Tag: America

‘Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging’: Junger’s must-read explains why America is tearing itself apart

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tribe-cover

Roughly 17 years ago I exited the military after a stint as a mechanized infantryman in the U.S. Army. Even though the September 11, 2001, terror attacks and the nation’s “long war” had not yet begun, I found myself having a difficult time with the transition to civilian life. Understanding why I missed my old platoon — and why I felt a growing fear and sadness for the country I loved — took years (and a blog like this) to figure out, but author and former war reporter Sebastian Junger articulates it all in his must-read book Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging.

Americans who have not lived under a rock for the past 20 years have witnessed the slow-motion implosion of our culture.

  • Cable news pundits obsessively talk of “red states” and “blue states.”
  • The politics of personal destruction reigns supreme.
  • Saying “all lives matter” is interpreted in a Twilight Zone-ish twist by millions of people as somehow racist.
  • Americans watch carefully constructed social-media feeds that tell them all Republicans are the equivalent of Darth Vader, or that all Democrats have shrines to Fidel Castro in their bedroom.

In short, the modern world is deficient in something that is causing tens-of-millions of people to feel isolated, alone, and empty. The void is filled with confusion, and that in turn fuels the kind of anger and hate that was the hallmark of the 2016 election cycle.

Why is it that many soldiers and civilians who have lived through war sometimes get nostalgic for it?

What are the consequences for society when a person “living in a modern city or suburb can, for the first time in history, go through an entire day — or an entire life — mostly encountering complete strangers”?

Why are we often surrounded by others, yet “feel deeply, dangerously alone”?

One of the answers can be found in tribal societies. And no, your friendly neighborhood blogger is not saying Native Americans should have won the clash of civilizations at our nation’s inception. I am merely saying, like Mr. Junger, that we can learn from their ability to provide “the three pillars of self-determination — autonomy, competence, and community.”

Mr. Junger writes:

“After World War II, many Londoners claimed to miss the exciting and perilous days of the Blitz. (“I wouldn’t mind having an evening like it, say, once a week — ordinarily there’s no excitement,” one man commented to Mass-Observation about the air raids), and the war that is missed doesn’t even have to be a shooting war: “I am a survivor of the AIDS epidemic,” an American man wrote in 2014 on the comment board of an online lecture about war. “Now that AIDS is no longer a death sentence, I must admit that I miss those days of extreme brotherhood…which led to deep emotions and understandings that are above anything I have felt since the plague years.”

What people miss presumably isn’t danger or loss but the unity that these things often engender. There are obvious stresses on a person in a group, but there may be even greater stresses on a person in isolation, so during disasters there is a net gain in well-being. Most primates, including humans, are intensely social, and there are very few instances of lone primates surviving in the wild. …

Whatever the technological advances of modern society — and they’re near miraculous — the individualized lifestyles that those technologies spawn seem to be deeply brutalizing to the human spirit.” — (Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging (New York: Hachette Book Group, Inc., 2016), 92-93.

Tribe covers issues like PTSD, depression, and anxiety among combat veterans, but it would be a big mistake to solely think of it as a book for the military community. It is much more than that, because it is a blueprint for getting the nation on a path to cultural healing.

The author continues:

“The eternal argument over so-called entitlement programs — and, more broadly, over liberal and conservative thought — will never be resolved because each side represents an ancient and absolutely essential component of our evolutionary past.

So how do you unify a secure, wealthy country that has sunk into a zero-sum political game with itself? How do you make veterans feel that they are returning to a cohesive society that was worth fighting for in the first place? […] I put the question to Rachel Yehuda of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. …

“if you want to make a society work, then you don’t keep underscoring the places where you’re different — you underscore your shared humanity,” she told me. “I’m appalled by how much people focus on differences. Why are you focusing on how different you are from one another, and not on the things that unite us?” […]

Reviling people you share a combat outpost with is an incredibly stupid thing to do, and public figures who imagine their nation isn’t, potentially, one huge combat outpost are deluding themselves. (127-128).

Tribe is by no means “the” answer to the nation’s deep-seated cultural problems, but it is a significant piece of the puzzle. To get a good look at the big picture, I suggest pairing Mr. Junger’s quick-read with George Weigel’s Letters to a Young Catholic. Each book provides a template for transcending dead-end partisan bickering, and in turn getting America efficiently focused on  becoming a more-perfect union.

