Top to bottom, this is extraordinarily well covered. I see much of this motif across the counseling profession (my profession) wherein the therapists defer to collectivism in order to avoid accountability and, in turn, avoid ruffling feathers of the in-group. This begins in the graduate programs that are soaked in postmodern deconstructionism, continues to the community providers and through to the licensing boards.
The thick irony, of course, is that the patients who seek us out want the exact opposite. They want personal agency, individual autonomy, and internal control locus. But the clinicians either cannot or dare not work that direction because it is either too foreign and thereby scary, or their simply too incompetent because they themselves don't practice it.
The ability to stand on one's own two feet and utilize millennia of resilience has been eroded throughout our schooling, labeled as "toxic masculinity" or "white supremacist" or some such other undesirable -ism, so the result is that no one wants to be accused of being the bad guy. That's why there's no pushback on this crap. The few of us who do it, or have done it, risk or experience social ostracization from peer colleagues, which we are told is a cardinal sin.
I decided many years ago I didn't particularly care about those opinions because they aren't the people I'm serving. And it turns out, I was right: the broader populace wants, craves, and in fact needs structure, anchoring, and direction. Unless they're firmly on the left, people are, broadly, sick and tired of deferring to the collective and eschewing personal accountability. Thousands of years of evolution cannot be so easily overridden and reprogrammed.
The problem is that the conservatives are usually not interested in fighting, so they just go along to keep peace but it is at their own peril. Now it seems they're waking up but lack the voice to say so because it's been two or three generations of having it stolen in the schools, from elementary through college. If reasonable people are to correct this trend, they will have to find their voice, and not only use it, but also recuit others to do so as well. This requires a courage to face down the fear of being namecalled, and an ability to withstand the narcissistic abuse that will inevitably accompany taking a stand.
Will we find enough people? It's hard to say, but I am simultaneously optimistic (due to what I'm seeing personally and professionally) and concerned, if for no other reason than our collective response to the Epstein files was a collective shrug rather than pitchforks and torches. I'm afraid we're too fat, dumb, and happy with our streaming services and instant delivery to be too bothered with any kind of pushback. As long as the bread and circuses continue, I don't know that we'll find the motivation en masse to do anything to prevent the inevitable downfall.
I think the counseling world also has a problem with people wanting to be saviors and forgetting their job is to encourage the patient to stand on their own two feet. Therefore, resilience is deemphasized further.
As for society. It only takes a modest number to really change things. The majority will always conform.
The goal is to help the frustrated to recognize “conservatives” are really liberals with a slightly different vocabulary. They are not the solution. They are keeping the problem in place.
Time will tell if America will react to the abuse of elites. I think it will.
Which is by the way why I don't call myself "conservative" (or "moderate" as the local colloquialism is, despite it being outdate by some 50 years); reactionary atavism all the way.
Reactionary, because that is the actual oppositional position to progressivism.
Atavism, because the biological meaning is equally applicable to sociological phenomena.
My talking-point over here:
"Any and all citizenships and residency permits awarded after 1975 must be supended pro tem and revised and checked against the individual's record. If they are self-supporting, law-abiding, and not engaged in subversive action against the kingdom, they may be granted a temporary citizenship, to be reviewed every five years. They will not be allowed to vote or hold office or any senior position in any official capacity. Any migrant found to be not self-supporting and/or a convicted criminal is to be put in a concentration camp pending repatriation, no matter if they are fourth of fifth generation. Any migrant with claims to asylum is to be put in a camp for asylum-seekers, and never be allowed to leave barring to go home."
While most will call that a bot extreme, 99 out of 100 is onboard with leeches and criminals being put into camps pending deportation, and will ask in an outraged tone: "Why isnät that being done?! I thought criminals were deported!" when told fewer than 5% of migrants convicted of crimes are sentenced to deportation, and that even then most of them are allowed back inside ten years.
In short - for a good ground for normality, look to the pre-1970s era and use that as your "position of reasonable compromise".
Fantastic. You are correct of course. Common sense then is now extremism. They have a right to family life even if they commit crimes etc.
The elites have lost their minds, and official conservatives are there to provide cover for obviously destructive policies. I am tired of people looking to mainstream parties to help them. They are all part of the same circus.
