You’re doing an outstanding job on the critical stuff like providing insight and articulation to complex and sensitive topics so I doubt many are worried about rare tech issues. If it weren’t for your essays, most of us wouldn’t have a home base for encouragement of kindred spirits.
I saw you addressed this issue to a 90+ year old gentleman in the comments below, and think it's great that you will make the effort at clarifying the distinctions in your awesome articles to help all your patrons have a clear understanding of when it's you or memorex so to speak.
I believe our most significant problem is that we've become an adolescent and emotional country, instead of common sense and logical.
I'm 66, and back in the day, one didn't have a voice, or the ability to influence society until they'd matured and accumulated some life experience. As you mature and grow in experience, you tend to act in a different manner.
Today, teenagers become influencers, and media amplifies their opinions, regardless of whether they make sense at all. Civility is no longer an expectation, and short term solutions are accepted, when clearly, they will lead to bigger problems down the road.
I can't conceive of a solution to this, as media, and politicians who are ruled by polls versus common sense, accumulate more power.
There are very few adults in the room, and the few left standing are constantly having to dodge bullets. I often hear "I take responsibility," and then nothing happens. It's a completely meaningless statement. In his first few weeks in office, DeSantis removed from office a sheriff, a school superintendent and one other head honcho, all for corruption and/or not doing their job. A bit later he fired an entire water management board for mismanagement and corruption. That is accountability and leadership.
Ye, or the long hearings Congress has concluding that certain people acted illegally or at least unethically. They issue a "strongly worded letter" and they think they have done their job. As you said, no change occurs. I have long said that the Republican party mere acts as the one who makes us think at least we have a voice. In actuality, we do not.
It's much worse than 'few adults in the room.' They (revolutionary fringe) are adults. They know what they're doing. There is too little courage. There are too few leaders. The few leaders we have (R Gaines, DeSantis), do not get the support they should. See the world as it is, not as it should be or was. This is the world today. Way, way past time to fight back. And a fight is what it will take. it will be physical. Prepare and protect yourself at all times.
The governor can and did use his power to suspend them and made it excruciatingly difficult to try and fight. In Florida law, a suspension of an official is firing by another name, and Jackson's legal fees she incurred fighting her suspension were denied. The same thing happened to Sheriff Israel. I notice you didn't apologize for implying DeSantis only removed "democrats." There were no semantics in that statement, just plain old falsehood.
Not sure I completely buy that. Our culture is not kid friendly. Trying to raise a kid these days is maddening on the best of days and you find yourself despairing on the worst. Everything is geared towards single adults, not families or kids. Kids are seen as mini adults who know things and should magically be taken at their word all the time, in every situation. We look at movies from our youth and wonder how they could have been rated ‘R’ or PG-13 back in the day b/c what passes for those ratings these days tends to be a lot worse. I’m in my late 40’s. I especially hate ‘Cat mom’ culture. ‘My truth’ is another saying I truly hate hearing from adults as well. Ugh.
I’ll agree that our culture is immature, but it is also dark, gritty and not for the faint hearted. Everything is about ‘being real’ and ‘showing the ugly’ and ‘showing everything’. Like you said, It’s the worst of both worlds - immature adults who act like life is a frat party/all about them and lifting up kids before they are ready for prime time (or even have a high school diploma).
There are those of us who try to counter this in our families, but it’s really enough to make you desire for life as a hermit.
You are both correct: Leftists are using children to destroy this country. They don't give a damn about how much damage they are doing to our children, as long as it achieves their destructive goals. Destroy the family, you destroy society. Destroy society, you destroy the country. Then they can build their Utopia, and find out too late there is no such thing.
Take your children to church!!! The values that used to be taught in school are no longer unless your kids are in private religious schools. The Left is determined to tear the country apart and they’re coming for the children so be aware. Be vigilant. Fight!!!!
You are so right that our culture is not kid friendly. It's because most of the adults refuse to grow up and act like children themselves. Real kids get in their way.
Oh yes there are!! I’m an adult and my husband and I raised 3 adults. Don’t cave to these losers. Adults raise adults, irresponsible emotional leftists raise whiners who can’t understand the world.
My wife and I are adults - we raised (yes, I know it's reared) three sons who are now raising their own children. My concern is about the grand kids, and how they will be indoctrinated in school and by the media.
Recent example - my niece who grew up and was educated near D.C., was preparing to visit us in "fly over" country - so she called to make final plans for the visit. Near the end of the call, she asked if I thought her boyfriend would be safe - taken aback - I asked "Why - does he have a medical condition?" She say's "No, no, he's Hispanic..." ...long pause as what she's asking sets in... - she's concerned that the entire middle of the country was a bunch of racist bigots who might try and kill him!! WTF are they teaching kids today!!
She brought him, and of course there were no issues - but it was a startling example of the prejudices being taught by the left - and they call us prejudiced!! WTF?!?!