Trump vs. Hillary: America reaches its own video game ‘kill screen’

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Pac Man Kill Screen

A funny thing happens in old video games when players reach a point that exceeds the cartridge’s available memory: the “kill screen.” The character may die, although sometimes users can continue playing a jumbled mess that ostensibly makes no sense. The reality that Donald Trump will square off against Hillary Clinton to be the next U.S. commander in chief is a clear indicator America has reached its own kill screen.

Hillary Clinton

Kill screens may be fun to watch — there is no doubt that cable news networks are thrilled with the 2016 election season — but on another level (no pun intended), they are sad affairs. If you do not believe the U.S. is at its own kill screen, then ask  yourself the following two questions:

  • What led to the rise in popularity of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (a self-described socialist), and Donald Trump?
  • Will the election of Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Trump mitigate or exacerbate the nation’s underlying problems?

Donald Trump

Hillary Clinton has vowed to continue doing exactly what President Obama has done for eight years, which was a catalyst for Sanders’ groundswell of Democrat support.

Donald Trump’s popularity is based on the illusion that he is a political outsider who will “make America great again” via giant walls along U.S. border with Mexico and “great” deals with Congress. Ironically, the same people who have deified Mr. Trump regularly go apoplectic when “deals” are made in Congress. Unless Trump plans on becoming a dictator, his own supporters are in for a rude awakening if he wins in November.

Here is what the 45th president of the United States will encounter on Day One:

  • The U.S. is $19 trillion in debt, but there is no political will to get spending under control. This is due to economic illiteracy (thanks public education and academia), greed (it’s easy to rob from future generations when you know you’ll be old or dead when the bill comes due), lying politicians, and a whole host of other issues. There will be a day of reckoning.
  • The U.S. is culturally lost. Multiple generations have simmered in a stew of cultural relativism. Tens of millions of people have no idea why they believe what they believe — they just do. They have been taught to loathe the principles that made America the freest nation in the history. They have been conditioned to yearn for tyranny and not to care about it as long mindless viral videos, Facebook “likes,” and free pornography flows on their computers.
  • American media outlets are corrupt. The news long ago ceased to be about informing people and turned into a never-ending quest for “clicks” and “shares” and “tweets” and ratings. Journalists are usually more interested in showing they’re as witty and cool as John Stewart in his heyday than objectively reporting facts. Cable news shows are inspired by WWE wrestling matches and reality television shows, which is why the more appealing option is to just watch Food Network or turn off the TV all together.

In short, unless someone rewrites the U.S. “code” in the near future, we will soon disappear in the “integer overflow.”

Welcome to the kill screen. I look forward to seeing you after the “reset” button is pushed.

‘The Great Degeneration’: Niall Ferguson explains how America is engineering its own demise

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The Great DegenerationWith ‘Civilization: The West and the Rest,’ Niall Ferguson described the “killer apps” that Western civilization used to propel itself past its rivals. With ‘The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die,’ he shows readers how quickly the wheels can come off the bus and send all of civil society’s passengers over a cliff.

While Mr. Ferguson’s analysis does not exclusively focus on the U.S., by the time he’s done unsealing the “boxes” of democracy, capitalism, the rule of law, and civil society, it is obvious that America is very, very sick — perhaps terminally ill — and that short of a miracle our experiment in self governance will not end well.

As Mr. Ferguson states:

“Where bad institutions pertain, people get stuck in vicious circles of ignorance, ill health, poverty, and, often, violence. Unfortunately, history suggests that there are more of these suboptimal frameworks than there are optimal frameworks. A really good set of institutions is hard to achieve. Bad institutions, by contrast, are easy to get stuck in. And this is why most countries have been poor for most of history, as well as illiterate, unhealthy and bloody.” Niall Ferguson, The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die (New York: Penguin, 2012), 18.

When the author speaks of the rule of law turning into the rule of lawyers, it’s hard not to think of what America has become. When the author talks about a “corrupt and monopolistic elite” exploiting the system of law and administration to their own advantage, it’s hard not to think of what America has become. When the author talks about public debt being managed to allow the current generation of voters to “live at the expense of those as yet too young to vote or as yet unborn,” it’s hard not to think of what America has become.