Any sign of these "stronger people" coming forward? I see absolutely no sign of them. People are pinning their hopes on Nigel Farage but he's merely yet another cheek of the multi-cheeked arse of politics. Rupert Lowe seems promising but is a lonely voice likely to lose his seat at the next election because he's unattached and I think people still want to vote for a party and not a person. Our political system ensures the system survives no matter how weak and broken it is. We, the people, have no power to change it. We can't even stop paying our taxes in protest thanks to the oh-so convenient PAYE system. We can take to the streets with banners and be completely ignored or called racists/fascists/xenophobes/rightwing nazis. I agree with your analysis and you are not alone in describing our catastrophe but, so far, nobody has come up with a viable solution.
“People are pinning their hopes on Nigel Farage but he's merely yet another cheek of the multi-cheeked arse of politics. “
In another group I followed long ago, these people were derogatorily dismissed as “gate keepers”. The implied meaning being that they served primarily to distracted folk from the essence of the problem, and thereby prevented effective attempts at “solution”.
The current essay by Spiff aptly describes the problem with faux conservatives, or “gatekeepers”.
That said, they seem to be failing. I am shocked at how much Farage has dropped the ball. The votes from disgruntled Labour and Conservative voters were his for the taking. Now I note even those not paying attention are criticizing them.
You bring up a good point. I’ve about given up “waiting for Superman”. The only hope I gather these days is precisely those examples you point out—that of “groundswell” or “organic” change/resistance coming from the people revolting when the Left overreaches.
I suspect what is happening with Rupert Lowe is real and could attract a lot of momentum. Like Brexit, we are absolutely at odds with the ruling class and they will ultimately lose.
But the immigration issue has left us with a serious problem. So that will preoccupy us for some time.
My comment: “A brilliant essay. Politics traditionally used to be right vs. left. When that no longer made sense, I considered it to be good vs. evil. Complementary hard vs. soft makes perfect sense. Forty years ago, Margaret Thatcher used the word “wets” to describe the soft leftists in her own party.”
I agree with your take on Farage. He is very much in the club, and would have a huge rant at the thought of being called racist, xenophobe or anything similar. Until somebody (maybe Rupert Lowe, I haven't studied his recent history very much) appears on my TV and says "I don't care what you call me, these are my policies and they reflect the wishes of the majority of the actual taxpayers of this country" then I remain hugely sceptical of anyone on the so-called right in Britain. One major problem now is that all of the huge public services and civil service management class , the benefits-sucking class and the non-productive immigrants are such huge potential client groups that a Rupert Lowe-type figure needs to be sure that he has the numbers amongst "the rest of us" to carry the day, so to speak.
I agree. But equally so we need something to rally around. Reform are clearly a farce. So far Lowe looks legitimate. He could attract some serious help. I cannot believe everyone in the Establishment seeks our destruction.
My position shifted over the last few years, and methinks it's a natural consequence of learning and accepting just how rotten our present condition is. It's not just a question of political party or ideology, the rot goes deeper.
I don't disagree with your overarching idea of conservatives basically being a different strain of liberals, but the three qualities you mentioned (decentralization, independence of mind, working without supervision) as core elements in the more traditional cultural modes of living, these don't strike me as the result of any political ideology. These feel more like echoes of virtuous living, going all the way back to the Greeks, so obviously "tradition" etc.
If anything, I think the big con job - since the end of WW2 - done to everyone, right and left, was to pretend there is such a thing as the center-left and center-right. I think this is the core idea everyone needs to wake up from. It sucks and it's painful to admit to.
The center-right - republican or Tories - pretended to be anchored to tradition and hierarchy, but if we're being honest, it's always been friends with business and this comes from being captured by neoliberalism (neoliberalism emerged post WW2 and it's godfathers were trotskyists in the USA who needed a home after Trotsky got killed in 1940; it's a very fascinating story). Meanwhile not to be outdone, the center-left got conned by the emergence of the new left in the 1960s (the goal was to divorce leftists from communism, funded by the CIA center for cultural freedom, active in post-WW2 reconstruction since the 40s) with the sexual revolution, rock'n'roll, hippie culture and later this morphed into progressives in the 90s (based on critical theory, which was birthed in the 60s). The curiosity here is the "left" gradually abandoned "labor rights", which was its original point of origin (Communism and socialism also draw from the well of liberalism, which is not surprising all of a sudden!) and by the 90s leftist politicians took to fundraising with the same big business donors that traditionally supported the center-right.
