Summary: To start the New Year, this is the summary of the essential message from my posts in 2019. This gives the insight with which all the news makes sense. As a bonus, I reveal the dark horse candidate whom the Democrats will nominate for the presidency in 2020.
by R. J. Berg.James Howard Kunstler’s reports about our times are always interesting reading. His year-end essay is especially so. Here is the opening section.
“The big question for the year 2020 is simple:
can America get its mind right?”
“If the answer is no, we may not have much chance of continuing as a peaceful, functioning country. The era of the long emergency, as I call it, is of a piece with Strauss and Howe’s figurative winter in their Fourth Turning view of history playing out in generational cycles analogous to seasons of the year. Whatever you call it, the current disposition of things has had a harsh effect on our collective psychology. It has made an unusually large cohort of Americans functionally insane, believing in demons, hobgoblins, and phantoms, subscribing to theories that, in previous eras, children would laugh at, while contesting obvious realities and provoking grave political hazard.
“The madness is distributed over many realms of American life, with the common denominator of a thinking class fallen into disordered thinking. The disorder is led by the information media and higher education with their crypto-Gnostic agendas for transforming human nature to heal the world (in theory). It includes a grab-bag of delusions and deliberate mind-fucks ranging from the morbid obsession with Russian interference in our affairs, to the crusade against free speech on campus, to the worship of sexual perversity (e.g. the Transsexual Reading Hour), to the campaigns against whiteness and maleness, to the incursions of woke-ness in the corporate workplace, to the cynical machinations of economists, bankers, and politicians in manipulating financial appearances, to the effort to divorce reality from truth as a general proposition.
“These diseases of mind and culture are synergized by an aroused political ethos that says the ends justify the means, so that bad faith and knowing dishonesty become the main tools of political endeavor. Hence, a venerable institution such as The New York Times can turn from its mission of strictly pursuing news and be enlisted as the public relations service for rogue government agencies seeking to overthrow a president under false pretenses. The overall effect is of a march into a new totalitarianism, garnished with epic mendacity and malevolence. Since when in the USA was it okay for political “radicals” to team up with government surveillance jocks to persecute their political enemies?
“This naturally leads to the question: what drove the American thinking class insane? I maintain that it comes from the massive anxiety generated by the long emergency we’ve entered …”
—————————————————–
The next sections of Kunstler’s essay discuss the causes of this disorder and his predictions for 2020. I recommend that you read the full essay! Here are three notes by me about his analysis.
I disagree with his description of the “long emergency” he describes. I do not see most of it. Like the “pollution will destroy us” and “peak oil” scares, the generations-long “debt will destroy us” predictions, and the many other “we’re doomed from X, Y, or Z” stories – I doubt that any of these will be more than blips in history. That is, they might generate significant but brief periods of turmoil – like the Long Depression that we have forgotten, the Great Depression that we are forgetting, and the more severe catastrophes now only remembered by historians (e.g., the Justinian Plague, the 30 Years War, the horrific 14th Century).
First, this disorder of intellectuals affects those on the Right as well as the Left. This is too obvious except to those tribes to warrant explanation. See my posts about Libertarians. Even better, see one of the best blog posts ever: John and Belle explain libertarianism.
Second, I disagree about its causes (remembering that we can only guess about such massive phenomena in our own time). We are in the Crazy Years, predicted long ago by the great science fiction writer Robert Heinlein. He set the start date 50 years too early.
“The Crazy Years: Considerable technical advance during this period, accompanied by a gradual deterioration of mores, orientation, and social institutions, terminating in mass psychoses in the sixth decade, and the interregnum. …{then there are more phases} followed by the end of human adolescence and the beginning of {the} first mature culture.”
— From Robert Heinlein’s timeline of his future history stories; first published in Astounding Science Fiction, May 1940. This series was published as The Past through Tomorrow
That nails it perfectly. Humanity has experienced equally great changes, but never at such a fantastic rate. Of course we have become disoriented. Here are a few of my posts documenting this, but this insight is self-evidence in the daily news.
- A key to understanding the news: the unexpected rules in our age of wonders.
- America is becoming weird. Here are some recent examples.
- We live in the crazy years, but can choose a different destiny for ourselves and our children.
- The common thread that explains so much in America — We have collectively chosen to send America into the “crazy years”. It is not too late to change course.
- We are living in the crazy years – Documenting the decay.
Such a massive social change consists of phases. Now we are in ClownWorld. ClownWorld is something we do to ourselves, as Bill Bonner explained. He writes about finance at The Daily Reckoning and is a founder of The Agora (see this article about it). He is a doomster and perma-bear, but has an interesting perspective on our situation. See these terrifying words from his column “Corrections” in March 2001, describing the essence of ClownWorld.
