100ProofTollBooth
No bio...
User ID: 2039
100ProofTollBooth
3d ago
I am this demographic.
Political consciousness came online after college as a Reganite conservative. Realized there were some contradictions there but, more importantly, that the rot started far earlier. Progress to a William F. Buckley conservative and am now at the Willmoore Kendall level.
And am tradcath.
There is no "promised land" of small-c conservatism in the US. There is no city or state aside from maybe Idaho / Wyoming that is truly conservative all the way thru (and those I just listed have actually taken the libertarian blackpill). This is not to say it's a Lost Cause (is this the Jubal Early forum?!). The mission of small-c conservatives right now is pretty much lawfare. And, looking at SCOTUS and the legacy of Mitch McConnell, it's actually going damn well. Then again, the reaction to Dobbs has shown that America is so used to elective abortion that it doesn't actually want to give it up, despite posturing to the contrary. This is even more true with social spending and direct cash transfers.
On a social level, tradcath communities are real, vibrant, and actually growing especially among the Youths. The problem is internecine conflict. Some Gen-Z tradcaths are trying to be "more catholic than the Pope." YouTube Catholics seem to be largely YouTube first, Catholic second. The Pope himself ... well ... Jesus. The positive side is that it truly is a durable community. Moms (and Dads) routinely group babysit, there's always a potluck or sort of open dinner thing happening, people trade tips on schools, make business deals and connections, plan vacations together. A parish with a strong tradcath element (a giveaway is at least one Traditional Latin Mass per week) actually uses the Church building itself as a center for community instead of "spooky once a week lecture hall." This can all be done with relative ease because everyone is already one hundred percent bought in to a shared understanding of the True essence of morality, existence, and God. So, yeah, social trust levels are high. I do sometimes enjoy thinking about progressive families coming face to face with a playdate situation in which they have to think, "holy shit, I don't actually know anything about how this other family views the world, and I'm giving them my child for an afternoon." The kayfabe of "respect all backgrounds" disappears real quick.
The issue of concern both with small c-conservatism and American tradcaths is that we fail to avoid becoming fatalist crusaders. It's actually not that big of a deal to be a permanent minority so long as we can self-preserve (read: tradcaths babies on one hand, and politicians from rural states that have a structural advantage in the Senate on the other - even if those states are actually libertarian in concept). I do worry that there's a temptation to borrow from the Snake Handler Pentecostals and the Massive Resistance Southern Democrats to go on a campaign of self-immolation just to show how righteous we are.
A side bet for you: I would expect enrollment at small Catholic colleges (note: not seminaries, just explicitly catholic affiliated / run colleges) to spike for a few years.
100ProofTollBooth
22hr ago
This just makes me want to start sponsoring Knight of Columbus Taverns all across the country. Bolt 'em on to the local parish. Have to be a local or sponsored by one to attend.
Perhaps the Holy Spirit - in the form of the fully alcoholic blood of Christ and its various Irish and Scottish cousins - can move the younguns to form holy unions.
100ProofTollBooth
1d ago
I really like this response, I just want to pull out some more details.
"The missing step A" -- Is this the initial meeting between two young people? From what I can gather, it looks like you're saying that tradcath communities are great for getting a young couple on rails into a marriage, but bad at getting Harry to meet Sally at the dance. Is this accurate?
100ProofTollBooth
2d ago
They’re bankrupt and trads are scared of student loans. Right now the trend is against small Catholic colleges
I didn't know this. Thanks.
who are shifting towards charismatic Catholics to make up for it.
So .... protestants.
the broken marriage market
Yeah, I was remiss to have left that out. I think part of the thing about the Gen-Z Catholics that is worrisome is they think that tradcathin' will make marriage easier. It won't, it just makes the commitment to the idea that much more serious. The massive external danger is that the secular world looks at marriage as an easy in-and-out situation that one can simply eject from if they feel like it gets in the way of "who you are" (or other such nonsense).
100ProofTollBooth
22d ago
QuantumFreakonomics's comment did the most to influence my thinking. The car analogy is a good one to ponder.