They are indeed actively working to divide this country!!
The left are like the sanctimonious Eddie Haskell, trying to present themselves as oh-so-righteous, when in reality they are like the kid who is just thrilled he got somebody in trouble.
Then they go back to playing video games and watching comic book superhero movies.
Jon, truth be told, we baby boomers started this fire, as Billy Joel once put it. The '60s chickens have fully come home to roost. And it ain't pretty.
I agree, it was the Democrat party of the sixties and seventies that started this.
But it was our generation that started this. And our generation that fought on campus in the 60s and 70s, but then stayed to become the academics that taught our children when we sent them to college. They taught them that they should be 'community organizers' who would go on fighting battles that were already won.
In his 1988 commencement speech at the University of Michigan, the Russian poet Joseph Brodsky said this, among many other amazing things:
“At all costs try to avoid granting yourself the status of the victim. Of all the parts of your body, be most vigilant over your index finger, for it is blame-thirsty. A pointed finger is a victim’s logo — the opposite of the V-sign and a synonym for surrender. No matter how abominable your condition may be, try not to blame anything or anybody: history, the state, superiors, race, parents, the phase of the moon, childhood, toilet training, etc. The menu is vast and tedious, and this vastness and tedium alone should be offensive enough to set one’s intelligence against choosing from it. The moment that you place blame somewhere, you undermine your resolve to change anything; it could be argued even that that blame-thirsty finger oscillates as wildly as it does because the resolve was never great enough in the first place. After all, a victim status is not without its sweetness. It commands compassion, confers distinction, and whole nations and continents bask in the murk of mental discounts advertised as the victim’s conscience. There is an entire victim-culture, ranging from private counselors to international loans. The professed goal of this network notwithstanding, its net result is that of lowering one’s expectations from the threshold, so that a measly advantage could be perceived or billed as a major breakthrough. Of course, this is therapeutic and, given the scarcity of the world’s resources, perhaps even hygienic, so for want of a better identity, one may embrace it — but try to resist it. However abundant and irrefutable is the evidence that you are on the losing side, negate it as long as you have your wits about you, as long as your lips can utter “No.” On the whole, try to respect life not only for its amenities but for its hardships, too. They are a part of the game, and what’s good about a hardship is that it is not a deception. Whenever you are in trouble, in some scrape, on the verge of despair or in despair, remember: that’s life speaking to you in the only language it knows well. In other words, try to be a little masochistic: without a touch of masochism, the meaning of life is not complete. If this is of any help, try to remember that human dignity is an absolute, not a piecemeal notion, that it is inconsistent with special pleading, that it derives its poise from denying the obvious. Should you find this argument a bit on the heady side, think at least that by considering yourself a victim you but enlarge the vacuum of irresponsibility that demons or demagogues love so much to fill, since a paralyzed will is no dainty for angels.”
I'd really love to know more about what people in this community are reading, as we appear to be an open-minded & thoughtful group & there is so much wealth of insight to draw on as we think about & chose how to respond to this unmoored, distressed, & profoundly destructive moment.
On Substack, I read Christopher F. Rufo, Colin Wright (Reality's Last Stand), Matt Taibbi (Racket News), and Glenn Loury. On separate sites I read the UnHerd, Spiked, and Persuasion.
Yes, it's hard for me to square that as I graduated from college in 1986 & didn't see a shred of it, but then Bloom's book came out in '87 & Brodsky is warning about it in '88, but I never encountered it even though I was in graduate school well into the 1990s. I truly don't think I started encountering the mentality in daily life until around 2012, when the language of self-care also began to predominate.
Claudia, the Post-Structuralist emphasis on victimization as a means to destabilize society was conceived of in the 70s, by the 80s was well-entrenched in elite academic circles, and by 2000 or so had become the dominant tendency in higher ed. From there is has migrated into the larger society to a startling degree. But it must be said: that was always the plan. I just never thought it would actually work.
Fascinating, thank you for the broader context. Somehow I managed to skirt that, but am intrigued to read more now, esp. seeing that radical destabilization was always the plan.
So so very proud of how far you've come on your sojourn of common sense intellectualism.
So very grateful that another talented, articulate, well-educated voice is trying to create a bridge for the Left to exodus to the Right, or at least to the Center. That's the only way we get back to Superman's motto.
I'm glad you understand this part:
"It is in these times that authoritarianism often arises because we need structure."
We are nearing the end of our Weimar Republic, I think.
We know what followed.
Pray that we can somehow prevent it, though I think Bible prophecy may have already begun to unfold at this point.
As a Christian I agree that this looks like we are nearing the end, but we don't know. I do know HOW it will end because the Bible tells me. I just don't know WHEN it will end. I guess the correct approach is to fight for what is good and right as though we have another 100 years, but to be ready in case we only have 100 hours.