“Men do stupid things regularly and mad things occasionally. And sometimes, the impulse to self-destruction is so overwhelming it overtakes an entire nation. …The best a person can hope for when he goes mad is that he runs into a brick wall quickly …before he has a chance to build up speed. That is why success, in war and investing, is often a greater menace than failure. …
“People seem to make such obvious and moronic errors that it seems as if they were driven to it by some instinct of self-destruction – like lemmings periodically exterminating themselves in a march off the cliffs. What’s more, this diabolical instinct seems to report for duty at the very moment when the future seems the brightest – that is, when it is most needed! Just when men are most proud, most confident, most expansive in their ambitions and hopes …that is when they make the most lunkheaded judgments.”
In ClownWorld, the experience of reading the daily newspaper puts one in a surrealistic painting. The president is a clown, tweeting nonsense. The Democratic Party’s candidates for president are a collection extremist weirdos (advised by economists who believe in free stuff for all) and elderly dreamers. The Democrats leaders flail helplessly while the GOP’s leaders polish the shoes of their plutocrat overlords. Discussions about politics become gibberish, as the demon Screwtape explains (they know us well) in C. S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters
“It sounds as if you supposed that argument was the way to keep him out of the Enemy’s clutches. That might have been so if he had lived a few centuries earlier. At that time the humans still knew pretty well when a thing was proved and when it was not; and if it was proved they really believed it. They still connected thinking with doing and were prepared to alter their way of life as the result of a chain of reasoning.
“But what with the weekly press and other such weapons, we have largely altered that. Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to having a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn’t think of doctrines as primarily ‘true’ or ‘false,’ but as ‘academic’ or ‘practical,’ ‘outworn’ or ‘contemporary,’ ‘conventional’ or ‘ruthless.’”
America today is well described by these words from “White Rabbit”, written by Grace Slick and recorded by Jefferson Airplane for their 1967 album “Surrealistic Pillow
“When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen’s off with her head …”
There are two common reactions to ClownWorld. The first is horror and disorientation. The second is acceptance. Science fiction author James Blish captures both in this scene from his great book, The Day After Judgement
“By luck it was not a bad position; from here he had quite a clear view up the staircase and between the towering statues of Mars and Neptune. The great doors had already been opened and the cardinals in their scarlet finery were ranked on either side of the portico. …The combination of bell and trumpets was solemnly beautiful and under it the crowd fell quickly silent. …a cardinal cried in Latin: ‘We have a Pope, Summus Antistitum Antistesl And it is his will that he be called Juvenember LXIX!’ The page now stepped forward. He called in the vernacular; ‘Here is your Pope, and we know it will please you.’
“From the shadow of the great doors, there stepped forth into the sunlight between the statues …his face white and mild as milk, a comely old man …the demon AGARES. An enormous shout rose from the crowd and the trumpets and the bell resumed, now joined by all the rest of the bells in the city and by many drums and the firing of cannon. Choking with horror, Father Domenico fled.”
See these posts for more about America in ClownWorld. Also, see Kunstler’s posts. He is one of the best I’ve seen at reporting in ClownWorld.
- Welcome to ClownWorld, the final meme for America.
- A new, dark picture of America’s future – Our institutions are falling like a row of dominoes.
- America’s giant corporations are decaying – Falling like a row of dominoes.
- We gave our rulers the greatest gift that we can give.
The Dems will nominate a dark horse in 2020
Almost anything is possible in ClownWorld. In 2120 SAT tests will ask “what came next in this series: Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, {the weird Democrats now running), and __________” Perhaps the Democrats will nominate plutocrat white male Michael Bloomberg as their candidate in 2020. Perhaps they’ll choose his daughter, Georgina. Or perhaps her horse, Caleno 3. Reason has little predictive power in ClownWorld.
Terrifying words to begin 2020
Here are words that should chill your soul. I hope that a few will be inspired to make the effort of will to take the hard steps necessary for the reform of America.
We have given our elites the greatest gift we can bestow: proof that we are unfit for democracy. America is theirs now, until we prove that we can retake control of our affairs – and our destiny.
“Every nation has the government it deserves.”
— Dark words said by Joseph de Maistre (lawyer, diplomat, philosopher) in a letter dated 13 August 1811, published in Lettres et Opuscules.
For More Information
Ideas! See my recommended books and films at Amazon. Also, see a story about our future: “Ultra Violence: Tales from Venus.”
