Our very thoroughly drunken Scottish friend recently posted up a long-form video essay, as it were, looking at a forgotten classic film from the early 1990s. It starred Michael Douglas and Robert Duvall, and was, for its time, considered to be shockingly violent. But there was a certain poignancy to it that transcends time, and our sozzled Scotch explains why:
The best part of the review comes when The Drinker points to the failure and death of the American Dream. Looking back, it is difficult to point to a precise date as to when it died, but one is hard-pressed to escape the conclusion that it is, indeed, dead and gone.
Decades and centuries from now – assuming we do not all perish in nuclear fire before then – historians will look at the thirty years or so that have just passed, and will delineate an arbitrary point in that timeline, about which they will say, “this marks The Fall of the United States of America”. (One could easily and reasonably argue it happened a lot earlier than that – probably in 1965, with the passage of the abominable Hart-Celler Act, that permitted and codified the mass invasion of America.)
Whatever the exact time-frame chosen, the reality is that the “American Dream” died a very long time ago – long before I arrived in America, or before I lost out whatever illusory chance I might have had at achieving it.
Real median incomes have stagnated for decades. Wealth inequality has grown to astonishing levels. The amount of money one has to make to be considered comfortably “middle-class”, is what would have made one quite wealthy just 50 years ago. Inflation erodes and destroys the purchasing power of ordinary citizens, to the point where they have to choose between eating and heating during winter.
Yet the ruling elites see none of this, because, for them, life is great. If you are one of the elite chosen few, going through the illusory “meritocracy” of the American Ivy League university system, then you kind of have it made. (I know, because I have a degree from an Ivy League university, and I can see the career trajectories of my classmates from back then. They have far exceeded my own – and good for them.) If you have an American passport, and an Ivy League education, you have to cock up in a truly catastrophic way to fall out of favour with “the system”.
But, if you are outside of those elite bubbles, on the East and West Coasts, and if you did not attend an elite university, and you do not have the right connections and credentials…
Then you are S.O.L.
This is not the normal state of the world – or rather, it was not, for many centuries. Certainly, there was always an aristocratic elite that was somewhat disconnected from the muck and grime of the real world, but there was always this sense of noblesse oblige, the notion that those who were fortunate enough to be born into luxury and wealth, had at least something of a social obligation to look after the less well off.
That has all but disappeared now. The generosity of ordinary Americans has to be seen to be believed – other than Russians, I have never met a more open, welcoming, hospitable, and kind people in my life than average White Americans. But their rapacious and greedy elites have fooled themselves, and much of the world, into thinking that, because they dress down and look like ordinary people, they somehow have a moral right to determine how the rest of us should live, without actually acting like those they presume to rule:
Can that American Dream ever be recovered?
Perhaps, but it would require a return to the society that made it possible. And that entails a demographic rearrangement so seismic, extreme, and violent, as to be absolutely unpalatable. The amount of death and destruction required, the number of illegals (and legal non-Americans with “American” passports) who would have to be expelled, and the decimation of the elites, would be on a scale that would make the French and Russian Revolutions look like gentlemanly arguments in a sleepy Saturday club by comparison.
It would also require the fragmenting and fracturing of the “American” empire, which is no longer a recognisable nation of any kind, into individual nations, some of which might make at least some effort to go back to what made America the greatest nation on Earth, once upon a time. And, make no mistake, it truly was. The USA used to be the golden land, a place of opportunity and goodness, where you really could make your way in the world by working hard and doing the right thing. You truly could own a big house, drive a nice car, and live a good life with a large family.
But somewhere over the past 50 years, the foundation of that dream ceased to be actual productive labour, and started to be credit and debt. And that was never sustainable.
Today, we see the results of a broken, run-down society that has lost its purpose and identity. The homeless, psychotic, and drug-addicted line the streets of its greatest cities. Its infrastructure is collapsing before our eyes. And its elites appear to be less like metaphorical and more like actual vampires, feeding on the life-blood of a dying victim.
The Putin correctly called the Western system a “vampire ball” that is now in its closing stages. Whether the “multipolar order” that replaces it will be any better, is anyone’s guess. Early indications are positive, but it is simply far too soon to tell.
One thing, though, is for certain. Russian and Chinese elites are watching what has happened to Amerikhastan, and they are determined not to allow that to happen to their nations and peoples.
And for that, if nothing else, the American elites hate them, and want to see them destroyed.
1 Comment
the destruction of noblesse oblige was one of the primary goals of Marxism. aristos were usually arrogant bastards, but at some level they at least went through the motions of having loyalty and responsibility towards their countrymen.
consider the St Crispin’s Day speech from Shakespeare or the fact that even the most privileged of aristos considered it their duty to lead from the front ( a la Pickett’s Charge ) and to enlist in the military.
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the whole trope about the poors being sent to die in the wars of the riches is straight out of Marxist ideology. even as recently as WW2, British officers were still making stately marches across the battlefield in plain view of enemy gunners … because they had a responsibility to not show fear and ruin the esprit de corps of their men.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUzd9KyIDrM
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whereas, i would say today that it’s near universal in “our” upper classes that they won’t have anything to do with serving in our wars ( see how many got exemptions from Vietnam ) but they love starting them. funny how many of them are happy to join the IDF though.
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and of course the other effect is also Marxist in origin, the erasure of God and Church from public life in the US.