Implement of mayhem aside, the issue of concern in my book is another small step forward to "lock up the crazies fast" but now expanding to the indirectly crazy - the parents.
Ever since the Virginia Tech shooting (possibly earlier) a steady mid-brow point has been "people with, ya know, really bad mental health problems, shouldn't have firearms ... and maybe knives ... cars could be bad too ... maybe we should commit them." The obvious slippery slope there is (a) There are plenty of well adjusted people who have mental health histories - what's to stop the state from arbitrarily deciding they are now a threat and (b) The obvious market adjustment that those with new mental health problems will simply conceal them and not seek help because of the risk of deprivation of basic rights. Where this gets especially dystopian is when known associates of any individual start to use "hey, you know he/she is really crazy right!" in vindictive personal lawfare. The best existing example of this is the weaponization of mutual restraining orders in divorce proceedings to try and secure an advantage in custody. I can see an easy early version of this in parents who, exasperated with a rebellious child, decide to inform "the authorities" that their angsty teen is, in fact, super coconuts and should be sent to one of those padded wall spots (while Mom and Dad enjoy some childless stay-cation time).
With this case, the message has been sent to parents of "troubled teens" that they might want to consider severely restricting their child's access to myriad things/activities/privacy/independence and, perhaps, even to begin involving "counselors" and other semi-state apparatchiks all to avoid personal liability in the event something drastic happens.
OR
The message has been sent to parents to not at all engage with their child's problems, and essentially hope they go away. But its important to maintain that plausible ignorance - again - to avoid personal culpability.
Being shitty parents has to absolutely remain 100% legal. If it becomes illegal to be a bad mom or dad, we're directly on the road to State-As-Parent, the elimination of privacy, and the enforcement of current political majoritarian monoculture at the nuclear family level.
100ProofTollBooth
1mo ago
Selecting "role models" from within the system just continues the current system. The flavors change like all seasonal consumer goods.
I've written before about the cartoonish man-boy masculinity in current marketing. (I mean, Jesus, they literally have a boy with a beard in the first 20 seconds of the clip. This is what the marketers think of you). What is marketed and allowed is a no-consequence, no-potency masculinity that's safe and fun for all ages. There are uncountable YouTube clips that draw the obvious parallel between a boy at toy shop and a Dad at Home Depot / Fleet Farm. Adult manhood in the west is a cute "awww, look at them play!" trope.
Even within the current system, you hear complaint about prolonged boyhood and doughy soft man boys. SNL keeps almost pointing at it. For the greatest example; Seth Rogen's entire existence and career. In fact, this is also where clowns like Tate fall short. Tate was a kickboxer - not a soldier. His "manly" development was in a tightly controlled professional sport. I will always remember the time when I got into a scuffle with a fraternity brother who was a Division-1 Wrestler. He handily stomped my drunk ass but I was surprised to see him obviously shaken up after the fight. In our drunken bro-hug reconciliation, he let me know that "that was the first time I've been in a fight, man!"
I think the crux of it lies in the fact that a society wide ritual of real consequence to mark the transition from boy to man has been effectively eliminated.
Through the 20th century, the transition I'm talking about was when boys banded together for a hunt or tribal level military service. Consequences were real, people got hurt, women weren't only not "allowed" - it would've been actively detrimental to have them involved. Thus, you also had real and meaningful identification of a fundamentally male activity (hunting / war). While that no longer exists, women still absolutely have their sacred capability and activity; motherhood (or, at least, the ability to be a mother even if not chosen). (For a different post, but I also think that moterhood is under systemic attack as well.)
In another post (which I'm too lazy to link to) I pondered about how to get something like this back up and running today. It's hard for a few reasons; 1) Hunting isn't at all "necessary" the way it was in societies past, so the social honor / social proof reward would be absent for some sort of rec-league hunting team 2) War is a contest of human-techno-logistical systems now and you need committed professionals. As much as I love my Marines, the "warrior spirit" can't help you against guided munitions 3) I can't actually bring myself to be okay with something on the order of 1-2 in 10 young men being permanently maimed / killed for no other reason than to help generally promote good society wide models of masculinity. The closest approximation I came up with is a re-worked National Guard program (male only) that would start at the end of High School with something like quarterly musters until the age of 50. So many legal / logistic problems with that and I don't know if it would actually result in much more than a federally subsidized "guns and bowling" league.
