responded to my comments is the fact that he seems to assume that his audience will recognize me. That’s good news; it’s precisely in conversations among radically dissenting viewpoints that new possibilities emerge. If the Left is open enough to notice what I’m writing, even — or especially! — if they disagree with it and denounce it, there’s a real chance that they may shake off the ideological necrophilia that’s held their movement prisoner for way too long.
Anon, that’s why I pointed out that the narratives in question are most clearly seen in romance fiction — not that they only appear there. That said, it’s entirely possible that the specific set of attitudes I’ve tried to set out are primarily found in older women, and younger women are moving into some other set. Whether that’s an improvement or not will have to be judged by those who have to deal with younger women!
Chris, getting everyone drunk and throwing a party can be a very effective defense policy! As for the arrested Ukrainian, yeah, I think we’ve finally hit the point at which European politicians are scrambling around like a cat trying to cover up its droppings on a linoleum floor.
Wer, thanks for this. Yes, I’ve been watching the European response. They’re so used to getting the US to do their dirty work for them, it’s fascinating to watch what happens when we say, “Sorry, you made the mess, you get to clean it up.”
I can’t be sure if it’s intentional or simply a natural efect of what you have mentioned, but if people can’t form happy relationships then there are no strong families as well, since an unhappy family it’s normally a dysfunctional one as well.
In astrology, the 4th house of the family is opposite the 10th of public life, society and big power, both balancing it by being a counterpower and serving as a foundation. Nowadays, many people have forgotten where the strength of family lies, having being convinced by cheap movies that familiar life just sucks.
…But i think it’s precisely on the context of family where those stories are told, where those narratives stick in mind and become not an idea, but a way to feel and see through the world. After all, even as childs we don’t take for good every story we hear about, but the ones we are told by the people we respect and care about.
Walt #158 – Nothing to say or add, but wow!
I loved reading your thoughtful rumination on gathering vs ordering and enjoyed seeing how you drew out their implications for romantic attachment. 🙂
Thank you.
@Anon #171:
I work with a bunch of women in their late 20s. One is a HUGE fan of romance novels, and two of them are in a local book club together, where they recently recounted to me the plot of some ludicrous romance novel about a rough and tumble fisherman and a young lovely city girl who’d moved to Maine trying to find a surrogate parent. From what they tell me about this book club, it’s hopping and very active.
My wife and I recently befriended a younger mother who is I believe 26. She is also a fan of smutty romance novels.
Whether or not this is representative of all women under 35, I don’t know. But nearly every woman in that demographic that I personally know indeed reads the genre…so in my personal experience, your assessment is inaccurate at best and plain wrong at worst.
Speaking of narratives, I’ve been following the career of Benjamin Netanyahu for some time, with a horrible feeling of deja vu, as it’s clear to me what story he’s been in all along. “Do as you were done by/pay it downward,” and “what you hate, you imitate.” With Hamas gleefully stirring that pot, of course.
I know -business as usual in the Middle East. But it surely strikes me that he’s following in the footsteps of the little man who had been his peoples’ greatest enemy in the last century with perfect exactness.
What he’s after is an Arab-free Israel. The ones in the cities, treated like illegal aliens, and the ones in the country, treated the way we Americans did the tribes we encountered…. settlers moving into their territory and running the locals out; then, when Hamas threw a lit match into the gas, going after Gaza with a fury even his own citizens are starting to call genocide.
Come to think of it, the Crusades also come to mind; I can almost hear his crying, “Deus le volt!” with his sword in the air.
Anyway, that’s my $0.02 for the day, complete with a cliche-filled melodramatic turn of mind.
@Northwind Grandma (#165) wrote about her MIL:
“In old age, she was no longer human.”
My take on that is that our children are not born human, but most of them manage become human through hard work in childhood. Some never get there at all And it actually takes work to remain human throughout one’s life. As some age, that work becomes more than they can manage; or they get lazy and stop working at being human. Some, as you say, become hungry komodo dragons;
I must thank you for that komodo-dragon metaphor; it fits so well. My own mother, despite all the valuable lessons I learned from her in my childhood, went down that road, and became unendurable for the last two decades of her 106.5 years of life. Phew!
So, much sympathy!
Myth, narrative, and stories in general are powerful forms of mind control and behavioral control on an individual and collective level.
But stories can be a very slippery thing for example :
Before i started reading JMG, I thought the story of Progress and the Enlightenment was a mostly accurate account of a historical process. Then JMG reframed that understanding into one saw the activities as fundamentally religious in nature, the west stopped worshiping the Christian God and started worshiping the Great God Of Progress. And then over time as i thought about the history and the myth I now see the Great God Of Progress is Lucifer. I mean it really fits
the initial promise
the great intellect
that leads to deadly Pride
the rebellion against God
the creation of Hell
And surprisingly enough this interpolation of history has given me a sense of sympathy for Lucifer’s tragedy, if he could only renounce his Pride he could begin that long journey out of Hell, but of course he wont, but perhaps we could?
Wes for the authors here;
“Denmark is to stop charging VAT on books in an attempt to get more people reading. At 25%, the country’s tax rate on books is the highest in the world, a policy the government believes is contributing to a growing “reading crisis.” The culture minister, Jakob Engel-Schmidt, announced on Wednesday that the government would propose in its budget bill that the tax on books be removed.”
How does that tax work on a downloaded book? Reading on a tablet is still reading. Does the All-Glorious Danish State find a way to tax a download from Project Gutenberg?
Hi JMG,
In your response to Patrick #93, I was dismayed to read you have plans to leave the country if the Dems get into power again. I know you have mentioned you had such plans, but had been unspecific as to the conditions you would apply them. Unfortunately the thing that came to my mind was the high fears that many conservatives had that if Obama was elected, he would confiscate all their guns and ammo. Of course it never happened, but what makes you so sure you would be targeted in such a way that would require you to leave the country if the Dems get into power in the near future? It seems to me that the Dems have been “… ignoring the Constitution and punishing their enemies in extralegal ways if they do regain power” for some time now. What signs would make their return to power special this next time?
Should that happen and you exit the USA, I would miss a certain “Plummer” presence.
Good morning JMG,
Yes, besides jammimg LLMs, insomnia treatment is another good application for Brezhnev’s trilogy. Just make sure you never read it on the bus or you risk the opposite ailment – narcolepsy. If you ever get to reading Tselina I’d be very curious to know what you have to say about it.
Egil’s Saga, of the Icelandic Sagas, continues to live through time and runs between this fantastical idea of the impossible man found in Romance novels. He was a noble poet, a big strong viking hero, ethical at times, also an ugly man, and a murderer who sometimes apologized. He might have had Paget’s disease. He was loved, his daughter loved him and rescued him from a kind of suicide, and his handmaiden rescued him from his father’s killing spree. Would a man like this appeal to woman because he is powerful and needs to be rescued? His more beautious brother Thorolf dies while Egil lives until old age, speaking to his potential as a long term provider. A man like Thorolf is less grounded in earth, not long for the world. Were vikings crafting an advanced ideal of the male romantic hero?
There is data that Gen Z is causing a romance novel boom. And another government is collapsing… this time U.K reform looks to be massively overtaking Labour and Tories. Would Egil and Thorolf’s grandfather, cast more as a hardworking beserker that breaks away from a tyrannical government, be more suitable as a conceptual starting point for new era romance writing. What will appeal to Gen Beta and so on?
An old girlfriend of mine used to call romance novels “porn for women.” She didn’t like them, but she read a lot of them, because her difficult life as a single mom made her want to relax into the fantasy.
Very nice juxtaposition of two of the topics most likely to cause people to start ranting incoherently! I am looking forward to seeing you bring this together. I suspect an important piece of the puzzle is that people are pretty good at placing their lived experiences in a variety of stories if they are given time to explore and subconsciously process the different and contrasting stories. But when life accelerates to become an endless stream of brief clips leading to a shot of dopamine, you weed out most stories that can be matched to real life and you end up with the stories driven by cheap and predictable emotional trajectories that you identify. TV/Hollywood/MTV/Facebook/Instagram bear a large part of the blame here in addition to romance novels, pornography, and political storytelling. So we have to wean ourselves off of quick highs and start strengthening communities with slow stories to tell and live out. This is a hard task.
Hmmmm. I guess another observation is that the Icelandic Sagas are romantic narratives that might appeal more to men and are written for other men, and have more for the video game market than romance novels. I wonder if viking women found the sagas is appealing at all.
>OTHER OWEN
dirt people and cloud people!
You are sooo good at this!
I can’t take credit for those terms. Happy to pass along the memes.
>I have no idea why my country feels compelled to repeat the same story over and over again
My theory is most of hoomans live on what I call “Three Week Island”. What’s that? It’s last week, this week and next week. Anything off of Three Week Island either didn’t happen or never will happen. Germans are hoomans, ja? So most of them live on Three Week Island. There you go, glad I could help.
One thing I can’t help but wonder is if these trends are organic or not. Is what we’re seeing in modern romance novels truly scratching some deep itch in the female psyche, or is it just what the industry wants to sell, for whatever reason?
I know this applies to pornography aimed at men– a good number of years back, “step-incest” pornography exploded onto the front page of MindGeek’s free video sites (which means it was everywhere, as the Jewish-Canadian company was even then the Google of porn). Guys were complaining everywhere about it. Nobody cared about stepsisters or stepmothers, and they felt they were being force-fed this fetish. We know it happened, we know where it started, but we still don’t know why. (The conspiracy theory is that they’re aiming to further destroy already-broken families through perversion.)
Apparently something similar happened decades ago with butt stuff. It used to be unheard of, and then it was everywhere. I’ve read some things that suggest this was a deliberate marketing choice on behalf of the porn studios, but no single explanation why. (One conspiracy that apparently has a little evidence behind it was to soften up men to be less disgusted by gay sex.)
So my question for the women who’ve followed romance novels for some time– do you think that the modern formula is something organic, that the market desires, or something that’s being pushed on you? And if it’s pushed, can you guess why?
@Brendhelm #133:
That’s a really interesting observation, because I was thinking yesterday after writing my comment that I’d place the beginning of the era of reality-fantasy blurring at about 2005, which aligns with you observation. That’s the year that the Temple of the Jedi Order and the Church of the Latter-Day Dude were founded, religions based on Star Wars and The Big Lebowski, respectively. Of course there have been lighthearted religions before (fnord), but awareness of Jediism in particular made waves into even mainstream consciousness.
Then I’d note that Neptune actually entered Pisces in 2011 and… well, that’s the year everything went sideways culturally. Then over the next decade you had the explosive growth and derangement of fandoms, the fictionkin phenomenon, the bald assertion that “fiction is reality” (asserted on Tumblr as justification for bullying artists into suicide). Just a general breakdown between what was real and what wasn’t.
@Anonymous #137
Oh, definitely.
As a kind of postscript to my previous comment, it occurs to me that the difference between something like Discordianism and something like Jediism is that the former takes serious esoteric principles and presents them in a silly way, while the latter draws on nothing deeper than the tawdry cliches of the collective consciousness of its era.
JMG #143
> an astonishing number of people seem to think that groceries come from the store, not from dirt and mud and dead plants and animals
A couple years ago, I went searching for a book that told “the story of groceries.” I had a hard time finding anything on the subject, but finally found this exposé:
The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket
by Benjamin Lorr
ISBN 9780-0553459395
published 2020
The book will knock your socks off.
page 2 (describing ice under the fish section):
“Beneath this second layer, the ice is more crunchy, less frozen. It’s an old freezer and inconsistent and it only takes a few scrapes before you get to streaks of brown. A few more and the smell comes. It is horrible and not at all of decomposition but of fecal waste maybe sweetened slightly, thick in the air like you were exhuming something dangerous, which perhaps you are.”
💨🧦Northwind Grandma
Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
Patricia M – The US could look at how elections are run in the UK if they want to clean up their act. No voting machines (easily hacked and Trump said he will ban these too) and a system of checks and balances to minimise fraud. I worked as a Poll Clerk and saw how the system worked. There are rarely lines either as the polls are open from 7am -10pm and there are lots of polling stations. We do allow postal voting which is the weak link in the chain but the fraud was exposed when it was used to cheat in an area of London with a high Bangladeshi population (Tower Hamlets). Voter fraud is seen as very unBritish and is very much frowned upon among Anglo-Saxons. It’s illegal too and Police visit the polling stations, more for show, but it reinforces the idea that everything has to be above board.
As for seniors who can’t stand for long, they could be allowed to skip the line or they could be allowed a mail in ballot (if they can prove they need it) and the necessary checks and balances are there. There are ways to solve this if the will and money is there to do it.
Just to show you how different the culture is, we were told as poll employees we couldn’t wear party colours or we would be sent home, never mind wearing party merch, like they do in the US. In the US, it’s the opposite, as the system is set up to allow liberal fraud. I couldn’t believe how Banana Republic US elections are. I really hope Trump follows through on these promises.
Coincidentally, found out that downtown Boise is going to get a bookstore focused on romance novels soon.
Hearts on Fire Bookstore
“There is a new bookstore coming to Downtown Boise with a romantic feel.
Hearts on Fire Books is a romance-focused bookstore that has a specifically curated inventory of romance novels. There will be a variety of sub-genres as well, but the main focus is romance novels.
Owner of Hearts on Fire Books, Samantha Haroian, started her career in accounting, but after she moved back to Boise and stepped away from Simplot, she decided to pursue her goals of owning and operating her own bookstore. ”
Owned and operated by a woman. How about that?
I guess what I meant by all the same story was that the characters and settings of the stories may change, but people remain the same in their aspirations and outlook. I was referring to the fact that humans are humans, and no matter how “it’s different this time, that was then, this is now.” people think, things don’t really change all that much. It will be interesting to see the new settings the stories take place in. I take your point that the stories being stuck in place, like the progress myth. Hopefully soon, the giant pop sound of peoples heads emerging out of the sunless orifice will be heard.
PS. I would put Anthony Galluzo in the hard to classify column of the ledger. I think the sparks from the rubbing up against each other of peculiar viewpoints will produce some useful results. I personally am interested in anyone who is thoughtful, and represents those thoughts well.
I have a new ‘moniker’ for, ahem … ‘journalist’, e.i. ‘Uranal-ist….’ as in: Extremely •Jaundiced • Journalism ..
There’s your ‘trap’ right there…..
@ anon #171 and romance readers.
LOADS, I mean ARMIES of young women read romance IN PRINT.
I meet them at book events.
If you want to see young women spend serious bucks on books, attend Apollycon: https://jenniferlarmentrout.com/apollycon/
This is Jennifer Armentrout’s annual romance convention (five days?). It’s at the Gaylord in D.C. and a single day’s ticket (and good luck buying one as they sell out within minutes) is about $100.
There are plenty of romance events, filled with young and old women buying books.
Knowing many stories is wisdom.
Knowing no stories is ignorance.
Knowing only one story is death.
Re-reading this, I thought of the EU sanctioning Russia. It didn’t work the first time, so they tried it again and again it didn’t work, so they keep on sanctioning Russia. And Russia just ignores them. The EU only knows one story.
Who was it that said
Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is insanity.
Sounds about right.
Erika Lopez post #25
Thank you. I was burning up because of the ideas JMG had in this post knocked one essay for my ‘Stack off it’s axis, and completely informed another one. The mans ideas are so dense that it takes several readings to settle into the control panel. I am eternally grateful to John Michael for being such a sage, and an inspiration to so many.
Like you, and your art and your being. I am humbled by the depth and breadth of the commentariat. It is a community worth preserving and delving into, every week.
” my job as a mixed bougie ghetto girly girl that other girls don’t trust because i’ll call ’em out, is to not be likable but jam up your assumptions so The STORY can include me and other current future weirdos as relevant teachers prophets artists visionaries philosophers without “S”s necessarily in their names.”
You sound just like my wife, except she is a mixed small town girl, who people love, or people hate. No inbetween.
@ TylerA #192 and any other Romance readers or people interested in romance novels
Romancelandia is vast beyond measuring.
What makes a romance? A Happy Ever After ending (HEA) or a Happy For Now (HFN) which is less popular.
Thus, “Gone With the Wind” is NOT a romance.
Within Romancelandia, you’ll find every possible permutation of spiciness, beginning with stories so chaste that the characters are allowed to touch hands only at the climax.
The terms to look for are “sweet”, “Amish”, closed door, and so forth.
If the relationships take time, i.e., characters don’t hop into bed on page 2, look for slow burn or even glacial burn.
What gets the press right now is the hardcore porn, which is largely written by women for women. Women ALSO write plenty of MM, despite not being male.
Many indie women writers follow the money and look to push the envelope.
Other women writers — I’ve met many — write charming, Hallmark Channel rom-coms or Sweet Amish and do quite well.
These two types of writers do NOT generally attend the same book events! If you’re writing charming, contemporary, small-town, slow-burn, closed-door romcoms, you are not going to sell any books at Sinners and Stardust events.
Library events will have more “normal” romance writers. The hardcore crowd don’t usually apply to library events because they’ve got to keep their stuff under wraps when the kids come around. They also may not want to be outed to their neighbors.
The romance community itself can’t seem to agree on behavioral standards.
You don’t seem to see this kind of issue at library events.
Sinners and Stardust is a dark romance event. They’ll be in New Orleans next year. I believe they’re organized for profit. https://www.sinnersandstardust.com/
Their most recent Sinners and Stardust took place in Boston. These events move from city to city to allow fans across the country to attend.
The Boston event had serious behavioral issues among the women (cis-hetero) attending with a male (I think) cosplayer.
The discussion at Smart B*tches/Trashy Books goes into some detail: https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2025/08/sinners-stardust-sexual-assault/
All I can say is that when anything goes, everything goes including common sense manners.
Guillem, that’s a valid point. The corporate pseudoculture has put a lot of effort into wrecking the family, for straightforward economic reasons, so it’s not surprising that the same patter would show up in that context as well.
Patricia M, yep. What you contemplate, you imitate…
Dobbs, it does fit — and there’s a persistent if heretical current in Christian theology that holds that eventually Lucifer will repent, anfd divine forgiveness will extend even to him.
Siliconguy, it wouldn’t surprise me if they did.
Kay, if the Democrats return to power at this point I expect furious reprisals aimed at everyone left of Lenin, including trumped-up legal charges with long prison terms, and I also expect a domestic insurgency that will probably expand into a full-scale civil war with atrocities on both sides. The only sane option in such a situation, for an old man who’s written books that cause apoplectic screaming fits on the left, is to get out of Dodge.
Inna, I’n in a hostel in New York City right now, getting ready for an event in the morning, and figured something less challenging was probably better reading for the trip. Once I get home, though, Tselina is next. I can follow it up with Alexandr Zinoviev’s The Yawning Heights as a palate cleanser. 😉
Ian, here’s hoping!
Tom, she wasn’t wrong.
Ganv, the long term effects of dopamine addiction are dire enough that I think the problem will eventually solve itself.
TylerA, that’s a fascinating question to which I don’t know the answer. Anyone else?
Northwind, ha! That goes onto my get-to list.
John, I bet it makes a big profit; pornography’s always lucrative. As for the giant popping sound, I don’t expect that any time soon, but I’d be happy to be surprised.
Polecat, hmm.
Annette2, a fine example!
Teresa, I wonder what the blogger’s opinion is about the correlation between pornography and the objectification of women, because seems to me that the same argument can be made about modern romance fiction and the objectification of men…
Slithy Toves, Brendhelm
Weren’t 2004-2005 also the years when a whole bunch of major social networks (Youtube, Facebook, Reddit, etc) started their existence?
@carl m #67
I have to say I prefer adBusters to Myth Busters, but I *really* want to see the bulls in the china shop. More lovely sensitive non-humans in action. [laugh tears emoji to @Mr nobody]
@kenan fllz- I also want to play with *applying* situationism to uncle Remus some of the current narratives in helpfully tricky ways
Also second @anonymous #66 that integration is likely to become less as bureaucracy down and stress up, but i think what we will get could be really new, strengthening localized enclaves can allow for return of diversity of culture, world of many worlds rather than strip mall/”diverse” disney sameness. But also people are too used to interracial relationships and that I think is likely to keep going on too, at the same time.
@brandi & jmg. Hm. I sort of had the same feeling as Brandi about the wind up, but didn’t realize you screen out much hysteria. Reckon I’m grateful because it does already takes long time to keep up with reading the whole comment thread . Dang. I’m still in the 60s…
Indirectly from the WSJ with their usual narrative firmly in place;
“Europe’s share of global economic output, measured in current dollars, fell from roughly 33% to 23% between 2005 and 2024, according to World Bank data. Much of that relative decline is due to the rise of China and India (and is less drastic using other measures of output), but the U.S. share of global output held up much better. Europe’s proportion of the global economy is now likely the lowest since the Middle Ages, according to the Maddison Project, a database that tracks economic history at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.”
“Europe needs to wake up, or it’s dead in so many ways,” says Tracy Blackwell, the retiring CEO of Pension Insurance Corporation, a U.K. asset manager. Or as JP Morgan chief Jamie Dimon said at a recent speech in Dublin, “You’re losing.”
And of course it’s not their fault..
“What was the status quo? The Americans provide our security, the Russians provide our energy, and the Chinese provide our export market. Guess what? It’s all gone,” said British historian Niall Ferguson in March.”
The fine article does call out too many regulations and an aging population as well, as well as high taxes, of course.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/europe-is-losing/ar-AA1L24RG
Another set of narratives is provided by popular music, especially to the young. If this is indeed true than it does not seem like we are in for any improvements in relationships between men and women. I will use a couple of examples from modern popular music and compare to music from the 70’s.
Today we have the songs of Taylor swift which mostly revolve around bad breakups and getting even with the guy who jilted you. Then there is Cardi B and her infamous song ” W.A.P”. On the male side of pop music we have Hype Male Rap, and on the other side of the spectrum ‘”BRO County”. None of these are about long term relationships.
Going back 50 years most music idealized romance and falling in love with the one. Even famous songs about one night stands like Rods Stewarts ” Tonights the Night”, or England Dan and John Ford Coleys ” I really one to see you tonight” , seemed tender and romantic in comparison to todays music.
50 years ago such popular music acted as a sort of guide to romantic ideals. Not so much today.
Alexander Zinoviev… funny that you mentioned him, JMG. Did you know that he called the Western political system Западнизм – the system of traps? This word has two connotations in Russian:
1. West – Запад
2. Trap – Запад-ня
These two are homophones, not words with the same root, but this coincidence makes the word Западнизм sound funny and have a double meaning in Russian.
It’s quite a synchronicity given that we are discussing The Narrative Trap.
As for the book itself, it’s been years since I read it. I remember that it takes place in the town of Ibansk – sounds unremarkable like Kursk, but any Russian speaker would immediately recognize the hint to another word and interpret it as a “f…cked up place”. In this town, “people pretend to work, scientists pretend to think, and dissenters pretend to dissent” or something like that. I remember it being satirical and VERY long. Tselina with The Yawning Heights chaser… I don’t know, JMG… It’s like taking Ambien with Dulcolax…😆 If you decide to do it, PLEASE report the results 😉
@Ian Duncomb (#186, #189):
Egil’s Saga, like most of the older Icelandic sagas, wasn’t written as a work of fiction for the general reader, but as a historical record of the ancestry and life of an actual person, ugly warts and all, written for his descendants and their friends. It’s something of a historical blunder to read the sage as if it were primarily an artistic fiction written for the medieval equivalent of a literary market.
The “market” its author had in view was delimited by genealogy and by actual social relations, not by potential readers’ tastes in fiction. It is probably safe to say that medieval Scandinavians, by and large, were far more inclined to read well-written history (including family history) and mythology than well-written “fiction.”
@Walt #161
Re: electric vehicles, long range not needed;
The good news, Walt, is that you can get an electric vehicle in the US for much less, with a somewhat limited driving range.
The bad news is that you will likely have to adapt a gasoline vehicle, perhaps with the help of one of these electric conversion kits.
Here’s a link; https://evwest.com/
You have to provide your own car (working engine not required). The kits include the electric engine and wiring, and cost about $20,000.00. If you’re not a skilled mechanic, it might take another 5 or 10-thousand to pay someone to do the work. This would still be cheaper than getting a Tesla for $40K to $200K.