I don't think conservativism exists as an ideology, it's more a longing for a golden past (that never existed).
The whole uniparty phenomena is the realization that actually regardless of who's in power we get continuity of agenda. This is true across the West, perhaps more in your face in the USA and UK, but just as true in Germany, France, Italy and Spain.
As far as I'm concerned, the infamous "deep state" is actually a mosaic of the secret services and military running the high level stuff and a combo of an uncontrollable bureaucracy, institutional capture by vested interests and business, the whole think-tank and ngo networks (you mentioned). All of this has been decades in the making, it wasn't created overnight, and might even have evolved spontaneously over time. When politicians get selected (elected), they're all virtually incapacitated by bureaucracies and procedures.
The climate initiatives and the whole dei stuff is more accurately described as partly a result of liberal ideological capture of the institutions (the universities and NGOs etc), and partly by vested interests (club of Rome, Fabian society, bilderberg, wef).
I think we're in the early stages of an awakening consciousness of just how fubar everything is. And for better or worse, DJT has been the catalyst, not so much because of what he did/does, but because of the way he's transformed everything into a spectacle and a lot of hidden things have appeared and people are waking up wondering wtf happened.
Today I listened to Robert Malone on Rogan. Well worth a listen to them ripping into the fake media space and financial capture of medicine.
If we look back at the whole Covid era, it becomes clear across all political parties and states, it's one big blob. And it's getting worse in terms of free speech, the conflict in the levant and the institutional capture across the West by a religious minority, etc etc
I agree with what you say. Perhaps my take is I was born into an era where the traditional left have been destroyed by the progressives, and the conservatives use the language of a previous era to differentiate themselves, but ultimately change nothing.
I agree it is one big circus and the clowns in office today are absolutely interchangeable with whoever will be selected for tomorrow.
I think a lot of what we see is not machiavellian scheming. I think much of it is emergent based on the phenomenon you list, including the offshoots of critical theory, neoliberalism, consumerism, even the effects of widespread affluence. I’ve often wondered if there are no elites as such, just some groups or individuals adept at reacting to things that happen. Crashes, health scares, wars etc. I am quite skeptical of the grand conspiracies I read about. What I do see of elites is often unimpressive.
As for the article. We must remember most people aren’t aware of concepts like a uniparty or the Fabians, the Rockefellers or even the Soros Foundation. I think many people need the basics explained.
I find it useful to allow myself the flexibility of contradictory ideas/visions. So for instance, I agree with your take on emergent phenomena, while keeping in mind there potentially could be some larger than life characters trying to be play top dog.
The confusion here is the assumption that individual liberty is a right wing principle when that's what made the ground fertile for modern leftism in the first place. Individual liberty is the same thing as mass society, its true opposite is hierarchical and overlapping intermediate institutions that give individuals mutual obligations but as a result have some measure of sovereignty that an individual could never have. Family is the most obvious example, families are not free when every member does whatever he feels like but when fathers can coordinate them.
Top to bottom, this is extraordinarily well covered. I see much of this motif across the counseling profession (my profession) wherein the therapists defer to collectivism in order to avoid accountability and, in turn, avoid ruffling feathers of the in-group. This begins in the graduate programs that are soaked in postmodern deconstructionism, continues to the community providers and through to the licensing boards.
The thick irony, of course, is that the patients who seek us out want the exact opposite. They want personal agency, individual autonomy, and internal control locus. But the clinicians either cannot or dare not work that direction because it is either too foreign and thereby scary, or their simply too incompetent because they themselves don't practice it.
The ability to stand on one's own two feet and utilize millennia of resilience has been eroded throughout our schooling, labeled as "toxic masculinity" or "white supremacist" or some such other undesirable -ism, so the result is that no one wants to be accused of being the bad guy. That's why there's no pushback on this crap. The few of us who do it, or have done it, risk or experience social ostracization from peer colleagues, which we are told is a cardinal sin.