In short - I just don't have any good ideas for this one, but I know it's a massive problem.
Until we figure out that idea, modern secular man will be one version or another of perma-boyhood --- the "giggling at my own farts" of Seth Rogen or the "pussy and punching" paper Tiger of Andrew Tate.
Quick side note: I believe there are viable traditional religious solutions to this (surprise!) but those simply aren't broadly implementable without sprinting towards a theocracy.
100ProofTollBooth
1mo ago
76 Days sober.
Jan 1 - present.
I didn't have a rock bottom moment or full on dependency, but I was undoubtedly drinking far too much and for not good reasons. My estimate is somewhere just north of 1,000 drinks for 2023.
Expected: Energy, mood, discipline, mental health all far,far better. Everyone says this and it is true.
Unexpected: Quitting was easier than I thought. After day 10, I felt genuinely confident I could maintain sobriety. After day 20, I started to feel proud. After day 30, I actively started thinking about how much it would suck to relapse. After day 50 .... I just don't think about drinking anymore. I've been to dinners, bars, and hangouts with friends where everyone else was drinking and have had to turn down offers multiple times in one night. It just hasn't been hard. This was very unexpected.
There have been zero downsides. Social life hasn't suffered. A (minor) additional unexpected - the number of people who genuinely give you a "Good for you" style response and mean it. Some of these people, I think, may be struggling themselves.
100ProofTollBooth
1mo ago
I think this is a very valuable truth to highlight. Boomer's (and analyses of their life paths) tend to forget how easy it was to fuck around and NOT find out. I had an uncle who ended up in his 50s and 60s doing a very pleated khaki finance job who spent his 20s and 30s doing his best Jack Kerouac - bumming around the Western US, taking odd jobs to get from town to town, drinking, and drugging. He never had a rock bottom or come-to-Jesus moment, he literally just decided at about 35 "eh, better get on the straight and narrow" and more or less walked into a management job (insert something here about white male privilege if you like, but I think it's still a red herring). The point is a hop-on-hop-off respectable life was possible.
Now, you have kids who start out at 22 with $100k in worthless degree debt. You can't work at the grain elevator and scrape together a few hundred bucks to get closer to California when the service on your debt alone is $1,500 a month. The PMC has made hiring and firing such a bureaucratic nightmare that the interview-to-fully-onboarded process is benchmarked at 4 - 5 months. I think this is so that PMC HR types can then brag about themselves reducing it to three months when thirty years ago that timeline was probably three days.
All of this is to say that I don't think "The Path" is much different than it was. To @FarNearEverywhere's point, it's definitely more narrow because of PMC rent seeking and vampiric "I don't do the work but I help enable the work" grifting. More than that, however, we've setup these weird fundamental barriers to overcome that used to not exist. That's the real tragedy. It's important to remember that GDP and GDP per capita is still higher than its ever been (in a decade over decade sense, annual fluctuations notwithstanding) but the overall fluidity and flexibility of the system is greatly atrophied. There's a reason Andreesen-Horowitz (this is a mega VC firm that is the epitome of PMC not-actually-working-but-actuall-fucking-rich careerists) has a whole thrust for "American Dynamism." We've become the mass monster powerlifter who can still move a ton of weight, but takes 15 minutes to get out of the shower.
I categorically reject literal cellular biological modification when we have already developed, employed, and enjoyed a social, cultural, and legal mechanism to address the problem. Namely; monogamous marriage.
Societies have a funny way of coming out about 50/50 men and women. It's almost like the species wants to remain capable of replication and self-propagation. Evolution be like that. In fact, as your posts points out, when you mess around with that rough 50/50 ratio, things get bad. China today is an excellent example. In Post WW2 Russia / Soviet states, the insane loss of men created similar odd circumstances.