Or if you live in Australia, you can just buy a Chinese EV for $26K to $33K;
https://driving.ca/car-culture/lists/chinese-electric-vehicle-tariffs-restrictions-canada
“finally people turn in desperation to somebody who will take power, clear away the obstacles, and actually fix things.” – but what if things can’t be fixed? What if our society is fundamentally unsustainable even in the short / medium term? Do people just turn from one promising despot to another even worse despot until they elect Nazis?
I’m interested in understanding how we change the narratives across society (is that thaumaturgy?) not just our own narratives (theurgy perhaps?)
@JMG: “I also expect a domestic insurgency that will probably expand into a full-scale civil war with atrocities on both sides. ”
I’ve been re-reading Carl Jung’s 1945 WW II post-mortem “After the Catastrophe.” I believe that what Jung said about Nazi-era Germany applies to the U.S. today.
“This spectacle recalls the figure of what Nietzsche so aptly calls the “pale criminal,” who in reality shows all the signs of hysteria. He simply will not and cannot admit that he is what he is; he cannot endure his own guilt, just as he could not help incurring it. …
“This condition can easily lead to an hysterical dissociation of the personality, which consists essentially in one hand not knowing what the other is doing, in wanting to jump over one’s own shadow, and in looking for everything dark, inferior, and culpable in others. Hence the hysteric always complains of being surrounded by people who are incapable of appreciating him and who are activated only by bad motives; by inferior mischief-makers, a crowd of sub-men who should be exterminated neck and crop so that the Superman can live on his high level of perfection. The very fact that his thinking and feeling proceed along these lines is clear proof of inferiority in action. Therefore all hysterical people are compelled to torment others, because they are unwilling to hurt themselves by admitting their own inferiority. But since nobody can jump out of his skin and be rid of himself, they stand in their own way everywhere as their own evil spirit — and that is what we call an hysterical neurosis.”
He summed up the Nazi period in Germany as follows: “To my mind, the history of the last twelve years is the case-chart of an hysterical patient.” That sums up the U.S. in 2025 as well as anything.
I saw the first signs of this in the late Clinton administration. That is why I moved abroad a quarter century ago. I know that many people characterise New Zealanders as a flock of sheep, and that is frustrating for those who are alive to the realities of our age. However, I feel far safer living among a flock of sheep than with a herd of spooked cattle, ready to stampede in unpredictable directions at any moment. So, I fully grasp your concerns.
In related news, Peter Thiel just announced a lecture series on “The Antichrist”.
He’s been harping on the topic since at least last year, if not before.
https://www.hoover.org/research/apocalypse-now-peter-thiel-ancient-prophecies-and-modern-tech
https://archive.is/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/opinion/peter-thiel-antichrist-ross-douthat.html
To summarize his point, he sees two threats to the world: Armaggedon (through nuclear war, AI etc) and the Antichrist (a worldwide dictatorship), both of which are linked. In his view, the Antichrist will rise to power through claiming to protect people from the threats of technology.
He didn’t really have a good answer when Ross Douthat pointed out that the companies he co-founded and invested in seem to create precisely the technologies that the Antichrist would need to control the world. Actually his ideas about how transhumanism doesn’t go far enough, and “transcending nature” is inspired by Christianity, not to mention much of his career itself, would likely lead most Christians to think he’s an agent of the Antichrist.
It’s kind of ironic IMO, as JMG has mentioned, the secular eschatologies of Marxism, tech-utopianism etc are Christian in origin, seems like Thiel is connecting them back to their Christian origins in his idiosyncratic way. He’s using a lot of the same narratives (“Antichrist” might be the origin of the “Bad Person” narrative) as the progressives and he’s even more aware of their origins but he can’t seem to escape the trap of thinking beyond these narratives. For what it’s worth I think he actually has some insights — the creep of the security theater
Hi JMG, thank for your post.
What we are seeing right now, in Europe but also I think in US, is a huge difference in political preferences between the young men and young women in the right wing political affiliation, for example in Spain, the main right wing party, Vox, has 4,6 more male supporters than women, the differences increases as the men and women are younger. It seems that a huge rift is opening between the young men and women as big as ever as I could recount, it also manifest in the dating, sexual relations, marriage/births statistics; the case of South Korea is an extreme one (for example the 4B movement), but it seems the developed world is moving in the same direction.
What is your explanations to this trend? How could it end?
Cheers
David
@JMG -A lot has been said about the impotence of the current left….. and there was a lot of Republican screaming over “That Man In The White House” in my father’s day.
But then, this is what I call a Mega-Macro Crisis, the sort that ends one civilization and gives way to the other. Case in point: England’s 15th Century. Rome’s time of Caesar. (Julius, not the later ones.) so all bets are off – both those periods were marked with civil wars, and the gods know the crowd around King Henry VI were the biggest lot of corrupt idiots in England. So, I am duly warned.
I never bothered to change my voter registration from Democrat to Independent, even though that’s been long overdue, simply because there was no need to take the trouble to do so, and a lot of mundane things on my hands including mold in my apartment after a long spell of wet weather. But, thanks for the warning.
P.S. I was in school when History and Civics gave way to something called Social Studies. Which tells you where the heads of today’s elders (my juniors!) are at.
Well, best of luck.
@Bridge: we don’t allow partisan hats, T-shirts, etc near the polls either, here in the States. At least they don’t in Florida, and didn’t in New Mexico.
Siliconguy, I wonder what they’d say if they realized just how much further Europe has to fall!
Clay, thanks for this. Yes, exactly — the two sources I mentioned are just convenient places to see a broadly toxic pattern.
Inna, ha! I like that. Yes, the translation of The Yawning Heights included a discussion of the meaning of “Ibansk,” and since I already knew the profanity in question, I chuckled. I’ll be quoting Zinoviev in the upcoming discussion, because some of his comments about the people of Ibansk apply even more exactly to a certain class of Marxist activists in the West. More on this in due time — and yes, I’ll post something about my reading.
Art, it all depends on what you mean by “fixed.” Most of the people who back Trump aren’t looking for Utopia. Nor do they care if the resource-intensive habits of the privileged can’t be sustained. They want plenty of full time jobs at a decent wage, and the removal of at least some of the egregious burdens placed on them by official policies in recent years — and those goals are within reach. As for changing narratives across society, if you want to find some way to force other people to agree with you, and support your interests instead of their own, I’m sorry to say I can’t help you.
Michael, exactly — and thanks for the reminder. I’ll make time to reread that essay as soon as I get back home.
Alvin, yes, I heard of that. It’s hilarious, in a bleak sort of way, since if the Antichrist actually showed up, Thiel would probably be first in line to offer him IT services.
DFC, yes, this is also true in the US. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out. The explanation, though, is quite simple. Young men in Western or Westernized countries have been told over and over again for decades that they’re personally responsible for everything wrong with the world, and the only way they can become good people is to feminize themselves and accept a permanent status as second-class citizens. Understandably, that’s not a game most of them are willing to play, and so they jumped for an alternative as soon as they found one. Young women, meanwhile, are still the beneficiaries of that same set of narratives, and aren’t too eager to give them up.
Patricia M, that’s a good comparison, not least because Henry VI was developmentally disabled — the comparison with our recent experience here in the US comes to mind.
JMG,
“In a society in decline, every game is a negative-sum game” is this because retribution becomes more important than achieving anything useful?
I am pretty sure we are in the retribution chapter in the story of decline under the theme of negative-sum game. You can see this with elites using investigations and other forms of lawfare against other elites. Pretty soon the common man will seek their own retribution under private/personnel justice then the story decline will move chapters at a much more rapid pace.
In case this interest anyone, I would like to share my perspective about women’s fiction and readers from a used books seller’s point of view, which separates somewhat the “what is published now and who it caters to”, from “what is actually read by women given the chance”. My stock in the store includes newer and older books (depending on donations), with books older than 30-40 years kept in the warehouse.
Fiction aimed at women exists on a continuum and a book can fall anywhere between hot steamy sex with domination themes to that grey area that merges into General Fiction and makes bookstore owners wonder on what shelves to put some of the books. The continuum moves away from the former, to more normal romances, to romances mixed with women’s other concerns, to primarily women’s lives with a love interest mixed in, to just women’s lives which include men somewhere. Here is what I am seeing in my store, keeping in mind the selection usually offered in a used bookstore:
The majority of what are called Romances in the store are actually the Women’s Lives genre. The buyers are middle aged women. The more popular authors are Nora Roberts, Debbie Macomber, Sherryl Woods, Robyn Carr and the like. There are also Amish themed books that sell very well (no sex). By far, our romance sales are from books which reflect relationships in a broader women’s lives context. We do have some of the steamier books (Sylvia Day’s for example), but they are not as popular as the Women’s Lives books.
Our Paranormal Romance books (werewolves and such) are bought by middle aged women, who are quite enthusiastic about them, but they are a much smaller group of buyers, compared to the others in Romance.
The Harlequins and their spin offs have primarily older women (65+) readers. The top fave is Love Inspired, which is a Christian themed series (little sex to mention), followed by Love Intrigue, which generally is about a sexy law enforcement guy protecting a woman (with or without children), who is being threatened by some deranged male. The steamier Harlequins (like Blaze) are not best sellers with this demographic, though they do also sell.
The younger women, 20-30 or so, are reading the contemporary romances that might have a vampire in the upstairs apartment but is more likely to have the geek in the next apartment over, or the shy awkward guy bumped into while in some shop or at work. The males seem to be a bit inept and the covers often show women who are plump and real (in comparison to the usual gorgeous women of the steamy books). This age group is also huge fans of Young Adult novels, which includes the Stephanie Meyers vampire stories, special-destiny girls saving some fantasy world, and such, but also includes issues to do with serious health problems, family troubles, coming of age stories, and other more serious themes, which are equally popular.
In the grey area that we include with General Fiction on our shelves but which are the Women’s Lives genre are books by authors such as Dilly Court and Anna Jacobs (which are historical novels set in industrial towns of an earlier age and focus on character, hard work and devotion to family), and Danielle Steel. These are extremely popular. These are also primarily bought by middle-aged women.
I am not seeing an obsession with domination themes in the sales, but it does have a place in the very broad range of women’s interests.
My 2 cents worth, with apologies for the length.
-Myriam
@Slithy Toves re: #193
I’d also point to the Harry Potter phenomenon – or rather, to Harry Potter as an ur-example of the phenomenon. Book 5, which came out in June 2003 (Neptune in Aquarius, Uranus in Pisces but still due one final retrograde into Aquarius) was considerably more anticipated than any of its predecessors, and it had what, so far as I recall, was the first “spoiler” truly treated as taboo – before Harry Potter 5, fandom communities did not, I think, tend to treat spoilers with anywhere near the same gravitas that they did (and do) after. Fanfiction had existed before then, but it seemed to explode in the wake of book 5 and the release of book 6 in 2005.
@Anonymous re: #206
Right, almost in lockstep. Myspace (2003), Facebook (2004), YouTube (2005), Twitter (2006), all within that early period of the mutual reception.
Particularly relevant to this post, TV Tropes was also created in 2004.
DFC 216 wrote:
“in Spain, the main right wing party, Vox, has 4,6 more male supporters than women, the differences increases as the men and women are younger.”
I understand male young men, but I’d like to write that the opposite of a bad idea (gender madness) is another bad idea (far right populism)…Saludos
@Anonymous #206
They were, yes! Facebook was 2004, Reddit and YouTube were 2005. MySpace was a little earlier in 2003, but same general time period.
@Brendhelm and Anonymous
Something that occurred to me this morning is that part of the way that the exit of Neptune from Pisces may be playing out is that the proliferation of AI, rather than blurring reality and fantasy more as we all feared, is actually making people more vigilant about separating the two, because it’s become fashionable to dunk on AI-generated content as “slop” (which, to be fair, it is) and to accuse others of using AI to generate their online posts (which, to be fair, a lot of them probably are; though it irks me that I’ve felt the need to change my writing style to eliminate my habitual use of the em-dash to avoid that accusation).
Wow. Thanks for the reply JMG. I guess that is exactly what Plummer would do.
JMG: “To know one story is death.”
The most widespread stories: “I am the only story you need. All others are snares and delusions.”
Me *pointing with grease-stained fingers* “Well, there’s your problem.”
Thanks for the clarification JMG.
For better or for worse, I’ve been back on the dating scene for about two years now after 20+ years of marriage. It’s rough out there! I’ve tried the apps with some success, but I’ve met far more women in the real world.
I’ve dated women in their 30’s, 40’s and 50’s and it’s uncanny how uniform their perspectives are on so much of current events, but more so in their take on the current zeitgeist. I’m in a very liberal city in a very conservative state, so I’m really dealing with the TDS crowd as potential dates. They are all “strong, independent women” and want you to know it. I have nothing against strong, independent women, but in some cases they are clearly yearning for a more traditional situation. I’m pretty much a traditional guy and I suppose that’s part of why I have had so much luck with them. But the cognitive dissonance seems to drive them all crazy. A common refrain from my last girlfriend: “we’re all a little bit crazy.” She used it like a crutch, but I think she’s onto something (at least here in woke city!)
I’m also friends with a lot of women in their 20’s and 30’s, and it just gets worse the younger you go. They all take anti-depressants and ADHD meds (I mean every one of the four that I know best, not too sure of the more casual friends) and anxiety is through the roof despite the SSRIs. And I’ve yet to meet anyone under 35 that isn’t addicted to vaping on top of it all. I feel bad for my sons (in their early 20’s.)
Anyway, I’ve been in monk mode for close to three months and might just avoid dating altogether going forward. They are, in fact, all a little bit crazy in my experience. I hope I’m not offending any of your readership John, just relaying how it’s been here for the past couple of years.
deathcap,
Yeah, I knew I was over-generalizing. I just posted a bit more on my experience over the past couple of years here in woke city, America.
In my defense, I’ve also been a college professor for 20 years and honestly don’t think that 90% of my students could sit and read anything much longer than a tweet these days. Social media has rewired their brains and the whole covid experience certainly didn’t help! I’ve had a front row seat to the steady decline in young adults’ ability to concentrate on something for more than a minute or two.
JMG, how did you stumble upon Zinoviev? He is largely forgotten nowadays. I think it’s because nobody owned him. No ideological side could claim him as “theirs”. He would laugh equally hard at everybody. People who knew Zinoviev described him as “clinically brave”. I’m thrilled about the discussion that includes “quoting Zinoviev”.
@Phutatorius #124, thanks for the explanation. I did look up the Browning reference, but (like our host apparently) enjoyed the ambiguity. Bullets or sonnets? What kind of magazines? I couldn’t quite parse the connection with Zen, but “what do you say when someone asks if you’re a Zen teacher?” (certainly not “yes” or “no”) when there’s no stick at hand was an amusing conundrum!
@Scotlyn #178, thanks! The concept came from reflecting on why I always found bucket lists so personally off-putting despite being all the rage. Planning is all well and good but so many seem to be either imprisoned by over-planning or lost because their plans didn’t work out. (Trapped on escalators in a power outage, blind to the steps that are still right there.) We talk a lot here about resilience; what might a resilient relationship look like?
Well, you and Erika have it sorted pretty well. #100, heck I’m going to quote it yet again because as Erika might say, YES! “Well, yes… for a start, getting into a solidly good relationship for a long time (or even an intermittently good relationship that has had its ups and downs, but has BUILT through them over a long time), requires two people being willing to step outside of the corrupted stories our society ladles out to us long enough to write another story, together, that includes (at least) themselves co-operating and creating, and developing *shared* (not conflicting) interests.”
@Emmanuel Goldstein #212, thanks for this! I’d heard of such conversions but didn’t know kits were so readily available. I’m pretty sure I could manage the mechanical and electrical work. (What I don’t have is indoor garage space and many of the necessary tools). But while that’s cheaper than a Tesla (or any other production electric car sold in the US), it’s still more expensive than the existing alternative option of buying and fixing up a used ICE car, and all things considered might not save any resources either.
GlassHammer, no, it’s because once a society tips over into decline, the wealth of that society begins to contract, and therefore every game has to be played for prizes that get smaller over time. Retribution is a side effect of that broader phenomenon.
Myriam, thank you for all these data points! May I ask, very broadly, where your store is located?
Chuaquin, I won’t argue with that at all. The fact remains that the far right is the only player in the game that’s offering young men any role but that of designated whipping boy.
Kay, you’re welcome.
Walt, excellent! Yes, exactly.
Anon, well, that’s unwelcome news. I’ve just started dipping a toe into the dating scene — no online apps, for obvious reasons, but it’s been a year and a half now since Sara died and it feels like time to start getting out there in the world again — and I hope I have better luck. 😉
Inna, the local public library in the suburb I lived in when I went to high school had a copy — it was on the new-book shelf in 1979. I picked it up, read the first page, had to stifle a laugh that would have gotten the librarians mad at me, and checked it out. Since ny Russian name would of course be Ivan Ivanovich, I felt a certain sympathy for one of the characters — you know, Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov. 😉
Siliconguy @ 208, the WSJ article was…interesting, with, as you say “their usual narrative firmly in place;”
Part of that narrative seems to be ignoring the effect of loss of colonial possessions. Another is raising taxes, notice the WSJ writer(s) don’t say taxes on whom, and cutting “social spending”– which kind of “social spending” also not specified–would seem to be, for the WSJ ideologues, the one and only road to prosperity. Apparently, subsidies to industrial scale farming don’t qualify as “social spending”? And do note that policies like commodity price supports and price controls are simply not allowed to be mentioned.
Interesting that massive importation of migrants from Asia and Africa doesn’t seem to have improved European prosperity or quality of life. Also interesting that the WSJ writers can’t read maps. ‘Europe’ might be in some way a cultural unity, but it is not a ‘continent’; I think it should properly be described as a sub continent like India.
I would point to an alternate narrative which claims that recent modern European prosperity rests in part on policies first implemented by Colbert and later by Bismark, and described by, among others, F. List. Those policies were taken up by the likes of Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay among others and came to be known as the American System of national development. The name ‘American System’ was deliberately used to highlight the contrast with the Free Trade doctrine of the British Empire.
@Anon #226
The good news is that this is almost certainly a collective consciousness thing rather than actual convictions on the part of anyone. Almost nobody believed this stuff a decade and half ago, after all, and I suspect the progressive hivemind/egregore/memeplex is now close to collapse.
It remains to be seen what will push it over the edge, but when it happens expect to see a rapid shift in what is socially acceptable to believe and say. That’s already happened for many parts of the culture, and it will eventually work its way into all but the most intransigent of progressive spaces.
Then we get to worry about what replaces it!
Myriam @ 220, One of my great pleasures in life is seeking out good but obscure writers. If your store was located near where I live, I would be interested in the writers from 30-40 years ago. As with any era, there were gems among the dross. Would it make sense for you to rotate those books, a few at a time, through your retail space.
Anon @ 226, have you considered dating working class ladies of appropriate age? It has been my observation that such women tend to have far more common sense and better characters than their more affluent counterparts. I suppose you must be capable of seeing past the lack of fancy clothing and elegant manners?
@Brendhelm #221
Thanks for bringing that up! Yeah, spoilers used to be a minor annoyance — you didn’t reveal the twist in something that just came out as a courtesy to your friends who hadn’t seen it, but with the exception of murder mysteries it was generally not considered to ruin the experience of the media, and it had a time limit: once media had been out for a while you couldn’t spoil it. Since then there has been a plague of fanatical spoilerphobia, of which I’m a recovering sufferer.
Also, before Rowling’s unpersoning by the Left, Harry Potter it was the go-to allegory for how evilly-evil Trump was and the need to resist him just like Dumbledore’s Army (which was introduced in Book 5, fittingly enough) did with Voldemort and the Death Eaters. This comparison was brought up so frequently that people begging them to “read another book” became a major meme in its own right.
Charles Hugh Smith has, IMO, been doing some of the best writing in his online career lately. His latest:
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogaug25/fall-apart8-25.html
is relevant to this week’s topic.
Smith makes reference to one Andrei Amalrik, a Soviet dissident of whom I had not heard before. Amalrik predicted the fall of the Soviet Union as early as the late 1960s. (So did Milovan Djilas at about that time). It is interesting to note that Djilas, during a tour of the USA in about 1069 or so, said he thought the New Left, which was to become the Democratic Party of today, was an intellectual and political dead end.
JMG, you stated in your response to GlassHammer above: “once a society tips over into decline, the wealth of that society begins to contract, and therefore every game has to be played for prizes that get smaller over time. Retribution is a side effect of that broader phenomenon.”
Agreed that collapse now and avoid the rush, living with less, will help keep us alive during times of decline, but will it also protect us from violence in any way? I have to say, I rather doubt that it will. For every 10 or so armed men and a few women who do what Dillinger did, attack where the money is, it seems to me there will be one or two haters of non-conformity who grab the opportunity to teach those weirdos a lesson.
@ JMG #205
“Teresa, I wonder what the blogger’s opinion is about the correlation between pornography and the objectification of women, because seems to me that the same argument can be made about modern romance fiction and the objectification of men…”
They want to have their cake, all beautifully frilled and frosted up on the shelf to admire while savoring every single bite which is, naturally, calorie-free and good for their teeth.
We become what we imitate. When we make some extreme behavior acceptable in an abstract fashion (like in a novel), it starts becoming acceptable in the real, concrete world because our minds have been opened to the possibility.
I guess that this is the bad side of “be the change you want to see.”
@ Myriam #220
Your description sounds like the shelves at Cupboard Maker Books in Enola, PA.
https://www.cupboardmaker.com/
Cupboard Maker Books has about 125,000 titles on display, mostly genre fiction.
Michelle Haring, the owner, was the RWA bookstore owner of the year in 2018 or so.
She just opened a self-contained new romance-specific shop within the larger shop and it’s been doing great business.
But as you say, most romance is about women and their complicated lives. The porn gets the attention (and some bucks!) but they aren’t the steady sellers.
I suspect much of the hardcore stuff will, eventually recede in sales because of oversaturation and the audience waking up and thinking “why am I reading about men abusing women for pleasure?”
Whatever else you can say about category romance, the sexual abuse of women didn’t feature as a desirable plot point.
@Anon (#227) wrote:
“I’ve also been a college professor for 20 years and honestly don’t think that 90% of my students could sit and read anything much longer than a tweet these days. ….. I’ve had a front row seat to the steady decline in young adults’ ability to concentrate on something for more than a minute or two.”
I was a college professor, too, actively teaching 1967-2005, and I noticed the same general trend. Of course, there were a good number of outstanding exceptions among my students to that broad generalization, maybe 15%-20% of the total, but the percent of those exceptions did seem to me to decrease over the years,
@JMG (#230) , replying to Anon (#226) on dating:
I think you might have better luck here in Rhode Island, especially since you aren’t limited just to Providence. RI is a majority Democrat state, but RI Democrats are mostly the pre-woke, working-class sort. The reason most Rhode Islanders, outside of the very rural areas, have been Democrats for generations is simply because that party’s long-standing traditions of buying votes meant that it would always be there to help any Democrat-voting family that fell on hard times. This built up an enormous reservoir of good will toward the party that still persists. I do not think there is any other state in the USA that is more OK with the-party-takes-care-of-its-own political corruption than Rhode Island. Ideologies and principles hardly matter here in local politics, outside of the most liberal areas of the city of Providence.
Interesting story, JMG. I could see how the Western intellectuals would claim Zinoviev as “theirs”. He disappointed them as well. Yes, if your father’s name was John, your Russian name would be Ivan Ivanovich Gregoriev.
One thing young to middle aged women are reading and writing is fanfiction. Half or more of it falls somewhere on the contains romance along with other concerns through true romance out to porn spectrum. There’s a lot of male-male slash, and always has been. Because everybody’s using pseudonyms, you don’t know which writer is which gender, though you can sometimes tell, or they’ll tell you. In recent years, there’s also been a lot of trans characters and romances involving them, polyamory, BDSM, and others stuff that would be illegal if done in real life. Some of that was always there, but AO3 really is overflowing with them. As someone who prefers stories about politics, war, or high adventure or well, most things, to romance and related biology, I find it excessive and annoying.
Unless I actively use a filter each and every time to remove at least the outright porn I still see the summaries and tags when I’m looking for things to read so I end up with a fair idea of what’s out there.
