Provisioning

Here’s a lesson I repeatedly learn, put aside, and relearn: for the bulk of history (extending into evolutionary time — hundreds of thousands of years), humans lived in small, inter-reliant groups at basic subsistence level, thus, close the edge of survival. No one owned or needed much and almost everything was shared. Among the greatest dangers was being ostracized from the group. That changed when civilization in its various manifestations created surpluses to be stored, managed, and distributed, which in turn gave rise to labor specialization and inequality as social organization became more sophisticated and stratified. Subsistence lifestyles persisted into the middle of the 20th century in the U.S. and still exist today in peasant societies that have yet to modernize fully.

That’s what modernization means for many: being brought into the money economy, often forcibly. (Same can be said for technocracy, i.e., issuing birth certificates and other forms of identification. Would have been considered utter nonsense 200 or 2000 years ago.) Providing for one’s family no longer means relying on the productivity of the land but instead on trading time and labor for money and exchanging funds earned for provisions. Although one can potentially earn (and own) quite a lot beyond mere subsistence via participation in the money economy, autonomy is sacrificed in the employer-employee relationship. Further, in various economic systems, earning potential extended to everyone inevitably concentrates in a tiny percentage of society known as the ownership class. Inter-reliance also morphs into dependence (arguably two-way) with owners quick to jettison workers as soon as alternatives (e.g., engines, efficiencies, robots, AI) appear.

Have just reentered the annual shopping and gift-giving extravaganza marked by Black Friday and preceded by the traditional Thanksgiving family feast, I’ve been ruminating on what provisioning means. Nearly everyone who can seeks foodstuffs for the big meal and gifts for the holiday season, encouraged by retailers and their incessant sale advertisements. (I’d say my Inbox is full, but it’s a nearly infinite container for businesses scrambling to make commercial impressions on me.) Provisions and providing share an etymological root with providence, but the loosely related concepts extend well beyond mere necessity, subsistence, or wizened marshaling of resources. Now we have lifestyles (e.g., entertainments, creature comforts, luxuries, fashion wardrobes) to acquire and maintain, which are often used to measure and position ourselves against our peers. Lost in the shuffle are balanced preparations and restraint. Just consider the alarming graph below:

No doubt fluctuating numbers fail to distinguish well between need and extravagance, especially as late-stage capitalism goes haywire and and diminishing sources of cheap energy (always the master resource, IMO) drive ever-larger segments of the population away from the fabled American dream, back toward subsistence. Puts an entirely different spin on the suggestion “You’ll own nothing and be happy.“

Offered Without Comment 26

From Brian Miller’s new book Kayaking with Lambs (2023):

Somewhere — the gravel road I grew up on, the wharf I fished from, the woods at the end of the road where we roamed, the edge of the bayou where we fought off pirates to keep them from landing — is no longer. It is now an anywhere of pavement, sidewalks, a Walmart, hotels, casinos, and housing developments. Anywhere is nowhere.

Anywhere is a global assault weapon, firing bullets of convenience and terminal extraction. Even without a smarter-than-you phone, you can find, around each corner, the Starbucks, the McDonald’s, the everywhere of anywhere. All the signs, hovering over expanses of concrete, flashing the conquest-driven desires of the Empire to colonize the somewhere.

It always begins, thus, with the paving of roads. (For we all secretly know, the road in is the road out.) The new road comes to town, and the longtime general store closes down, its population drawn by the seductive pull of the dollar store that opened in the next small town. Then the up-and-coming town gets a check-cashing store, and a rent-to-own, and a doublewide mobile home dealer. In a few years that small town is compacted and consumed, repackaged, and reissued, newly minted as a bedroom community of the anywhere. And its growing population learns the limited joys of spending its days circling the streets of plenty, like water in a drain.

Fundamental American Values

One hears the phrase fundamental American values trotted out periodically. Right now, it’s politicians in their stump speeches and debate soundbites. The phrase is multipurpose, functioning in support of the West’s Enlightenment inheritance (e.g., free speech, intellectual sovereignty, human rights) while acting as a prohibition against self-betrayal of those values and others (e.g., Christian values). I’ve always thought the gesture was more about convincing ourselves to live up to our ideals, as when intoning “that’s not who we are” following, for instance, leaks showing that U.S. military personnel were, um, well, torturing some folks. (That diminishing remark still galls me.) Harassment and victimization of whistleblowers (including journalists) is quite similar and in some cases includes torture. Similar expressions include “that’s just how we roll” (a NY/NJ thang?), “Don’t Tread on Me,” and “Don’t Mess with Texas,” all of which are thinly veiled indications of eagerness willingness to throw down when issued a challenge. That willingness is not without its positive attributes but flips over into bullying with alarming regularity — essentially a reenactment of intergenerational abuse that ensures perpetual cycles of violence and victimization.