Sasha, I just want you to know something that just happened... I was driving around this morning, listening to this podcast between stops at the garden center and the hardware store. Towards the end of it, I pulled my old chevy truck up in front of our chicken coup on our little farm out here in Utah and listened, alone, to the last ten minutes or so.
I noticed, as Journey played "Don't Stop Believing," that the tears began streaming down my face. You may be the greatest voice in America at this moment. You speak to the very heart of it and every time you speak it gets better.
I notice a big difference between old school liberals and the (mostly young) neo left.
I grew up in the eighties and remained conservative but agreed with liberals that the ultra-rich were often corrupt and bribery in politics is a bad thing. And freedom was good.
The neo left are angry about everything. Nothing will ever change that. They are negative to the point of nihilism and against everything. Since they are easy to manipulate, too stupid and quarrelsome to live apart from the System let alone organize its overthrow, unlikely to have babies, and prefer screens to humanity they'll make ideal pod people for Papa Klaus.
You’re kidding yourself by thinking the left will ever hang their heads in shame.
If the ball ever stops rolling, they’ll go to their graves blaming Trump and his deplorable army for spreading their hate to the gullible masses.
And until the left loses its total control of academia (and that will be the hardest institution to root them out of), that’s the version of history that will be taught. Or that America was corrupt from its founding (in 1619) and is simply irredeemable.
I liken Biden & Co. to Michal Douglass' corporate raider character Gordon Gekko in "Wall St." who made his fortune buying, then carving up companies and destroying the lives which depended on those companies. The same is being done to America. Our so-called captains of industry (along with their brethren on Wall St.) have spent the last 30 years selling off pieces of our once mighty industrial base to the highest bidder. Now the party of the ass is doing the same to our culture and our government. We have become a cell bitch for the WEF and the WHO, abandoning any loyalty or concern for the citizens who (allegedly) put them in power. The asses and their coconspirators in Hollywood and the MSM have been actively fomenting a race war and now moving onto brainwashing and mutilating your children -- at least those who are allowed to be born alive. Is it any wonder why depression is so rampant among the young, and especially so the progressive-identifying young, and even more so, girls.
Depressed 14-year old: "I feel empty inside and lost. Perhaps if I slice off my breasts I will feel whole again?"
As usual, Sasha - an excellent piece, by any standard.
"...they will have to hang their heads in shame for what they’ve done."
Except they won't. They are constitutionally incapable of shame because they have none.
"Those who run this country have to believe in it, have to believe in all of it."
Would that this was true - but clearly, it is not.
"And while it is cause for alarm, we also know that if we have faith in ourselves and if we have not given up on our country, we can find our way through this moment because we always have. But if we condemn or deny or erase our history we’ll never know that this too shall pass."
Tell me, if you can, just where might such faith be found? Those of us of a certain age and older are not the ones condemning, denying, or erasing history - we're the ones fighting to preserve it, but it is becoming clear that we're only defending against a tsunami using a bag of sand. Will this pass? The world has become quite small, and increasingly easier to be controlled by globalist financiers - I sincerely hope you are correct, but I have my doubts.
"We need our male heroes. We need our mothers. We need to tie them to past generations and to our own history. We need masculinity, and if all we do is punish it, diminish it and try to eradicate it, there is nothing else that can take its place."
True, but not only are we not welcome, there is no place for us in the country as it is, now.
I wondered when I might disagree with your views, and it is here:
"If you don’t believe in it, don’t let the door hit you on the way out."
I believe in the country you describe in the immediately preceding paragraph, but they will not just leave us behind to restore and rebuild because they are hell-bent on ruling us.
Just because I disagree doesn't mean that yours is wrong, or that mine is right, only that I find it challenging.
Your writing is a breath of fresh air. I'm glad that I have been able to enjoy it before darkness falls.
School shootings. Pass a law legally prohibiting the adults in a school from protecting the children, wait for the occasional nut case, blame Republicans and guns, never mention said law, rinse and repeat. (After all, people will not willingly get in the boxcars.)
Jesus told his disciples to buy a sword if they did not have one while preparing to travel. A failure to defend innocent life is a sin. Mass shootings in general are basically limited to gun free zones. Check out the Armenian Genocide, which happened after the Turkish government disarmed the Armenian Christians.
So the price of keeping our children safe in America is turning schools into fortresses. I grew up in the 70's and mass shooting weren't the problem they are now. IT'S THE GUNS And the right's abnormal worship of them. When your family's Christmas card features you and your children holding assault weapons..... you have a problem with guns ... guess what, so would jesus
No, there were just as many firearms in the 70s as there are today. I was in high school in the 70s and my high school had a gun club and firing range. It was very common to see rifles and shotguns in back window racks of unlocked pickup trucks in the school parking lot.
There isn't anything you know about this subject that I don't. I was a democrat my whole life. Gun control was my main issue. I have been studying mass murderers for over 20 years. I know the subject well. People like you are the ones with certainty that prevents us from getting to deeper issues. THAT is the problem. From lockdowns to drugs to manifestos - these things all have to be considered and dealt with. What I'm telling you is that what is happening with these people is bigger than guns. They will still find a way to kill.