There’s a lot of steamy fan fiction being written and read by a lot of people, and I think for a subset of people it’s likely having a significant impact on their view of how relationships work. Which probably isn’t the greatest thing given how squicky and ubiquitous some of it is.
Papa, i don’t know whether you know or even care or if this is one of those autistic blind spots i keep hearing about, but i’m also surprised you’d leave the country instead of sticking around and going down with the rest of us weirdo American shmucks. i know you’ve got the career and the funds to skedaddle, but i really hope things don’t come to the point where you have to leave because i think that would seriously hurt your credibility, your inspiration, and all that you’ve built and hope to build.
for me, you’ve become a symbol of elegant resistance.
i was so surprised you’d written that, i had to re-check a few times that it really was YOU.
if you left i think you’d maybe be as safe as CJ Hopkins himself although thought he’d be, but you’d also become as irrelevant as CJ Hopkins seems to have become.
your fan and admirer,
erika
Ron,
Thanks, very helpful in considering context of culture and histoy and differences of myth and saga.
An author writing in our timeline could base character and plot from an eventful person they know in real life. Awkward, but fiction can play at historical fiction. Like building out a local folk hero.
Or discretely transpose an ‘actual person’ whole cloth from a saga into a quasi fictional roamnce story. That feels like cheating though. There are comic book adaptations of ancient mythical heroes, but are there adaptations of saga characters into romance novels.
The first people to beta read the piece could be willing friends so the author could play at bringing the story to a traditional readership.
As Myriam notes that is not what is selling anyway. At least not right now
That article about european stagnation mentioned above had some very interesting stats about energy use:
” In Germany, industrial electricity costs three times as much as in the U.S.; in the U.K., four times as much. Britons now consume less electricity per person than the Chinese, and Germany’s overall electricity consumption is lower than it was before the Berlin Wall fell.”
Now, China’s electricity gets used in building new infrastructure and in industrial processes to a much greater degree than britain, so personal use may still be smaller, but this is still an important turning point, isn’t it? It always used to be that chinese per capita was lower than the west, even if there was so many of them that totals were really high. That’s no longer true for britain, and likely for a number of the less wealthy european countries.
@Brendhelm, Anonymous
I just thought of another 2004-2006 connection: The Secret, which popularized the sort of New Thought visualization techniques that intentionally break down the line between reality and fantasy. Then when Neptune got properly into Pisces, Neville Goddard — one of the most radical of the old New Thought teachers — experienced a revival in the alternative spirituality scene.
I worry we’re going too far off topic here, so if I think of anything else I’ll probably wait and post them to next week’s Open Thread, but realizing that all these various threads are connected through a transit of Neptune through Pisces is really fascinating!
John,
I’m a bit surprised that you think you’d be in that much danger if the Democrats get into power – I think of you as successfully being below their radar – but then, I don’t get to see the posts that you delete, eh? I infer that some of them are pretty vitriolic. As I’m sure you’re aware, Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism decamped overseas a couple of years ago, after she saw that her website was in the crosshairs of the would-be censors.
On a different subject, I’m 58, single, male, and do find that politics is a barrier to finding a relationship. I’m more of an old-fashioned social democrat who’s not a fan of Trump, loathes the Democrats, and finds our war mongering by proxy both shameful and recklessly leading up to an epic level of blowback. Regarding Trump, I’m not surprised by him winning, and in fact totally understands why people would vote for him — and I see he is indeed delivering on some promises. Furthermore, what I’ve come to understand is that while a good safety net is important, good jobs with personal agency are the biggest thing working people need – something a lot of so-called leftists are actually pretty squeamish about. They’d rather buy people off with handouts than give them agency. The ideas about distributed ownership of businesses that you’ve shared also make sense to me, since the nuttiest thing about socialism and communism is thinking you can formally combine economic and political power and get anything other than an oppressive apparatus.
So, on the one hand, I’m not MAGA and I’m not very fond of dog-eat-dog libertarianism in the economic sphere, while on the other hand, I lack the seething hatred for MAGA that the Democrats seem to find attractive. This leaves me slim pickin’s, maybe a few foreign girls who are baffled by western politics. Unless you think blissful ignorance is a good basis for a relationship, pretty grim results indeed. By the way, you’re not missing anything by avoiding apps as far as I can tell; I’ve read too many comments by programmers that say the apps are designed first and foremost to avoid losing a customer. Hope you have better luck than me — may your occult training give you the intuition to lead you to your match.
John ONeil:
“JMG…The mans ideas are so dense that it takes several readings to settle into the control panel.”
—yes, i often think of things to say when everyone’s already moved on to the next essays.
“You sound just like my wife, except she is a mixed small town girl, who people love, or people hate. No inbetween.”
—yup! that’s me. it’s gotten so i know how they feel at first glance and hate to waste time with “come here” or “go away” after that.
(smile)
x
I seem to be the odd one (again), because I’ve never been interested in Romance at all. Even the fanfiction I write is good ol’ action adventure pulp fiction…
Anon #226, last I read SSRIs do nothing for depression (well, except giving you suicidal ideation on top of it), because apparently, the main culprit is not enough dopamine, not serotonin.
RE: BK
“Also thanks to Erika for her reaction on the Matriarchy post, talking about George P. Hansen’s book. I’m not autistic, but I’ve always been in a world just outside the ‘normal’ world, or at least on the edge of it and never really part of it. Need to read that book ”
Someone else here mentioned it earlier this summer. As i read it i am wondering also if some folks (wink wink nudge nudge say no more say no more) who’re diagnosed by the normals as the catch all autistic term, are in fact more liminal than the average Joe or Joline and see beyond the veils and b.s.
there seems to be a lot of overlap before you get to the extreme helmet crashing cases which don’t seem related to the tap dance casual cases.
JMG you said (@23)—”My guess is that sometime in the next couple of years, the LLM bubble will pop catastrophically, the current high-flying tech-bros will be humbled, and those entrepreneurs who have had the common sense to focus on providing real goods and services will take their place.”
Agree with your assumption that the chance that companies earn a return on the trillions they are currently spending on “AI” is close to zero. But I would urge you to think a bit harder about the implications of a catastrophic crash.
AI spending, as a percentage of economy-wide capital investment, dwarfs the foolish spending prior to the dot-com or 2008 financial crises. If not for the stimulus from this spending, the recession and widespread job cuts would have already started. If the AI bubble bursts, the entire stock market crashes, as all the narratives about a generally robust economy and great investment opportunities for the PMC crash.
Agree that today’s “elites” are not monolithic, and that most “politics” is simply battles between elite factions, but ALL of those elite factions would be devastated if the public suddenly learns that all of the promises of “tech” driven economic growth were false. All of the “leadership” in both parties are completely dependent on “tech” industry funding. Trump has long mistaken “stock market growth” for real economic growth. And is depending on the cornucopia from “AI” to fund his favorite programs (tax cuts, huge increases in military/”homeland security” spending, etc). Even if hard core MAGA loyalists can be convinced to ignore is reversals on Epstein type issues, they will immediately freak out when they realize that none of his promises on pocketbook issues will ever be honored.
One key question is what all these “elite” factions would do to maintain power and divert popular anger after an “AI” crash? The elite factions responsible for the 2008 were a somewhat narrow set of elites and despite widespread public criticism these narrow groups managed to make sure no one was held accountable and all of their destructive behavior could resume. Unlike 2008, every elite faction would likely unite to protect the “system”. But unlike 2008, discrediting the tech industry, the stock market and the leadership of both parties would create a much bigger problem. Elites won’t be able to say “it’s just housing and housing has always had booms and busts, and this one will soon pass.”
You suggest that the discredited tech elite would just get replaced by elites running real businesses producing real economic growth that benefits society as a whole in the long run. Nice thought but these people were politically crushed long ago by the elites demanding protections for rent-seeking and job offshoring and the ability to exploit precarious/illegal labor or demanding direct taxpayer funding (e.g. military/”homeland security”). Perhaps they could emerge later, but the currently powerful elite factions aren’t going to go quietly, and this could produce the ugliest few years of US political history since the Civil War
“I’ve noted the way that rhetoric about “invasive species” has blinded decisionmakers to normal ecological changes that are actually helping, not hurting, the biosphere”
I work with these botanists, and find it increasingly difficult to hold my tongue as they spend countless hours and dollars trying to hold back the inevitable tide. Humans can be so arrogant!
But I’m writing to say that I heard some left-winger call President Trump an “invasive species” (obviously meant as an insult). In the context of “weeds” being a normal, healthy response to changing conditions, I found this metaphor more than a little apt.
Tyler JMG,
On the topic of step-incest, I have a non-conspiratorial theory as to what’s driving it: first, notice that nearly all the men who noticed it and are troubled and bothered by it are still using porn. It’s not enough of a turn off to deter enough people to matter for the companies. Meanwhile, there is also a class of people who will get extremely turned on by this sort of thing, because a lot of people are attracted to members of their step-family but unable to admit it publicly, and quite often even to themselves. My experience suggests this to be quite a bit more common than most people suspect, and it makes perfect sense from the perspective of human extincts.
The main way human beings avoid incest seems to be the Westermark Effect, whereby most people are not attracted to people they were close to before either of them were about 6. This prevents both parental incest and sibling incest, and societies which arrange cousin marriages and the like have systems in place to avoid triggering this effect. Most people who have step-families gain them when at least some potential pairings are over the age where this effect triggers, and so there will be at least one pairing where our instincts are screaming “This a potential mate”.
At this point our mating instincts kick in hard: most people have noticed at least someone who initially looked mediocre at best getting more attractive as you spend time together, and emotional closeness is also a key trigger for sexual arousal for a lot of people. Meanwhile a lot of people have had the experience of accidentally seeing a family member naked, and while most siblings/parents will not get aroused, as far as our mating instincts are concerned, step-family is not really family. Put all of this together, and there’s a very large number of people who are attracted to step-siblings or stepchildren, with the attraction and ensuing awkwardness ranging from “I might enjoy sex with my step brother” all the way to “I’ve somehow fallen in love with my step daughter.”
Since step family is socially treated as family, a lot of people become complete and utter emotional messes because they have deep sexual and sometimes romantic feelings for someone who their instincts are screaming is a potential mate, but is socially a sibling or a child; this is especially problematic when it is mutual, as happens far more often than most people are comfortable admitting. Porn offers one way to express this, and I think a lot of the step-incest is aimed at people who are profoundly attracted to a member of his step-family and so gets extremely turned on by anything that gets close enough to it to trigger that response.
Mary, interesting. Thanks for this. As for violence, that’s a complex issue but it’s not usually the weirdos who are the targets in that situation.
Teresa, thank you. Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Robert M, well, we’ll see!
Inna, yep. It pleases me that Zinoviev annoyed everyone — and that inspires me to try to give him a publicity boost in the weeks ahead.
Pygmycory, male-male slash is another good example of the pornographization of women’s writings. The exact equivalent in men’s pornography is “girl on girl” — all the lesbians I know say it has exactly nothing in common with actual lesbian activities, and everything to do with guys getting off. Slash is exactly the same.
Erika, I’d much rather be irrelevant and alive than relevant and identified from dental records when the mass graves get dug up fifty years from now. I’m sorry if that disappoints you, but I’m not a hero, and I also don’t see any point in resistance — I want to propose a positive alternative.
Brother K, my working guess if the Democrats get back into power right away is that they’ll launch a full-scale witch hunt against anyone and everyone who can be blamed for their failure. I consider myself at risk in that case. Thank you for your good wishes re: dating — we’ll see how it goes.
Hubert, identical claims were made about the consequences of the tech-stock crash and the real estate crash. We saw how things turned out. That is to say, I stand by my prediction.
Slink, ha! Yes, exactly — Trump is a dandelion. No matter how hard they try to get rid of him, he just keeps on blossoming.
Anonymous, hmm.
@JMG –
“May I ask, very broadly, where your store is located?”
In Ontario, Canada.
@Teresa Peschel
Oh wow, I am drooling! I would love to have that much space for a store front! And cats.
@Mary Bennet
You wouldn’t happen to be in Ontario by any chance? I would invite you to come browse where we keep the oldies. I’m sure you would find something… 🙂
@Mary Bennett,
I assume the 1069 date is a typo, as that is long before the USA or even the thirteen colonies were a thing. What date did you mean?
Re Civil War,
I cannot imagine the situation in our civil war in Spain in the 30’s of past century if both sides have access to the personal records, via social networks, at all the political manifestations of all the people in the country. The differences may be is that now people, at least in my country, are much less politically radicalized than in the time before the civil war, were exchanging life threats with some neighbors with opposite political view was quite common, I don’t think you are near this situation in your country, but of course you know it much better than me.
As an anecdote, recently in the company I work, a man has been fired because he appeared, on his own Instagram page, running like hell from a bull and jumping to a fence like a gymnast at a local festival while he was on sick leave due to a “huge” leg pain that prevented him from do his job as an operator at a process control room (sitting). Too many records in the public domain is not good at all.
Athaia,
I hear you on preferring to write and read non romance fanfiction. Same here.
For better or worse, I’ve been a congenital extreme pessimist all my life. You are forewarned: read the following at your own risk.
There is one possibility that worries me the most about the next coming collapse, and about the response by our current elites to it. That is the possibility that rather than relinquish their power, they will try to pull the entire country down about their own ears: if “we” can’t rule, at least “we” can make sure there’s nothing left worth ruling for anyone else. And “we” can try to take as many people as we can down with us into the rubble. This is a very human kind of response to the loss of power and control.
I’m twenty years older than our host, and I have become mobility-impaired in my old age. So if it comes to all that, I’ll be staying at home, suffering and dying with the many hundred millions of my fellow citizens.
But for the younger and more mobile commenters here, I do think that having an escape plan (and not sharing its details publicly), as our host says he has — and surely does have — is far and away the better part of wisdom for our times. I recommend it for everyone here who can come up with a realistic one and carry it out when needed. And don’t plan on surviving anywhere in what is now called the “Western world”: it’s all going to collapse, sooner or later.
My only “escape plan” is to keep on flying under the radar as much as i can. As one medieval mystic wrote. “Love being unknown, and famed for nothing” (Ama nesciri et de nihilo reputari).
Except for here, I have pretty much kept my thoughts and forebodings to myself for most of my life Here, however, it seems worth any personal risk to discuss them with others. This commentariat is truly exceptional, and I am grateful you all, and to our host, for it.
@JMG,
that doesn’t surprise me. I’d heard that before.
One candidate myth is “the rule of law and not of persons.” The myth is at its most potent when strong majorities share the same values. Under that condition, we can logically determine whether or not a law is consistent with those underlying values.
This is a looser version of “the rule of logic” in math world, where proving a theorem is an exercise in logical deduction that ultimately rests on the underlying axioms. But even within mathematics, Godel demonstrated that there will always be math theorems that are true but not provable from any given set of axioms. At least one new axioms will be needed.
In the course of history, there arise human experiences that are genuine but not explicable from the core “axioms” of an established society. When these new experiences point to existential threats (or opportunities) people don’t react dispassionately, as the might if the issues were more academic. There’s a tendency to not only grope for new “axioms” but to discard axioms that might still be relevant. It doesn’t help that we often confuse what we want to do with what we should do.
In short, people–more likely, large clusters of people–fundamentally disagree over what is good and what is evil, what’s right and what’s wrong. Under these circumstances, “the rule of law” breaks down. It’s a free-for-all, ends-justify-the–means contest of wills. Political opponents become outright enemies, who of course will be treated differently than allies. Shooting enemies while decrying their shooting at you is not hypocrisy; it’s unrestricted warfare.
Papa no, it’s not about that–i don’t need you to be my hero because it’s hard enough being my own.
But that said I’m glad you’re going into specifics regarding what you believe like not resisting and staying alive is more important to you. I’d assumed you’d stay here til the end so now I’ll not be surprised if you go.
I guess it’s a money thing and the rest of us shmucks have to stay and deal with whatever IS. so i’ll be sad knowing you’ll be off but I understand.
Erika Lopez #242
Regarding JMG’s contingency plans to perhaps leave the U.S., perhaps it is not important to you, but he has a great deal more than his career as a writer and whatever quotidian comforts he now enjoys to sustain. Comfort be damned: he is a lineage holder in a wealth of esoteric traditions, a senior lineage holder, and he must do what his inner guidance tells him about maintaining them in the face of unspeakable atrocities and opposition. I know he can speak for himself, but this seems very obvious to me. I don’t for a moment imagine that he would leave the country without the strong advice and counsel of his inner guides and a considerable amount of oracular discernment. So trust him on this, please. Just sayin’.
What are the long-term effects of dopamine addiction?
Hi John Michael,
I’m with you in your prediction. Every bubble bursts sooner or later. And all rubble eventually stops bouncing due to having nowhere else to physically go.
It’s possible that this current mess will deflate slowly like a punctured balloon. And the cost of living crisis is one aspect of that story. In the west we are very comfortable with the concept of ‘rationing by price’, that’s why there are homeless folks. There are plenty of examples in other countries around the world as to how all this is playing out. Japan is certainly an interesting story, and to me, the things going on over there looks like a controlled demolition job. Not the worst approach by a long shot.
A safe haven in a storm is not a bad idea.
Bought two 14 week old chickens yesterday. They were of uncertain parentage, but those usually have strong genetics. Get this though: $55 each. Inflation is real. Oh yeah, it’s happening.
Cheers
Chris
“identified from dental records”, “mass graves”? There is no such precedent in the US, isn’t it? There was, of course, internment of Japanese and Italians, but still, those were not mass graves. With my family history, I thought I could sniff such a situation well in advance, but I don’t perceive it coming here in the US. What makes you contemplate such an extreme?
Slithy Toves, Brendhelm
I also wonder how much of the belief, prevalent in many parts of American society, that Trump will save America and is doing everything he can to fight off America’s enemies, is coming from Neptune being in Pisces that isn’t actually reflected in Trump’s actual doings in office? I’ve noticed that ever since Neptune left Pisces and entered Aries, a lot of former Trump supporters have grown disillusioned with Trump.
Mr. Greer .. with regard to your ‘worries’ of the Demon-crats regaining power.. I think that the BigCat’s outta the bag! .. meaning that no matter if the blue hostiles regain anything, that THEY’LL be in a heap of worry themselves .. having dissed the VAST number of rational denizens throughout the western world with their ersatz ‘neo-marxian’ bullshale!
Already, it appears .. that some Demo-‘stinktank’ has cautioned on continuing to use the plethora of woke ‘buzz-kill’ words/phrases on the plebs, for fear of inciting even MOARRRR derision therof: e.i. – if it’s a civil war that they want .. tis a civil war they’ll eventually receive. I say, go ahead – DO IT!
And he didn’t even use the B word (which is bubble), about half way down.
https://images.mauldineconomics.com/uploads/pdf/TFTF_August_23_2025a.pdf
“The trillions in spending [on AI] these four companies [Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta] are planning (estimated to be almost $7 trillion) in 2026–2030 is staggering. All of it will go into someone’s pocket, constituting a giant economic stimulus comparable to anything the federal government could do.”
“Try to imagine what the economy would look like right now if AI expenditures weren’t stimulating growth and creating a wealth effect on high-end consumer spending. How will these companies generate the multiple trillion dollars of revenue needed to show a reasonable return on investment of $6 trillion by the end of the decade?”
My guess is they won’t. I expect an “Argh-splat” event.
You notice who is not on the list? Apple. Their AI attempt last fall fell flat on its face. Dead On Arrival. Their competent AI employees have been poached (in the out of season deer sense rather than the egg sense.) It was so bad I reverted to the previous OS version. They are going to try again in the Bullwinkle “this time for sure!” meme.
Back to the article, where are they getting the money? The banks? And what do the banks get for collateral? The chips in the AI servers will be obsolete in 2030 and worth nothing. What use can I find for a used server farm? There is a valid question. The copper in the wiring will be worth something, but what else is there?
@Robert Mathiesen (#239),
“I do not think there is any other state in the USA that is more OK with the-party-takes-care-of-its-own political corruption than Rhode Island. Ideologies and principles hardly matter here in local politics”.
I totally know what you mean. My aunt once lived in a town where a mayor promised incentives for builders and favorable loans for buyers in an effort to create affordable housing. Surprisingly, he delivered on his promise, and my aunt and her family lived in such a house. Afterward, she voted for him for decades, dutifully putting his picture outside of her window every election (“after all he did for our family”). His policies wouldn’t matter to her at all if she knew them, but I’m pretty sure she never inquired.
Hi JMG,
Fascinating stuff. In addition to a paucity of stories to make sense of the world, what I often see is a failure to reinterpret facts with a new narrative over time. The stories get locked into place.
The psychological literature has a lot to say about how we interpret events in life, particularly bad events. For some people a negative event is purely a traumatic, painful experience–a story of tragedy. For other people, the same negative event is a story of redemption, or even a portal into a better life. How one’s narrative evolves over time has an enormous influence on contentment and mental well-being.
One time I was let go from a job. At the time, it was a terrible blow. Now years later, looking back, I see they did me a huge favor. I didn’t belong there, wasn’t happy, and needed a change. What if I was unable to make that shift in perspective? I’d be stuck in a painful narrative of defeat.
As you say in the essay, revisions are the key to writing a great story…
A bit late in the day on commenting on this, but I was pleased to see both your references to Jane Austen and romance novels. Though that takes a bit of explanation, if you’ll indulge me.
The easier one is Jane Austen. Between my junior and senior year of high school, I was assigned Persuasion. Like a lot of geeky readers, I had by that point learned that assigned reading could reliably be seen as guaranteed to be bad (Cannery Row was well-written, but only minimally interesting, Of Mice and Men had an even stronger contrast between appreciation for the quality of prose and not caring about the actual story being told). Persuasion started out seeming to be more boring crap (where were the lasers? dragons? heavily-thewed barbarians?), but once I realized how much she was making fun of th”ese stuffy rich people, I was hooked. Comedy/satire has often been my vehicle to come to appreciate genres I otherwise wouldn’t approach (Weird Al broadened my musical tastes considerably, as did later MC Chris for rap and Dethklok for metal). As I read on, though, I found that behind the satire was genuine care, concern, and even love, for these flawed, silly people. And so, Austen became the first “great” literature I genuinely appreciated both for its quality and as stories worth spending my time reading. When I share this interest with those unacquainted, I usually recommend Pride and Prejudice as likely the most approachable, but I agree that Mansfield Park might be her best work, overall.
For romance novels, I once read one “on accident.” I had asked some online friends for a recommendation of novels that had magical, urban, not-contemporary settings. I got The Golden Spider by Anne Renwick as one of those recommendations – a steampunk + magic mystery novel. Sounded great! As I started reading it, though, I wondered why so much time was spent on the female protagonist’s emotional state, wondered harder when that emotional state was more and more “hot and bothered around the key male character,” and had my wonder answered when it was resolved by steamy, graphic sex scenes. I ended up finishing the book because the setting and core mystery were compelling enough to be interesting despite the romance novel trappings, but I didn’t read any more novels in the series, because that’s not really my jam. I think the constraints of genre fiction actually helped here – for the story to make sense, the female lead had to be interesting and competent in ways vanilla romance heroines don’t need, and that meant her connection to the male lead had more nuance and interest than just “he’s rich and buff and unaccountably interested in a boring, plain girl.”
While romance is a decidedly third-tier concern in this, I figured I’d use the opportunity to share a genre fiction series I recently wrapped up and enjoyed: “Galaxy’s Edge.” The basic pitch is “what if Star Wars were written by people who actually understand what it’s like to serve in the military?” If you read the first book (Legionnaire), the “Star Wars” doesn’t come through so clearly, but in the second book (Galactic Outlaws) it does. As the rather long series comes along, though, you get more and more of that, with a surprising depth of moral and political exploration: good guys doing seemingly bad things, seemingly bad guys trying to fix the obviously worse political problems, and the individual decisions everywhere in between demonstrating how hard it is to get this stuff right. All of which is anchored around the necessity of the use of force to make any of this matter, without shying from the ambiguity and difficulty of making the calls about how and when to apply force, and what that really means (killing people who don’t necessarily individually deserve it). There are two “seasons” of books, around 14 in total, along with various prequel and spinoff books, and season 2 ended with the potential for further books, but the website implies the main storyline is done with the end of season 2. A bit bloody-minded for most (if you don’t enjoy military fiction, you’ll find yourself wading through a lot of stuff you might not enjoy that much), but as I said, I found it to have surprising moral depth. To try to bring it back on topic for this post, maybe a worthwhile exploration of traditional masculine traits well-divorced from the pornographic simplicity of either men’s or women’s porn.