I wholeheartedly agree that lonely, sexless young men can easily turn violent and up end communities if not societies as a whole. But the answer there is to give them a progressing (not progressive) life narrative, roughly; learn, work, serve, get married, raise children, die with dignity. Society then backs this up by demonstrating and exalting the value of this life pattern. This, however, is what the sexual revolution dismantled in the 1960s. It replaced it with .... nothing.
Edit: Societies the world over have also, rightly, prioritized dealing with male aggression because that leads to murder, rape, and injury. What we're seeing with the destruction of the family paired with female economic self-sufficiency is female aggression. It's far less overt than its male counterpart and doesn't result in immediate massive physical harm. Yet, it does exist and it can still have massive societal negative effects. Dealing with it is hard. Women shouldn't go to jail for cheating or leading men on or playing gossip and indirect power games. The historical solution was very harsh social pressure - look up what they did to scolds in puritan New England. Hell, despite the very online attitudes against "slut shaming," the median western woman still uses sexualized gossip to malign her opponents. I'm not going to say I'm in favor of institutionalized mean girl-ism. That's ridiculous. I put my faith (literally) in social conventions, however, that have much more rigid guidelines for both inter and intra sex relationships up to and including marriage. Choose-your-own sexual and social norms create ambiguity, uncertainty, anxiety, and neuroticism. Does this sound like your median Millenial single person and married couple? Don't even start with Gen-Z who have all managed to hyper neruoticiziezize themselves into digital multi-personas paired with real world hermeticism.
I've said this more than a few times on the Motte; I'm not out to paint 1950s American suburban marriage as the idyllic to end all idyllics. There were real problems. But since the destruction of the nuclear family began, there has simply been no meaningful alternative. It's a boundary-less personal "freedom" out to infinity. Phrased differently; it's nihilism. Hedonic nihilism, but nihilism none the less.
I think your "modify genes at the species level" theory is, at best, a techno-liberal solution (to a problem that was previously addressed) with a whole host of side-effects and just the teeniest little bit of lace between itself and eugenics. At worst, it's full bore eugenics with a side dish of state sponsored misandry.
100ProofTollBooth
1mo ago
I know this is an excellent appraisal because I had never thought of it before yet it's so obvious once spelled out. This tracks fluidly with the fact that all people, when asked to give advice, often give advice calibrated to themselves, their circumstances, and their experiences. It's why billionaire tech bros say "take big risks and skip college", supreme court justices say "be diligent and patient in your studies", and broke boomer beach bums say "just keep on living, man."
This also tracks with something I've noticed over the past five years - young women today have ZERO game. I won't speculate on causes. I would state firmly, however, that mid 20s - 30s women of 10 years ago knew how to flirt (i.e. express interest in a masked way so as to promote escalation while mitigating the possibility of direct rejection) and otherwise be a complement to the strategies that men used to pursue them (if they were, in fact, willing participants in the seduction).
In fact, a lack of flirting was a pretty good signal to perceptive men that she wasn't interested. Nowadays, apparently, a blank stare and monosyllabic responses can mean everything from "you are the most repulsive creature in the galaxy" to "please take me away to the magical love castle on your sex unicorn now."
100ProofTollBooth
21d ago
I mean, n of 1 here, but I became religious slowly over the course of years and it all started by getting deep into analytic philosophy and rationalism in an attempt to merely "be better at thinking." I'll spare you my superhero internet warrior origin story, but my path to Christ started in a firmly modern, PMC, intellectualist garden.
The ironic part is that I also agree with you. Use whatever version of "no atheists in foxholes" aphorism you want, but it is true that a lot of people turn to religion in types of trouble. You can cope by gesturing at placebo and self-serving cognitive biases if you like, but doesn't it remain knee-slappingly silly to imagine the idea of someone shouting "I"D BETTER UPDATE MY PRIORS" when they're on a plane with two blown engines.
100ProofTollBooth
19d ago
Agree with other replies but will offer one counterexample; to the extent they still exist, actual cowboys tend to have almost comically good physiques. The buff-but-not-puffy bodies to maybe "just" extremely wire-y (I.e. very trim or cut with ropey muscles).