The real problem for people like you is that you focus on mass shooters. Why? Because it gives you a chance to posture your moral superiority and blame the Right. You would NEVER look at crime in the big cities in blue states. You would NEVER look at nor talk about crime in those cities that kill way more than mass shootings do. Why? Because you'd have to blame yourselves and your dumb defund the police nonsense. All summer in 2020 calling the entire police force racist. Do you know what led to? A spike in deaths of CHILDREN. I know they were Black and all and weren't involved in high profile shootings where people like you could bloviate and pretend like you have all of the answers. There are enough guns in circulation that they can still buy them. Hell, they can print them on a 3-D printer. But yes, turn this into the next Prohibition while never trying to do what is necessary to protect kids and clean up the streets. My next piece is about this very subject.
We are most definitely not the world leader in per capita firearm homicides, but we do rank in the upper quartile and it is a problem, but it's not a problem with the machine, it's a problem with the minds behind the machine. The standard remedy offered by the anti-gun crowd is to collectively punish the innocent and responsible gun owner, which amounts to over 99.9% of U.S. gun owners. Then there's that durn U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights.
Sorry, but I beg to differ, sir. I'm a believer in the second amendment and do not abnormally worship my weapons. Why is it my obligation to forfeit my second amendment right because someone else abuses it?
Why as I type this comment are several tears rolling down my cheeks as you speak to me once again with your Substack? Like one of the commenters, I too vacillate between hope and resignation when I read your pieces.
I read the Fourth Turning a couple of years ago and am an increasing devotee as we clearly work towards the crisis. Then I read 1984. Have to watch the movie that you made me aware of today.
When you show up on Real Clear Politics in the "Most Read" section, you are reaching quite an audience and obviously speaking to it. Amazing for a newcomer. Keep it up please.
You have a genuine and compelling manner and message. You have gained a certain amount of traction with your writings. Why not a speaking tour? Perhaps a rotational group of speakers; each at a separate venue on a schedule. 3-4 speakers - one at each venue for a 4 week period in significant locations? A modern-day approach to Thomas Paine and The American Crisis/print/publications from the early stages of America's independence movement. Purpose: to spark that needed courage and leadership.
No worries. I sure appreciate what you say and do. This "turning" is a nasty one, but I am confident that America will right itself as it has in prior similar periods.
Lights are appearing and shining at the other end of the tunnel, and you are one.
Wow ... Remarkable insights, and from the heart, Shasha, each next article you deliver leaves me stunned ... just keep going if you can find the morale, your voice is important!
Sasha, that was one of the most incredible pieces of truth I have ever heard. I just wish I knew how to get my Democrat friends to open their eyes before it's too late.
Just read this on Michael Shellenberger's Substack Public:
Since World War II, psychologists have observed a relationship between political victimhood or grievance movements and aggression and violence. “The potential for aggression in victimhood movements is much larger than in the general population,” notes psychologist Sam Vaknin. “Anything that is grievance-based leads to violence and death."
Interesting to consider the relationship between the Dems, victim ideology, and violence.
To readers: I will definitely try to identify the clips on the podcast instead of just letting them play. I know they're confusing. Sorry about that.
You’re doing an outstanding job on the critical stuff like providing insight and articulation to complex and sensitive topics so I doubt many are worried about rare tech issues. If it weren’t for your essays, most of us wouldn’t have a home base for encouragement of kindred spirits.
You can say that again.
You have some of the best video clips of any Substack author I know! Not sure how you locate these gems...
No worries, we will figger it out. :-D
I saw you addressed this issue to a 90+ year old gentleman in the comments below, and think it's great that you will make the effort at clarifying the distinctions in your awesome articles to help all your patrons have a clear understanding of when it's you or memorex so to speak.
I believe our most significant problem is that we've become an adolescent and emotional country, instead of common sense and logical.
I'm 66, and back in the day, one didn't have a voice, or the ability to influence society until they'd matured and accumulated some life experience. As you mature and grow in experience, you tend to act in a different manner.
Today, teenagers become influencers, and media amplifies their opinions, regardless of whether they make sense at all. Civility is no longer an expectation, and short term solutions are accepted, when clearly, they will lead to bigger problems down the road.
I can't conceive of a solution to this, as media, and politicians who are ruled by polls versus common sense, accumulate more power.
There are very few adults in the room, and the few left standing are constantly having to dodge bullets. I often hear "I take responsibility," and then nothing happens. It's a completely meaningless statement. In his first few weeks in office, DeSantis removed from office a sheriff, a school superintendent and one other head honcho, all for corruption and/or not doing their job. A bit later he fired an entire water management board for mismanagement and corruption. That is accountability and leadership.