Cheers,
Jeff
Oh, and one other thought on getting a variety of narratives, especially of a traditional sort. For those who enjoy visual media, Jim Henson’s The Storyteller is absolutely fantastic. I didn’t discover it until college, so I can say that it’s not just childhood nostalgia talking. Recently, I convinced my 6-year-old daughter to give it a try. Content-wise, it’s maybe “7+,” but I felt like it was in the sweet spot of “she can understand it, but it pushes her a bit.” It uses European folktales (mostly German, with a few Russian and others), but purposefully picks some less well-known ones, so it’s not just rehashes of what we know from Disney movies, with delightful muppets for the fantasy characters. You can buy the DVD, or find it on the Big, Slimy River’s streaming service, included with the price of subscription.
Cheers,
Jeff
Okay, Papa,
This is related to the last question of mine that you figured needed it’s own post to answer, which was about America’s REALISTIC potential.
How can a weird promised land freak flag fly America hope to once again ever exist without resistance to the vision thats being raped into us???
And of we all go, who’s left to fight? And if you go elsewhere you’ll just become another grouchy old white guy ex-pat like all the old geezers who write substacks or comment on zerohedge.
You’re so American your work seems to exist to save us..,. THIS.
Or maybe I’m projecting.
But if you left everything would be theoretical… or to what end???
Because you’re an American Freak and in Thailand or anywhere else you’d seem like …nah, I’m making up my own bs narrative.
I guess I’m just realizing people WILL GO. I never even considered that possibility. I feel like too few of us have burned the ships. There’s like 590 of us.
Is dying for ones country or ideals archaic? Cute?
Now I get 5he fear of no family. No buy in. But how can you have a country of immigrants and no spies?
Is this America thing over??? Inevitable???
Back to you saying your idea is to do something new like a pitch? And if it fails you go. I get that too. Doesn’t bother me. The American thing is also to each his own and everyone doesn’t have to eat vanilla ice cream.
I guess I’m saying if you’ve got a parachute outta here ready to go, things aren’t looking so good.
I’ve gotta adjust my expectations.
Please do write a post on how you realistically see America going. As a former Quaker who’s turning pacifism over in my mind I’m curious about this not resisting and making something better as a form of ..
If not resistance, howabout defiance? Do you go for that because the details of your entire career are defiance incarnate.
So what would being forced to stay in America with nowhere else to go, what would it look like to get this country course corrected in soul??? About what America even means apart from the strip mining and leaving it for dead under a mattress.
Is it over??? Is that what you’re saying by having a bug out plan?
I understand not wanting to die for nothing because I don’t wanna waste my life pursuing a 250 year old dream no one even believes in like Santa Claus. My naivte is kicking my ass so i need a come to Jesus moment, please and thank you.
So I hope you are working on a post based on what not resisting but pitching another way that can net us the America that once had a place for us.
So, heroes? Nah. This is all more prosaic and tedious than all that hero falderal.
What CAN it realistically look like? We only have a sliver of an opening right now and if we lose it we have to wait til the competency crisis collides with limits and more needless deaths.
So without resistance what does wrangling back our future even look like? And I get what you resist you imitate, but then… how???
Since the topic of narratives and popular music has been raised, I might as well mention something that has been recently going on in Russia (according to sources such as Andrei Martyanov). I was going to hold on until the open post, but why not now?
Within the past few years, a folk musician/music teacher living in a medium-sized city far away from Moscow has risen to great fame. Her name is Tatyana Kurtokova. Many of her songs are famous and from what I can tell they are innocent, apolitical, and appeal to Russia’s rural roots. Now she is filling major venues with tens of thousands of fans who show up wearing traditional Russian folk dresses! (Brief sample taken from St. Petersburg earlier this month here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t_zpM3Oil0)
But the biggest hit of Tatyana’s career (so far) is “Mother” (Matushka – Матушка – released in 2022) which has not only had over 100 million views on Youtube, but which she has sung live at so many venues including military galas and international soccer games. (Video of the song with Tatyana wearing various Russian folk dresses here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFcIXxkFxK4). Tatyana ain’t no Taylor Swift: married, with a child long before she became famous, she always dresses very modestly even when wearing more contemporary garb. But what has struck me the most about the song “Mother” is the lyrics (written by Petr Andreev). Like a lot of folk music, it focuses on nature: wildflowers, the nightingale and cuckoo, honeycomb, cool spring water, the star-spangled night sky. But what is central to the song is the birch tree. The last line of the first verse translates as “To chat at length with a birch tree, about love and dreams we keep” and the chorus (which is repeated numerous times) is “Mother Earth, white birch tree / To me — Holy Rus, to others — a stubborn splinter”. It is almost Druidic in a way. Not something that I expected!
Perhaps it is just a fad. Perhaps not. But I do find it interesting – an appeal to the deepest roots of Russia possible: the land itself. Not politics. Not religion. Not even culture. Not exactly a narrative per se – but a phenomenon.
CLARKE: “Comfort be damned: he is a lineage holder in a wealth of esoteric traditions, a senior lineage holder, and he must do what his inner guidance tells him about maintaining them in the face of unspeakable atrocities and opposition. I know he can speak for himself, but this seems very obvious to me. I don’t for a moment imagine that he would leave the country without the strong advice and counsel of his inner guides and a considerable amount of oracular discernment. So trust him on this, please. Just sayin’.”
__
That’s funny; you could say that about anybody.
pygnycory, 1969. I typed the 0 instead of the 9. No edit function on this website.
“Patrick, oh, I don’t discount the Democrats. I’ve got arrangements in place to leave the country if they take power again, since they’re very openly talking about ignoring the Constitution and punishing their enemies in extralegal ways if they do regain power.”
I’m concerned – can you provide me and the rest of the commentariat with some sources detailing what exactly they are planning to do? I regularly read establishment liberal sources like the NYT, but I haven’t seen anything to this effect. They mostly seem to be in a depressed state rather than actually planning anything significant. They don’t even seem to be coming up with as much BS about Trump being influenced by Putin as they did during his first term, nor has there been much marching around in pussy hats or whatnot. Their largest protest since Trump’s second inauguration was some sort of Astroturfed thing called “No Kings” which fizzled almost immediately.
None of this necessarily means that the Democrats wouldn’t be dangerous against their opponents if they ended up back in power, but I haven’t heard anything that would suggest retribution against anyone who publicly disagrees with them, apart from lawfare against Trump and his closest allies as we saw in 2021-24.
Your concern that conditions might get so bad that even an author on the fringes who has been critical of the Democrats might be better off fleeing the country than staying is worrying, and I’d like to know more about this.
Bridge 196–I wonder where you are getting your information about American voting practices.
I can only speak from decades of experience voting in person in urban and suburban parts of Northern California, in areas that lean toward the Democratic Party.
Every polling place I visited had signs posted about 100 feet (30 meters?) from the polling site saying that no campaigning was permitted past that point. Campaigning included wearing a political button or clothing with a message about a candidate or any issue on the ballot. These rules apply to poll workers. I never saw any poll worker wearing any political garb or engaging in any conversation other than identifying the person showing up to vote, handing them a ballot, helping anyone who needed instruction on how to feed their completed ballot into the tally machine, and handing the person an “I voted’ sticker. All the precincts I voted in had paper ballots we inked in by hand. The tally machines were not connected to the Internet and did not do anything except register that a ballot had been cast. The vote counting was done in a central location.
The two major American parties are identified by symbols (animals) and this has been true for more than a hundred years. There are no official party colors. The colors associated with the Republicans (red) and Democrats (blue) are the exact opposite of what they were in the middle of the twentieth century, when the color red was associated with the Communists and Socialists. There is a biographical movie set during the Great War about an American Socialist; it’s called “Reds”. Republicans used to call anyone they thought was too far Left a “pinko”. Nowadays some male politicians wear colored neckties to indicate their political sympathies, and some Trump supporters wear the red caps he popularized, but nobody else does that. Blue jeans are worn by everybody.
Erika said:
“i am wondering also if some folks (wink wink nudge nudge say no more say no more) who’re diagnosed by the normals as the catch all autistic term, are in fact more liminal than the average Joe or Joline and see beyond the veils and b.s.”
I sometimes half-jokingly say that if there is a similar spectrum exactly opposite of autism, then I’m on it, but I now realise it’s probably something like a set of concentric circles.
In the center are the ‘normal’ people with a shared set of assumptions / myths / narratives.
Further away from the center you go from mildly eccentric all the way to people who really can’t function at all.
I think the line (if it is a line) between normal and not normal is defined by this shared set of assumptions.
Some of the outsiders are so by choice or nature: artists, mystics, etc. They are the ones that don’t follow the script and can see through the bs. Others are pushed outside by a society of normals. I think many of us simply have a different set of assumptions, not necessarily better or worse. They are quite normal, just not normal enough..
–bk
JMG said:
” The fact remains that the far right is the only player in the game that’s offering young men any role but that of designated whipping boy.”
Yeah, it’s also true, but SAD (watching the actual events from my middle-aged man point of view, of course).
“an end to policies that go out of their way to encourage street crime and homelessness in the largest American cities.”
This strikes me, because as someone on the Democratic side of the spectrum, I don’t really know what these specific policies are that you refer to. I count myself as very informed; can you please explain or point me somewhere I can better understand what you mean, in real terms? It could be that these are different from the Republican policies in urban areas like where I live. But can you explain this or elaborate? thanks
DFC #256
” now people, at least in my country, are much less politically radicalized than in the time before the civil war, were exchanging life threats with some neighbors with opposite political view was quite common, I don’t think you are near this situation in your country”
You nailed it.
I’ve understood, if I’m not wrong, that you’ve seen and lived that tension near to you. Is it true?
My personal vision , from another Spaniard guy? (and some advice)
I’ve seen these situation near to me since about 3-4 years ago, but speaking personally I’ve had luck or maybe practical wisdom enough to met people from different ideologies and beliefs, and be friend of everyone. My personal secret: before starting chat with other people, please make an agreement for not talking about politics and religion between you and your mate or family (OK sex is more interesting for talking about… :-).
When the chat suddenly goes into the political “heat” I do another trick. I say to my friend/foe the following magical words: “Hey man/woman, we aren’t going to live nor being rich with the politics, so we can keep being friends now…” And it usually works very well for me. 😉
These are my tricks for avoiding the “crispación” (tension) at personal level. DFC, you could test them in your life if you find trouble with political mess in your daily life in work and friend, family and so on.
I think most people in Spain, unfortunately, don’t do that “mental health” preventive measure to a great extent. And it’s a pity for our country.
JMG,
I should have added that when I mention “win-win”, “zero-sum” and “negative-sum” themes the outcomes of those themes is the “logistics of resource distribution” not to be confused with “monetary distribution”, you caught that oversight in your reply.
To be clear monetary distribution in a decline does get a wider and more inclusive logistical distribution but…. it only comes when each monetary unit equates to an ever smaller claim on resources. Which is why during a decline the money flows but the resources do not. So like I said a few weeks ago it’s best to tell folks that during a decline they will mostly use the resources they already have, a bit of what their town has, and maybe a very small amount at the county level.
@Erika
I do not think Papa G would be irrelevant, he would just become a writer posting from abroad. Depending how he would handles it he could be posting from Botswana or Namibia as we speak.
@JMG
😉 I think over the years I built up some resistance to the madness. Or maybe it is the fact, that I have been enough on the fringes, that understanding of the situation has long since become more valuable then any kind of dogmatic idealism.
As to US politics; The situation in Europe is one of media fog. People just do not get any real information. I have been occasionally following Jeff Chillders Blog, so I get a bit more information, but more striking is the fog of omission in the official news. For instance the Trump/Putin and Trump/Zelenskyy/EU leaders meetings got downgraded and fogged over in the news.
More striking is the perspective I am getting from this regarding my own country’s political situation, because the news regarding European politics (that was lively before the sniffles) is just as vacuous. I tend to think there are things we do not get told.
Regarding your US democratic party; Do you really think they would get a chance to stage a comeback at this point. I must admit I get my US political news from Childers, and he is obviously biased.
Best regards,
V
DFC, we aren’t in the same situation in terms of the general populace, but that’s not what I was proposing. If it happens, it’ll be top-down, pushed by a panicked elite class frantic to hold onto their power.
Greg, that’s valid — and it’s also very nearly the situation we’re in now.
Jennifer, the collapse of personal ethics and of any kind of active role in the world. As with any other addiction, all other concerns become secondary to getting the next dose.
Chris, I hope it can be done slowly, but I’m not betting on it.
Inna, history is full of unprecedented events. When the New York Times is running articles insisting that “saving democracy” requires massive changes to the Constitution that will make it impossible for their opponents to win, and mourning the fact that the military didn’t refuse legal orders from the president, we’re already in unprecedented territory.
Polecat, a country in the middle of a civil war is no place for old men.
Siliconguy, yep. It could be epic.
Samurai_47, a fine example! The challenge lies in making the revisions so that the result is genuine improvement.
Jeff, many thanks for the data points.
Erika, nah, you’ve misunderstood. My point is that if all you’re doing is resisting, that accomplishes nothing. You have to offer a positive alternative. I really do need to do a post on this, don’t I?
Ron, fascinating. That’s what I would expect as Russia shakes off its Western pseudomorphosis and begins moving toward the initial stages of its future great culture.
Grebulocities, where did I say I knew exactly what the Democrats are going to do? I’m basing my concerns on historical parallels, of course.
Chuaquin, I ain’t arguing. If the Dems ever get a clue and give up their habit of misandry, I’ll be pleased.
Aidawedo, the most important of the policies in question are the refusal to prosecute street crime and enforce laws that maintain public order. Have a look at Washington DC if you want to see the way a change in those policies can affect a city.
GlassHammer, and you’re quite correct, of course. It’s not until the decline bottoms out that the monetary system breaks down completely and money is abandoned by most people.
Vitranc, for what it’s worth, I don’t think there’s a large chance of a Democratic comeback in the next two decades. If the recent police raids on John Bolton’s home and office are bellwethers, the Trump administration is gearing up to use the same tactics against the Democrats that they tried to use against him, with the main difference being that the Dems are a much more target-rich environment. My guess is that the trials and attendant publicity are being timed to affect the midterms, and that a very large share of the Democratic leadership is going to end up doing hard time on conspiracy, racketeering, and corruption charges — in which case it’s going to take a generation or two for the party to recover. But we’ll see.
Hi JMG,
Your original essay has received a lot of applause and only some very measured and thoughtful criticism. One could almost suppose that you decided to throw oil into the flames by your comment on mass graves and dental records. I see I am not the only one who was surprised and somewhat shocked by that comment.
The Democratic party has won 23 presidential elections since its inception, if I counted correctly. The party has already once dislodged Trump from office, and whatever you may think about that election in 2022, it wasn’t followed by witch-hunts among intellectuals that I know of, much less mass graves, nor did we witness the large-scale rural insurgency you have been warning about.
So I don’t see how you arrive at those expectations of totalitarianism or civil war after the inauguration of a Democratic president. That prediction joins the ones about internal and external power grabs by the EU leadership (which seems a toothless tiger to me) and about whole-scale population replacement in Europe (which I consider possible, but not probable, given there are no historical antecedents).
However, you also have a record of several very accurate predictions, notably the oil price swings since 2008, and the dynamics of the 2016 presidential election.
I suppose in the case of a hypothetical future Democratic president, “we will have to see”, as you like to put it.
BK:
In upside down world I see normals on outer perifery disconnected from themselves eachother and source. … outside light rays.
SOURCE is the sun.
Weirdos closer to the warmth of the sun.
The disconnected cold normals like the dark cold.
Fits with Lucifer. Now THAT I believe. No one is beyond redemption even nazi liberal orcs. But I’m working on that myself over here regarding what happened to James.
That the cold people win out on a planet of life and love eludes me how this is even a dispute. I feel like I just got here.
That’s why I’m asking for specifics from now. No more time for wink wink nudge nudge.
Anyone who has ever come up in a family that beat the crap out of them and treated them like the Nigerian of the family also knows that they asked like a wave… even they could be funny loving protective …complicated…
But also predictable and wobbly
We are currently at wobbly. I mean specifically THE NORMALS
Now that they are wobbly brittle and cold they are scared…
Dangerous vulnerable..
So it’s in this sliver of time we have a short moment to warm to the logic of surviving
How?
THAT is my personal question because we each can creatively come up with penny one cent ways of…
Not even having to resist but build toward the positive Papa prefers to resistance okay,..
I guess I just believe…no my life’s question is…
The sun is warm. Choosing the sun makes logical sense.
Are we responsible for our inability to make such a sensible pitch? Leguin’s reason of the artist???
The abused also know how nonsensical it is we bow to these shmucks.
Somehow humanity got the shoe on the wrong foot and I’m like you’re kidding me.
Even all I now know about how I’ve been wrong about EVERYTHING now that the belljar is broken… I’m right about the sun being the place to be …where it’s at…
But each has an idea how to get there …yeah… but all roads lead away from the sun.
The normals are in outer space trying to have a dinner party on imaginary ice bergs.
Their story sucks. But we’re currently just waking up in a daze.
We only have a sliver of a moment to get our gods right.
That’s why God to me is The Sun.
It’s warm. It’s logical.
There’s no room for heroes here because the winning is the overwhelming with stampede back at least towards the sun
That’s the idea because even I haven’t been able to win my own family back into any light so my pitch still sucks and is substack fluff
I don’t think the Normals’ crappy vision has to be inevitable
But maybe Papa and others will all leave because they know it is and forever will be
Am I trapped in progress???
But like zscotlyn pointed out two people can re jigger the story… realizing that’s even possible is making out with Jesus… so yeah,.. how to overwhelm cold normals with story to come closer it’s warm in here.
Because maybe it’s just 4x leo hubris but love for real could make lucifer a cuddle bunny
I KNOW THIS even as I concede defeat about the detail everything else
But live saved me from wanting even daring much about world of normals after thinking it was they who had the hearth
Could take time to pitch new story but we don’t yet even know who “we” are
…a sliver a moment a possibility and yet I know you cuddle the devil long enough so he doesn’t change his mind come morning
…forgive weird typos. On tablet. It corrects like the normals predictably think and hobbles my meaning on purpose
But it’s Sunday I’m opin bed with kitties
It’s warm here
X
This tablet swapped my affectionate form, niggra, to Nigerian.
Funny enough I might use it
But that’s normal people’s ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. Prosaic at best.
The ones closest to the sun are like the Globe Trotters basketball team pretending they can’t make the hoop for a paycheck and a pied a terre
YES PLEASE PAPA MUST NEEDS POST ON THIS!!!
Vitranc Clarke et al:
If America goes down as the disco to hang at, I don’t see a return to ideals, I see a dark age of despair lethargy and contraction of thought because “see? America didn’t work. Shut up and get back to the mines!”
Books will be used for toilet paper and any funky libraries of old knowledge will just have a few old codgers among the insane.
Maybe I’m a 4x leo hung up on the myth of American exceptionalsm, but I am a weirdo baby of the experiment and did a drawdown color smear in my own blood to see what all the fuss was about and it’s real! It’s worth it.
And like Scotlyn’s example of the couple making it building in an even intermittently good relationship (which IS GOOD!), it’s good because we keep coming back.
Now I think I’m dreaming. Perhaps it is time to speak of splitting the china?
Aldarion, no, I’m not just stirring the pot. Like so many observers of the political scene you’re missing the potential for a cascading crisis unfolding from current conditions. Consider this scenario as one possible future for the United States.
First, the Democrats take power again after the 2028 elections. One of their first steps, once they’ve restocked the Justice Department with their partisans, is to bring up a large number of Trump administration officials on as many charges as possible; their justification is that the GOP did that to them, just as the GOP’s justification is that the Dems did that to Trump.
Second, in response, young men loyal to Trump begin a campaign of assassination and terrorism aimed at Democratic party officials and power centers.
Third, in response, the government forces through legislation suspending various civil rights, in an attempt to crack down on the MAGA terrorists.
Fourth, the suspension of civil rights convinces many people that the Dems intend to impose a woke police state. With this additional support, the terrorist campaign turns into a domestic insurgency based in the South and mountain West. Foreign actors — Russia, China, North Korea, Iran — start sending arms and supplies to support the insurgents.
Fifth, military drone technology turns the fighting into a bloody stalemate. Atrocities on both sides become common. The US economy contracts sharply, and poverty and violence become common.
Sixth, ten years or so pass before a tenuous peace is finally negotiated.
Does this seem unlikely? It’s based on similar patterns in many countries in the global South, adapted to current conditions and the latest military technology. Please note also that I’m not saying that this is going to happen — what I’m saying is that it could happen.
JMG,
Thank you for your incisive answer re: dopamine addiction.
On the subject of civil conflict and expatriation, I would note that one of the worst things noncombatants can do is stick around to be taken hostage, tortured, or killed en masse as an object lesson to their side in the conflict—none of ejich is exactly an historical rarity. Not only is unhealthy for the noncombatant in question, it’s distracting and demoralizing for the combatants!
@Grebulocities
None of this necessarily means that the Democrats wouldn’t be dangerous against their opponents if they ended up back in power, but I haven’t heard anything that would suggest retribution against anyone who publicly disagrees with them, apart from lawfare against Trump and his closest allies as we saw in 2021-24.
Democrats historically don’t do this. They aren’t dangerous but seem to try to appear clean up Republican messes. Even though binary narratives are false it seems that we have one right here. Sorry but this feels a little projection-y.
JMG, so far as I know, John Bolton is and always has been a Republican, he has certainly most often been associated with Republican regimes. I can well believe he is arrogant enough to keep classified materials in his home.
I take your point about non enforcement of street crime, but I also would like to direct the attention of you and the commentariat to the outrageous price of housing across the country, especially in big cities. Neither major party has the slightest intention of doing anything about this. Price controls are anathema, restricting of immigration can’t be allowed because the wealthy want their domestic staffs and business wants its cheap and easily exploitable labor force, and real estate industry donors to both parties won’t hear of restricting ownership of American RE to American citizens.
@Aldarion, #286 — “… and about whole-scale population replacement in Europe (which I consider possible, but not probable, given there are no historical antecedents).”
I think the classic historical antecedent here (if you excuse the pun) is the fall of the Western Roman Empire. In the early days of the Empire, Gallia and Hispania and the other provinces were full of Romanized populations. But over time the birth rates fell, to the point where whole districts were more or less empty. When the Franks and Visigoths “invaded,” often that meant walking across an unguarded frontier and finding a nice little farm where they could settle down to raise a family. Nonetheless, in the space of a century or so the population had changed significantly. How closely does that resemble what is going on today in Europe? I don’t know the future, but a person could be excused for thinking that the historical example looks pretty exact.
@Anonymous #252,
The chance for tapping into a market fraught with sexual tension does explain why the market for step-incest pornography exists, but it doesn’t, IMO, explain why it got pushed uniformly into the spotlight the way it was. Every other fetish, you had to/have to look for, even if it was a money-maker. Unless something has changed recently (I for one did change my habits) step-incest was something you had to look away from. It smacks of a deliberate choice in marketing.
@pygmycory #241,
Depending on the fandoms you’re into right now, you might enjoy SpaceBattles.net. It’s an old-style PHP forum, with an old-style, family friendly content policy in their creative writing section. There are only a select few fandoms (mostly sci-fi, aside from the web-serial “Worm” and some anime) active on the site, but the quality is somewhat higher than the average of FF.net or AO3, IMO.
@Myriam,
Thank you for the information about reading habits in your bookshop. From what you describe, it doesn’t sound like corporate publishers are distorting the market too badly. Is that a fair assessment?.
As for your location being “Ontario, Canada”– thank you for narrowing it down to two time zones and a million square kilometers or so. 😉
One cannot be too careful, of course, even if I’m sure the RCMP has files on the both of us just for posting here.
I think I worded my question poorly. I didn’t mean to suggest you would know exactly what the Democrats would do, but I wanted to know if there were any sources I could read to see in what way they are “very openly talking about ignoring the Constitution and punishing their enemies in extralegal ways if they do regain power.”