I decided many years ago I didn't particularly care about those opinions because they aren't the people I'm serving. And it turns out, I was right: the broader populace wants, craves, and in fact needs structure, anchoring, and direction. Unless they're firmly on the left, people are, broadly, sick and tired of deferring to the collective and eschewing personal accountability. Thousands of years of evolution cannot be so easily overridden and reprogrammed.
The problem is that the conservatives are usually not interested in fighting, so they just go along to keep peace but it is at their own peril. Now it seems they're waking up but lack the voice to say so because it's been two or three generations of having it stolen in the schools, from elementary through college. If reasonable people are to correct this trend, they will have to find their voice, and not only use it, but also recuit others to do so as well. This requires a courage to face down the fear of being namecalled, and an ability to withstand the narcissistic abuse that will inevitably accompany taking a stand.
Will we find enough people? It's hard to say, but I am simultaneously optimistic (due to what I'm seeing personally and professionally) and concerned, if for no other reason than our collective response to the Epstein files was a collective shrug rather than pitchforks and torches. I'm afraid we're too fat, dumb, and happy with our streaming services and instant delivery to be too bothered with any kind of pushback. As long as the bread and circuses continue, I don't know that we'll find the motivation en masse to do anything to prevent the inevitable downfall.
I think the counseling world also has a problem with people wanting to be saviors and forgetting their job is to encourage the patient to stand on their own two feet. Therefore, resilience is deemphasized further.
As for society. It only takes a modest number to really change things. The majority will always conform.
The goal is to help the frustrated to recognize “conservatives” are really liberals with a slightly different vocabulary. They are not the solution. They are keeping the problem in place.
Time will tell if America will react to the abuse of elites. I think it will.
100 percent that's the case. To wit, this recent article:
https://open.substack.com/pub/opentherapyinstitute/p/codifying-bias-how-activist-politics
Another profession hollowed out by the progressive left. There is nothing they won't try to infect.
Yes, please and thank you for this.
Which is by the way why I don't call myself "conservative" (or "moderate" as the local colloquialism is, despite it being outdate by some 50 years); reactionary atavism all the way.
Reactionary, because that is the actual oppositional position to progressivism.
Atavism, because the biological meaning is equally applicable to sociological phenomena.
My talking-point over here:
"Any and all citizenships and residency permits awarded after 1975 must be supended pro tem and revised and checked against the individual's record. If they are self-supporting, law-abiding, and not engaged in subversive action against the kingdom, they may be granted a temporary citizenship, to be reviewed every five years. They will not be allowed to vote or hold office or any senior position in any official capacity. Any migrant found to be not self-supporting and/or a convicted criminal is to be put in a concentration camp pending repatriation, no matter if they are fourth of fifth generation. Any migrant with claims to asylum is to be put in a camp for asylum-seekers, and never be allowed to leave barring to go home."
While most will call that a bot extreme, 99 out of 100 is onboard with leeches and criminals being put into camps pending deportation, and will ask in an outraged tone: "Why isnät that being done?! I thought criminals were deported!" when told fewer than 5% of migrants convicted of crimes are sentenced to deportation, and that even then most of them are allowed back inside ten years.
In short - for a good ground for normality, look to the pre-1970s era and use that as your "position of reasonable compromise".
Fantastic. You are correct of course. Common sense then is now extremism. They have a right to family life even if they commit crimes etc.
The elites have lost their minds, and official conservatives are there to provide cover for obviously destructive policies. I am tired of people looking to mainstream parties to help them. They are all part of the same circus.
Any sign of these "stronger people" coming forward? I see absolutely no sign of them. People are pinning their hopes on Nigel Farage but he's merely yet another cheek of the multi-cheeked arse of politics. Rupert Lowe seems promising but is a lonely voice likely to lose his seat at the next election because he's unattached and I think people still want to vote for a party and not a person. Our political system ensures the system survives no matter how weak and broken it is. We, the people, have no power to change it. We can't even stop paying our taxes in protest thanks to the oh-so convenient PAYE system. We can take to the streets with banners and be completely ignored or called racists/fascists/xenophobes/rightwing nazis. I agree with your analysis and you are not alone in describing our catastrophe but, so far, nobody has come up with a viable solution.
