As the long-awaited global apocalypse unfolds before our eyes, I’ve done what any responsible citizen with a proper sense of duty — or in fact, any sense at all — would do: run away. The lovely Nina and I have withdrawn to a well-provisioned bolt-hole in one of the nation’s easternmost extremities, and as long as the booze and oysters hold out, we should be fine.
I’d add some pithy comment on the accelerating collapse of civilization — I might, for example, toss off a post about how neatly the outbreak of racial mob assaults in the US, and of full-scale rioting by the UK’s feral underclass, provide a tangible, earthy complement to the rather more abstract convulsions currently laying waste the financial markets — but there isn’t much one can say, really, that isn’t perfectly obvious to all anyway. Simply put, we’ve made a fine mess of what was once a highly promising civilization, and now it’s all going to hell.
The wisest course, as far as I can see, is to drink a lot and read old books until the mighty wave crashes through the door, or the waters subside. As a result, it might be rather quiet around here for a little while. Please feel free to browse our archives, or try the “View a Random Post” link at upper right.
Or, if you’ve never visited it, go poke around James Lileks’s fabulously entertaining website. Just the thing to distract yourself with while you’re bracing for impact.
16 Comments
Here’s some advice for you from the other Malcolm:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhjE-DpzQ0I
Good advice always, but it isn’t getting any easier.
I again recommend reflection on the words of David Lack: “We who are among the ripples are sometimes buffeted by them, and so we forget that, from the deck of S.S. Olympus, the sea is very calm.”
Of course, I am being buffeted, to the point of doubting whether I will be able to end my wage slavery on schedule. But I see nothing to suggest that Western Civilization is going to hell any time soon. Nonetheless, I concur in the advice to “drink a lot and read old books.”
“…the outbreak of racial mob assaults in the US…” This happened right where I work. Keep in mind, these kids are 8th graders:
http://ironicsurrealism.com/2011/08/11/violent-flash-mob-of-students-from-oprah-funded-obama-praised-school-assault-innocent-bystander/
The campaign of silence on this topic (and of attacking, instead, those who mention it), is outrageous, though not especially surprising. A couple of days after the Milwaukee assaults, for example, I searched CNN for any mention of it. Nada.
Bob, things may look peachy from the deck of the Olympus, but we mortals are stuck here in the water. And it’s looking awfully choppy.
Malcolm – Yes, we mortals are stuck here in the water, and sooner or later each of us will drown. Yet we we have the cpapacity to take an Olympian viewpoint even as we struggle to keep our heads above water.
These events should not be ignored. They are significant. The significance must be far more complex than is being suggested. The flash mobs in the U.S. come a decade after the end of welfare as we knew it. The return of Margaret Thatcher would not solve the English situation. Surely we can agree that, contrary to Dalrymple, suddenly requiring payment of tuition from kindergarten on would exacerbate, not eliminate, the “class discrepancies” that are being facilely blamed for this in both countries. My sense is this culture-of-dependency thing is more of a way for everybody else to label and shelve this phenomenon than it is an adequate explanation. For instance, if you work and earn $100, and the government gives me $100, and then we both have to figure out how to buy things with it, why would that subtle difference render me utterly indifferent to the sanctity of life and property, or bestow normal human feelings about those things on you? Maybe people in states with toll roads help little old ladies across the street, while the rest of us just refrain from running them over?
I think you are quite deeply mistaken about this, Jess. Yes, the return of Margaret Thatcher certainly would not solve the problem, but that’s because government growth is like a ratchet.
I think that dependency is deeply dehumanizing.
I am only “deeply mistaken” if you construe me as totally rejecting the role of dependency. If you reread what I wrote, I think even my joke at the end made clear I did not do so. I think dependency has explanatory value here somewhere in the same broad range as did gun culture or Arizona culture when we were explaining the Giffords shooting — you will see that my point is you’re coming out on opposite sides when people reach for easy explanations, as between those two situations.
I could go on & on about this: the parallels to Arab Spring, why race riots in the U.S. 40 years ago instead of now, what to say when we look at entire cultures like Soviet bloc countries in the Soviet era. I wasn’t motivated to get into this deeply; I just wanted to throw a bit of a spanner into the facile correspondence, including by reducing it to an absurd extrapolation.
Right: to compare an enervated life of uselessness on the public dole to not having to pay highway tolls is indeed an absurd extrapolation.
“…a decade after the end of welfare as we knew it”? In that past decade government expenditures have doubled, not least due to the expanding cost of social entitlements. The slightest effort to ratchet them down is met with demonstrations and general outrage from those affected.
Here’s facile for you: dependence upon the State is infantilizing, and infants throw tantrums when Mommy takes things away from them.
If I’m “coming out on opposite sides” re these riots and the Giffords shooting, it’s because I think there is no valid comparison to be made between them.
I’m sorry. I wish to avoid conflict. Doubtless you & Dalrymple are correct. There is something about the personal experience of Dalrymple and the Norwegian gunman that trumps my abstract approach.
Well, OK then.
Yes. I hadn’t seen that before. Your infant analogy is probably correct, whereas certainly the Gifford shooting proved to have no easy, liberal explanation.
You’re being oddly conciliatory, but I won’t argue.
Yee Haw!
[img]http://www.bubbleinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/looting-the-US.jpg[/img]