After so many ugly revelations, an honest self-assessment would have to conclude that, as a society and especially through our leaders, Americans are precisely the things we abhor: we’re the bullies, the victimizers, the terrorists, the torturers, the war criminals, the interventionists and regime changers, and the globe killers. Doesn’t apply to every last man, woman, and child, but in aggregate, the story proclaims itself. Those who insist America comes first (and by extension Americans) are merely saying the quiet part out loud. Thus, Americanism is a fundamental American value (yeah, that’s a tautology), so step back and get out of the way all you furriners. Again, that perspective has some positive attributes before it becomes toxic and maniacal.

Years ago, I blogged about a peculiar distillation of Americanism from Curtis White’s book The Middle Mind (2004) that stuck with me and resurfaces each time geopolitics thrusts itself into my awareness. (Haven’t read anything by White in a long time, but he’s still active publishing books analyzing the American scene.) That distillation, the takeaway, the moral of the story, comes from the film Saving Private Ryan. In White’s words, it’s quite simple: “always choose death, for if you do not, death will come anyway, later, multiplied” (emphasis added). Given our bellicose nature, our always spoiling for a fight, our proxy and forever wars, and the MIC’s incessant war profiteering, that is arguably now the quintessential American value: always choose death. Refusal to allow negotiations in the Russo-Ukrainian War, reluctance to call for a cease fire in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and provocations against China (and others), just to cite a few recent examples, underscore the value: always choose death.

In response to the mostly rhetorical quandary “why we fight,” some knucklehead suggested that we fight there so we don’t have to fight here. Notice how the option not to fight is quietly removed from consideration. Seriously, when has the U.S. ever refused to fight? We also always choose death first for them rather than us as evidenced by fetishized tallies of a few Americans lost vs. uncounted others sacrificed to our values. Indeed, pop psychology might analogize Americanism as a death cult, ending of course with our own. That’s been my assessment since 2010 or so when I came to the conclusion that the climate emergency is unstoppable yet global industrial civilization is heedlessly, fearlessly accelerating toward the abyss rather than stomping on the brakes. Who can say with certainty, but it might be a worse fate to survive to the bitter end than to expire early. That’s a death some might choose to avoid extended suffering.

Demographics is Destiny (re-redux)

Continuing from this post, behavioral aspects of the failing human project are appearing throughout Western culture and others. While noninstinctual behavior may not be strictly biological or evolutionary in origin (hard to tell what is instinctual), some argue that gene-culture coevolution explains the genetic and/or biological precursors driving cultural change and behavior. Thus, genetics and culture evolve alongside each other and are supposedly inextricably intertwined. I’ve often argued that such thinking results in just-so stories about behavior in the here-and-now stemming too causally from survival pressures that drive evolution and operate at wildly different timescales. However, aggregate behaviors — revealed by demographers, actuaries, and psychologists who use metrics to profile human nature itself — point to conclusions not so easily dismissed.

For example, from the late 1950s to the late 1970s, the U.S. birthrate plunged. It then plateaued for a little over decade but has since continued to sink until, like many other countries, the U.S. fell below replacement rate a few years ago. That trend might be dispelled somewhat by pointing out that the late 50s was toward the end of the postwar baby boom and is not a good baseline measure. However, one might expect the overall trend to vary. Instead, decline has been consistent for nearly 70 years. Projections suggest further gradual decline through the end of the century. Replacement rate is also called fertility rate, but behavioral factors contribute to the decline, not only biological ones. For instance, economic needs brought more women into the workforce starting in the 70s (now normalized) and saw many women delay childbearing beyond peak childbearing years to secure their professional lives. Relatedly, numbers of children per family declined while childless marriages increased, both of which affect replacement rate. Although I have not sought evidence, my suspicion is also that fertility itself (a biological factor) has declined as exposure to environmental toxins make conception more difficult.

