Comments on: Gauntlets

By: Localist Principles, Populist Words | Front Porch Republic

Localist Principles, Populist Words | Front Porch Republic — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:53:16 +0000

[...] or policy, if any, FPR should support? The ideas being thrown around are many (see, for example, here, here, here, here and here), and as one might expect, some of them I agree with, and some of them I [...]

By: Albert

Albert — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:58:39 +0000

John, you’re absolutely right about the proximity of economic decline from demographic imbalance. I meant to focus more narrowly on the population figure itself, rather than the economic ramifications of the changes.

By: John Médaille

John Médaille — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:13:40 +0000

Albert, I think you are being far too optimistic. The problem is not coming in five decades, nor even in two. The problem is about to burst on us in a year or two. The question is not about the overall population numbers, but the population in their productive years, say 18-70. Everybody must eat the bread produced by this group. But as this group shrinks, and my group (geezers) grows the problems become impossible.

The problem, by the way, is already evident in the Chinese economy. The Chinese government would like their citizens to spend more and save less. But this is not possible. Why? Because of the one-child policy, which means that four grandparents must share one grandchild. Clearly, this child will not be able to support four adults and his own family (one child or not). The elderly must look to themselves, and that means having great reserves.

For the past 25 years, the social security system has been subsidizing the general fund. But next year, due to job losses, the general fund will have to repay Social Security. And in three years, the leading edge of the great baby boom will retire. As I tell my students, “In a few years, y’all are gonna owe me a lot of money. So get good jobs. Oh, wait, that’s not working either. Hmmm. I’ll tell you what: Get two jobs at WalMart, one to support yourselves, and one to support me.” That sounds fair.

By: Albert

Albert — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:53:51 +0000

Mr. Lundy, in the West, the concern ought not be about overpopulation, but about population collapse in the generational aftermath of the second half the 20th century. We’re going to see a lot of pain in the U. S. in the next fifty years, but it will likely not be close to what some industrialized areas in Europe (unless it really does become Muslim) and the East are going to feel. The biggest population growth is going to be in Africa, China and India, but even they can’t keep population from peaking around 2050, after which it will fall. Just two generations, and then bam.

By: D.W. Sabin

D.W. Sabin — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:35:53 +0000

Lundy,
When I first watched “Idiocracy” I thought it might be a documentary but then I figured out it was fiction. It’s a seemingly dumb film that is smarter than it looks at first….summing the situation up nicely. Funny, It comes to mind for me more than it should.

By: Caleb Stegall

Caleb Stegall — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:56:01 +0000

Gottfried’s latest is helpfully clarifying:

“Allow me to make one final point about Peter Kocan’s fond references to the Jacobites and to other lost reactionary causes. This doting is fine as an aesthetic diversion, but can do nothing to change the cultural Marxist power structure that has taken over through most of the Western world. The relevant response to this situation is “political,” in the sense in which Carl Schmitt understood that term.*** One must identify ones enemy and then bring to bear all available forces to counter its power. Devoting one’s life to a search for the Cavalier origins of the Old South or hanging on the wall a portrait of Stonewall Jackson, in the case of one of my acquaintances, near a campaign sign for John McCain, is what Schmitt characterized as a “cultural activity,” as opposed to a political act. Peter may enjoy the aesthetic poses of some of the paleoconservatives, but that attraction should not hide the fact that this group has been politically insignificant for the last fifteen years. Needless to say, I would not level this charge against Carl Gustav Mannerheim or Francisco Franco—or most other historical actors of the Right who hindered the progress of the Left in the twentieth century. I’m criticizing what Schmitt called the “romantic imagination” that has turned in upon itself. That has, not incidentally, been the fate of the paleoconservative mind that has outlived its historical value.”

*** This requires the identification of specific political enemies and the development of tactical resources by which one systematically and strategically undermines, restricts, contains, and ideally, crushes the power of those enemies. This is why we should always talk of a political movement rather than a conservative movement. This is what every political movement that ever had even a snowball’s chance has done.

There really is a difference between cultural activity like having kids and planting tomatoes and political acts, which have directly to do with ammassing and weilding power. Likewise, there is a difference between personal recovery (which is the direction my comments above were pointed) and political recovery.

By: Bob Cheeks

Bob Cheeks — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:22:45 +0000

We, more or less, concur with the idea that our culture/civilization is at the very least regressing, if not collapsing. Any analysis of how and why is useful and there have been and, I hope, will continue to be those contributors that address this problem.
In fact, that’s about all that’s been accomplished so far.
Perhaps it would be useful to determine not only how we will recapture/recover that which has been lost once the trauma of collapse is completed (hopefully it won’t follow the model of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road or worse) but also what should be the basis of human existence in the establishment of any future culture?
Because we have among us any number of erudite scholars and thinkers it is my hope they might offer carefully considered solutions to this problem.
As examples:
1. Re: the first question, perhaps Caleb might explore the idea of ‘enclaves,’ that he’d suggested in an earlier interview, where he might address the idea in terms of surviving any possible collapsing phase and acting as a foundation for a polis during the restoration phase.
2. For those scholars who’ve a particular fondness for our Greek friends it might be timely to offer essays on the question of phila politike (political friendship); where this ‘friendship’ is predicated on the recognition of the noetic component of man, required for the establishment of social and personal order.
3.We must address the question of the transcendent. Can a culture consisting of individuals who embrace the metaleptic relationship of man and God (open existence) and those who have immanentized (closed) human existence exist in good order? Perhaps, this is the big question and any response must be a thorough and penetrating analysis.
If I’m out of line here, I trust my fellow commentators will let me know. But, I really do think we’ve reached a point where many of our people have lost the ground of human existence. Nothing else can explain the incoherence, disorder, and the loss of nous. If it’s any consolation, I think our kind has spent an inordinate amount of time in the act of recovery; maybe this time we’ll do it right.

