Suicide of the West

[Chris]

Jonah Goldberg promotes his latest book, Suicide of the West: : How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy, in a long, provocative essay.

He opens with "Capitalism is unnatural. Democracy is unnatural. Human rights are unnatural. God didn’t give us these things, or anything else. We stumbled into modernity accidentally, not by any divine plan." It was, as others have called it, a Miracle. And it's killing itself.

Children as barbarians made me laugh, so I'll post that and criticism of capitalism.

...People learn virtue first and most importantly from family, and then from the myriad institutions family introduces them to: churches, schools, associations, etc. Every generation, Western civilization is invaded by barbarians, Hannah Arendt observed: “We call them children.” Civil society, starting with the family, civilizes barbarians, providing meaning, belonging, and virtue.

But here’s the hitch. When that ecosystem breaks down, people still seek meaning and belonging. And it is breaking down. Its corruption comes from reasons too numerous and complex to detail here, but they include family breakdown, mass immigration, the war on assimilation, and the rise of virtual communities pretending to replace real ones.

First, the market, as Joseph Schumpeter argued, maximizes efficiency with relentless rationality, tending to break down the sinews of tradition and the foundations of civil society that enable and instill virtue. Yet those pre-rational virtues make capitalism possible in the first place.

Second, capitalism also creates a mass class of resentful intellectuals, artists, journalists, and bureaucrats who are professionally, psychologically, and ideologically committed to undermining capitalism’s legitimacy (as noted by Schumpeter and James Burnham, the author of another book titled “Suicide of the West”). This adversarial elite is its own coalition.

Thus, people increasingly look to Washington and national politics for meaning and belonging they can’t find at home. As Mary Eberstadt recently argued, the rise in identity politics coincided with family breakdown, as alienated youth looked to the artificial tribes of racial or sexual solidarity for meaning. Populism, which always wants the national government to solve local problems, is in vogue on left and right precisely because local institutions and civil society generally no longer do their jobs. Indeed, populism is its own tribalism, because “We the People” invariably means “my people.” As Jan-Werner Müller notes in his book What Is Populism?: “Populism is always a form of identity politics.”...

[roadmaster]

Nationalism is good for a country. It's the Presidents job to look after our own country, security, borders and jobs. The country they are the President of should always come first and it's citizens.

[Mister D]

Not sure what to make of this. I subscribed to National review for for 5 or 6 years but ultimately let my subscription expire because they got it so wrong on immigration. I may be wrong but I remember Goldberg being one of their Jewish writers who consistently poo pooed the concerns many Americans have had regarding what I can only describe as a brown tidal wave descending on our country.

[Bo-4]

PLEASE Chris - Jonah Goldberg is a certifiable Loon & conspiracy theorist

Three months ago on the Twit:

Every conspiracy theory about the government rests on the assumption that the government is infinitely evil and infinitely competent. It's much closer to the opposite, at least on the latter point.

[Mister D]

PLEASE Chris - Jonah Goldberg is a certifiable Loon & conspiracy theorist

Three months ago on the Twit:

Every conspiracy theory about the government rests on the assumption that the government is infinitely evil and infinitely competent. It's much closer to the opposite, at least on the latter point.

He's mocking conspiracy theorists, Bo. You don't even need any context to gather that. I have to wonder if you ever stop and actually think about what you're being told by progressive editorials.

[Chris]

Not sure what to make of this. I subscribed to National review for for 5 or 6 years but ultimately let my subscription expire because they got it so wrong on immigration. I may be wrong but I remember Goldberg being one of their Jewish writers who consistently poo pooed the concerns many Americans have had regarding what I can only describe as a brown tidal wave descending on our country.

Don't recall his stance on immigration. He wrote Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. Probably why Bo doesn't like him.

[Chris]

PLEASE Chris - Jonah Goldberg is a certifiable Loon & conspiracy theorist

Three months ago on the Twit:

Every conspiracy theory about the government rests on the assumption that the government is infinitely evil and infinitely competent. It's much closer to the opposite, at least on the latter point.

You didn't bother to read a word of what he wrote, saw the name, and attacked. Dismissed.

[Mister D]

Don't recall his stance on immigration. He wrote Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. Probably why Bo doesn't like him.

@Peter1469 and I read that at about the same time.

I could be wrong. I haven't read that magazine in ages but I remember Goldberg being part of the neocon crowd that drove the paleos out and castigated Pat Buchanan. Ia also remember Goldberg defending NR's termination of John Derbyshire who was the only reason I stuck around toward the end.

[Mister D]

Don't recall his stance on immigration. He wrote Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. Probably why Bo doesn't like him.

Most likely.

[Chris]

@Peter1469 and I read that at about the same time.

I could be wrong. I haven't read that magazine in ages but I remember Goldberg being part of the neocon crowd that drove the paleos out and castigated Pat Buchanan. Ia also remember Goldberg defending NR's termination of John Derbyshire who was the only reason I stuck around toward the end.

Derbyshire was good.