My theory is that the specific nature of range work means that cowboys can't afford to tote around extra weight all day, so they naturally develop a leaner body composition, yet, the power / strength activities of handling livestock also mean they don't fall into marathon runner levels of non-muscle.
100ProofTollBooth
1mo ago
Did Peterson ever come out and directly address his daughter and Tate?
That subplot always seemed incredibly wild to me.
100ProofTollBooth
1mo ago
Biden's rules will drown Detroit in a bathtub.
No, it will be a bathtub of blood. A bath of blood. A bloodbath.
It's going to be a bloodbath.
100ProofTollBooth
1mo ago
I'm with her
100ProofTollBooth
3mo ago
I can't remember who said this, I think it may have been one of the podcast bro's back in 2016, but part of Trump's attractiveness - as a born-into-wealth billionaire - to working class people is that he looks, sounds, and acts like they think they would if they were billionaires.
- He has a big plane with his name on it
- He
boughtmarried an exotic european supermodel - His business books are all about "hard nosed deal making" instead of .... EBITDA and capital structure leverage
- He had a big TV show about ... business-ing!
- Red ties and gold stuff everywhere
- He owns the golf course. He can probably, like, get beers brought to him!
- His sense of humor isn't a dry and acerbic wit (William F. Buckley, looking at you), it's name calling and the kind of cool kid in-group bullying you'd see from High School preps and jocks (which he is.)
This feeds into a comfortable narrative for working class southerners and midwesterners. Sure, he's a plutocrat, but, unlike Mitt Romney, I can envision him tearing into a Big Mac because I have seen him tear into a big mac a bunch of times.
One thing to point out: Trump gladly and gleefully wears MAGA ballcaps a lot. In $5000 suits. And it somehow looks ... normal? Most other politicians would never make the fashion faux pas of mixing a ballcap with a suit and, even if they did for some sort of folksy photo-op, it would seem about as natural as Hillary's southern drawl. Trump thinks his MAGA ballcap looks fucking awesome and so wears it with confidence, arrogance, and pinache. Double for the dick-length red ties.
Trump is, in fact, a real estate huckster. And if you're a working class dude or chick, you know a lot of real estate hucksters, or used car salesmen, or plumbers who do bad work and overcharge, or house painters who use lead paint still, or an electrician who's been electrocuted on more jobs than he hasn't...you're probably related to one or more of these people. So, Trump Is. Your. Guy.
(Side note: This is why Ramaswamay failed. He may be just as much of a huckster as DJT, but ... a biotech huckster? Not going to work)
100ProofTollBooth
1mo ago
This is the way.
Relegation would also help to reinvigorate old rivalries that have been demolished because of TV contract led conference realignment.
100ProofTollBooth
1mo ago
Perhaps I'm just becoming the new Hlynka
If you come at the King, you best not miss. Phrase different: Them boots ain't fit you.
I accept media animal welfare concerns in society because they are a good signally of generalized empathy. I believe it's safe to assert that anybody within the larger bounds of "normally functioning emotions" would be distraught to see a cat, dog, horse, other common domesticated animal be seriously intentionally hurt. And that's a good thing. It's a great signal that you would get really upset if a human (esp. a child) was similarly victimized. I draw the line at any sort of jail time for animal welfare offenses (perhaps with some exceptions around truly egregious cases that point to latent violent impulses).
The other line I draw, however, is any discussion of "honoring" animals or trying to devote serious financial resources to attempting to stop x species from dying. To me, this is a path to eugenics.
If you don't believe human beings are special, sacred, and/or divinely appointed in the universe, then I can't see how you stop yourself from taking these EA ideas to the extreme and eventually spouting things like "well, maybe we shouldn't breed as much so that kangaroos won't feel encroached" ... or something. If humans aren't a distinct class, does it not stand to that (satanic) reasoning that we ought to try equitably distribute resources and rights with our inhuman brothers and sisters? I don't know how this circle gets squared without the starting axiom of "humans are different, better, and more important than all other species. period"
So, again, if you're a cat person who desk-flips when you see a video online of kids terrorizing them - I'm with you and I agree.
If you think that we shouldn't build more hydropower because it might delete a turtle population - you're a killer.