The way they are currently behaving does not lead me to a high level of concern – it actually seems milder to me than the Russiagate era of Trump’s first term. Still, this read could be incorrect, and I would like to know if there are reasons to be more alarmed.
This incident showcases just one reason among many why a. Americans are increasingly furious about illegal migration, and b. are therefore willing to vote for just about anyone who will do something about it:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/1-6-million-sign-petition-for-indian-driver-held-in-florida-crash-that-killed-three/ar-AA1L5JVVation,
I am not aware that truck driving is a job Americans won’t do. Do please note that the article fails to mention who is the driver’s employer.
This one incident well illustrates why I can’t stand either major party. Democrats because of their intransigent refusal to get real about migration. Oh, but my grandparents, who are now dead, had to flee the Nazis, 80 years ago. Republicans because of their dyed in the wool, reflexive deference to rich people. Sure, throw the book at the driver, with which sentiment I agree, but let’s not even mention whom it was who employed him.
JMG replied: “Aidawedo, the most important of the policies in question are the refusal to prosecute street crime and enforce laws that maintain public order. Have a look at Washington DC if you want to see the way a change in those policies can affect a city.”
If I may add…. It’s become standard to let juvenile offenders off the hook, remanded to the custody of their parents or parent, if parents can be located. Second, is the practice known in the legal profession as “jury nullification.” That’s where the jury decides to ignore the evidence presented at trial and decide the case based on other considerations. Think O.J. Simpson, for example.
@Myriam #254
It took the Harings 20 years to reach this point, with much travails and hard times along the way.
They bought the store originally for Jason’s cabinetry business (hence the name) and quickly discovered that Michelle’s book collecting sold better.
They transitioned to nothing but books and only in the last few years opened the embedded “new book” section. Previously, everything but local authors was used.
Even today, I don’t know if Michelle pays herself a salary. I know she didn’t for years. Every penny the store made went to bills.
She highly recommends a mortgage rather than renting a storefront, once you know that owning a bookshop is hard, unpaid work you want to do. You don’t start earning money until after the mortgage is paid. If you rent, you’re always at the mercy of the landlord.
JMG and Ron M (#274),
Shaking off Western pseudomorphosis is very much an officially promoted narrative in Russia nowadays. Tatyana Kurtokove IS the Taylor Swift of Russia. That’s how Russian Taylor Swift looks like. She IS politics. She IS religion (a very special mix of Pagan roots and Orthodox Christianity). She is a great representation of a very Russian cultural myth. “To me – Holy Rus, to others – a small (not stubborn) splinter” is very much political and alludes to confrontation with Europe. European rhetoric promotes this cultural trend within Russia very much, a recent example being Macron calling Russia ” A cannibal at our gates”. In this latest round of escalation, European rhetoric sounds like suicidal ideation to me. Where’s Seroquel when we need it?
Re: Grebulocities
Did you notice that your paragraph contradicts itself?
“None of this necessarily means that the Democrats wouldn’t be dangerous against their opponents if they ended up back in power, but I haven’t heard anything that would suggest retribution against anyone who publicly disagrees with them, apart from lawfare against Trump and his closest allies as we saw in 2021-24.”
Then we have this from She Who Would Be Queen.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2023/10/06/hillary-clinton-maga-cult-extremists-donald-trump-house-republicans-amanpour-cnntm-vpx.cnn
Clinton calls for ‘formal deprogramming’ of MAGA ‘cult members’
Then what do you think will happen if they get their way?
“https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/09/scholars-warn-of-danger-in-an-outdated-constitution-democracy-tyranny-of-the-minority/
“Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt urge institutional reforms, rejection of candidates who violate norms in ‘How Democracies Die’ follow-up”
Their oligarchy needs to carefully vet “acceptable” candidates. Hicks need not apply and in fact need to shut up and work (Read Animal Farm, not to be confused with Animal House.)
And as for policies where the Democrats messed up, here is one.
“Why is shoplifting so rampant? Because state law holds that stealing merchandise worth $950 or less is just a misdemeanor, which means that law enforcement probably won’t bother to investigate, and if they do, prosecutors will let it go.”
https://www.hoover.org/research/why-shoplifting-now-de-facto-legal-california
Technically shoplifting was still illegal, but the legal system wouldn’t prosecute. Such prosecutions might show racial bias and they are not even allowed to ask the question.
Apparently CA reversed that particular law, but the principle remains.
Speaking of the military disobeying presidential orders. Even now there is a large contingent of men in the military and federal law enforcement agencies that at a certain point could very likely mutiny against orders put out by an authoritarian democratic administration in the throes of “defending and saving democracy” (or ensuring Democratic Party dominance). A young man I know now in the armed forces currently rising in the officer ranks would be a prime candidate for this.
I recall that you and some of the commentariat did Johnny Appleseed workings to try to get more Americans to tolerate genuine diversity. Maybe more of those workings can influence Americans to not support the Wokeist Elites or far-right insurgents, or do so only grudgingly?
(Note that I’m not suggesting that JMG should stay in America if Democrats win. This would be for those “heretics” who cannot or will not flee.)
JMG @291
Yes, you COULD be right 😥😥
Speaking of narratives that stick around a long time after the reality behind them has passed…
When my grandma was in her late 90s, the awareness of her immediate surroundings had left her, while the memories of Stalinist Russia were very much intact. She would repeatedly stuff a backpack with necessities (crackers, warm socks, a bar of soap, and such) and sit by the door of her New York City apartment waiting for THEM to come and get her. She was ready for her stint in the Gulag…
A couple of comments:
1) On people leaving the country: What was long a mockable meme of Hollywood Actors and Actresses leaving if a Bush wins the presidency (and proceeding to do nothing of the sort) has mutated to the settling of conservatives in Russia and various peoples of the left (including a relative of mine) activating plans of moving away in the wake of Trump’s second term. The Left has gone whole hog into Conspiracy Theorizing in the wake of 2016, gerrymandering has gone from begrudgingly accepted to joyously embraced by both sides, and Jew-Hating has gone from beyond the pale to have a secure foothold in the Overton Window. Nothing is prohibited, and if you have the ability and foresight to plan your escape then you’d be a fool (or have damn good reasons) not to have an escape plan readied just in case.
2) On the idea of things going “Negative Sum:” The shift of things to negative sum seems to be reflected in the sudden rise of importance of the word “privileged” and the disappearance of the word “advantaged.” Advantages can be lost, gained, earned and given; privileges can only be given or taken.
To those who are shocked by JMG’s plan to leave the country in case the Democrats come back into to power; would you fault the people who left Germany when Hitler came to power?
Jennifer, exactly. What’s more, if the noncombatant is an aging man who is thus statistically likely to need health care, his needs might divert resources from the far more urgent needs of wounded combatants.
Mary, were you aware that the US is now on track to have negative net immigration?
Grebulocities, please read my response to Aldarion (#291), and Siliconguy’s response to you (#302). That may help clarify the matter.
Mary, were you aware that the Florida state government is pursuing legal action against that trucking company?
Phutatorius, yes, those are also factors in the ugly situation in the big Democrat-run cities.
Inna, I see the European rhetoric as a matter of sheer frantic desperation. The EU leadership gambled everything on a grand strategy to regain European global dominance, and the keystone of that strategy was forcing Russia into political collapse using Ukraine as the instrument, breaking up Russia into a sequence of weak successor states, absorbing those into the EU, and stripping them to the bare walls to prop up Europe’s faltering economy. Here’s one of the many maps that were circulated in “progressive” circles:
Now they’ve failed, and the bill is coming due. They’re in a state of blind panic, clutching at any available straw in an attempt to stave off the doom they’ve brought on themselves.
BeardTree, that’s one factor that could prevent the scenario I’ve sketched out above: if the military mutinies against a Democratic government, that government will fall very promptly. In that case, though, I’d expect military tribunals against “traitors” and mob violence against leftists — and that’s nearly as ugly a situation as the one I sketched out.
Patrick, that’s a step in the right direction. What’s needed more generally, though, are positive images of an American future that are neither far left nor far right.
Inna, ouch!
Donald, two solid points. Yes, we’ve moved into a far more serious phase of the game — and yes, “advantaged” and “disadvantaged” both seem to be fading out in response.
Patricia M, thank you for this. I’d also say — what if you were in Russia and the Communists were about to take power? A lot of people had the great good sense to flee, to avoid the firing squads and the gulags. Were they wrong?
JMG: “My point is that if all you’re doing is resisting, that accomplishes nothing. You have to offer a positive alternative. I really do need to do a post on this, don’t I??”
You already have, haven’t you? https://www.ecosophia.net/a-primer-of-magical-combat/
#296: the Canadian horsey police are watching this comments section?
JMG, fair enough about Florida State Govt. That article at least published the name of the trucking company. I had to do some digging to find the name of an actual person as owner, one Navneet Huar. The trucking company is now said to be closed. I find no indication, none, of any charges, criminal or civil, being brought against the company owner. Who will, doubtless set up another company under another name in a year or so.
As for net migration, OK, maybe. I still say, why not prosecute the crooked employers who don’t pay minimum wage?
Donald Hargreaves, “Jew-Hating”? What does that sentiment have to do with the rest of what you posted? Furthermore, outrageous things like genocide and massive interference in local elections by people who don’t live in the district do tend to upset people.
Thank you to all who posted storytelling suggestions in response to my query!
i personally don’t “fault” anyone but i thought the entire reason we were talking about different ways of taking care of our health and coming together was to try and build something that would protect heal and enable us to withstand the trends AND do the slow work of making the country that we’ve been talking about, the one that embraces weirdos and independent thinkers.
if people start leaving here there’s nowhere else to go that has these ideals, so then that means America is over because no one feels it belongs to them/us any longer. yes, it’s been a long while since any of us have felt that way if EVER. but stick a fork in it, it’s done.
i can’t blame or be mad at anyone, it just is what it is, and i will also have to plan accordingly because i cannot financially afford to hold on and go out on my own, or even move elsewhere.
that moving elsewhere thing is like falling in love with someone looking for something better and you know they could leave you at any moment, so it’s not easy to go all out knowing it’s not coming back atcha.
but that’s America, right??? and why James blew my cotton pickin’ MIND.
the rest of this survival stuff now feels like a way to kill time because we’re just on our own as scrappers.
yeah, with that “narrative,” i see leaving. in fact i feel like “leaving” emotionally. yeah. i totally get it.
@TylerA, thanks for the reccommendation. I may take a look.
I tell ya JMG, this one was painful to read, and I read your column several times before deciding to join the party late rather than not at all.
I came of age in the 70’s, and was fully cognizant of the feminist critique of traditional men and masculinity; it was inescapable. I was determined to not be “one of those guys”, and so became what would now be called a “feminist ally”. I was also a traditional Democrat, as in pro-labor/pro-working-class, and this dovetailed with my feminist sympathies; as after all, most women were working class. Throughout the 70’s–90’s a man could be supportive of feminism without having to be a feminist, much less be feminine himself G_d-forbid. As an Aspie, dating was never easy for me, but I managed. At one point (1990) I became engaged to working-class, liberal Democratic woman, we moved in together for a year and began planning married life. My fiancee was also an ardent feminist and wanted to keep her maiden name, which did not sit well with me, and from time to time she found fault with my traditional masculine ethos and socially conservative views, which precipitated some bad arguments, ultimately leading her to end our relationship.
Ten years later (2000), I met the woman I would marry, “Karen”; I was 41 years old, she 31. We met at a dance, had good rapport and a fairly deep conversation which extended to values and politics. I by then had become dismayed by the Democratic party which had become effectively Republican what-with Bill Clinton signing away the Glass-Steagall Act, and adopting other pro-corporate, anti-worker policies. So I embraced class-based Marxist analysis, though not the solution (i.e. worker-revolution). Karen also identified as “leftist”, which to her meant feminism and little else. So we were both leftist! At that time, leftism had not obviously bifurcated into pro-labor versus “politically correct” (now “woke”) camps, while in the blink of an eye, the pro-labor ideology had already been memory-holed, which I had not noticed. Karen and I began dating.
On our third date, she enquired about my desire for children. I felt this meant I was doing well in our new courtship, and I certainly wanted to start a family. Since she was 31, it was clear as day she wouldn’t go one minute farther with me if kids weren’t in the cards; I was 41, and waiting any longer seemed foolish on my part, even though I was a medical student. We became a couple, and twenty-two days after we met, she suggested in no uncertain terms that we should get married. I was ecstatic and agreed. She moved in to my house for a one-year engagement, then we married. We had our first child two years later (we were 44 and 34), and the next 7 years later.
Our 20 years of marriage was fraught with continual friction at best, conflict at worst. Karen insisted on an explicit 50-50 relationship which meant that I was to do 50% of the housework. And she kept track like an accountant. But I always worked more than full time first as a medical student, then intern, then resident, then medical fellow and then as a physician. She was a full time stay-at-home mom. With my work schedule, I could never do as much domestic work as she wanted, and she did not count my care of the house, yard and car as part of our shared household labor, and she never found the fact that I provided the house and brought in 100% of the household income, to be an equitable exchange of value: “Husbands are supposed to do those things!” According to her, I was not “pulling my own weight”. And this fact made her continually resentful. (Hiring a maid wasn’t an option because a resident’s salary is low. Later as a physician, I had to pay off heavy student loan debt, after which saving for retirement and rainy days become important. It didn’t help that she refused to abide by a budget.)
It was only in retrospect that I realized she was trying to be the masculine one (“wear the pants” as we used to say) in the house. When we had disagreements, if I did not yield, she progressively hardened her tone up to the point she’d scold me in the manner of a drill sergeant dressing down a new recruit. If I responded in a like tone, she’d scold me for my “toxic tone”. If I called her out on her tone, she’d accuse me of “tone policing”. When I called her out on HER tone-policing, she’d change the subject to some other grievance. She had contempt for me if I defied her, and she had even more contempt if I submitted. When we were in marriage counseling she openly admitted her contempt, as she reasoned I was in fact contemptible! Then there were the repeated arguments over sexism and patriarchy. She regularly reminded me that “we live in a patriarchal society”, and lest I forget, patriarchy is oppressive of women, including HER. There was of course the innuendo that unless I was explicitly opposed to patriarchy myself, it followed that I was her oppressor.
And I lost count of the arguments where she compared me unfavorably to her first boyfriend, Lee, from her high-school days. She also used to compare me unfavorably to her sister’s husband, though this mercifully stopped when she divorced him.
One day, after 2 kids and 17 years of marriage, she exploded at me out of the blue for “pressuring” her into bed during our courtship 19 years ago! And she added that was why she NEVER had any interest in me! I would have divorced her on the spot if not for my fear of losing my daughters and of the economic repercussions. It took 2 more years of “patriarchy” fights, until one day, I merely rolled my eyes at her umpteenth denunciation of the patriarchy, and then she lit into me for my own show of contempt: I had never seen her, or anyone, so incandescently angry to the point of snarling like an rabid animal. It seemed demonic, and in that moment, something in me snapped, and a voice in my head announced “You can’t pretend any more”. It was over. It would take 3 months for me to mentally prepare myself for the privation of divorce before I told her. Between that and the economic consequences of my refusing the C19 jab, I lost all my financial assets, as well as 7 years of future income to the tune of $1.5 million. I’m now 66 years old, still working as a doctor, with less net worth, less savings, and less net income, than when I was 22.
I still have my daughters in my life, which I count as a vast blessing.
I now think Karen resented me for not being her preferred option, but she had to settle for me or risk not having kids at all.
You’d think I’d have learned my lesson. But I wish I had a mate, a real one. For a time I was on dating websites. When writing my statement for my profile, I’d write the final paragraph describing whom I was looking for, and finished up with something like “You are a feminine woman looking for a masculine man”. My profile got zero response, but I’d send messages to women whose profiles I thought promising. They seldom replied, but the one I recall wrote back “I’m not feminine. Bye”.
–Lunar Apprentice
@The Other Owen #172:
Regarding “flirty fishing”, I looked it up and oh dear, lol. Fortunately, (or unfortunately, depending on your perspective?) that didn’t happen to me, though it might have been… interesting if it did. The church that the girl I was interested in attended stuck to more-or-less traditional Christian sexual ethic, or should I say, a very rigid and neurotic modern interpretation of the traditional Christian sexual ethic.
There were, of course, young women – not necessarily (just) in this church – who did the “flirty fishing” on their own. Which is to say, they had sex with their boyfriends whom they were trying to “save”, often while wearing purity rings and all. Some of them were even pastors’ kids and some got pregnant, which if you were both of those, would be really quite awkward.
When I got married a few years later, having reverting to Catholicism, I remember remarking to a friend that I was very thankful that most of the people I was talking to as I was processing all of these things were older celibate men. I mean, YMMV of course, but my other alternative was to speak with my peers who were equally immature, horny, and clueless as I was.
@Inna #301: many thanks for the clarifications and explanations. As an outsider, illiterate in Russian, I was hoping that you or somebody else would weigh in and set things aright. However, I simply could not contain myself after ‘discovering’ the amazing Ms Kurtukova and how she seems to be the personification of a resurgent Russian culture – and I decided to just ‘put it out there’ even taking the risk of making glaring mistakes. May Tatyana Kurtukova continue to do her fabulous work and may the Russian people deepen their roots thereby.
I don’t think JMG has exaggerated what could happen in the USA if the Dems retook power in the near future. I’m not particularly politically inclined, but I’ve observed what’s happened in that sphere since before Nixon’s resignation, and I’ve never before witnessed anything remotely approaching the rancor, hatred, organized violence and eagerness to shred the Constitution, not to mention shocking dishonesty, that have characterized American politics of the last five years in particular. We are truly in uncharted waters.
I don’t suppose most Cambodians realized the magnitude of what was about to hit them when the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh in April 1975. But that didn’t stop them from finding out the hard way.
In light of your current concerns, do you ever wish you had never talked about Donald Trump?
Re: Mary Bennet (#311):
Simply put, I remember when to say anything that might be construed as “anti-Jew” was frowned upon by all. Even when one meant to give compliments, saying stuff was frowned upon because the last thing you’ll should be doing is setting The Jews apart.
Now, when I go along certain Comment threads in various “mainstream ” social sites, the hatred of Jews has become regular and supported with likes. On the Left, there has been occasional reports of pro-Palestinian groups blocking buildings and keeping out Jewish students – a far cry from the mild pro–Palestinian opinion I knew when I attended Michigan State in the ’80s.
And finally, when I hear people like Bill Maher actively defending Israel and Jews from various groups and their actions, I know it’s not just me noticing that things have changed.
(And why “Jew-hating” instead of “Antisemitic?” Last I heard, Palestinians were also Semitic, as were the Lebanese; hence my avoiding the term “Antisemitic.” Also, “Jew-hating is a bit more specific.)
” I’ve never before witnessed anything remotely approaching the rancor, hatred, organized violence and eagerness to shred the Constitution, not to mention shocking dishonesty, that have characterized American politics of the last five years in particular. We are truly in uncharted waters.”
You haven’t been there, but the charts exist. Last time they led to a nasty war. From the Wikipedia article,
“The war resulted in at least 1,030,000 casualties (3 percent of the population), including an estimated 698,000 soldier deaths—two-thirds by disease. Based on 1860 census figures, 8 percent of all white men aged 13–43 died in the war, including 6 percent in the North and 18 percent in the South. About 56,000 soldiers died in prison camps during the War. An estimated 60,000 soldiers lost limbs.
The narrative of Manifest Destiny was a part of it. That’s not there this time. Ideological purity seems to be the fad now at least on the Left. That is not any better. The Russian civil war, the Holodomor, the Great Purge, The Great Leap Forward, The Cultural Revolution and Pol Pot show the power of that concept. Just ask Leon Trotsky’s ghost. It’s in Mexico and even that wasn’t far enough away to save him.
Or Peng Dehuai’s ghost, he was the Chinese general during the Korean War. Despite years of loyal service to Mao he was found impure in a “struggle session” and died in prison.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peng_Dehuai
Depressing, isn’t it.
By daring to breathe “give nice guys a chance” you have committed heresy and will surely be burned at the stake in short order. Don’t you know that nice guys are the real villains because… hang on… let me check my notes… uh, they’re not honest about what they want! (Because everyone knows guys are only interested in sex, so any man who wants a relationship as well must be lying through his teeth.) For more info refer to article 3 of feminist doctrine: “Nice Guys” = Bleah!
Joking aside, I remember that article being a significant influence on my thinking/source of pain during my male feminist days, when I was trying to use the only tools I had to navigate the world of dating and friendship (plus autism). Like a lot of people, I zagged too hard the other way and found that that didn’t work either. A more or less healthy relationship straightened me out, but I don’t like to think where I would have ended up without it.
I found my own way out of the quagmire, but is there a way out for the vast majority of people out there? Because I don’t see it. Or are victories of this kind only likely to be on an individual basis for as long as the current narratives last?
I’d like to thank everyone who contributed thoughts on the electric vehicle discussion; I was not expecting to see so much feedback for it, and appreciate seeing others’ thoughts on the topic.
One other major change which profoundly worries me right now is the relationship between Canada and the US. The two countries are pretty clearly in the opening stages of an economic war right now; and there is rumbling in both Ottawa and Washington about increasing border security. Meanwhile, the Canadian mass media is full of stories of Canadians being detained at the borders and the like (many of which involve things like hemp handbags; legal in Canada, but not so much in the US).
Thus far, saner voices have prevailed and nothing too serious has happened yet, but I’m increasingly concerned that the political posturing could get very, very ugly. With the rise of the rabid anti-American sentiment here (especially among the political and media classes), the arrogance our political class has displayed when dealing with the Trump administration, and the Trump administration’s hardball line towards anyone supporting globalism, I could easily see things spiraling out of control in a very ugly fashion.
If the Trump administration starts claiming that the Russia Collusion narrative was funneled through 5 Eyes (thus accusing Canada of being part of the political hit job), or evidence linking some Canadian funded NGO to voter fraud is presented, I could see things spiraling out of control quite quickly. Six months ago I would have said that either the Trump administration would cave before anything which leads to shooting along the border, or that the Canadian government would be smart enough to avoid directly confronting the US; now, I’m not so sure.
There was even an article in the national Post about how we need conscription in order to ensure our military could take on the American military. While I doubt it will come to a shooting war between Canada and the US, I can no longer discount that possibility entirely, and that would be another way for things to spiral out of control in a very ugly fashion for pretty much everyone in North America.
@Hosea, excuse me, but that is not what happened. Archaeologically, there is hardly any evidence for whole populations entering the Roman Empire, though we know that bands of warriors followed their leaders around until being settled somewhere. Our literary sources speak of about 50 000 Visigoths entering Hispania, which archaeologists estimate had a population in the millions at the time. Genetically, there is hardly a trace of Germanic or Gothic immigration into Italia, Hispania and Gallia – and of course continuous immigration of Germanic veterans, slaves and traders had taken place all through the duration of the empire. Finally, the language and religion of the Roman population prevailed in Italia, Hispania and Gallia (Britannia is the exception, but even there, the linguistic change was caused by maybe 10% immigrants).
Please read up on the end of the (Western) Roman empire to get a clearer notion of what is and what is not probable in the future.
JMG, that scenario of escalation to civil war is within the realm of the possible, though I have no idea how probable it is. Upcomments it seemed that the inauguration of a Democratic president by itself would make you leave the country, so it seems as if you considered such a civil war scenario a probable consequence. That is what I was reacting to.
Donald Hargraves @ 320, Criticism is not hatred. Dislike is not hatred. I know of about 7 or 8 major religions in the world today, the number varying with who is counting. I don’t know enough about most of them to have an opinion. The conduct of, for example, a handful of Palestinian students, is the responsibility of those particular students, and no one else’s. Their presence in our universities when we ought to be uplifting our own impoverished and disadvantaged young people is another question altogether.
I have not seen the things about which you complain taking place on this forum, and I have been participating for more than a decade. Why do you bring your complaints here? Nor can I recall use of the term ‘antisemitic’ here. I agree the term is problematic, deliberately ambiguous I call it, and I would be glad to see it abandoned. I also do happen to know that Jews and Moslems were allies for a millennium at least.