By: cecelia

cecelia — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:32:07 +0000

well I have had kids and although my tomatoes did poorly this year due to the bizarre weather – I have a fine crop of brussel sprouts.

Patrick Deneen is I believe right – there is a point at which well written analysis of the ills which are destroying us just isn’t enough. Nothing like having kids and nieces and nephews to make one seek strategies to help them through the bleak future.

I do hear this “Benedict Option” spoken of often but rarely see much more other than “well we could try the Benedict Option”. Perhaps a way forward which might address the issues Patrick Deneen has identified could be to discuss this option. What might it look like? What are the pitfalls? What do we really know about how monastic communities function and the mechanisms they employ to maintain themselves?

Now I do appreciate I am just a female but my dissertation work resulted in spending months dissecting the records of the ancient monastic community at Durham. They actually still do have inventories of how many sheep they sold back in the 12th Century. On that limited basis I can assure you – these communitites were very complex and they were very vulnerable. The numbers of people, the range of skills it took to keep em going was significant. So before Benedict Option becomes the solution – perhaps it would be wise to do a little investigation and preparation. Unless of course the consensus here is that a house in the hills and lots of ammunition is the way to go.

I’d like to note that the essays I appreciate the most at FPR are those by John Medaille. He has helped me to understand a lot more (although my ignorance is still great) about what the future could be.

By: GAS

GAS — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:01:13 +0000

Not only are the Musloms outbreeding us but the modernist single gal, the group we’re trying to outbreed, is breeding at a incredible rate and they have the State to help them along and a seemingly unlimited supply of “donors” to help them out. In this race my money is on the modernist single gal.

By: Bruce Smith

Bruce Smith — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:29:25 +0000

Lacking a reasoned and coherent philosophy for living happily together and with nature do we not simply repeat the same mistakes over and over again and our children too? to have that philosophy may incorporate the notion that human thinking is subject to more proneness to fallibility than we have previously been prepared to admit but that in itself is progress. It also suggests we recognize that what we have been lacking in our institutions and processes is the opportunity to have dialogue with each other to identify the fallibility in our ideas. This is telling us we have too little democracy in our lives. Too little democracy usually means the need to fight for a greater share!

By: Stewart K. Lundy

Stewart K. Lundy — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:35:21 +0000

Having children as a means to taking over a culture sounds a lot like Muslims currently using the same strategy in Europe and the United States, it being the fastest growing religion in the USA based on birthrates. As certain areas of the United Kingdom have adopted Sharia law through due process and prolific breeding, must we go and do likewise? I have to say I’m a bit skeptical of the “outbreeding” strategy which seems to be a major strategy of most fundamentalist movements. To be fair, it would “work” if the opposition didn’t also try to outbreed us. Since opposite sides are usually busy breeding, the result is the same battle being fought between ten times as many people. Not that I’m against children, but what about overpopulation, the environment, and scale? Does scale not apply to procreation?

Anyone seen the movie Idiocracy?

By: Ryan Davidson

Ryan Davidson — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:53:27 +0000

I think Patrick J. Deneen‘s last comment probably gets at it best. What is to be done? Have kids, lots of ‘em, and raise ‘em right. The fact that this present evil age makes this very difficult–particularly the first two–suggests to me that this really is a powerful blow against modernity.

By: Albert

Albert — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:42:01 +0000

Mr. Deneen, I think my father would agree. When my sister was young, she dropped a toy vacuum cleaner on his face and broke his front teeth. I still have no idea what said toy vacuum cleaner was doing anywhere around his head.

Be careful.

By: Patrick J. Deneen

Patrick J. Deneen — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:36:33 +0000

John is right that perhaps the most important thing we (and others) can be doing now is having children, and encouraging young people to do the same. This is probably one subject that is TRULY anathama on today’s college campuses – we can encourage our students to pursue every lifestyle choice except a future of marriage, family, and parenting. Amazingly, this basic human good and obligation is one of the main objects of dismantling by the logic of modernity. For this reason alone, it will lose. But it is, and will do, a great deal of destruction in the process.

That said, I think my daughter may have broken my nose last night when she jumped up while I was leaning over her. So, it’s a pretty dangerous mission that I’m recommending…

By: Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:14:48 +0000

“Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”

By: GAS

GAS — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:12:25 +0000

So it seems the only alternative is local black markets. Not that I’m against it. I recently have been concocting an idea of using the Corporate-State techonological infrastructure to implement a local barter system.

Hey Sabin, good post.