There is zero accountability today. Sad
Ye, or the long hearings Congress has concluding that certain people acted illegally or at least unethically. They issue a "strongly worded letter" and they think they have done their job. As you said, no change occurs. I have long said that the Republican party mere acts as the one who makes us think at least we have a voice. In actuality, we do not.
It's much worse than 'few adults in the room.' They (revolutionary fringe) are adults. They know what they're doing. There is too little courage. There are too few leaders. The few leaders we have (R Gaines, DeSantis), do not get the support they should. See the world as it is, not as it should be or was. This is the world today. Way, way past time to fight back. And a fight is what it will take. it will be physical. Prepare and protect yourself at all times.
The Parkland Sheriff and the Okaloosa School Superintendent DeSantis fired were republicans. Not sure about the others.
The governor can and did use his power to suspend them and made it excruciatingly difficult to try and fight. In Florida law, a suspension of an official is firing by another name, and Jackson's legal fees she incurred fighting her suspension were denied. The same thing happened to Sheriff Israel. I notice you didn't apologize for implying DeSantis only removed "democrats." There were no semantics in that statement, just plain old falsehood.
Not sure I completely buy that. Our culture is not kid friendly. Trying to raise a kid these days is maddening on the best of days and you find yourself despairing on the worst. Everything is geared towards single adults, not families or kids. Kids are seen as mini adults who know things and should magically be taken at their word all the time, in every situation. We look at movies from our youth and wonder how they could have been rated ‘R’ or PG-13 back in the day b/c what passes for those ratings these days tends to be a lot worse. I’m in my late 40’s. I especially hate ‘Cat mom’ culture. ‘My truth’ is another saying I truly hate hearing from adults as well. Ugh.
I’ll agree that our culture is immature, but it is also dark, gritty and not for the faint hearted. Everything is about ‘being real’ and ‘showing the ugly’ and ‘showing everything’. Like you said, It’s the worst of both worlds - immature adults who act like life is a frat party/all about them and lifting up kids before they are ready for prime time (or even have a high school diploma).
There are those of us who try to counter this in our families, but it’s really enough to make you desire for life as a hermit.
You are both correct: Leftists are using children to destroy this country. They don't give a damn about how much damage they are doing to our children, as long as it achieves their destructive goals. Destroy the family, you destroy society. Destroy society, you destroy the country. Then they can build their Utopia, and find out too late there is no such thing.
Take your children to church!!! The values that used to be taught in school are no longer unless your kids are in private religious schools. The Left is determined to tear the country apart and they’re coming for the children so be aware. Be vigilant. Fight!!!!
Alice, all too many of our churches have been infiltrated by the same destructive forces we seek to escape from. That needs to change.
Agreed. I watched one like that yesterday, Easter Sunday. You have to choose your church wisely.
I agree to a point because many of our churches are trying to out culture the culture at this point and that doesn’t bode well for any of us.
they all need parishioners, so if you have to compromise your teachings, but get revenue.....so be it.
You are so right that our culture is not kid friendly. It's because most of the adults refuse to grow up and act like children themselves. Real kids get in their way.
You are absolutely correct. There are no adults left in this country.
Oh yes there are!! I’m an adult and my husband and I raised 3 adults. Don’t cave to these losers. Adults raise adults, irresponsible emotional leftists raise whiners who can’t understand the world.
Here!! Here!!
My wife and I are adults - we raised (yes, I know it's reared) three sons who are now raising their own children. My concern is about the grand kids, and how they will be indoctrinated in school and by the media.
Recent example - my niece who grew up and was educated near D.C., was preparing to visit us in "fly over" country - so she called to make final plans for the visit. Near the end of the call, she asked if I thought her boyfriend would be safe - taken aback - I asked "Why - does he have a medical condition?" She say's "No, no, he's Hispanic..." ...long pause as what she's asking sets in... - she's concerned that the entire middle of the country was a bunch of racist bigots who might try and kill him!! WTF are they teaching kids today!!
She brought him, and of course there were no issues - but it was a startling example of the prejudices being taught by the left - and they call us prejudiced!! WTF?!?!
They are indeed actively working to divide this country!!
An adolescent-behaving society for sure.
The left are like the sanctimonious Eddie Haskell, trying to present themselves as oh-so-righteous, when in reality they are like the kid who is just thrilled he got somebody in trouble.
Then they go back to playing video games and watching comic book superhero movies.
And claim the adults are back in charge.
Jon, truth be told, we baby boomers started this fire, as Billy Joel once put it. The '60s chickens have fully come home to roost. And it ain't pretty.
I agree, it was the Democrat party of the sixties and seventies that started this.
But it was our generation that started this. And our generation that fought on campus in the 60s and 70s, but then stayed to become the academics that taught our children when we sent them to college. They taught them that they should be 'community organizers' who would go on fighting battles that were already won.