Over and over again, ‘The Great Degeneration’ shows that we as a society are creating complex systems that are destined to fail. What makes the story all the more tragic is that it’s all quite predictable.

As Tocqueville said in 1835 with the publication of ‘Democracy in America’:

I see an innumerable crowd of like and equal men who revolve on themselves without repose, procuring the small and vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls. Each of them, withdrawn and apart, is like a stranger to the destiny of all the other: his children and his particular friends form the whole human species for him; as for dwelling with his fellow citizens, he is beside them, but he does not see them; he touches them and does not feel them; he exists only in himself and for himself alone. …

Above these an immense tutelary power is elevated, which alone takes charge of assuring their enjoyments and watching over their fate. It is absolute, detailed, regular, far-seeing, and mild. It would resemble paternal power if, like that, it had for its object to prepare men for manhood; but on the contrary, it seeks only to keep them fixed irrevocably in childhood. …

Regular readers of this blog know that a shift in tone began to occur roughly three years ago. That is because I share many of the author’s conclusions about modern-day America and western civilization. Our culture is sick, but it is only willing to talk about its symptoms instead of the disease. The institutions have been compromised, and until they are fixed our slide into irrelevance will continue.

‘The Great Degeneration’ is a rather quick read at 153 pages. If you get a chance, pick it up at your local book store. If for no other reason, it is fascinating to think about some of the events that have occurred since its publication; Mr. Ferguson’s knowledge of the past helps him to accurately predict the future. You’ll give him a round of applause for the effort — after you wipe a few tears from your eyes.

In Defense of Dead Presidents and the American Way of Life

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Penny

In my last post I talked about Robert DeNiro’s apt description of the mind of a writer. One of the things I’ve always wondered is why there aren’t more openly conservative poets and writers. I have a few thoughts of my own, but I’d like to hear what you have to think.

I’ve shared a poem or two over the course of this blog, but I don’t think I’ve ever posted one that really makes a political statement. If you want a peak into my mind as a 21 year old kid, and the reaction I had after exiting the military and entering the college classroom, here it is. My writing has improved since then (I’m 34, so I would hope so!), but I don’t mind giving you a glimpse of my younger self.

In Defense of Dead Presidents and the American Way of Life.

Bees make beehives and we make buildings
Don’t lament the ingenuity within this sleek machine I’m driving;
It’s an extension of our being
Natural, like honeycomb or busy bees consumed by some activity
To better their day-by-day existence.

Let’s return to the lush green-wooded yesteryear
Where tribal chants and chieftain rants
Were aspects of everyday living.
Or better yet let’s not,
Intertribal rape and head lice were never that appealing.

American Empire, or so they say
Rapes third world resources from exploited labor—
Fire those lads lined up and ready to work long hours
Making meager earnings three times their peers!
Let’s pull out and prop up tin pot despots with aid that will never get there.

Curses! Western Civilization
With your claims of moral superiority
Ah yes, I’m aware of your duplicity—
Behind those technological wonder kids and wonder cures
Churned out from rule-of-law freedom spawn is something sinister I’m sure.

Back home things are horrid
The burger and fry flippers scream foul
Ten, Twenty, why not Thirty!
Let’s hike that minimum wage stand back and see what happens
Never mind the economics.

What’s wrong with the summertime soldier and sunshine patriot?
Let’s redefine patriotism to include
Malcontents and misfits and anti-war mentalities
Dead set on peace at any cost
Although rooms for rape, rooms for torture, rooms for worse are tricky.

I had been ill for quite some time—
Green tea tasted great but did little to quell my disease.
I asked my son to pray for me, but his principal said no.
Dejected, I turned to God and in a dream
He told me to see a doctor—who knew.

America, you make me sick
What with your so-called religious freedom, I’m persecuted at every turn.
I informed my priest I was heading to Saudi Arabia.
I would’ve went too! (if it were legal)
Christians can’t be citizens.

Mom and Dad say it’s not healthy
To be so wry, so angry, all the time.
The soul, like worn copper pennies.
It’s hard, I tell them, when notable poets and award winning scholars
Invent ways to trash Abe Lincoln.