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about the constitution, about reforming America: steps to political change, and especially these…
- Inspirational videos showing the key truth: only together are we strong.
- The horrifying list of inspirational films about humanity building a better future.
- Inspiration. The missing element that can reform America.
- Make a better future. Pick up the War Arrow.
- Sources of inspiration to survive the coming bad times – We’ll have to make hard decisions in the coming hard times.
- Morpheus speaks to America about the New Year.
For More Information
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life
Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History
“Hey Bloomer” is polling poorly, despite carpet bombing the nation with his ads. He seems to lack traction. That said, one would think that he would do better considering his competition.
Sanders is a non candidate because of his poor cardiac health.
Senator Running Dear can’t seem to stop lying, so much so that she’s infuriating her own family.
The Butty mayor has zero traction with blacks and Hispanics.
Yang’s promises of free money are viewed with suspicion by its target audience.
Gabbard resorts to a different gimmick ever day: singing Christamas carols even though she’s Hindu, surfing, etc. I’m waiting for a glam shot of her in a camo bikini.
Sleepy/Creepy Joe appears to be less coherent every day,
All the others are just noise at this point. I honestly don’t know who would win the nomination, there are even rumors that the Hildebeast might return,
Frank,
You appear to be puzzled by the collection of oddities running on the Dem ticket. You apply logic to predict who will win.
I’ll dispel your puzzlement and explain how to understand events: it’s ClownWorld.
None of those candidates are odder than Clown Trump or Sarah Palin.
IIRC, at this point Trump was pulling ahead of the GOP pack, to the horror of the GOP in general. In the Democrat clown car no one seems to be dominating. Whoever is nominated is probably going to be destroyed next November.
Frank,
It’s still early days. The pack shouldn’t be culled until the first primaries – when the voters get their say. After Super Tuesday on March 3, there will be only a few survivors.
“Whoever is nominated is probably going to be destroyed next November.”
Predictions in January are useless.
My problem with the process is summed up in your statement “The pack shouldn’t be culled until the first primaries – when the voters get their say”. The voters in the first primaries are not a representative sample of the population as a whole so we get stuck.
Roger,
Me: “The pack shouldn’t be culled until the first primaries – when the voters get their say. After Super Tuesday on March 3, there will be only a few survivors.”
Your reply: “The voters in the first primaries are not a representative sample of the population as a whole so we get stuck.”
Why do you believe that they are not representative?
Iowa Feb. 3 caucuses (both parties)
New Hampshire Feb. 11 primary
Nevada Feb. 22 (D) caucus, none (R)
South Carolina Feb. 29 (D) primary, none (R)
Alabama March 3 primary
Arkansas March 3 primary
California March 3 primary
Colorado March 3 primary
Maine March 3 primary
Massachusetts March 3 primary
Minnesota March 3 primary
North Carolina March 3 primary
Oklahoma March 3 primary
Tennessee March 3 primary
Texas March 3 primary
Utah March 3 primary
Vermont March 3 primary
Virginia March 3 primary (D), none (R)
Larry,
My perception is that Iowa and New Hampshire get a disproportionate share of the attention. For example, one of the main reasons we are stuck using food for fuel aka ethanol blending is catering to Iowa. If their primaries were pushed back to the same date as the others I would not have the problem.
Roger,
“My perception is that Iowa and New Hampshire get a disproportionate share of the attention.”
Don’t confuse what journalists obsess about with the news that real people care about.
Kunstler’s piece is excellent. Of course there are many points to disagree with, but the general theme and most of the targets are spot on. I think he is right about energy and right about Europe for the most part. China, maybe, don’t know enough to judge.
Wrong about Brexit, its not a nervous breakdown at all, its a bunch of sensible people getting off at the last stop from a bus driven by a drunk driver who clearly intends driving it over a cliff.
Not fully persuaded by the account of the sources of the ‘long emergency’, but that there is one does seem correct. I doubt the failure of civil rights or race issues figure largely in the discontent of the majority. The majority seem more focused on resentment than regret. Are race relations worse now than in 1950? Don’t know, they are differently bad, but worse?
Yes, that there is a crisis, and yes that its a loss of what the country had as it emerged from WWII. When you look back the loss of optimism, capability, focus and rationality seems enormous and tragic, and I do not see how the nation gets back what it lost.
He is right that a big part of the loss was due to the never ending pointless wars.
Yes, a piece worth reading and re-reading.
The UK was not just a passenger, but was in the cockpit. The UK certainly has a problem with immigration, but I find it hilarious that this was blamed on Polish waitresses rather than Pakistani rape gangs, the latter of which has nothing to do with EU immigration policy. The end result of this will likely be dissoution of the UK itself, with one consequence being nowhere to berth their Trident submarines. I would hardly call that sensible.