In his 1988 commencement speech at the University of Michigan, the Russian poet Joseph Brodsky said this, among many other amazing things:
“At all costs try to avoid granting yourself the status of the victim. Of all the parts of your body, be most vigilant over your index finger, for it is blame-thirsty. A pointed finger is a victim’s logo — the opposite of the V-sign and a synonym for surrender. No matter how abominable your condition may be, try not to blame anything or anybody: history, the state, superiors, race, parents, the phase of the moon, childhood, toilet training, etc. The menu is vast and tedious, and this vastness and tedium alone should be offensive enough to set one’s intelligence against choosing from it. The moment that you place blame somewhere, you undermine your resolve to change anything; it could be argued even that that blame-thirsty finger oscillates as wildly as it does because the resolve was never great enough in the first place. After all, a victim status is not without its sweetness. It commands compassion, confers distinction, and whole nations and continents bask in the murk of mental discounts advertised as the victim’s conscience. There is an entire victim-culture, ranging from private counselors to international loans. The professed goal of this network notwithstanding, its net result is that of lowering one’s expectations from the threshold, so that a measly advantage could be perceived or billed as a major breakthrough. Of course, this is therapeutic and, given the scarcity of the world’s resources, perhaps even hygienic, so for want of a better identity, one may embrace it — but try to resist it. However abundant and irrefutable is the evidence that you are on the losing side, negate it as long as you have your wits about you, as long as your lips can utter “No.” On the whole, try to respect life not only for its amenities but for its hardships, too. They are a part of the game, and what’s good about a hardship is that it is not a deception. Whenever you are in trouble, in some scrape, on the verge of despair or in despair, remember: that’s life speaking to you in the only language it knows well. In other words, try to be a little masochistic: without a touch of masochism, the meaning of life is not complete. If this is of any help, try to remember that human dignity is an absolute, not a piecemeal notion, that it is inconsistent with special pleading, that it derives its poise from denying the obvious. Should you find this argument a bit on the heady side, think at least that by considering yourself a victim you but enlarge the vacuum of irresponsibility that demons or demagogues love so much to fill, since a paralyzed will is no dainty for angels.”
Great quote. I've never heard this before. Thanks.
I'd really love to know more about what people in this community are reading, as we appear to be an open-minded & thoughtful group & there is so much wealth of insight to draw on as we think about & chose how to respond to this unmoored, distressed, & profoundly destructive moment.
We could start a book club.
1,000% yes! Love this idea, Sasha.
I pretty much only read Substack these days, lol. Don’t have much time for anything else...
Zerohedge, realclearpolitics, and another Substack - So It Goes by Lillia Gajewski
Thank you! I'm going to take a look at So it goes... !
I read Martin Armstrong every day. His weekday posts are better than weekends. https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/
Thank you!
On Substack, I read Christopher F. Rufo, Colin Wright (Reality's Last Stand), Matt Taibbi (Racket News), and Glenn Loury. On separate sites I read the UnHerd, Spiked, and Persuasion.
Wow. Great quote and so very true. Today tho, sadly, victimhood is paraded and glorified.
Yep, "victimology" was in high gear by the late 80s. Allan Bloom decried in "The Closing of the American Mind" (1987).
Yes, it's hard for me to square that as I graduated from college in 1986 & didn't see a shred of it, but then Bloom's book came out in '87 & Brodsky is warning about it in '88, but I never encountered it even though I was in graduate school well into the 1990s. I truly don't think I started encountering the mentality in daily life until around 2012, when the language of self-care also began to predominate.
Claudia, the Post-Structuralist emphasis on victimization as a means to destabilize society was conceived of in the 70s, by the 80s was well-entrenched in elite academic circles, and by 2000 or so had become the dominant tendency in higher ed. From there is has migrated into the larger society to a startling degree. But it must be said: that was always the plan. I just never thought it would actually work.
Fascinating, thank you for the broader context. Somehow I managed to skirt that, but am intrigued to read more now, esp. seeing that radical destabilization was always the plan.
OMG, so a propos!
I thought at first Mr. Brodsky was speaking, in effect, to our persecutors, but at some point I realized he is showing us our way forward.
Thank you, M. Claudia B.
Let us not be victims. Let us be golden.
Great article.
So so very proud of how far you've come on your sojourn of common sense intellectualism.
So very grateful that another talented, articulate, well-educated voice is trying to create a bridge for the Left to exodus to the Right, or at least to the Center. That's the only way we get back to Superman's motto.
I'm glad you understand this part:
"It is in these times that authoritarianism often arises because we need structure."
We are nearing the end of our Weimar Republic, I think.
We know what followed.
Pray that we can somehow prevent it, though I think Bible prophecy may have already begun to unfold at this point.
God bless.
As a Christian I agree that this looks like we are nearing the end, but we don't know. I do know HOW it will end because the Bible tells me. I just don't know WHEN it will end. I guess the correct approach is to fight for what is good and right as though we have another 100 years, but to be ready in case we only have 100 hours.