I think Lowe is the future. He has announced his party, and that is how it starts. He is not a creature of the Establishment, and that matters.
I sense enormous pressure building. Our patience has been tested to the limit. We must expect to have to fight for it and I think we will.
It cannot be business as usual, so the way ahead will not be simple. But I suspect there are many waiting in the wings, keeping their powder dry.
“People are pinning their hopes on Nigel Farage but he's merely yet another cheek of the multi-cheeked arse of politics. “
In another group I followed long ago, these people were derogatorily dismissed as “gate keepers”. The implied meaning being that they served primarily to distracted folk from the essence of the problem, and thereby prevented effective attempts at “solution”.
The current essay by Spiff aptly describes the problem with faux conservatives, or “gatekeepers”.
That said, they seem to be failing. I am shocked at how much Farage has dropped the ball. The votes from disgruntled Labour and Conservative voters were his for the taking. Now I note even those not paying attention are criticizing them.
You bring up a good point. I’ve about given up “waiting for Superman”. The only hope I gather these days is precisely those examples you point out—that of “groundswell” or “organic” change/resistance coming from the people revolting when the Left overreaches.
I suspect what is happening with Rupert Lowe is real and could attract a lot of momentum. Like Brexit, we are absolutely at odds with the ruling class and they will ultimately lose.
But the immigration issue has left us with a serious problem. So that will preoccupy us for some time.
Spiffy, excellent commentary on pertinent issues.
"When they do act or speak they often pick a safe version of a sensitive issue."
Timidity is the rule
Intentional obfuscation usually. Keep it to the shallow end of the pool so they can say they are debating the great issues but nothing changes.
I’m tired of trying to rationalise why we are in such a mess! I agree with your final paragraph that they need to be sent packing.
Here’s a recent post by el gata malo touching on the same theme: https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/hard-limits-to-soft-power
My comment: “A brilliant essay. Politics traditionally used to be right vs. left. When that no longer made sense, I considered it to be good vs. evil. Complementary hard vs. soft makes perfect sense. Forty years ago, Margaret Thatcher used the word “wets” to describe the soft leftists in her own party.”
Here’s my recent comment on the issue of Net Zero and the role of the deep state: https://open.substack.com/pub/davidturver/p/ar7a-results-expose-government-lies?utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=214766489.
They are the Establishment, whether left or right. Their job is to sell the ambitions of the ruling class.
I agree with your take on Farage. He is very much in the club, and would have a huge rant at the thought of being called racist, xenophobe or anything similar. Until somebody (maybe Rupert Lowe, I haven't studied his recent history very much) appears on my TV and says "I don't care what you call me, these are my policies and they reflect the wishes of the majority of the actual taxpayers of this country" then I remain hugely sceptical of anyone on the so-called right in Britain. One major problem now is that all of the huge public services and civil service management class , the benefits-sucking class and the non-productive immigrants are such huge potential client groups that a Rupert Lowe-type figure needs to be sure that he has the numbers amongst "the rest of us" to carry the day, so to speak.
I agree. But equally so we need something to rally around. Reform are clearly a farce. So far Lowe looks legitimate. He could attract some serious help. I cannot believe everyone in the Establishment seeks our destruction.
Interesting essay.
My position shifted over the last few years, and methinks it's a natural consequence of learning and accepting just how rotten our present condition is. It's not just a question of political party or ideology, the rot goes deeper.
I don't disagree with your overarching idea of conservatives basically being a different strain of liberals, but the three qualities you mentioned (decentralization, independence of mind, working without supervision) as core elements in the more traditional cultural modes of living, these don't strike me as the result of any political ideology. These feel more like echoes of virtuous living, going all the way back to the Greeks, so obviously "tradition" etc.
If anything, I think the big con job - since the end of WW2 - done to everyone, right and left, was to pretend there is such a thing as the center-left and center-right. I think this is the core idea everyone needs to wake up from. It sucks and it's painful to admit to.