Larry-
If we went back to the madness of 1860 as the nation was descending into war, Ulysses Grant had hit rock bottom. He was a drunk working for his brother at his father’s business. Perceived total failure. He had lost hope.
Today, West Point is replacing Lee for Grant in their studies as the great strategic leader. It took time to understand him.
Over this next decade, we may find that some of the 9/11 vets are following the same path. In 2020, they may be getting beat down. They know how to get back up. But, they have to win the battle in their mind first before they can lead again. Time will tell.
Below is an example,
Stoicism, Suffering, And Training The Coward Inside You: An Interview With Entrepreneur and Former Infantry Officer Nick Palmisciano
https://dailystoic.com/nick-palmisciano-interview/
-Mike
Mike,
Thank you for that inspiring note on which to begin the New Year!
The large role of fear and pessimism in American’s mind is one of our greatest problems, as it encourages apathy and withdrawal. Perhaps it plays a role in our consumption of debilitating drugs, as well.
Good point Larry, debilitating IS the mana being stuffed down our collective throats. Since I took a part time job, I get to watch TV while waiting for or on customers.I quit watching almost all TV decades ago. The fare is so stupefying that I worry my IQ will be adversely effected. I wonder if the extent of the opioid/drug use is as bad as stated or even worse; because I know that numeracy is the last thing the news is good at.
john,
For a good example of ideologically-run pessimism, see the daily links at Naked Capitalism. This is the kind of material that shapes thinking on the Left.
Much of the material presented is factual, but much is heavily spun – and a disturbingly large amount is propaganda (ie, most of the links about climate change). For example, today’s article about climate change is mostly bogus – about non-existent mass extinctions and increasing number of billion-dollar disasters. in the real world, weather-related damages are dropping as a share of GDP (which is the correct measure, not dollars).
“The Crazy Years: Considerable technical advance during this period, accompanied by a gradual deterioration of mores, orientation, and social institutions, terminating in mass psychoses in the sixth decade, and the interregnum. …{then there are more phases} followed by the end of human adolescence and the beginning of {the} first mature culture.” (Heinlein)
This is an interesting quote but probably best placed in the context of RAH less as a literary prophet than as a highly-placed cultural engineer whose influence on creating today’s “Clown World| was not inconsiderable (one example, Stranger in a Strange Land was the pulp Bible of the Manon Family).
There’s an implicit suggestion in this quote, at least I think this is how you mean it, that our culture is growing up and just has to pass through its “liminal” adolescent phase before settling down into responsible adulthood. Yet, if you look at individuals in our culture, there’s not much evidence that adults are any more responsible, or mature, besides physically, than they were as teenagers. They may coagulate into a fixed kind of socialized identity that has a semblance of responsibility, but they never flower into true maturity. This can be seen by how old people in our culture are rarely treated as elders while, at the same time, they rarely act like them either. The worship of youth has self-fulfilling result of the negation of maturation. When the youth is wasted on the young then the young too get wasted because they never really learn from their mistakes in a culture that never takes responsibility for itself.
As we touched on in our talk (for an upcoming podcast), IMO you are missing a MAJOR piece in the puzzle and that is trauma, both individual and collective. The long-term effects of trauma, in simple terms, are dissociation from reality. This occurs via the fragmentation of the psyche and the construction of a false identity self that exists in a bardo realm of language, images, concepts, and ideas that, if unchecked, move us further and further from biological reality (viz a viz the transgender movement) and towards the reification of a sovereign, self-determining superego (Lucifer reigning in Hell). If this isn’t addressed, then no maturation can occur (Peter Pan syndrome, the worship of youth), because maturity comes about only via direct and sustained interactions with reality.
I think this is where the dreams of a long (or short) emergency come in, because we know intuitively, that the only thing that will truly wake us TO reality is a direct encounter WITH reality. And one of the keys to trauma is that, since dissociation includes amnesia which precludes healing, we unconsciously seek to re-enact the traumatic event, as a way to become conscious of it and so resolve it. This means that all of our conscious attempts to fix our situation, since they never address (cannot address) the root cause, end up having the opposite result. They reflect, and so materialize, an unconscious drive to recreate (repeat) the original conditions we are consciously trying to get out of, and so, every solution makes the problem worse, exponentially, until we are finally faced with “Apocalypse” —the revelation of the trauma-generated clown-face of our adolescent rebellion against Reality (God).
Note to readers: Jasun Horsley runs the Auticulture website. See his posts, his podcast interviews, and his books.