When ye see these things begin to happen, look up, for your redemption draweth nigh.
I couldn’t agree more.
Sasha, I just want you to know something that just happened... I was driving around this morning, listening to this podcast between stops at the garden center and the hardware store. Towards the end of it, I pulled my old chevy truck up in front of our chicken coup on our little farm out here in Utah and listened, alone, to the last ten minutes or so.
I noticed, as Journey played "Don't Stop Believing," that the tears began streaming down my face. You may be the greatest voice in America at this moment. You speak to the very heart of it and every time you speak it gets better.
Thank You
I absolutely agree!
Yes, Sasha is pure inspiration, in a nakedly candid kind of way.
I notice a big difference between old school liberals and the (mostly young) neo left.
I grew up in the eighties and remained conservative but agreed with liberals that the ultra-rich were often corrupt and bribery in politics is a bad thing. And freedom was good.
The neo left are angry about everything. Nothing will ever change that. They are negative to the point of nihilism and against everything. Since they are easy to manipulate, too stupid and quarrelsome to live apart from the System let alone organize its overthrow, unlikely to have babies, and prefer screens to humanity they'll make ideal pod people for Papa Klaus.
Very few of those liberals left or they have died.
Or have turned moderate or conservative.
Eloi
I love you, Sasha, but:
You’re kidding yourself by thinking the left will ever hang their heads in shame.
If the ball ever stops rolling, they’ll go to their graves blaming Trump and his deplorable army for spreading their hate to the gullible masses.
And until the left loses its total control of academia (and that will be the hardest institution to root them out of), that’s the version of history that will be taught. Or that America was corrupt from its founding (in 1619) and is simply irredeemable.
Utopians never fail, they are only failed.
I totally agree, James.
Bingo!
I liken Biden & Co. to Michal Douglass' corporate raider character Gordon Gekko in "Wall St." who made his fortune buying, then carving up companies and destroying the lives which depended on those companies. The same is being done to America. Our so-called captains of industry (along with their brethren on Wall St.) have spent the last 30 years selling off pieces of our once mighty industrial base to the highest bidder. Now the party of the ass is doing the same to our culture and our government. We have become a cell bitch for the WEF and the WHO, abandoning any loyalty or concern for the citizens who (allegedly) put them in power. The asses and their coconspirators in Hollywood and the MSM have been actively fomenting a race war and now moving onto brainwashing and mutilating your children -- at least those who are allowed to be born alive. Is it any wonder why depression is so rampant among the young, and especially so the progressive-identifying young, and even more so, girls.
Depressed 14-year old: "I feel empty inside and lost. Perhaps if I slice off my breasts I will feel whole again?"
Society: "Bless you for your bravery!"
As usual, Sasha - an excellent piece, by any standard.
"...they will have to hang their heads in shame for what they’ve done."
Except they won't. They are constitutionally incapable of shame because they have none.
"Those who run this country have to believe in it, have to believe in all of it."
Would that this was true - but clearly, it is not.
"And while it is cause for alarm, we also know that if we have faith in ourselves and if we have not given up on our country, we can find our way through this moment because we always have. But if we condemn or deny or erase our history we’ll never know that this too shall pass."
Tell me, if you can, just where might such faith be found? Those of us of a certain age and older are not the ones condemning, denying, or erasing history - we're the ones fighting to preserve it, but it is becoming clear that we're only defending against a tsunami using a bag of sand. Will this pass? The world has become quite small, and increasingly easier to be controlled by globalist financiers - I sincerely hope you are correct, but I have my doubts.
"We need our male heroes. We need our mothers. We need to tie them to past generations and to our own history. We need masculinity, and if all we do is punish it, diminish it and try to eradicate it, there is nothing else that can take its place."
True, but not only are we not welcome, there is no place for us in the country as it is, now.
I wondered when I might disagree with your views, and it is here:
"If you don’t believe in it, don’t let the door hit you on the way out."
I believe in the country you describe in the immediately preceding paragraph, but they will not just leave us behind to restore and rebuild because they are hell-bent on ruling us.
Just because I disagree doesn't mean that yours is wrong, or that mine is right, only that I find it challenging.
Your writing is a breath of fresh air. I'm glad that I have been able to enjoy it before darkness falls.
We survived Woodrow Wilson, we survived FDR, we'll survive this current cabal of dipshits.
More power to YOU! I wish I could be so confident!
What’s wrong with FDR? I thought he helped the country?
gold confiscation, japanese internment camps, wickard v filburn....
School shootings. Pass a law legally prohibiting the adults in a school from protecting the children, wait for the occasional nut case, blame Republicans and guns, never mention said law, rinse and repeat. (After all, people will not willingly get in the boxcars.)
Jesus told his disciples to buy a sword if they did not have one while preparing to travel. A failure to defend innocent life is a sin. Mass shootings in general are basically limited to gun free zones. Check out the Armenian Genocide, which happened after the Turkish government disarmed the Armenian Christians.