The net effect of these (and other) behavioral changes is that, as a hallowed institution, the American family (nuclear or extended) is ebbing away. In short, fewer people are forming couples and families together. While children can succeed outside two-parent families, reasons for preferring that arrangement should be obvious. One curiosity is behavioral data that has emerged via dating apps and social media showing that women are chasing after the same small group of men with ideal characteristics: good hair, athletic builds, square jaws, height over six feet, higher education, and most importantly, six-figure incomes (mid-six-figure preferred because, doncha know? $100k doesn’t go nearly so far these days). Those alpha males are in radically short supply, and because they are so highly sought after, they tend to be playboys rather than the marrying type. Under the influence of influencers parading desirable lifestyles in front of everyone, women mistakenly believe holding out for the ideal guy (as opposed to never marrying and/or having children) is a worthwhile risk. Many are already single mothers, which makes finding a mate to adopt others’ child(ren) even less likely. Further, unmarried women in their 30s (and older) find themselves competing at a disadvantage with younger versions of themselves. On balance, men are less demanding in their expectations. However, a burgeoning class of involuntary celibates (i.e., incels) has emerged. After consistent rejection, some have become violent woman-haters, which some argue is correlated to daily mass shootings. Under these trying circumstances, a predictable response has already emerged: some women seek to be a traditional wife (i.e., tradwife), meaning traditional family values (home making, child rearing, and submission of male authority) are back in vogue. Remains to be seen whether this return to the past is tenable under current socioeconomic conditions, but men are already being counseled that such arrangements (if they qualify at all) appear to carry significant risks.

All of this is before raising any of the major crises of only the past two decades. In no particular order, they include (1) killing people by the hundreds of thousands in various geopolitical struggles. Predictably, (2) economic sanctions imposed unilaterally by the West (3) destabilize foreign governments, leading to (4) diasporas of populations seeking a place to live free of warfare and (5) radicalization of other populations who, (6) at open war with the West, have given up seeking relief or refuge but are instead determined to go out in a blaze of glory, taking as many of us as possible with them in the process. I find it ironic that, considering the West is primarily responsible for their plight, many migrants are coming into the West. Not yet mentioned are (7) new revelations of human trafficking and (8) de facto slavery (9) when not simply abandoning people to squalor and/or homelessness on the streets if they aren’t economically productive or (10) imprisoning them so that they still function as cheap labor and profit centers for privately run prisons. Also not yet mentioned is the (11) atomization of the individual due to collapse of community, who (12) in desperation to belong adopt political and tribal ideologies that are incoherent as best and entirely deranging at worst. Who by now can’t also recognize (13) moral decay, (14) epistemological chaos, (15) endemic institutional corruption, (16) wholesale destruction of the biosphere, and (17) the climate emergency? All things considered, whatever problematic social compact may have existed in the past, people had families and harbored hopes for the future. With chiliasm on the rise, hope is gradually being jettisoned as well. Add to declinists of the past who observed the rise and fall (and resurrection) of institutions and civilizations a new category of doomers (like me) who can’t imagine humanity as a whole surviving the problems we created for ourselves. The prospect of bringing children into the world, who must eventually contend with this awful inheritance, might also account in part for the imminent failure of the human project. Any wonder, then, that some who tally the pros and cons no longer find life worth living?

Going It Alone

Various convenient fictions are used to group people into communities based on national, ethnic, and racial categories. Never mind that range and variability within any of these groups is far wider than any presumed commonality beyond the categorical label itself. Still, one might derive some sense of belonging in (or feel excluded from) one or more overlapping communities. Accordingly, no man is an island unto himself. Other better ways to enjoy a community of mutual care and concern include family (if not dysfunctional), sports teams (as either players or spectators), and religions (if not bent on violence), which may be unchosen or elective (i.e., no one chooses their parents). So commonplace is it in human society to form into communities, usually local, that it’s quite unusual and radical for someone to be expelled entirely and forced to go it alone. Even homeless people find community (of a sort) among themselves.

And yet, even under the influence of community norms, some insist on unilateral decision-making and action. As the current world hegemon, the U.S. often refuses to sign and adopt international treaties (various subject matter) and routinely refuses to submit to the authority of the World Court and the United Nations. Both are examples of American exceptionalism and essentialism. One might argue that the world needs the U.S. far more than the U.S. needs the rest of the world so the U.S. is in a unique position to carve out special rules for itself. However, if globalization has demonstrated anything, it’s that no country can truly go it alone anymore, not within an interconnected global industrial civilization. Further, acting in flagrant defiance of global consensus risks uniting them against us.