They are all rich with provocative ideas!
Jasun,
(1) “highly-placed cultural engineer whose influence on creating today’s “Clown World| was not inconsiderable”
There is no way to prove or disprove such statements. My guess is that his influence on US culture is pretty much zero.
(2) “Stranger in a Strange Land was the pulp Bible of the Manon Family”
Again, I’d bet big that the Mason family’s activities would have been the same if Heinlein had remained in the US Navy.
(3) “There’s an implicit suggestion in this quote, at least I think this is how you mean it, that our culture is growing up and just has to pass through its “liminal” adolescent phase before settling down into responsible adulthood.”
I believe that is more than a suggestion by RAH. It’s a theme in his stories.
(4) “if you look at individuals in our culture, there’s not much evidence that adults are any more responsible, or mature, besides physically, than they were as teenagers”
First, that’s misunderstanding the adolescence metaphor. People are more mature as adults than they were as children (ie, before adolescence). Adolescence is the period in which children become adults. Second. teenagers continue to mature through their early- to mid-twenties. I have seen this process with the scores of men I led as Boy Scouts. I met them as 8 to 12; some I have followed until now (age 24 – 30).
(5) “This can be seen by how old people in our culture are rarely treated as elders”
For good reason. Elders were highly valued in history for their mastery of life through accumulated experience. In a time of rapid changes on all levels (social & tech), that kind of accumulated knowledge and experience has less value.
(6) “they never flower into true maturity.”
Wow. Define “true maturity.” Well, they are not like Jesus or the archangel Gabriel. As I say in this post, Shaw’s Methuselah play posited (perhaps correctly) that assuming continued vitality, people would continue to gain wisdom with age – so that people of 300 would consider those of fifty to be children. This is a common trope in science fiction, as in the original Star Trek episodes when they meet the Organians and the Metrons.
(7) “because we know intuitively, that the only thing that will truly wake us TO reality is a direct encounter WITH reality.”
History is the process of bumping into “reality”. Sometimes from internal problems (eg, civil wars), cyclical social events (eg, economic depressions), plagues (a commonplaced game-changer), or natural disasters. The list of that last item is long: super-volcanoes, earthquakes (& resulting tsunami), and climate changes have often altered the course of history. Unless we prevent it, someday a collision with an asteroid or comet will do so. But we have survived them all, and I believe we will continue to do so – with the role of these decreasing over time.
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The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I think Trump means well but who knows. Rule by tweet, mockery, and BS has worked so far.
Trump will win again in November. Consider the alternatives.
Ron,
“Rule by tweet, mockery, and BS has worked so far.”
Define “worked.” The US system was designed to be stable, not dependent on a God-Emperor to run everything from the White House.
Larry,
It’s hard to believe his tweets carry so much weight, the press runs with his insults for a story to twist around. Checks and balances are in place (I think).
Imo, Trump is mostly bullshit and what you see is what you get…We’re good, maybe.
@Larry Kummar
Your sour grapes about no longer being posted on Naked Capitalism are quite funny. I’m sure you didn’t mind all the traffic it generated for your blog while that arrangement lasted though…
You were occasionally interesting during the Obama years but you’ve basically just re-written the same five articles ad nauseam since then. People get tired of the same old slop, particularly when it’s mostly nonsense, and move on (if you haven’t put two and two together yet).
I gotta admit some schaudenfraude at watching your blog drift towards its inevitable conclusion as an obscure hang out for a handful of reactionary boomers though.
Lun,
How nice of you to share your feelings. But this isn’t 6th grade show and tell. If you have any facts or logic as rebuttal, it would be useful.
“your blog drift towards its inevitable conclusion as an obscure hang out”
Making stuff up is worse than sharing your feelings. Traffic has risen each of the past 3 years (after I retired and was able to write more). It was 2.5 million in 2019 – despite writing little in the first three months (playing general contractor on our new home). We hit a new record daily volume at 31,155.
Lun,
“being posted on Naked Capitalism”
You misunderstand the point of the FM website project. We’re positioned on the cutting edge, outside the endless repetitive chatter that occupies websites of the Left and Right. When the Overton Window catches up with us, we have moved on.
This accounts for one of the interesting aspects of our traffic: I often repost content from 3 – 5 years ago – and it gets many times the hits it originally did. The mass mind has caught up.
You also touch upon another interesting point: a pattern since 2007 is that the FM website builds an audience on the Left or Right, as we say things in accord with their tribal truths. Eventually we move on to say heretical things, and they flee in horror. After years of trying, we might have built a consistent base audience. Time will tell if that is so.