#321 Siliconguy,
Yes, it is all pretty depressing. The only way to survive is to go out with your friends for a coffee or alcohol session and have a good laugh.
Lunar apprentice #315,
I have to admire our ability to stick it out. You really deserved better. Some people just have no sense of humour or of proportion.
#262 (responding to #242)
An EXCELLENT, and pertinent, example of how to take the same set of facts, and tell a new story about them that totally changes their implications.
Well done! 🙂
And now I am fascinated by the story-telling that BK and Erika are beginning to spin…
BK – the “normals” are in the centre and there are various ways of occupying the rings outside the centre – either by choice or by not fitting in and being pushed out…
Erika – no, the centre is the Sun, and “the normals are in outer space trying to have a dinner party on imaginary ice bergs.”
Wow! Plenty of meditation fodder in that exchange! 🙂 🙂
Further to the discussion about JMG’s possible sortie, Paul Craig Roberts just published this today:
Revolution or a Caesar?
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/08/paul-craig-roberts/revolution-or-a-caesar/
Roberts thinks that democracy has already broken down in the U.S., on account of “lawfare” by both sides. In my own view, this mutual “lawfare” is the equivalent of the proscriptions of the last years of the Roman Republic, where people were outlawed, not because of anything they had done, but because of who they (or their families) were.
Roberts’ conclusion is:
“Once law is weaponized, it is a life and death matter who controls the government. A government in such turmoil can never serve the public’s interest.
… The use of high office for personal agendas separates the interests of government from the interest of the people and kills democracy. The image portrayed is one of a government serving foreign, material, and ideological interests, not the interests of the voters who elected the government.
Everywhere in the Western World democracy is in crisis and collapse. Democracy has become so dysfunctional that executive authority is superseding it.
When democracy fails, the choice becomes revolution or a Caesar.”
Spengler believed that the age of revolutions is over and that the age of Caesars is upon us. Given his track record over the past 100 years, my money is on Spengler.
Erika,
It feels weird to say so (as in a truly normal world we would all be), but I’m also a child of the sun and I have no clue as to how the people of the artificial light managed to define what normal is.
What I do know is that these normals are absolutely terrified of being denormalized, whether by being ostracized or by normal moving out from under them. The latter is exactly what is happening now and they have no idea how to handle that.
Outsiders are actually in a much stronger position than the normals, as we are used to living in a world that’s not ours and had to find a way of dealling with the mess to be able to survive.
(It cost me quite a few years to carve out some space to live in a society that really has no place for me, and after finding JMG and starting the work I’m slowly finding who (and what) I really am, in stead of letting them define me by things that I am not)
I choose not to resist but to ignore them, and I try to be like a tiny, miniscule little sun for people in my environment. Some immediately grab their sunglasses and that hurts a bit, but then I move on..
–bk
Native species will be fine. They’re shifting habitats too. Did you see the latest Peterson’s entry for cardinal flower? “Prefers mesic to slightly hydric soils. Stream sides, moist fields, and especially the backyard of affluent suburban white people.”
There is an interesting article here about “Profiles in Pluralism”:
https://www.bushcenter.org/catalyst/profiles-in-pluralism/profiles-in-pluralism-editors-note
“In a country where 80% of Republicans and Democrats report that they believe the other party “poses a threat that if not stopped will destroy America as we know it,” and where nearly half of them think members of the opposing party are “downright evil,” it’s easy to conclude that our differences have become unbridgeable.
Yet 87% of Americans also tell pollsters that they are tired of division and want the country to be more united. So how do we make it happen?”
Find the articles here:
https://www.bushcenter.org/catalyst/profiles-in-pluralism
Here is to hoping we can avoid a civil war and the dangerous rhetoric that each side is evil.
I also hope the center can really be the “escape” button from the above scenarios as we move into the 250th year of this nation.
Do you think the Saturn-Neptune conjunction early next year will calm or enflame our current polarization? In your eclipse chart you noted that the polarization seems to increase here following Sept. 7th.
This post seems to be forebode such views. The polarization is also here at the most basic binary of male/feamle.
Looking for harmony & peace in these “interesting” times.
Chuaquin says:
# 282 August 24, 2025 at 8:49 am
Hi Chuaquin, no, fortunately I have not seen this level of verbal violence/threats in my circle or in the any of the people I know, I am describing the situation before the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) as my father and many other people that lived in this period described to me.
I think for this kind of civil war, it is required that a significant part of the population, not necessarily the majority, start to think that the violence agains other significant part of the population, could solve a good chunk of the problems in the society/country; I think a merely top-down process is not sustainable and extraordinarily dangerous for the elite. Hitler won an election and had many millions of supporters ready to crush disent (those who stabbed in the back the German army in WWI, derrotists and communists) as in many of the cases people mention as examples of “top-down” violence. In the case of the Spain we would like to think there were only a few generals and officers in the army against the rest of the country, but unfortunately it was not the case.
Cheers
David
@siliconguy #302:
You wrote:
> Then what do you think will happen if they get their way?
> “https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/09/scholars-warn-of-danger-in-an-outdated-constitution-democracy-tyranny-of-the-minority/
>
> “Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt urge institutional reforms, rejection of candidates who violate norms in ‘> How Democracies Die’ follow-up”
>
> Their oligarchy needs to carefully vet “acceptable” candidates. Hicks need not apply and in fact need to shut > up and work (Read Animal Farm, not to be confused with Animal House.)
The title of that story is (deliberately?) ambiguous. I read the whole interview, and what they suggest is that VOTERS should reject candidates who violate norms, by not voting for them. They do not suggest that anybody reject candidates BEFORE voting takes place.
Note also that the interview is not recent, but from before the 2024 election, and nobody stopped Trump or any Republican congressperson from being elected in 2024.
I suggest “Democrats Derangement Syndrome” may also be a thing 🙂
Its curious to me that so many people seem to struggle with the idea that America could descend into civil war. I have noticed that when I used to try to explain the viable paths towards such a dreadful outcome I would usually get at least one of two responses (sometimes both). Either people would react in horror and assume I wanted to see this happen, or they give the strangest possible arguments for why everything was just fine.
It goes without saying that a civil war would be a terrible thing, but that is not a reason why it cannot happen. While we are on the topic, it is not a reason why a civil war would be Armageddon. Nothing says the future has to be either happy or short.
But I digress. Let’s get to the more practical question. What advice would you give to Americans who are not in a position to leave but also want to make preparations for civil war?
Thanks BK, brother of the sun /and Scotlyn you’re funny.
Grand Rising you both and all here!
X
And BK #332 adds this to their exchange:
“Erika, It feels weird to say so (as in a truly normal world we would all be), but I’m also a child of the sun and I have no clue as to how the people of the artificial light managed to define what normal is.”
Well, what immediately came to my mind was a scene from C. S. Lewis’s “The Silver Chair”… All of the Narnia stories were read to us when I was a child. This scene *may* be one of the ones I remember best from the whole series….
The characters are trapped underground with a Witch (who is also Queen of this underground realm), who is trying to hypnotise them (using scented smoke and hypnotic, rhythmic vocal tones) into agreeing that artificial light is totally “normal” and the Sun, nothing but a dream.
QUOTE:
“Then came the Witch’s voice, cooing softly like the voice of a wood-pigeon from the high elms in an old garden at three o’clock in the middle of a sleepy, summer afternoon; and it said:
“”What is this sun that you speak of? Do you mean anything by the word?”
“”Yes we jolly well do,” said Scrubb.
“”Can you tell me what it’s like?” asked the Witch (thrum, thrum, thrum went the strings).
“”Please it your Grace,” said the prince very coldly and politely. “You see this lamp. It is round and yellow and gives light to the whole room; and hangeth moreover from the roof. Now that thing we call the sun is like this lamp, only far greater and brighter. It giveth light to the whole Overworld and hangeth in the sky.”
“”Hangeth from the what, my lord?” asked the Witch; then while they were all still thinking how to answer her, she added, with another of her soft, silver laughs. “You see? When you try to think out clearly what this sun must be, you cannot tell me. You can only tell me it is like this lamp. Your sun is a dream; and there is nothing in that dream that was not copied from this lamp. The lamp is the real thing; the sun is but a tale, a children’s story.””
END QUOTE
Well, this is the question. How did our society persuade us that being a cog in a machine is “normal”, whereas being a singer in the living choir that makes a natural ecosystem hum, bloom and buzz, is nothing but a dream.
DFC #335:
Hi David!
A lot of thanks for your answer to my comment. I won’t argue with you, because I’ve understood not very well your last comment. My English isn’t very good he he…excuse me.
So you were writing about terrible 30s in this country, OK. Political tension then was no doubt worse than our “crispación” nowadays. I agree.
Now, spanish politicians are feeding the tension, not the “normal” people here. I’m not sure, but only a shouting minority in both sides of politics spectrum are mad zealots. And even between them, is very unthinkable. Nobody in the left or right side is going to die or kill happyly for grotesque and populists politicians like Pedro Sánchez or S. Abascal…
The problem IMHO is that there are some little groups of people in far left and extreme right who would be for their irrelevancy, incapable to generate mass riots or a civil war here; however they could be the poisonous seed for a domestic low level terrorism wave in a not very distant future.
A deadpan-humor song about hypothetical magnicide against the “socialist” spanish President:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kU0V31u-q7Q
Well, let’s relax a bit if you don’t mind it: spanish politics always surprises me, for instance these leftists women shouting in the following video, as part of their antifascist “strategy” (OK, this kind of involuntary comedy wouldn’t be understood by non-Spaniards, excuse me John)
https://www.sevillainfo.es/enredados-en-la-red/video-viral-la-pregonera-de-sants-grita-como-si-hubiera-sido-poseida-por-el-demonio/#google_vignette
Cheers-Saludos
@DFC 256 “Too many records in the public domain is not good at all.” Or, alternatively, lying to your employer about why you are not at work is not good at all.
@Aldarion, #324 — I’m not sure how far we disagree. It sounds like you are saying that the overall numbers of non-Roman barbarians who settled in formerly-Roman territories were not high. I won’t quarrel with you. But even so, the numbers were sufficient to give each of these territories a new and different ethos and identity. Centuries later, the French nobility still prided themselves on their Frankish ancestors.
Of course our original discussion turned on the phrase “whole-scale population replacement,” which suggests a 100% turnover. But I don’t think JMG has ever said he expects to see 100% turnover. The way I read his remarks on the subject, he has always been talking about long-term cultural changes — exactly the changes of ethos and identity that turned Gallia into France and Hispania into Spain.
If anything, pointing out that the number of non-Roman invaders was comparatively small should make it easier to see Europe’s current situation in the light of Late Antiquity. If 50 000 Visigoths out of a population of millions were enough of a leavening agent to turn Hispania into Spain (and 50 000 / 1 000 000 = 0.02), then might we not see analogous effects in modern France (population 68.5 M) from the introduction of 3.5M Africans (where 3.5 / 68.5 = 0.05)? (Google is my source for both of those French numbers.)
I do not know the future, of course. But it is an intriguing idea.
DFC says:
# 335 August 25, 2025 at 9:19 am
Same in Greece, DFC. With the addition that the population must be divided in more or less equal numbers, let’s say 40-60%. If one side lacks support, it is easily dominated by the other. A civil war starts when brother kills brother in everyday events, for political reasons. A society can be in this state for quite many years, the communists in Greece were prosecuted from 1929, but the civil war erupted in 1946.
Here is another practical question. What advice would you give to Americans who are not in a position to leave but also want to do their part in mitigating the possibility of a civil war, help each other overcome TDS and DDS, stay balanced and centered when both extremes seem to be flying off the rails in their own ways. How can we build up “positive images of an American future that are neither far left nor far right” ?
That’s a fascinating map, JMG. Ironically, trying to force this vision on Russia, Europe itself got closer to something very analogous – a lot of disunion in the European Union! Plenty of impoverishment came to Europe from these policies. And I’m not even talking about gas and oil. It’s felt in numerous small ways by thousands of people. Prosperous Finish border towns ( an easy 3-hour drive from my hometown) got decimated for the lack of Russian tourists. Courchavel’s ski slopes are a lot emptier. And waiters on the French Riviera are sure missing drunken Russian largess. Russia itself is not out of the woods, though. It is now China’s turn to try to bring this wet dream into reality.
@Ron M #317
Yes, it’s quite difficult to get Russia as an outsider. It’s a beautiful and unique culture. It’s a very bad place to be a wierdo. A boss will not hire you if you have a long hair (for men, of course). A cab driver will not stop for you if you are visibly gay. And you have to be “clinically brave” (like Alexanre Zinoviev mentioned by our host in the comments above) to express any kind of meaningful dissent.
@Erika Lopez #275
“That’s funny; you could say that about anybody.”
Noooooooo, dearest Erika! That’s NOT how it normally works (don’t ask me how I know 😉). “counsel of … inner guides and a considerable amount of oracular discernment” or ANY kind of discernment for that matter is very rare when one is in the unfortunate position of leaving their country. Usually, it hits you that your best option is to leave way too late. There are hordes of people around you who realize it at the same time you do. There is a mad stampede for the exit. The prices of everything you’ve got to sell are falling precipitously. The fees for various government “services” (passport, entry visa, exit visa, work records, military records, and millions of other records you don’t know exist until you try to leave your country) skyrocket. You are afraid that by the time you clear all the hurdles, you won’t have enough money left to buy a plane ticket. Your target country is getting less and less friendly toward newcomers. You are worried. Your heart is pounding. It’s like you are running from a mountain lion… for weeks… and months. Don’t believe me? Ask any Ukrainian on the streets of San Francisco. They are now leaving the US in droves, BTW. The first wave got asylum and settled in quite nicely. The last wave got a sh…tty 2-year U4U visa. Many haven’t found a job or a spouse in 2 years and now have to leave the US. Most have no place to go. Conclusion? Whether you stay or go you better consult your oracle of choice NOW.
#303 said :Speaking of the military disobeying presidential orders. Even now there is a large contingent of men in the military and federal law enforcement agencies that at a certain point could very likely mutiny against orders put out by an authoritarian democratic administration in the throes of “defending and saving democracy” (or ensuring Democratic Party dominance).
I assume that the military forces that are prowling my beautiful city RIGHT NOW are perfectly acceptable because it is a not from the orders of an authoritarian Democratic administration? Can you help me to understand this? Did I miss something in the response, I think I did.
Well Scotlyn, now that is verrrrry interesting isn’t it???
Thank you for that…
Scotlyn, funny you should ask this: “Well, this is the question. How did our society persuade us that being a cog in a machine is “normal”, whereas being a singer in the living choir that makes a natural ecosystem hum, bloom and buzz, is nothing but a dream.”
because this conversation is on just that topic: https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/338828.html?thread=56746636#cmt56746636
JMG et al
In the context of the discussion of a possible US civil war, this post today by Tim Watkins on consciousnessofsheep.co.uk seems appropriate. It is called” preparing for cascades” He is speaking more of a non military catastrophe, but I should think in a civil war much of this would be exacerbated. This goes along with my feeling that a gradual collapse would probably be punctuated by periods of extreme collapse until things leveled out for awhile at a lower level.
Stephen
@hosea, thank you for civil reply and sorry for being a bit curt before. This is a subject that has been discussed many times before here, and I feel a bit like a broken record… JMG did say at some point that the majority of the Y chromosomes of modern Spaniards derived from ancestors who had lived on the Black Sea steppes in the first centuries AD, and that he expected many millions of Arabs and Africans to migrate into Europe. Maybe he has changed his mind and now considers an internal, “leavening” change more probable.
If you are not suggesting genetic population replacement, then we can speak about cultural change. Sorry if this goes off on a tangent for this week’s post…
In Britannia the changes were greatest – here you are right, and maybe 10% immigrants (estimated from genetic studies) imposed their language and apparently (mostly?) their Pagan religion. Britannia was the outlier, the least urbanized and the most distant province. Even so, there are Celtic names among the ancestors of the Wessex and the Mercian kings, and archaeological studies have shown that the field boundaries often stayed the same from Roman to Anglo-Saxon times, so even this extreme case of culture change is less abrupt than some have proposed.
In Gaul/Francia north of the Loire, there were considerable changes – for one, towns and writing almost disappear from the archaeological record since 380 AD, even before the Rhine frontier was breached. Here also, there was probably some linguistic influence of the Germanic languages; not so much direct, but as a catalyzer for widespread phonetic disruption. But calling yourself a Frank does not mean your (male) ancestors had (mostly) lived on the right side of the Rhine. I have often cited the famous case of the Frankish noble Wulfing (“son of a wolf”), whose father was a Roman officer (comes) called Lupus (wolf). Gregory of Tours was proud of both his Roman senatorial and his Frankish ancestry. Of course one’s ethnic identity (even if purely subjective) is important. But don’t forget that these “Franks” were soon all members of the Roman Catholic church and, on the territory of modern France, soon were all speaking a language derived from Latin.
In what ways did the Visigothic kingdom on the eve of the Arab conquest differ from Roman Hispania? In many ways, of course, but in my opinion hardly any of them was derived from the Visigoths. At this point, in 711, everybody spoke a form of Vulgar Latin, everybody was a member of the Catholic church (except the Jews, who were severely persecuted), the cities, the major roads were still the same. What had changed was lower population, less international trade and of course the lack of a central authority located outside of Hispania.
Make of this what you will. I suggest population replacement is practically unheard of in the last 4000 years at least (except after epidemics like in the Americas), and radical cultural change due to immigrants/invaders is rather rare.
Hi JMG, a late reply. I read your replies about the prevailing mostly leftwing supported narrative that men are responsible for all ailments of todays society and that the only alternative narrative comes from the extreme right.
Currently there is a lot of commotion in my country due to a flurry of horrendous assaults on women in the past few weeks. This ties to the latest buzzword ‘femicide’ (murder of a woman) that has gotten traction in the past few months. The brutal murder of a 17yo girl last week has unleased a tsunami of public attention to the matter, from football stadiums mourning, a crowd funding action that was wildly succesfull and spends all the money on putting a slogan on billboards across the country, politicians and media denouncing ‘femicide’ etc etc.
What is missing in the tempest is someone pointing out that on average twice as many men as women per annum are being killed, and that sloganeering will only lead to resentment among the good men while not impressing the bad ones. My impression is that the horrible death of a young woman is being used to strenghten the position of women while undermining the position of men.
It is interesting to read comments on X. Many women state things like ‘this is a mens problem’ while many conservatives stat that the perpetrators usually share one commonality: they are immigrants. This infuriates the women who insist it is a men problem and even if you didn’t assault a woman you are still guilty if you didn’t protect her somehow.
Your suggestion that woman are benefitting from the status quo explains a lot of this madness, but one thing is still puzzling me. It is obvious that importing masses of often traumatized young men from countries with a very patriarchal culture is a great threat to the position of women. Yet the left wing parties that support immigration get most of their votes from women while the anti-immigration parties get mostly men. What could cause this? Do you have any idea?
@Anonymoose #323: thanks for mentioning the call for conscription in Canada via the National Post newspaper. I didn’t catch that – then again, I do not consume any more mainstream propaganda than happenstance allows. Canada has never in its history had conscription: even during WWI and WWII there was no need as patriotic young men eagerly lined up to fight for the Empire. Even my 50-year-old grandfather (WWI combat veteran) showed up at the recruiting office in October 1939 to enlist – and was politely rejected.
I had noticed ‘think pieces’ in various Canadian newspapers over the past 1.5 years (or so) seriously advocating conscription. Let’s keep count and continue to inform the commentariat, as I believe that it is an important bellwether – and not just for our country. Meanwhile, Prime Sinister Marx Carnage told the Z-man during Ukraine’s independence day celebrations yesterday, that Canada is willing to commit boots on the ground in the dysfunctional ‘404’ state. Of our country’s anaemic 13,000 fighting-capable troops, a fair number are stationed in Latvia (according to my military-linked sources, the official NATO plan is for Canada’s troops to hold off Russia in Latvia for about 6 hours before they are snuffed out by the Rooskies like a spruce forest in front of an inferno). Lovely thought, isn’t it?
Funny how when during peacetime the Canadian military (and I understand the US and probably other Western countries such as the UK) have a standing “rainbow army” with no fitness requirement, no IQ test, no Canadian citizenship, no discipline regarding comportment and can’t even march as well as 12-year-old Air Cadets! But when war is possibly on the horizon, suddenly the government decides to throw more money at the armed forces and replaces the “rainbow army” posters with “buff young male” posters – maybe in the future with almost no employment prospects except the military (like the English did to the Scottish Highlanders, hand-in-hand with the Highland Clearances, in the latter half of the 18th century). Send the patriotic fighting-age males to the meat-grinder in order to create a nation of meek, testosterone-deficient morons – a veritable paradise for authoritarians!
Lunar Apprentice #315
Sorry about my typo. Of course I meant your ability to stick it out.
So, it seems to me like each narrative or story could be considered a tool – each one suited for making sense of a particular situation, solving a particular problem. So, if one wanted to, say, equip a couple young boys with as wide a tool kit as possible – perhaps taylored for the coming age of imperial decline, which will well on its way by the time they come of age – what stories would you recommend I tell them as bedtime tales? I’m sure you have a wide knowledge of all sorts of myths and tales, historical or not, from a vast variety of cultures, and I personally am a bit overwhelmed by the task of selecting good ones from the vast field available. I would appreciate any of your recommendations.
Thank you as always for your advice and guidance.
Anonymoose, Canada is well on its way to become America’s Ukraine – a borderland controlled by hostile powers (In Canada’s case, India and China). Personally, as a Canadian, I am sick of living in a country that combines the worst excesses of Europe and the USA, where we work for European wages, pay European taxes, and are expected to work like Americans or harder, and don’t get the consolation prize of getting to own really cool firearms. My government will fine me 25,000 dollars for walking in an wooded park near my apartment, and do the same if I fly a drone near a wildfire – and yet they can’t tell me where the wildfires are. Meanwhile, young Canadians cannot get jobs because Indian entrepreneurs have realized that you can sell Canadian jobs to Indian would-be immigrants for about 40,000 dollars. The same government that tells my nephews and nieces they are evil colonizers who might also be the opposite of their biological sex when they enter public school will also be perfectly happy to draft them to go get blown up by Chinese FPVs in some stupid future conflict once they turn 18.
Canada Delenda Est – I just think that the provinces should each become states so we get more senators.
Mr. Greer.. Yeah, I grok what you’re saying, however .. one can only run so far. As things go, being a ‘ ‘Murican expatriate’ only goes so far, in my modest opinion .. because one doesn’t know when ohe’s adopted country in question turns ‘anti-expatriate’, due to perhaps to it’s changing public sentiment, government administrative change-over, or what-have-you.. Personally: I’m probably close to a decade ahead of you age wise, and, having weighed the options, will stay put where I am .. and stand fighting, if circumstances to such warrant, rather than acquiesce to marxian/wefian bullshite!
“I read the whole interview, and what they suggest is that VOTERS should reject candidates who violate norms, by not voting for them. They do not suggest that anybody reject candidates BEFORE voting takes place.”
Really? Then explain the states that ruled trump was not eligible to be on their ballot?
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/projects-series/archived-projects/the-trump-trials/section-3-litigation-tracker
The Supreme Court shot it down, but effort is on record. Only those approved by ??? are supposed to be allowed to run for office. See also the 2020 and 2024 Democratic presidential primaries, rigged from the start.
Since I live in the true blue state of Washington I have an on the ground view of woke run amuck.
Whether it’s the free public money for “minorities” to buy a house (Whites need not apply*) or the unceasing attacks on the Second Amendment or the fact they also took away my right to install a gas stove if I want one, the Democrats are not my friends. Yes I am thinking of moving.
By the way, Japanese are also not eligible for free public money for a house purchase. After all, it’s not like the Japanese were ever tossed in internment not camps or something. They were never discriminated against. 😉. That entire law is blatantly racist and entirely Democratic.
Hello Erika,
I am keenly aware of how challenging your current circumstances are, and very much appreciate your many efforts to deal with them. It was only through my good fortune that I was able to abandon everything in my untenable life in San Francisco in the early 1980’s, and move back in with my surviving parent. Not any merit of mine. Surely it is a real head-fake to have to deal with all the different kinds of craziness and correctness that prevail now. As well as the impossible costs of living there. I sure I couldn’t manage it. You are undoubtedly a brave individual who is much to be admired.