100ProofTollBooth
1mo ago
No comment on the permaban decision.
I'm surprised at some of the reactions to the "oddness" of Hlynka's views.
They're pretty common classical conservatism (FiveHourMarathon highlighted the "Hobessian" nature of it all) mixed with Gen-X / Millenial combat veteran comedic-fatalism. @JTarrou - think I've missed the mark here?
I understand that some of the drive-by insults were against the rules - and should be. I wonder how much, in Hlynka's mind, they were 40-layer deep irony / edgelord pills. Google the "November Juliet" scene from Generation Kill. Or "Whopper Junior."
Again, as this comment started out, no opinion being offered on the ban decision. I'm just pondering Hlynka's nature.
100ProofTollBooth
1mo ago
My Catholic instinct is to tell you to Jesus up your Jesus meter until you get a sick Jesus turbo boost.
But, I'm aware that, on the Motte, the kids would say that's "sus" and I may even be accused of "cappin'"
Thus, allow me to perform a sinful heresy on your behalf and secularize what's basically a Christian imperative.
-
Ask yourself the question "What would you want to have happen in the world even if you were dead?" paired with "What do you want the world to be like 100 years after you die". I'd recommend doing the old trick of asking this question, going on a walk wherein you don't try to direct your thoughts, and then come back home to write no more than a single page (maybe 300 words at the most) to capture your thoughts. Do this once or twice a week for .... as long as it takes!
-
A little more prescriptive; read Infinite and Finite games by James P. Carse. And then find an infinite game to play.
100ProofTollBooth
1mo ago
Being hard-drinking in the 19th century was not a negative quality for a man
Never forget what They took from us!
100ProofTollBooth
1mo ago
I think this really quickly devolves into a semantic argument on the definition of pornography. So, let's avoid that and take it to the level of use or consumption.
If, like you, people are reading obscure Japanese doujin sites to try to explore the new depths / heights of frontier fiction, that's all well and good. I definitely don't subscribe to the idea that "Art" is only what The New Yorker deems worthy.
But hyperscale internet porn is not being used as an exploratory medium. It's an utterly cheap consumptive good that users mainline to meet base biological urges. The best comparison is absolutely processed sugar. It's such an overwhelming stimulant to the "yes, good, more!" part of the brain that it creates an almost addict like behavior pattern. When you're hyper-circuiting your brain by overcharging your endocrine system, there are no cycles left to devote to metaphysical pondering of the high concepts of art. My 3 hour jerk-fest to Backdoor Sluts 9 does not conclude with a new appreciation for the masculine-feminine dynamic.
So, this leaves us with the question of is it possible to separate and independently evaluate the medium from its most common consumption pattern? Can we look at "tasteful" amateur porn and draw some interesting conclusions about art and sexual behavior while casting away the comments section with such profound gems as "tits are meh. good bj"
I'd argue no - because the feedback loop in internet porn is inherently based on the consumption patterns of the users. PornHub makes money through data mining and algorithm building. Content creators there surf trends just as much as YouTube content creators. Indirectly, the consuming user today is the trend-setter for tomorrow. Operating at the speed and scale of the internet, this creates the insane feedback loops that lead to weird niches suddenly bubbling to the top. (faux-cest etc.)
So, is porn bad and are people who call themselves anti-porn worth taking seriously? Yes. Because they're not talking about the content in isolation, they're talking about the larger patterns, systems, and societal outcomes surrounding it. The Irish study presented above literally ends by saying "people who use porn a lot have bad lives. We don't like that they have bad lives." This is a far, far cry from the trope of a Nancy Reagan look alike waggling her finger at a few playboys found under a mattress. This is not a rejection of the primacy of human sexuality in culture. This is not puritanical rejection of the body. This is a principled stand against the degradation of beauty, intimacy, and pro-social functioning.
100ProofTollBooth
4mo ago
(Mixed rant / actual CW post. I defer to the Delphic wisdom of the mods to discern this)
New book by Blake Butler out.
