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Notes -
A Look into Hickman, wherein a Sensitive Young Man discovers the positional utility of money
Link the relevant tweet
I've written about Hickman before because I find him to be a very interesting character. This is a man who was purposefully homeless for years, a self-described constantly drunk anarchist, who then joined the coast guard to clean up his act, become a kind of hardcore catholic that doesn't quite fit neatly into the Online RadTrad mold, got married, had a kid, and now, apparently, self-supports via writing online. He's also something of budding real estate investor.
And although he still "hates money" he just can't deny that it's got some pretty nice features; like being able to live in good neighborhoods where your kids are safe as well as being able to choose the rough outline of your socio-political environment.
Hickman's journey isn't unique overall. It's definitely got a lot of color to it, of course. I see it, however, as a pretty normal process of becoming aware of second order social effects. As kids, we're inherently self-focused. Adolescence brings some awareness of things outside of ourself. Young adulthood continues that up to family formation. For most, however, it takes the actual having of children to ignite thoughts about the beliefs, behaviors, and opinions of larger groups of strangers.
Being 25 and single or dating means I have more or less complete control (or perceived control - memetic influence is for a different thread) over the ideas I let effect me. But a parent realizes that short of keeping their children locked up in the basement, their ability to totally control the kid's ideological intake is far from complete.
It's unremarkable to point out that what happens next is people use a combination of money and social organization to choose and maintain the ideological ecosystems within which their children live. Money can get you access to the right zip codes and/or private schools and clubs / sports. Social organization can get the right (wrong?) books banned from the public libraries, and the right (wrong?) drag queen story hour performers. Enter the ongoing culture war.
The interesting thing, to my mind, that Hickman's post illustrates is the reach of these topics. Hickman, although not living on the street anymore, is certainly on the fringe of "normal" society. He's a very-online yet pseudo Amish dirtbag Catholic who lives in dying upstate NY. Yet is talking in the same direction that leads to HOAs, school boards, zoning, planned communities and all the other things that are top of mind for the most milquetoast suburbanites. Short of a true EXIT mentality, you can't not be in the culture war.
And I think there's something useful here to contemplate in terms of the very Vibes based general feeling of anxiety that generates thousands of thinkpieces across main stream and alternative media and internet outlets. If many of us feel like non-voluntary conscripts in the culture war, it follows that we're fighting the war just to survive and get back home. But then the question becomes "what the hell is home?" There's no 40 acres and a Good Wife (TM) to walk with into the sunset. The HOA has problems with our lifestock and Wifey is at therapy and thinks we need to have a conversation about emotional labor. Or, for my progressive friends, the need to return that 40 acres to the indigenous rightful owners is really getting difficult because of the tax implications of the real estate sale and my polycule keeps breaking up while I'm talking to my lawyer.
Of course I'm having a little fun here, but the point stands; the political dream of the West post World War 2 was that a mix of economic and political liberality could ultimately result in an appreciable degree of autonomy for, at least, an individual if not a family. That no longer seems the case and there's been no real alternative identified. On the left, it's a kind of utopic socialism that can't ever actually work. On the right it's a very vibes based "RETVRN" ethos with some nihilstic streaks.
It seems like his real problem is not lack of money but lack of community. If you gather 5 large families that's enough to form homeschool group and friends for the kids, if you can't well... that's the problem. The Hasdics don't money to do all this the Amish don't either because they have a real community. If he's Catholic why can't his kids be homeschooled and make friends at church? You need a community for your kids to grow up in and into.
And his idea of Nantucket? of all places? Like moving to a very blue place in Massachusetts is going to lead his kids to be conservative Catholics and a state where it's considered child abuse to not transition your kids. There are dozens of states where childhood transition is illegal he could go there. Or St. Mary's the tradcath Mecca.
Ultimately though I think your wrong about family autonomy. He has family autonomy no one is going to force him to stop going to Church and if he doesn't like how the state educates his children he is free to do it himself or move to a state that's more in line with his values. Now I agree that the schools teaching weird gender stuff is a problem I really do. However, the issue he is really worried about is not family autonomy it's that his kids will convert to a different ideology do to him being a lone man in the sea of mass society. If the schools were that powerful they'd convert all the Muslim youth in Europe into good therapeutic deist liberals who support LGBTQ+.
Anyway you really don't need to deal with any of it if you don't want to. You just need to move to a red county in a red state and turn off the internet and get involved with the school board. Ideally somewhere like Wyoming or Nevada where the population is more libertarian. That's it. It‘s really not that hard or insurmountable.
Because he doesn't get along with normie tradcaths, they think he's a deadbeat for making his wife and baby live in a shack with no central heating and eat roadkill while he doesn't have a normal job. And in upstate New York, those are the only Catholic children around- there are of course novus ordo parishes to go to, but their congregations, like everyone else up there, are dying of old age. The other tribes of observant Catholics are, like most other people under seventy, not present in upstate New York.
There's also a few of the screwier sedevacantist groups in the general vicinity but they come with their own weird lifestyles that are unlikely to overlap with Hickman's.
St Mary's is not a tradcath Mecca. It is a funny farm where the SSPX stables its more embarrassing lay affiliates.
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Gonna disagree with you on the Chasidim; they are well-documented welfare cheats all throughout the northeastern US.
I just meant that they can raise their kids to follow their values outside of the failings of the American lower class without large amounts of money.
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