I admit that some of your longer posts escape me, but mark that down to my being an older guy with a patience deficit. On a couple of occasions I have made posts that disagreed with points I thought you had made. In response, your posted replies didn’t seem to address the contents of my post, and appeared to dismiss them (and me) out of hand. Effectively shutting me up, if that was your intention. I have to confess I found that to be hurtful. If your responses did in fact address my expressed thought, that wasn’t clear to me. Just because I use archaic and formal language doesn’t mean I’m an arrogant snot-nosed academic, if my style was what caused offense. I happen to have been raised to speak and write that way. Alan Ginsberg, when I met him, seemed to hate me on sight for what I believe was a similar perception, so if that is/was the issue, you’re in good company.
Like our host, I’m Aspbergian, and have no innate understanding of how to relate to others. Any skills I have are all acquired, and they often fail me. I’m requesting that perhaps you set aside how irritating I must have been to you, may be now, and may yet be in the future, and (perhaps taking a day or two to get over that) address the actual content of my posts, making whatever point you wish to make in that way. I don’t expect anyone to actually agree with me (few do), but I really appreciate it when the points I make are addressed in such a way that I can understand the response. However, you did respond to me, and that’s a positive.
Thanks for making the threads here so lively and engaging. My best wishes to you and prayers that your circumstances change radically for the better.
Inna@345
Thank you. That is probably the best, most succinct synopsis of the Jewish situation in Germany in the 30s that I have read. I have read a lot about that era.
stephen
@Ron M
I have to say that is a depressing situation you outline. I know a bright young man who is joining the reserves and is hoping to move on to the RMC afterwards. I think he is looking for respect and a place in life. The financial piece is also a motivator, youth unemployment is sky high, owning a house is out of reach. A military pension can be very lucrative if you stay on as a reserve colonel.
This tripwire strategy in Latvia does present Canadian troops as cannon fodder for Russia, they are not all deployed there… Apparently our LAV force is being equipped to fight drones as well. I dont know what else to say. There is not much of a future here for working class or middle class youth that are not interested in joining trades it seems.
Aidawedo #346, I don’t know what city you are talking about and the circumstances so I don’t have the information I need to attempt to answer your question.
re The Epstein list–I think that everyone who cares about this will continue to be disappointed by whatever is revealed about Epstein’s operation. I suspect that many people visualize a Little Black Book of client’s names with notes about their sexual preferences. Such as: D. Blump (real estate)–threesomes with blond 14 yr olds; Willie Bates (computers)– German Shepherds-canine and German Shepherds-human; Scrouge McDuck (precious metals speculator) –being rubbed with $100 bills by young boys in sailor suits—etc. It is IMO, highly unlikely that such a document exists. But so long as people believe that it exists, they will assume that it is being nefariously concealed to protect the parties listed, or that it has been nefariously destroyed for the same reason. Since it is impossible to prove a negative–there we are. Such persons may also expect a list of dates and persons and acts: mm/dd/yyyy–Willie Bates–Bullet and Herman, 1/2 hr. Once again, unlikely to exist except in the fevered imaginations of those who are sure that all of their nemesises (is there a plural of Nemesis?) are listed there like a menu and roll call of Sodom and Gomorrah. In other words, it doesn’t matter what files are produced, unless these imagined (IMO) documents are among them the conspiracy theorists will never believe that they have seen it all. Even after everyone concerned is dead it will be raked over, like the JFK assassination. I would add that mere reported presence at a particular party is not firm evidence of guilt. Anyone who has been to a big party in a multi-setting venue knows that you can compare notes with a friend afterwards and be amazed to learn that lines of coke were being cut in the downstairs bathroom, so-and-so chugged a six pack and passed out in the pool house and X and Y came to blows over existentialism in the kitchen, all while you had been grooving to the latest Grateful Dead album in the recreation room while staring at the host’s lava lamp and sipping that cheap white wine from Yugoslavia. (boy, am I dating myself)
It fascinates me how much pushback you get on your fears regarding the Democrats.
They waged lawfare against Trump after he lost the election and used rather fantastical legal claims to try and imprison him.
I also remember the serious talk of stacking the Supreme Court with Biden appointees to get over the conservative bias under Biden.
Ray Dalio writings also talk about wider conditions in the US where the US is at the edge of civil war.
Trump’s strong win has reduced that risk slightly but it’s still a risk.
Hi John Michael,
Speaking of controlling a narrative, did you notice this? US Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook refuses to stand down after Donald Trump’s ‘firing’
What’s interesting for me about this particular case is that it comes down to a question of fact, did she, or didn’t she? And from there, the next question becomes do we as a society tolerate intransigence in high officials? After all, that is at the heart of many a lawfare campaign of late.
Cheers
Chris
Erika #347 – Just keep slinging them out there, and I will keep thinking about them. 🙂
Temporary Reality #348 – thanks for the heads up. 🙂
I usually save Magic Monday to read on Tuesday, since I seldom have anything to ask, but by Tuesday all of the comments are up, and it can be read as an organic whole. ** goes off to read **
Mr. Greer,
Long-time reader of your work. On a substack column I read, the author linked to this new book on societal collapse. Here’s a review: https://newspaceeconomy.ca/2025/08/09/review-of-goliaths-curse-the-history-and-future-of-societal-collapse-by-luke-kemp/
Bocaccio #351 said…
“many conservatives stat that the perpetrators usually share one commonality: they are immigrants. This infuriates the women who insist it is a men problem”
So many men end fed up on spanish left misandry and become conservatives or far right populism supporters. It’s true. Leftism is kidnapped by gender madness from subsidiazed feminism. OK, I’m a man, let’s whip myself…
By the way, I’m not a conservative or right populist (I’m an unorthodox and fringe “traditionalist socialist”) , but I’m not blind: some attacks against women come from some of our “beloved and angelical” immigrants. I’ll remark SOME immigrants, not all.
———————————————————————————-
Spanish politics, like in another Western countries, is fully rotten, there’s a lot of BS from left to right wing…I’d be boring you with a lot of examples, so I’m going to propose you to see one of them. Recently, I was in a bookshop in my town, when I read one of the new books title: “Pedro Sánchez, or the passion for power”. I agree to this statement; I don’t like very much the faux socialism (leftist populism) of our “dear” President, but when I read the whole title I found this “gem”: “Anatomy of a dictator”.
https://www.amazon.es/Pedro-S%C3%A1nchez-pasi%C3%B3n-por-mismo/dp/8466682112
WTF? This is BS and bare propaganda: although spanish president has a heck of flawns, were not living in Venezuela or Cuba…Only a very zealot or manipulative writer can tell us such as exaggeration. OK, there’s also a possible brain damage, I can’t discard it at all.
The worst of it was that I’ve ask the bookstore woman if that book was being selled well, and she ask me it wasn’t a best seller, but as essay, it was having a moderate success (facepalm!).
KAN, I have indeed, but it’s impressive — and not in a good way — how often that point needs to be repeated.
Mary, sure, and I could also come up with a long list of policies I think the government should adopt, and hasn’t. The fact that we’ve tipped into negative net immigration, I think, still deserves a certain amount of attention…
Erika, please do notice that I’ve also said that I don’t think relocation will be necessary for me. It’s a fallback plan in case things do go sideways — I always have one of those. But I’ll also note that it’s no part of my job to play a role in other people’s narratives — much less to do so at the cost of my own freedom or life.
Lunar, good gods. You have my profound sympathy. Clearly I was very fortunate in my choice of a wife; my marriage with Sara wasn’t without its stresses and occasional bitter arguments, but the crap you put up with would have had me talking to a lawyer, stat. I’d already decided that if I remarry, there’s going to be a legally binding prenuptial agreement involved, but your comments make me reflect on other measures that might be needed.
Kevin, thanks for this. It’s a common theme in history — how many people in France in 1789 thought, when the Third Estate declared itself the National Assembly, that they were facing a quarter century of tyranny, mass murder, and war?
Slithy, no. My sense is that the most likely futures all involve the effective destruction of the current Democratic establishment, probably through a flood of indictments and trials on charges of perjury, corruption, and election fraud, and a quarter century or so of one-party rule before a new generation dissatisfied by the Trumpist regime takes control of the remaining husk of the Democratic party and does something interesting with it. In those futures, my public statements about Trump — and more importantly my discussions of the American left — have made it much harder for the religious wing of the conservative populist movement to insist that all occultists, Druids, etc. are Democrats, and may stave off (or at least minimize) legal persecution of alternative spiritual movements and their practitioners, in at least some parts of the country. That’s a goal worth achieving, and it’s worth risking a sudden relocation if things go the other way.
Llewellyn, I think the tide is turning against those narratives, not least because they haven’t really worked for anybody — women are as dissatisfied and miserable about the current state of relationships as men are. Now’s the time for heresy to flourish!
Aldarion, it interests me that so many people seemed to have jumped to conclusions about what I was saying rather than, say, simply asking me to explain further.
Michael, granted, and yeah, I think the Caesar is already in place.
Mark, oh, some of them will go extinct. Species do that all the time — as ours will eventually, of course. In the meantime, though, you’re right that the more adaptable native species will work out odd ways to thrive.
Eagle, hmm! Thanks for this.
Stephen, I know. I first started talking about that at the height of the peak oil movement, fifteen years ago, and everyone gave me blank and baffled looks. As for advice to those who can’t leave, learning enough about military strategy to figure out where the armies are likely to march, making sure you’re somewhere else, and making the preparations for prolonged interruptions in the ordinary functioning of society would be wise.
Eagle, you build up such images through the use of will and imagination, focused through simple or not-so-simple ceremonies. You mitigate the possibility of civil war by paying close attention to your own thinking, withdrawing your own projections, and refusing to participate in the Two Minutes Hate campaigns that play so large a role in keeping people stuck. You focus on building local community and local resilience. That is to say, everything I’ve been talking about for the last nineteen years and change…
Inna, granted! It’s a difficult world out there.
Stephen, thanks for this. Historical parallels suggest you’re quite correct — the Long Descent is punctuated at intervals by intense periods of disruption, contraction, catastrophe, and mass death. I hope we can avoid too many of those.
Boccaccio, the mass importation of illegal immigrants benefits the rich by driving down wages, and also by propping up the overinflated real estate prices that are necessary to keep the banking system solvent. Of course it doesn’t benefit women, but most women in the developed world are loyal to the corporate system that’s facilitated their rapid rise in status over the last half century, while many men lack that loyalty, since they’re the ones whose status has declined in response. This is why more women back the mainstream parties than men, and believe what the corporate media tell them — for example, that the murders you mention are a male problem rather than a problem with male immigrants.
Paedrig, depends on how old they are. If they’re still of bedtime-story age, you can’t beat old-fashioned fairy tales from the brothers Grimm and their equivalents, since those are packed with symbolic insights tested by the centuries.If they’re too old for those, the simplest thing to do is look through the Newbery Award books before 1970 or so, and make sure those are readily available to your boys.
Polecat, we each have to make our own choice, of course.
Forecasting, yes, I’ve been watching that as well. It’s precisely because so few people recognize how close we are to catastrophe that so many stupid moves keep being made.
Chris, she isn’t the first senior federal appointee to try that. The laws give the president the power to remove her, and I doubt he’ll be slow to act.
Graham, thank you for the heads up.
Rita Rippetoe @ 362, I think most of us know there is no “black book” as such. The closest to that was the informal list of names and phone numbers which were being kept by the servant staff at Epstein’s Palm Beach house. This they surely did for their own protection, and to have something to trade should there ever be prosecutions. I hope we all know that nothing is secret from the servants, yet another reason why I think it is nuts to employ such persons to do things we Americans used to do for ourselves. That list was taken by one man, a senior factotum, who tried to sell it to various investigators. He was himself prosecuted, on what grounds I don’t understand, and is now dead, and that list is now public in the sense that quite a large number of reporters have managed to see it.
With Epstein dead and Maxwell in prison, the scandal had pretty much died down until candidate Trump himself revived it as part of his presidential campaign. Just as there is no black book list, so also it is highly unlikely that a spokesperson for Mossad is going to put out public statement in which that organization comes clean about the op, OK we admit it was us all along. Sure, dream on you dumb Americans. What is certain is that the various hints, etc. to that effect are highly credible and fairly widely believed by reporters who have dived into the Epstein mess. It is also fact that the president’s about face followed immediately on a visit by Bibi Netanyahoo to DC. It is not all that difficult provisionally to connect some dots here. It is not necessary to suppose that Bibi “has something” on Trump; the hint that AIPAC money can be used against MAGA members of congress would likely be inducement enough. Israel agitated for years to have Jonathan Pollard freed. It would appear that Israel is now doing the same thing, somewhat less publicly, for Maxwell. The Republicans are not dumb, they know quite well that vast swathes of American women already vote against them. Any actual pardon won’t happen till after the Midterms.
I also note that there now American warships proceeding to Venezuela. I wonder, did those here who voted for this administration know you were voting for the revival of gunboat diplomacy?
Lunar please accept my sympathy as well for having fallen prey to what sounds like a malignant bossy cow. It takes time to recover from this kind of trauma and, from what you say here, you are doing so as well as can be expected. Does any religious denomination appeal to you? Church ladies love to arrange marriages within their congregations. Have you considered any sort of pro bono work? Drs without borders, once a month particiation in a free clinic ( I do understand you have to make a living.) or the like?
Justin @ 355, some sort of continental union might well be in our future. Statehood for EACH province is the LEAST Canadians should settle for. Our current president will accept nothing less than “51st state”–I don’t think that was a negotiating position; I believe he actually thought he could get Trudeau the Wimp to agree to it in return for unspecified bribes. I know little about Mr. Carney, but he does appear to have too good an opinion of himself to agree to any such capitulation of sovereignty.
@rita #362: nemesis, pl. nemeseis 🙂
On the direct subject of the post, it strikes me that one of the narratives of modernity is “Nothing weird ever happens, or if it does happen, it isn’t important.”
In past decades, various historical sciences were firmly in the grips of uniformitarianism, denying that one-off catastrophes had any significant role to play in shaping the past and present; that hold seem to loosen once the Chicxulub crater was found, making it difficult to deny that the dinosaurs were wiped out by an impact event.
But the narrative persists in cosmology in the form of the assumption that the universe is approximately homogeneous in its contents in all directions from us.
The new contested “timescapes” hypothesis points out that if you drop this assumption, then what looks like accelerating cosmic expansion, requiring the ad hoc addition of dark energy to balance equations, may simply be an effect of time moving faster in supermassive cosmic voids: far from from the time-dilating effects of large gravity wells, expansion has proceeded at its normal rate but for a longer amount of time than the rest of the universe has experienced, resulting in a situation where the cosmic voids are in a real sense bigger (and older) on the inside than the outside. This TARDIS-like effect may be throwing off our calculations of distance and the rate of expansion.
I’m an amateur, so I don’t want to make overly-strong statements on the subject, but I detest “dark energy,” and a number of scientists seem to think timescapes is the most promising hypothesis yet to eliminate it. And it will be another victory against the “Nothing weird happens” narrative.
@Stephen Pearson (#359),
You are welcome. 😊 Yes, there is a common thread in these situations. I was actually describing my own adventures through the Byzantine maze of Russian bureaucracy in 1990. I could bore you with them for pages and pages, given the slightest encouragement. 😆 Anyone who had to out themselves to the government as a potential emigrant got immediately stripped of their citizenship, treated as a black sheep, and fleeced accordingly. You are not one of us anymore, sooo… please pay the monthly fee for your bathroom pass (You didn’t think that you get to leave your sh..t behind for free, did you?). Also, don’t forget to apply for your Allowed to Breath permit… You know carbon dioxide and stuff… And… I’m exaggerating, of course, but you get the picture. 😂 Fun times…
Those having difficulty coming to grips with our host’s contingency plans might want to take a close look at the “reasons to stay” side of the balance sheet.
As someone about the same age and living in the same region, I’m not going anywhere, unless Ocean (currently cosplaying as a river a few yards from my door) decides otherwise. My wife’s mental decline would make it distressing for her to relocate. The local nature spirits have collected enough of my blood (scratches, stings, bites, scrapes, splinters) to feel like kin. My town (part of the original Plymouth Colony, but on the opposite shore from where the Pilgrims built their gift shops) has been on the sketchy side for a century and a half longer than there have been US Presidents. We were 50-50 split on Trump-Harris but nobody messed with each others’ lawn signs. Worse comes to worst, I’m going with the “be able to do useful stuff” plan instead of an escape plan. Dissensus!
@Lunar Apprentice – your ex-wife’s gaslighting, especially the double-bind you quoted, sound a lot like my late ex-husband. Only he was not a strong man; he was a weak man who felt he had to keep cutting me down to size, and the damage he did in those days was great.
If you want a more vivid portrait of that sort of person, I suggest the novel KOMARR by Lois McMaster Bujold. This particular character was a husband, but she was writing about a culture in which a wife’s first loyalty was to her husband. That today’s feminism led to a a reversal of who does what to whom is a shame and a disgrace, and surely these types are viciously destructive whoever they are. For me there was only one cure – “Feet, do your stuff.” Which I also applied to a boss at work who had this facade of “all girls together” as she pulled every stunt in the book to get rid of all those whose departments were running smoothly – except for the admin. To quote Bujold, again, she left me with the question “Am I crazy? Am *I* crazy?”
You have my deepest sympathies, as one who’s been there are done that.
@JMG re Plan “If the worst comes to worst” ….. ironically, last night I was just rereading your old essay “The Pornography of Political Fear.”
My son-in-law’s late mother, who was born Canadian, made very sure to get her children dual citizenship, in case they ever had to flee the country. HER late husband, somewhat older than she was, had an escape from Eastern Europe that would have sounded like an adventure, but for her tone-deaf style of writing.
As for your most probable future, yes …. I can just see the current Generation Alpha stepping into that role as they come of age; the timeline works out very well (and check it against the last thread of Pluto’s influence).
I was there for a similar scenario circa 1970. “If youth only knew…. if age only could.”
Rita Rippetoe says:
#362 August 25, 2025 at 10:41 pm
“re The Epstein list–I think that everyone who cares about this will continue to be disappointed by whatever is revealed about Epstein’s operation. I suspect that many people visualize a Little Black Book of client’s names with notes about their sexual preferences”
Not only a “list”, AG Pam Bondi said, talking about the Epstein affaire: The FBI, she said, was reviewing “tens of thousands of videos” of the wealthy financier “with children or child porn.” So, there were not only a “list” but many more “things”, it is well known that the mansions of Eipstein were full of cameras, and probably apart from the children there were some adults in those “thousands of videos” AG Bondi mentioned.
https://apnews.com/article/justice-department-jeffrey-epstein-pam-bondi-trump-fa39193d5b5ff91970428bf077a5ce44
Repeteadly during the campaign Trump said that he would declasify the Epstein file (not any list). In June 2024 in an interview with Fox News (not any Democrat oriented media) he said to Rachel Campos that he will declassify the files of JFK, MLK and Epstein.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-jeffrey-epstein-years-including-2024-campaign-trail/story?id=123778541
In May 2025, shortly after the break-up between Musk and Trump, Elon Musk published a very famous and now deleted tweet (X) where he said Trump was in the “list”, that ” that is the reason he will never release it” and “mark my words for the future”; two months later Trump consider the Epstein case “closed”, that is all a “Democratic party hoax” and “only the old MAGA idiots still follow this hoax” (for him all the “real” MAGA supporters does not see anything wrong in this)
But it seems this is not (only) a “Democratic party hoax”, in fact the issue is discuseed more in the conservative side that in the left wing part, and any democrats are pressing in this issue, but it seems a good part of the “old” MAGA people are very very discontent with the way Trump has handled the issue and his possible culpability.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/justice-department-told-trump-name-in-epstein-files-727a8038
No, I don’t think it will be “forgotten” by the “old” MAGA base, and could be surprises in the future…
In a remarkable sychronicity, right after you suggested Grimm’s fairy tales, what should I discover while going through old inventory in my crawlspace, but an old copy of Grimm’s! It’s not in the best shape, as there was clearly some water damage – the back pages were stuck together and lousy with mold spots, so Bearskin and Red Hood had to be sacrificed to save the rest of the stories, but the remaining pages seem alright. Though, you wouldnt happen to know how to remove a small bit of mold from an old book discovered in a musty cave withour destroying it, would you? I actually have quite a few books with this problem, and I feel like this bit of knowledge might be something you’ve picked up over the years…
While my boys are currently young enough for Grimm’s, one day I want to tell them tales that will offer them better guidance through the times to come. I can’t flee – I have land and a family, I’ve put down roots and I’m not going anywhere, I know this in my bones and my soul. But I see a future filled with possible civil stife. I think its largely pointless to try and predict who will start killing who where over what – I mean, what Roman cotizen in, say, 250 AD could have predicted the gothic and hunnish invasions, and who would take what when?
I do believe we are, historically, about in the time period analogous to the crisis of the thrid century. I agree with you that we are an empire and in the time of caesars, but I disagree with your characterization of trump as the orange julius caesar. That honor goes to FDR, America’s Augustus, who created a vast military/civil beaurocracy that effectively became a centralized empire, which was then grafted onto the old republic maintain the fiction that we werem’t an empire, and then established a vast pax Americana after a series of dramatic conquests in Europe and Asia. The sandal fits pretty well, in my estimation, which means none of us have ever lived in an actual republic, merely the simulation of one designed to hide the empire we have all been born, lived, and will die inside of. The only real difference between the second rome and the first is that we seem to be marching to our end in double time, hence why I take the century since out FDR’s acent to the imperial throne and stretch it out to a couple centuries. The fit isnt perfect, but no historical analogue is, and I find this one fits well enough to work. If you know anything about the Roman crisis of the third century, well, we’re in for a bumpy ride…
So how do I want me and my descendants to ride this out? By becoming the modern equivalent of freeholders and blacksmiths, who are willing to offer critical services to whoever happens to rule under whatever banner. I’m not actually a blacksmith – well, not yet, though my blacksmith friend owes me enough of a favor to teach me the art and gift me his old forge – but as an electrician and handyman, I think lightningsmith will be a lucrative trade in the days to come. Even if the lights go off for most commoners, whoever is general or lord will have to have it – most heavy indistrial weapons will die, but I dont think drones, either scaveneged together or fresh built, are going anywhere, theu are just too critical for war. Plastic can be melted and remolded, the hard part is repurposing old motors or winding new ones. Amd where will the copper for this come from, may you ask? I have a funny vision – these data centers filled with valuable resources, being repurposed during a crisis by a general into a command center/drone control hub. And you would need, oh, about 5% of the processing power of the garagntuan thing for civil defens purposes. And for the rest? Well… you could build a lot of drones out of all that copper and all those chips… and then, centuries from now, the repurposed data center would be the equivalent of a castle for the new lord, and hopefully my descendants are still working as lightningsmiths for the local authority.
The problem is navigating the chaotic years to come. So, do you know of any stories from the period of decline and fall, of a family that rode it out by constantly switching sides? It would go, oh, I don’t know, something like this…
“Once upon a time, there was a family of blacksmiths that lived in the Roman province of Gaul. The shop was run by 2 brothers. They did good work and were well respected by the townsfolk and the local governor. One day, the general that managed Gaul declared independence from the empire. One brother declared he was a loyal roman and was outraged. But the other brother thought, ‘It doesnt matter who rules under what banner, what matters is our family’s survival.’ So he declared loyalty to the new rebel state, and was awarded much work and money to build weapons for the mew legions, while the first brother was thrown in a dungeon. After many years, the empire recapture the rebel kindgdom, and the first brother was freed from the dungeons. He denounced his brother as a traitor. But the second brother said he only did what he had to, and claimed he had always been loyal to the empire. They were both old now, but the younger brother now had children of his own, two brothers, who he had taight to be smiths – so the empire gave the younger brother a light punishment, and then set his family to work, while the older brother got a bit of coin as compensation for a life spent in the dungeons.
The younger brother’s family prospered, and he grew old and died peacefully, surrounded by family, while the older brother died alone and poor, hated by his family for trying to have them arrested, and too old to take up smithing, and not having sons to teach the craft to.