What caught my eye was the uncharacteristically vitriolic nature of Tyler Cowen's post. He flatly states "I don’t know of any better argument for social conservatism than this book." That's the culture war angle which I invite comments on. It produced some thoughts regarding household privacy which I hadn't thought of before. Would there be progress across all of the trans/COVID restrictions/guns/abortion issues if we frame it as "just don't talk about some stuff and we're all fine."
But on to the semi-rant part.
It seems like both Butler and his wife are people supremely in touch with the importance of their own emotions and, even worse, their own perspectives of their own emotions. It really does seem like the unending continuation of a sophomore's first late-night dorm room pseudo-philosophy discussion. "But like, I feel like ... I kind of ... get it, man."
Take this from the review:
She is a ferociously hard worker, committed to her writing and her teaching (she is a professor of creative writing), and also to baking—an art, like poetry, that depends on precision. She loves philosophy and nature, Melville, Cocteau, the Detroit Pistons, and “The Office.” He is touched by her fragility, her willingness to expose herself to him. “Love someone back. / You just begin,” she writes in her poem “Hopes Up,” and, eventually, he takes her advice.
Philosophy. Nature. Baking. The Office(!). And two sentence platitude poetry. Forgive me if I'm not with "it" or, even worse, if, like Abe Simpson, I don't even know what "it" is anymore, but this seems like almost a parody of a bad basic b*tch dating profile. I wonder, would she have described herself as "quirky." I'll quickly chastise myself here for disrespecting someone who has taken her own life. Let's move to a deeper question.
From all accounts, Molly, Butler's wife, seemed to be a deeply troubled person who allowed her mental health issues to fester to such an extent that she behaved extremely poorly. True emotional spousal abuse, almost gleeful infidelity before and during marriage, and some questionable professional-personal decisions. Yet all of it seems to have been hand-waved away through a self-serving belief in some sort of deeper understanding of "the human condition." I remember thinking something similar when reading Christopher Hitchens on his own drinking. Hitch was a raging alcoholic, and he knew this. When he wrote about it, however...
I work at home, where there is indeed a bar-room, and can suit myself.… At about half past midday, a decent slug of Mr. Walker’s amber restorative, cut with Perrier water (an ideal delivery system) and no ice. At luncheon, perhaps half a bottle of red wine: not always more but never less. Then back to the desk, and ready to repeat the treatment at the evening meal. No “after dinner drinks”—most especially nothing sweet and never, ever any brandy. “Nightcaps” depend on how well the day went, but always the mixture as before. No mixing: no messing around with a gin here and a vodka there.
Oh, ho ho! What a card! Yes, he's sauced beyond belief, but have you seen his turn of phrase?.
It's a simple assertion; no amount of genius - real, imagined, or self-perceived - excuses you from being degenerate, abusive, socially irresponsible, or actively antagonistic. My worry is that Mr. Butler and his late wife were constantly so self-absorbed that they used a mix of literary romance, hyper-rationalization, and substance abuse to avoid engaging with a very normal, good, and productive feeling: guilt.
I've written before about how modern society ripped away traditional male gender toles and how that could be good, bad, or a mix. That's beside the point. The point is that it failed to produce any sort of replacement. It's a void and we're seeing the fruits of that.
In terms of guilt, a movement away from traditional religion may be good, bad, or mixed, but there's been no secular alternative. The Catholic church has a very prescriptive system and process for the sin-guilt-penance feedback loop[^1] I do not see the same in the modern secular culture. In fact, I see the opposite. The pop-psych concept of "self care" appears, to me, to be a blank check for instant and unequivocal absolution from responsibility. Did you sleep with a bunch of your spouse's friends, randos, and some of your own students? Do you have a drinking problem that's causing you to fail in your high trust relationships? Do you use social media as a social weapon? - take some time to understand your own trauma and experience. Where's the part about going "holy shit, I fucked up bad here and need to say sorry."?
This all ties up to a larger theory that modern and postmodern culture does two things that are mutually reinforcing in a downward spiral. (1) Emphasize the individual above all else (even the immediate family) and (2) Remove traditional social structures, expectations, and rituals and replace them with nothing so that the only refuge is deeper back into hyper-individualism. Sprinkle in our du jour oppression narratives and class struggle and you've got the perfect recipe for a level of personal-self deception that leads, ultimately, to self-destruction; suicide, in Molly's case.[^2]
Nature abhors a vacuum (I can use that cliche because I'm a bad writer who can't get published). It follows that those going around in their Hoover Uniforms and actually creating vacuums are truly deplorable.