The center-right - republican or Tories - pretended to be anchored to tradition and hierarchy, but if we're being honest, it's always been friends with business and this comes from being captured by neoliberalism (neoliberalism emerged post WW2 and it's godfathers were trotskyists in the USA who needed a home after Trotsky got killed in 1940; it's a very fascinating story). Meanwhile not to be outdone, the center-left got conned by the emergence of the new left in the 1960s (the goal was to divorce leftists from communism, funded by the CIA center for cultural freedom, active in post-WW2 reconstruction since the 40s) with the sexual revolution, rock'n'roll, hippie culture and later this morphed into progressives in the 90s (based on critical theory, which was birthed in the 60s). The curiosity here is the "left" gradually abandoned "labor rights", which was its original point of origin (Communism and socialism also draw from the well of liberalism, which is not surprising all of a sudden!) and by the 90s leftist politicians took to fundraising with the same big business donors that traditionally supported the center-right.
I don't think conservativism exists as an ideology, it's more a longing for a golden past (that never existed).
The whole uniparty phenomena is the realization that actually regardless of who's in power we get continuity of agenda. This is true across the West, perhaps more in your face in the USA and UK, but just as true in Germany, France, Italy and Spain.
As far as I'm concerned, the infamous "deep state" is actually a mosaic of the secret services and military running the high level stuff and a combo of an uncontrollable bureaucracy, institutional capture by vested interests and business, the whole think-tank and ngo networks (you mentioned). All of this has been decades in the making, it wasn't created overnight, and might even have evolved spontaneously over time. When politicians get selected (elected), they're all virtually incapacitated by bureaucracies and procedures.
The climate initiatives and the whole dei stuff is more accurately described as partly a result of liberal ideological capture of the institutions (the universities and NGOs etc), and partly by vested interests (club of Rome, Fabian society, bilderberg, wef).
I think we're in the early stages of an awakening consciousness of just how fubar everything is. And for better or worse, DJT has been the catalyst, not so much because of what he did/does, but because of the way he's transformed everything into a spectacle and a lot of hidden things have appeared and people are waking up wondering wtf happened.
Today I listened to Robert Malone on Rogan. Well worth a listen to them ripping into the fake media space and financial capture of medicine.
If we look back at the whole Covid era, it becomes clear across all political parties and states, it's one big blob. And it's getting worse in terms of free speech, the conflict in the levant and the institutional capture across the West by a religious minority, etc etc
Sorry for rambling!
I agree with what you say. Perhaps my take is I was born into an era where the traditional left have been destroyed by the progressives, and the conservatives use the language of a previous era to differentiate themselves, but ultimately change nothing.
I agree it is one big circus and the clowns in office today are absolutely interchangeable with whoever will be selected for tomorrow.
I think a lot of what we see is not machiavellian scheming. I think much of it is emergent based on the phenomenon you list, including the offshoots of critical theory, neoliberalism, consumerism, even the effects of widespread affluence. I’ve often wondered if there are no elites as such, just some groups or individuals adept at reacting to things that happen. Crashes, health scares, wars etc. I am quite skeptical of the grand conspiracies I read about. What I do see of elites is often unimpressive.
As for the article. We must remember most people aren’t aware of concepts like a uniparty or the Fabians, the Rockefellers or even the Soros Foundation. I think many people need the basics explained.
Thanks for reading. And commenting.
I find it useful to allow myself the flexibility of contradictory ideas/visions. So for instance, I agree with your take on emergent phenomena, while keeping in mind there potentially could be some larger than life characters trying to be play top dog.
I don't doubt there are many Mr Bigs. I just think controlling societies is very difficult even with billions.
The confusion here is the assumption that individual liberty is a right wing principle when that's what made the ground fertile for modern leftism in the first place. Individual liberty is the same thing as mass society, its true opposite is hierarchical and overlapping intermediate institutions that give individuals mutual obligations but as a result have some measure of sovereignty that an individual could never have. Family is the most obvious example, families are not free when every member does whatever he feels like but when fathers can coordinate them.
Yes, definitely tension between individual rights and the hedonism it gestates, and the obligations you infer which, strangely, can liberate us.