So the price of keeping our children safe in America is turning schools into fortresses. I grew up in the 70's and mass shooting weren't the problem they are now. IT'S THE GUNS And the right's abnormal worship of them. When your family's Christmas card features you and your children holding assault weapons..... you have a problem with guns ... guess what, so would jesus
No, there were just as many firearms in the 70s as there are today. I was in high school in the 70s and my high school had a gun club and firing range. It was very common to see rifles and shotguns in back window racks of unlocked pickup trucks in the school parking lot.
It's not the guns, it's the people.
No Jeff, it’s the guns.
Dave, guns don't shoot pull their own triggers. Only people can do that.
Seriously, you're going with the guns don't kill people, people kill people routine? Does our country have a different species of human than other countries? Why are we the world leader in firearm homicides per capita? https://www.healthdata.org/sites/default/files/files/ActingOnData/2021/firearm_Page_1.png
There isn't anything you know about this subject that I don't. I was a democrat my whole life. Gun control was my main issue. I have been studying mass murderers for over 20 years. I know the subject well. People like you are the ones with certainty that prevents us from getting to deeper issues. THAT is the problem. From lockdowns to drugs to manifestos - these things all have to be considered and dealt with. What I'm telling you is that what is happening with these people is bigger than guns. They will still find a way to kill.
The real problem for people like you is that you focus on mass shooters. Why? Because it gives you a chance to posture your moral superiority and blame the Right. You would NEVER look at crime in the big cities in blue states. You would NEVER look at nor talk about crime in those cities that kill way more than mass shootings do. Why? Because you'd have to blame yourselves and your dumb defund the police nonsense. All summer in 2020 calling the entire police force racist. Do you know what led to? A spike in deaths of CHILDREN. I know they were Black and all and weren't involved in high profile shootings where people like you could bloviate and pretend like you have all of the answers. There are enough guns in circulation that they can still buy them. Hell, they can print them on a 3-D printer. But yes, turn this into the next Prohibition while never trying to do what is necessary to protect kids and clean up the streets. My next piece is about this very subject.
We are most definitely not the world leader in per capita firearm homicides, but we do rank in the upper quartile and it is a problem, but it's not a problem with the machine, it's a problem with the minds behind the machine. The standard remedy offered by the anti-gun crowd is to collectively punish the innocent and responsible gun owner, which amounts to over 99.9% of U.S. gun owners. Then there's that durn U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights.
Sorry, but I beg to differ, sir. I'm a believer in the second amendment and do not abnormally worship my weapons. Why is it my obligation to forfeit my second amendment right because someone else abuses it?
Why as I type this comment are several tears rolling down my cheeks as you speak to me once again with your Substack? Like one of the commenters, I too vacillate between hope and resignation when I read your pieces.
I read the Fourth Turning a couple of years ago and am an increasing devotee as we clearly work towards the crisis. Then I read 1984. Have to watch the movie that you made me aware of today.
When you show up on Real Clear Politics in the "Most Read" section, you are reaching quite an audience and obviously speaking to it. Amazing for a newcomer. Keep it up please.
You have a genuine and compelling manner and message. You have gained a certain amount of traction with your writings. Why not a speaking tour? Perhaps a rotational group of speakers; each at a separate venue on a schedule. 3-4 speakers - one at each venue for a 4 week period in significant locations? A modern-day approach to Thomas Paine and The American Crisis/print/publications from the early stages of America's independence movement. Purpose: to spark that needed courage and leadership.
I think I'm too shy for that. :)
No worries. I sure appreciate what you say and do. This "turning" is a nasty one, but I am confident that America will right itself as it has in prior similar periods.
Lights are appearing and shining at the other end of the tunnel, and you are one.
Wow ... Remarkable insights, and from the heart, Shasha, each next article you deliver leaves me stunned ... just keep going if you can find the morale, your voice is important!
Sasha, that was one of the most incredible pieces of truth I have ever heard. I just wish I knew how to get my Democrat friends to open their eyes before it's too late.
Same here
Just read this on Michael Shellenberger's Substack Public:
Since World War II, psychologists have observed a relationship between political victimhood or grievance movements and aggression and violence. “The potential for aggression in victimhood movements is much larger than in the general population,” notes psychologist Sam Vaknin. “Anything that is grievance-based leads to violence and death."
Interesting to consider the relationship between the Dems, victim ideology, and violence.
True, but it isn't part of the Right's philosophy like it is on the Left, and you ignore measure.
And more importantly, it is the GOP, or rather its voters, that are persecuted today. Insurrectionists? really?
That vicious zombie mob yelling at Riley Gaines: “TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN!!!” 🤬🤬🤬
I don’t think I can unsee that or memory hole that.
I can see them just as easily in Orwell yelling “TWO PLUS TWO EQUALS FIVE!!! 🤬🤬🤬
Alternating with “more genders good, two genders bad!”