Ben Franklin’s thoughts on the rattlesnake as a symbol of America: ‘Don’t tread on me’

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Gadsen Flag

Once upon a time, Americans listened to men like Benjamin Franklin. Today, they get unhealthy doses of Sen. Harry Reid. Given that, I thought I’d share a few excerpts from ‘The Completed Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin,’ which was compiled and edited by Mark Skousen, Ph.D.

I like Archer just as much as the next guy, but Archer is not Ben Franklin. If I had one piece of advice to give to young people it would to turn off the television for a year or two and read the works of the men who helped shape America’s identity at its inception. Learn from the wisdom preserved for us by the best and brightest minds ever turned out by Western Civilization. Once you do that, you will realize who it is within the political class and the entertainment community that wants you to wander through life like a zombie. You will be able to discern who is telling you what you want to hear and who is telling you what you need to hear. You will be able to tell the difference between the man who is snake oil salesman from the man who is like the rattlesnake.

The rattlesnake as a symbol of America: ‘Don’t tread on me’

“I observed on one of the drums belonging to the Marines being raised that there was painted a rattlesnake, with this modest motto under it, “Don’t tread on me.” It occurred to me that the rattlesnake, being found in no other quarter of the world besides America, might therefore be chose to represent her. Having frequently seen the rattlesnake, I ran over in my mind every property by which she was distinguished.

I recollect that her eye excelled in brightness, that of any other animal, and that she has no eye-lids. She may therefore be esteemed an emblem of vigilance. She never begins an attack, not, when once engaged, ever surrenders; she is therefore an emblem of magnanimity and true courage.

As if anxious to prevent all pretensions of quarreling with her, the weapons with which nature has furnished her she conceals in the roof of her mouth, so that, to those who are unacquainted with her, she appears to be a most defenseless animal, and even when those weapons are shown and extended for their defense, they appear weak and contemptible; but their wounds however small, are decisive and fatal. Conscious of this, she never wounds till she has generously given notice, even to her enemy, and cautioned him against the danger of treading on her.

I confess I was wholly at a loss what to make of the rattles until I went back and counted them and found them just thirteen, exactly the number of the colonies united in America; and I recollected too that this was the only part of the snake that increased in numbers; perhaps it might be only fancy, but, I conceited the painter had shown a half formed additional rattle, which, I suppose, might have been intended to represent the province of Canada.

‘Tis curious and amazing to observe how distinct and independent of each other the rattles of this animal are, and yet how firmly they are united together, so as never to be separated but by breaking them to pieces. One of those rattles singly is incapable of producing sound, but the ringing of thirteen together is sufficient to alarm the boldest man living.

The rattlesnake is solitary and associated with her kind only when it is necessary for their preservation. In winter, the warmth of a number together will preserve their lives, while singly they would probably perish.

The power of fascination attributed to her, by a generous construction, may be understood to mean that those who consider the liberty and blessing which America affords, and once come over to her, never afterwards leave her, but spend their lives with her. She strongly resembles America in this, that she is beautiful in youth and her beauty increases with age, “her tongue also is blue and forked as the lightning, and her abode is among impenetrable rocks.”

I communicated my sentiments to a neighbor of mine, who had a surprising readiness at guessing everything which related to public affairs. He instantly declared it as his sentiments that the Congress meant to allude to Lord North’s declaration in the House of Commons that he never would relax his measure until he had brought America to his feet, and to intimate to his Lordship that were she brought to his feet, it would be dangerous treading on her.” — The Completed Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, compiled and edited by Mark Skousen, Ph.D. Pages 112-114.

Rebellion to Tyrants is obedience to God

“Only July 4 I had been appointed to a committee, along with Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, to design the great seal of the United States. I urged the following to be adopted: Moses standing on the shore, and extending his hand over the sea, thereby causing the same to overwhelm Pharaoh who is sitting in an open chariot, a crown on his head and a sword in his hand. Rays from a pillar of fire in the clouds reach to Moses to express that he acts by command of the Deity. Motto: Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” — The Completed Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, compiled and edited by Mark Skousen, Ph.D. Page 124.

Take a few moments to really think about America’s founding and what it meant to have men like Franklin at the helm when the fate of the nation hung in the balance. And then, when you’re done…if you really must, go back to the cartoons.