[^1]: I know this religion the best, which is why I named dropped it. My assumption is that the other Abrahamics, at least, have something similar. [^2]: Caveat that I am not wholly blaming modern culture for causing Molly's mental illness, but I am saying it probably abetted its growth and the lady's ultimate demise.
100ProofTollBooth
2mo ago
The people I meet IRL aren't interested in having deep conversations about the things I'm interested in, and navigating modern conversation norms is exhausting.
"I gave up drinking, but I'm so smart I can't have conversations with the normies" isn't the vibe you want to give off, my guy.
Turn it into a game - learn how to do the normie conversation dance and get good enough at it you can lead them to having the "deeper" conversations you value. The major up front caveat here is that "deep" conversations can, and should, be about whatever topic BOTH parties are interested in. Don't be that guy who just steers conversation toward whatever your thing is. That's selfish. Everyone craves these "deep" conversations but a lot of people think "deep" only counts if its their preferred flavor of "deep."
But, let's go ahead and think of the bigger (deeper?) picture -
All conversation is valuable if you want it to be. Small talk is underappreciated and over-maligned. Small talk shows you can have easy, non-weighty conversation with all types of people and not DEMAND up front commitment to a three hour navel gazing session. In fact, conversation among close friends is 99% small talk but with shared references and values that make it highly enjoyable. If you really want to try to convince me you aren't guilty of slinging memes back and forth with your besties, I'll believe you on this holy internet forum of honesty - but will you believe yourself?
Small-talk is people trying to let you in for the deeper stuff while guarding themselves. If you can't tolerate that then they are absolutely right in not wanting to talk to you.
Finally, and I mean this charitably, take a second to decide if what you really want is to have a conversation with another unique human .... or to have an audience.
The current PMC populated by boomers, some Gen-Xers, and woke millenials is, historically speaking, a weird outlier. That the PMC even exists, let alone the level of power and influence it enjoys, is a direct byproduct of the amazing economic conditions from 1945-2005. DEI departments and woke education master's degree holders only exist in a society that has so much extra wealth that these people can do their non-jobs and not starve. In a real economic depression, a lot of them get canned quick. In a period of re-expanding growth, you'll see the actually productive surpass them and, frankly, hold a louder microphone. Examples: Mr. Musk and Mr. Thiel.
Returning to the primary point, who are those communities who have both the fecundity and financial-ity (i really wanted to rhyme to work, sorry) to build the next leaders of society? Well, we already told you.
You bring up the "that's a lot of ifs" argument quite a bit. I'd say that any large scale strategy is predicated on risk-adjusted decisions about how to allocate resources and then conduct operations. If you're waiting for an absolutely bulletproof plan that is blindingly obvious in its multi-decade efficacy, I think you might want to talk to some dead Chinese fellows about how that works out.
"The state is coming for your kids and will also maybe kill you." Although a bit dramatic, I agree with you. I have faith that that tide will turn back and, in some pockets, already has. Glen Youngkin won in VA largely because he said "Hey, stop teaching kids woke stuff in public school." The college protests of late are also great fuel to the fire for school choice and hefty parental veto rights. The most indoctrinated kids are paralyzingly anxious and fail to continue to exert the same level of cultural influence their parents did. If working more than 3 hours a day creates "trauma" for you, I'm not worried about you outbuilding me.
"What if it is already too late and we're fucked." Well, then we're fucked. And I get to die and go home to Jesus, which is already the point. I know that's an argumentative cop out and I truly am sorry for it, but when people keep going down the recursive rabbit hole of "what if you're wrong about that? and that? and that?" Then, I guess if so many of my past, present, and future assumptions are all horribly flawed, I deserve the apocalypse. The Good News (read that capitalization carefully!) is that I, like Lizzy Warren, Have A Plan For That.
More options
Context Copy link