The two sons took over the blacksmithing shop and soon had families of their own. One day, the land was invaded by a barbarian people called the Visigoths. The older brother declared he was a loyal roman and would never accept foreign rule. But the younger brother thought, ‘It doesnt matter who rules under what banner, what matters is our family’s survival.’ So he accepted the new Visigoth king, amd was given much work, for which his family prospered, while the older brother was put to death.
The blacksmith prospered, and had two sons of his own. Soon, the Visigoths sought to conquer Hispania, and asked the young ment to join them. The older brother, hungry for glory and riches, joined the army, while the younger staued behind to run the blacksmith shop. The older brother returned one day, laden with riches, and the younger brother wondered if he had been a fool. But then one day a people called the Franks invaded gaul, and the older brother was called to fight them. He fought bravely, but he died. When the Franks took over, they demanded loyalty, and the younger brother thought, ‘It doesnt matter who rules under what banner, what matters is our family’s survival.’ So he declared loyalty to the Frankish king, and was given much work. His family prospered, and the Kingdom of the Franks became the Kingdom of France, and the family of blacksmiths has prospered there to this very day. The end.”
If such a tale already exists, please share it. If it doesn’t exist yet… well, I kind of just wrote this one, and I might go flesh it out as a side project.
“Erika, please do notice that I’ve also said that I don’t think relocation will be necessary for me. It’s a fallback plan in case things do go sideways — I always have one of those. But I’ll also note that it’s no part of my job to play a role in other people’s narratives — much less to do so at the cost of my own freedom or life.”
i hear you but i DO figure though it’s part of MY job to play a role in other people’s narratives, and you were a big one. i’d wanted to help you do your building/library years ago and Adocentyn was a way to bring love to you and others here who’re not as outgoing as i can force myself to be.
i wanted Adocentyn to be where people could share medical stories and we could trade drugs. i’ve still got much to share over here and i liked how Temporary Reality and i had like a drug starter system and wanted to expand a network for health, traveling, and funky businesses or services to expand, tour, or just have a newsletter.
“undergrounds” i’ve grown up in had such networks and i remember growing up to strangers via the Quaker networks and such, coming over for holidays or getting help or supplies if moving or needing help moving or painting…whatever.
i’ll still go to Adocentyn but i’ve adjusted my ideas, intentions, and expectations. now i’ll just show up, enjoy the moment, and not invest too much time or myself in anything beyond that one time visit and focus on doing that LOCALLY wherever i am.
you’re right, Papa, you don’t have to play a role in MY narrative. i was wrong and am backing off with grace.
well, i also just lost the two restraining order cases. i just got back and don’t understand any of this stuff. but i’ve got other petitions i have to file next that put the onus on the landlord instead of the court and my lawyer friend said restraining order not a great way to go anyhow so i’m okay.
but no more expectations of anyone anymore, and i don’t need anyone to fit my narrative as it’s … (shrug)… i’m not even sure i HAVE one anymore, other than sticking it out with a small group wherever i am.
(smile)
x
x
Just a fast note — if any of you put in comments that vanished into thin air, it’s possible that the spam filter mistakenly got them and they didn’t get rescued. Under other circumstances I go through the spam bin and rescue comments that were put there by accident, but some moron from Germany is trying to spam my site with posts that start “Great article!” or some similar schtick, and go on to shill for the same website. The filter catches them all, but when there are anything up to 50 spam messages waiting for me every time I log in, I sometimes don’t have time to skim through them all and just hit the “Delete All” button instead. Apologies to those whose comments got lost that way; please resend (and save a copy for future reference).
Dearest Clarke aka Gwydion,
oh my gosh i had NO idea you felt that way and oh my heavens, NO! you have never irritated me in the least. no one here does. there’s just sooo much to read and catch up on, i answer what sparks me to respond. i really didn’t mean to hurt your feelings! i didn’t have any idea i’d hurt your feelings.
if THIS is what you’re talking about, when i answered you saying trust Papa G because he’s so smart he must be protected, i DID furrow my brow like “huh???” because that’s just another form of elitism about who gets to live and die and who’s too important to fight for their country… or not.
so us stupid shmucks have to stick around to fight and die so others can write about how free America is and come partake in it later when it’s safe??? nah, that’s not very cool, Clarke aka Gwydion. so then it’s back to money and who can afford to leave and i wasn’t at all angry at you. how can i be? it’s EVERYWHERE. it’s how EVERYONE thinks now.
so i just shrugged and actually forced myself to GO BACK AND ANSWER YOU THAT MUCH.
i didn’t want to write all this because then i’m trashing Papa here, and i don’t intend to do that, even though i think his age is an asset and i was trying to figure out how to make a network for the elders as part of my crazy Adocentyn dream, because i’ve already got a young un here saying he’ll always be around in my life to help me because of James.
so how do i pass this on???
you were trying to explain and protect dear Papa i get it.
did i answer that enough? if not DO TELL ME. don’t be embarrassed, as no one can see your face anyhow. i’d rather you not go away feeling bad from interacting with me.
so do tell me if this is where you’d felt ignored. i was trying to be polite but hit the mark and i do so want to fix it. it’s not too much work. really. i don’t roll my eyes at such discussions i revel in the opportunity to FIX it and get closer in the way politeness and LLMs cannot.
so did i fix it between us???
x
With regard to the idea that, if the Democrats get back into power, they’ll start disappearing their critics, I find myself wondering who they’d get to actually do the dirty work. I don’t see them doing it themselves. Most of the ruling classes of the past have engaged in recreational hunting, but our current PMC seems to be shamelessly effete, with pussy hat wearers in particular taking pride in having never handled a firearm in their lives. Most of them have also said or at least hinted at ACAB at some point in the last few years, so I can’t see them getting the cops to do it, and from what I hear they are massively unpopular with the military. I suppose in theory they might try to hire thugs from Latin American narco gangs through the same agencies they use to get maids and gardeners, but in practice there has to be a certain amount of loyalty and trust between political leaders and their death squads, or the leaders end up having more to fear from the death squads than they did from the people the death squads got out of their hair.
(Clarke aka Gwydion… i meant to say i’d MISSED the mark! not hit it.)
JMG,
Well, I’m from Germany (haven’t been spamming your site, though!! 😀 ), run a website in English, and at least 95% of the spam I get on this site is Russian, in kyrillic font. Some things don’t have to make sense – but life sure would be easier without them…
Milkyway
Mary Bennett–I realize that most sensible people know that my crudely imagined Black Book lists do not really exist. It is the gullible, the conspiracy minded and the wishful thinkers who believe such things. I have a formerly respected friend (long story) who wants Trump to have been a child rapist so badly that, as the saying goes “he can taste it.” My refusal to accept, without question, allegations made in a lawsuit that was dropped, testimony that was never delivered under oath while subject both to perjury penalties and to cross-examination and production of contravening evidence, infuriated him. A real “sentence first, verdict later” attitude. And these people are on both sides. Liberals imaging Trump and every other Republican that they hate being outed as utter slime and Trump supporters equally sure that the Hollywood elite and other liberals are up to their eyeballs in this bucket of sleeze. (don’t Hollywood types demand a hot tub of sleeze?)
I am personally tired of the use of sex scandals of all types as a distraction from real issues by both sides. It used to be enough to suggest that your opponent was an adulterer, then it was hints of homosexuality that would sink a career, now it is pedophilia as the standard accusation by the rabid ends of both parties. And the use of the vague term “sexual assault” rather than “rape” or other clear accusation leaves the audience uncertain what exactly they are supposed to react to. As a feeling human being and feminist, I am wishful at least that my politicians not be rapists, but as a practical matter I am more concerned that they not be robbers or feckless incompetents. A building that collapses because the mayor’s brother-in-law who got the contract used the cheaper concrete potentially hurts more people than even Genghis Khan had sex with.
Aldarion–thanks. I couldn’t be sure whether there was no plural because there is, after all, only one real Nemesis. And my dictionary produced nothing.
@ JMG #368 – For eighty years we’ve been telling ourselves, “it can’t happen here.” Clearly we have been complacent. The events of 2020 – 2023 demonstrated beyond any doubt just how many people are pliable to fear-mongering propaganda that is designed to divide and turn them against one another in truly nasty ways. It was a shocking lesson in the dark side of human nature, the disquieting details of which I am happy to let fade from memory, but the quintessence of which will remain.
It is a source of relief to me that your relatively positive prognostications about the likely political future of the United States do seem more probable than the darker scenario that one might imagine.
Athaia #248,
Exactly! I’m dumbfounded at the lack of interest in digging into the research on SSRI’s by all of these people taking them. My ex-girlfriend has been on them for 20 years and likely will never get off them.
Paedrig,
FDR is not America’s Augustus, FDR is America’s Trajan. Go search up the biographies of FDR and of Trajan and just notice the numerous parallels between the two leaders and their lives and accomplishments.
If there is a president who is America’s Caesar, that honor would go to Abraham Lincoln.
@388 Anonymous’ reply to Paedrig
Maybe you are taking the correspondence between Roman history and American history too far? I think Spengler’s system mainly describes major milestones. Analogy: We are born, grow, mature, age, and die, but the details and the timing of major events differ. Civilizations are probably like that too.
>the mass importation of illegal immigrants benefits the rich by driving down wages, and also by propping up the overinflated real estate prices that are necessary to keep the banking system solvent
I would call it “keeping the bear market in labor going”, but it amounts to the same thing. The problem with keeping the bear market going at this point is that low prices are now causing all sorts of undesirable side effects that affect even the people who would normally benefit. But there are a lot of business models that implicitly depend on labor being cheaper tomorrow than it is today and all of them will blow up when that doesn’t turn out to be true. Then again, do we really need all those fast food joints? There’s parts of the economy (tier 1 and 2) where if they go away, the world really has a problem and then there’s tier 3, which if it goes away, everything keeps chugging along, because it was never necessary to begin with.
Keeping the bull market in real estate going is the other issue near and dear to their hearts but once again, we’ve reached the point where further increases in price cause all sorts of nasty side effects. Or at least unforeseen consequences. Did you know that Lynsi Snyder is moving to Tennessee? Who is she? The head of In-n-out Burger. As close to iconic California as it gets. But she was saying stuff about “real estate being more reasonable in TN for our employees”. But the minute that real estate stops going up, the banking system explodes. Not that it has been solvent for awhile now but there comes a time when it’s too silly to play pretend any longer. Or the unforeseen consequences build up to the point of hilarity.
“I also note that there now American warships proceeding to Venezuela. I wonder, did those here who voted for this administration know you were voting for the revival of gunboat diplomacy?”
At least it’s in our hemisphere. Venezuela is after Guyana’s new off shore oilfield. The US objects.
https://www.crisisgroup.org/latin-america-caribbean/andes/venezuela-guyana/venezuela-presses-territorial-claims-dispute-guyana-heats
“On 1 March, a Venezuelan navy gunboat approached oil production vessels belonging to ExxonMobil, which were operating in the offshore Stabroek block just north east of the Guyanese capital Georgetown, to inform them that they were intruding in what Venezuela considers its exclusive economic zone. In response, the Guyanese government mobilised its air force and coast guard to the area, notified multilateral organisations and its allies, and issued a formal protest over what it termed a threat to its territorial integrity. ”
Long simmering dispute there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guyana%E2%80%93Venezuela_territorial_dispute
“It can’t happen here” – anyone who went through the lockdowns down here in NZ will know all about how “kindness” can be redefined into all sorts of hell that you would never have imagined beforehand
Patricia M (217) I guess it depends on the State. IIRC in Chicago poll workers were allowed to sport sweatshirts with ‘Democrat’ on them. Also they were allowed to hide the counting of the votes and not allow any observers. Unbelievable.
Speaking of Nazi Germany, the EU Commission (aka Von Der Lugen) issued a communique in May, in which it says that Ireland (and Finland) has failed in its duties as an EU member state by declining, thus far, to criminalise various forms of “hate speech”. The punishment will be fines of course.
Well, there’s no need to hypothesize any more about whether Alastair Crooke has been influenced by any of your writing. Today he posted an article in which he quotes your work several times. In particular, he quotes you quoting Sallust “myths are things that never happen but always are”. Crooke also quotes from your analysis of Trump’s mythic qualities as well as Hitler’s.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/08/26/trump-as-myth-is-understood-in-moscow-they-reciprocate/
It seems that everyone is beginning to notice the widening fault lines now forming in the elevated narratives we’ve been using to impose meaning upon our unruly world. Whether we are demonstrating that awareness by writing illuminating articles or by howling in despair at the uselessness of our overworked fictions, everyone can sense the growing disconnect between the world we’re experiencing and the fables we’ve used to describe it.
What a truly fantastic time to be alive! May fantasy come streaming out through every fissure opening up in our far too rigid and rational legendarium. May irrepressible imagination claw and tear its way back up out of the impoverished abyss, where we had foolishly left it for dead. And may we rediscover how to live wildly and boldly in a magical and mythical age. This is going to be so much fun!
JMG – Just coincidence, I’m sure, but I found a pamphlet in a Little Free Library last Saturday titled: “Anti-mass Methods of Organisation for Collectives. and Methods for the Communalization of Confusion: A Situationist Critique of ‘Anti-Mass'”, by “Anonymous”.
Yeah, it’s a heck of a title, especially for a a work of 15 half-size pages! But I’ve found a few things in the first few pages that resonate: “The collective should not be larger than a band – no orchestras or chamber music please. The basic idea is to reproduce the collective, not expand it. … Once you think in terms of recruiting, you might as well join the Army.”
In contrast to a size-limited collective, “… large organizations, while having open membership, are exclusive in terms of who shapes the politics and actively participates in structuring of activities.”
I don’t know where this is going, but I’ll keep looking…
Trump is allowing another 600,000 Chinese students into American universities:
https://xcancel.com/disclosetv/status/1960413245824753849#m
erika lopez #381 August 26, 2025 at 3:52 pm
Hello Erika, we’re fine. I was speaking to the issue of our host being a lineage-holder and having responsibilities as such. He would never claim any special status because of that, I believe, but I believe regard for that is his due. That being so, assuming circumstances become as dire as he believes is possible, I think it would be best for him to take his lineages to a safe place and preserve them for the future. I trust him to make the right decision. I wasn’t saying he’s so intellectually lofty, etc., that for that reason he deserves more safety than the rest of us. I’ve probably misunderstood your point again. Anyhow, we’re fine. As for me, I have no exit strategy except the one we all face. I’ll be here a while, I expect.
@Lathechuck #395
Interesting find! A quick Internet search turned up a scanned copy of the pamphlet at the Internet Archive:
https://archive.org/details/Anti-massMethodsOfOrganizationForCollectives/page/n7/mode/2up
and a more readable version at The Anarchist Library (with links for downloading a PDF and ePub):
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-red-sunshine-gang-anti-mass
I’ll have to give this a read.
Lunar Apprentice #315,
That hit hard. I feel for you.
I’m the Anon that spoke of my dating experience over the past couple of years. I’m at a loss of words, but I’m typing this out knowing it’s the end of this past week’s posts.
So, just know that prayers are being sent your way. I’m not even comfortable using my usual (not frequent) alias here, given the life details, and I really appreciate hearing your perspective. Even though I’ve had a furrowed brow through the entirety of typing this short post…
i’m returning here to admit that i’m wrong about wanting to dedicate the rest of my life to the idea of America.
in court today i had all this evidence but the system is not for me, nor has it ever been. i don’t think i’ve ever won a court case ever since i was hit by a car on my bicycle when i was 13 or 14.
one guy didn’t even show up but because i waited 6 months i didn’t get the restraining order. and then when the Brazilians were up they’d gotten letters from the landlord and two neighbors who lied for them and my heart was broken because we used to all be friends and they knew the truth.
but as dark and as female as i am, i think i came off looking like a racist against immigrants because i was against them subletting their apartments and making bank off ’em (they’ve bought other houses in california) and they pretended they needed interpreters and pretended they worked 12 hours a day instead of living off their rental incomes. it was impressively done. they out-acted me the so-called artist! i was bested and it keeps on happening no matter how much EVIDENCE i bring forth as a defendant and whatever the opposite of that is. plaintiff.
i’m in san francisco. it’s about how things APPEAR not as they are. even i was impressed at how well they played the poor immigrant NARRATIVE. i was impressed. i was.
so it is apparent that this country is no longer for me NOW so why do i expect anyone like Papa, to NOT leave if they can?
i was wrong and i am sorry i wiped an old threadbare snotty narrative here.
there is no saving what we had in the ’90s or before.
i go to the store after court and my old friend my age complains about Trump for small talk and when i told him i voted Trump, everywhere i went he’d say things like, “don’t you want benefits? social security?”
i said, “i don’t want ‘benefits,’ i want to be able to work and have a life as an artist with free speech.”
i conceded Trump’s tech thing is also The End, just a little nicer.
anyhow, i didn’t even WANT to file for restraining orders but it was just a huge waste of time.
it is what it is.
but this country is not for me anymore. i’m not victim enough and i want to be self sufficient.
so Papa, please forgive me, for i was WRONG WRONG WRONG.
yes all: save yourselves because it’s already every man for himself and my story is outdated and …was it ever completely true in the first place? i was the Omela child back then.
so yeah, Christophe’s small groups. that’s fine with me. i’ve got a tiny one here.
good night sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite.
(smile)
xxxxxxx
erika the one who’s just living in America
(sorry it was Lathechuck who said small groups only not Christophe. i’m very tired and blue but tried to catch up on comments before wednesday.)
P.S. i don’t think i apologized to you, Papa, and the rest of you here for any offense i may have caused or harm hurt insult:
i’m sorry. i was wrong.
and not to leave a big stinker of a fart at the end of the week, i’m not veering into nihilism anymore. my belljar hasn’t/isn’t breaking in an instant. it’s slow motion shattering and shards everywhere ever so imperceptably slithering away in real time.
what of the larger world i cannot say. that conversation about people leaving blew my mind one response in because it makes so much SENSE. but again… who’s leaving who’s NATIVE here???
some other weirdos here were imagining it’s the other weirdos but the ones who seem to hate their skin and very existences here are the ones as Papa pointed out, the ones trying to trip into suicide on a daily existential “she tells two people and they tell two people and so on” world.
i’m too dependent upon it just as the ones with the pied a terres and country homes are. so it’s a matter of timing when we each must whore out to live and fight another day. in a dwindling population world, yes, we need as many intelligent smart … LIMINAL minds and prophets and prophetesses to exist and stay alive as long as possible for the eternal reason we do all this in the first place…
FOR WHO COMES NEXT.
graffiti on the cave.
i was being a girl. devouring mother even in sulking because i intuited i was lying to myself. it shouldn’t be that difficult.
even in court … i actually liked them all better. isn’t that funny? i thought they looked beautiful even as i resented them for making my life hell and nearly killing me for two decades…
Father forgive them for they know not what they do, indeed!
i’m digging this Christian stuff even though i must admit i’ve got some reservations about some of the so-called Christians i’ve seen.
but i find myself pulling for quotes because i get the …what’s the word? allegories and parables … i find them applicable more and more.
so i was wrong and i’m sorry for being a cxnt.
we’re still in august as i never cede august time to the virgoes. they never knew what to do with a month!
again, i sorry i suck.
man… it IS freeing. it’s like that “i’m a dirty sinner!” thing that guy on Tucker said the other day. he was so interesting being messed up from jump. nowhere to go but up. again with the opposite sun/iceberg analogy Scotlyn teased into a beehive hairdo, why is THAT not a “thing”???
“good morning i’m a dirty sinner so from here it can only get better!”
instead of
“i’m great bend over old man before i xxxx you right there.”
i did the 4Xs for you, Papa. a token of my apology from a 4X leo.
good night Mary Sue… good night Mary Ellen… good night John Boy…
x
P.P.S. before it was regarding MAGIC MONDAY’s conversation Temporary Reality had linked to, the one about people dying and leaving this planet when another planet entity is near and won’t return for 6000 years. from that dream a commenter had had about the souls departing on a train station and a recently deceased unrequited love saying good-bye literally forever.
wow.
that’s what i was talking about. how i don’t know anything anymore because that–to a LOT of us–felt…legit. like “oh yeah….” that’s what i was talking about above and how i have no idea of ANY “narrative” anymore. none. nunca.
i surprise myself.
Anyone who wants to read Anti-Mass that @lathechuck mentioned, can find it here:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-red-sunshine-gang-anti-mass
Re: older people standing in line.
A couple of years ago during the Covid lockdowns here in South Africa I was in a queue outside my usual supermarket because only X were allowed in the store at one time. A middle-aged lady store employee walked down the line. When she got to me she said, “Okay, you can go to the front.”
I had no idea why I was being singled out. I looked to the front of the line, and looked to the back. The only difference between me and the others that I could discern was that I was white and everyone else was either mixed race or African.
“Oh, is this white privilege? Okay, thanks.” and I trotted off to the front of the queue.
As the security guard was about to let me in I heard someone puffing and panting as they came up behind me. It was the lady store employee. “It’s not about the color, it’s about theage,” she hissed.
That’s when I realized that although I didn’t feel old, I looked old, and the black government is protective of old people. Queuing for voting, queuing at the DMV, queuing anywhere, I shamelessly go to the head of the queue, even though I’m in better shape physically than some of the younger people. I do feel guilty sometimes, but the feeling soon passes.
Clinics and hospitals seem to be more egalitarian. Emergency cases first, otherwise it’s first come, first served, in my experience. Attempted queue jumping is strongly frowned upon.
@ Erika #381
“so us stupid shmucks have to stick around to fight and die so others can write about how free America is and come partake in it later when it’s safe???”
This is a story… this is not THE story… you have your story, others have other stories…
Another interesting question is who is this story about? Whose consent do we need, when telling a story? Does it belong to us? Does it belong to someone else? And if it belongs to someone else, and we tell it anyway, is that someone else really obliged to perform the roles we’ve assigned to them in our telling?
It seems to me that last matter is the whole subject of this post. We all tell stories. Other people we know always figure in our (individual) stories… and yet, actually, they really don’t. Partly because of Jung’s teachings on projection… (all the people in our stories are often different representations of ourselves, and not *them* at all), and also because of this: “the [person] who can be named, is NOT the eternal person.” None of us CAN encapsulate a whole person in any story. (Of course humans gonna human, and we do, and we will, try).
Stories ties things and people together, and sometimes that is “the tie that binds, blessed be”, and sometimes it is an entanglement we cannot afford to let happen, and so – it becomes Gordian knot time…
Be well, stay free! 🙂
@hosea, probably too late for you to read this, but I have thought of a different analogy.
In 1200 AD, the Rhine ran entirely through different lands subject to the Roman King and Emperor (his official title) where people spoke different variants of what we call Middle High German.
Since 1648, the source of the Rhine lies in the Swiss Confederation, an independent republic, and the mouth of the Rhine in the Netherlands (under different names), another independent state, while the rest of it continued to run through the so-called Holy Roman Empire, which became Germany.
Switzerland, the Netherlands (and later Belgium) and Germany are supposed to have quite different national characters. The history of the three countries has been radically different (neutrality, colonial power, wannabe continental hegemon). The Netherlands have a different official language and therefore an entirely separate literary history.
So you could say the medieval empire has broken apart and been “leavened” into three different ethoi, just as the actual Roman empire broke apart and became France, Spain, Italy etc., each with their own different national characters and separate histories. Yet in the case of Switzerland, Netherlands and Germany, this separate development had nothing at all to do with immigration.
This demonstrates, in my opinion, that the mere presence of some Germanic invaders in the 5th century is not a sufficient nor a necessary cause for the development of the different successor states. One would have to show that certain traces of the successor states are actually derived from the culture of the Germanic invaders, and in France, Spain, Portugal and Italy I see precious few such traces.
@Aldarion, #407 — “It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.” (grin) Of course you are right that there are always many factors that go into any long-term historical development. And every historical analogy to the present day requires suppressing some details and distorting the size of others (larger or smaller) because nothing is ever an exact repetition of anything else. All that is true.
Some of the ideas that we have batted around make for interesting speculations. But the only way to know for sure what will happen is to wait and see. For transformations that unfold on the scale of centuries, that’s hard for any one of us to do: for example, I doubt I’ll still be here in another 100 years. The speculations are still interesting in their own right, even if they (necessarily) involve distorting the historical record and even if they are not susceptible of proof.
I can sense Jean Cocteau coming on!