Which brings me to Israel. No need for a long, tortured history of that particular patch of land. It’s been fought over for millennia. In the past few weeks, ongoing conflict has been inflamed. Opinions vary with regard to who is justified doing what to whom, and my opinions don’t matter since I’m merely a spectator. But I will offer that, whether true or not, there is a perception that Israel is forced to go it alone, surrounded by enemies devoted to its destruction. That perception invites a willingness to act unilaterally in its self-defense. However, as I understand the news, the global community (one of those convenient fictions) has exerted pressure on Israel not to be provoked into a new genocide. Of course, opinions vary and some believe passionately that Israel must “go medieval” on its enemies and anyone unfortunate to be collateral damage, a form of collective punishment that is considered a war crime. Being staunchly antiwar, I believe restraint is essential but acknowledge this particular episode in the region’s long struggle is atrocious. It’s also worth pointing out that almost nothing happens in a vacuum: cultural memory is long, and a history of trading atrocity for atrocity contributes to the conflict being irresolvable. My hope, hopeless though it may be, is that to fight monsters, no one becomes an even worse monster. There is no winning in winning in that scenario. Indeed, the U.S. already became monstrous post-9/11, though there has so far been no reckoning.

Demographics is Destiny (redux)

Came back to this sooner than expected after hearing it mentioned that homo sapiens sapiens is now an endangered species. Hard to imaging that humans are poised to fall off a demographic cliff into oblivion despite our current teeming billions, but that dismal fate appears to be a distinct possibility. (Has been prophesied by doomers for some time already). Some forecasts suggest an estimated 1.7 billion more people by 2050 should current demographic trends continue. However, we are failing the human project at a basic level. What is the human project, one may ask? Biologically, it’s the very same as every other living organism: to propel genes into the next generation(s) and perpetuate the species.

Most living things exist is a state of nature, which is to say, in the wild. Humans, OTOH, are situated within global industrial civilization and thus live within a constructed reality (not artificial exactly, but also not natural). Domesticates (e.g., plants and animals farmed for food and labor) and pets arguably occupy a hybrid category, but I daresay those that don’t die outright when civilization collapses could potentially go feral and/or rewild. (Not sure that those aren’t essentially the same thing.) Some might argue that humans, too, can revert to a state of nature, but except for a few, small, still-extant indigenous populations, most humans lack skills and fitness needed to survive very long (i.e., a few weeks at most).

Aside: Strange question: what happens when all those big cats currently in captivity in Texas — reputed to exceed the number of wild cats around the globe — get turned loose? I won’t venture an answer.

It may well be that humans nearly went extinct several times in our evolutionary history but somehow managed to make it through the bottlenecks via small breeding populations. Indeed, for hundreds of thousands of years, human population was held down by a variety of factors, most significant among them limited food resources. With the advent of agriculture some 13,000 years ago (what Jared Diamond unsympathetically called “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race“) and much later the Industrial Era (based on fossil fuels), which catalyzed massive overproduction of food, human population swelled quite recently far out of historical proportion:

Offered Without Comment 25

By TAE at The Automatic Earth: “America is a corpse being devoured by maggots. The Democrats root for the maggots, the Republicans root for the corpse.”

The Rebranding Shuffle

/rant on

Any sort of longitudinal perspective on nonsense coughed up in the public sphere is enough to recognize that, when confronted with bad PR or found to be promulgators of purpose-made propaganda, bad-faith pushers of strings do not typically fight; instead, they flee. The favored form of flight is to redefine words or adopt new nomenclature for something readily recognizable and familiar — assuming one is paying attention. Thus, everything old is new again. For example, UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) have become UAPs (first, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena then more broadly Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena). Does the new acronym help to clarify anything? Nope. It’s pointless rebranding, but not the sort where, for instance, the rights and recipes to Hostess Brands have changed hands repeatedly but are expected to retain their identity for the consuming public. Rather, The Rebranding Shuffle is undertaken when some disreputable complex of ideas has overstayed its time and must be brought out under a different configuration, dressing up old, bankrupt convictions as something newly worthy of consideration. It’s one of several dance moves I’ve begun to catalogue (see The Builder’s Waltz and The Twist, the latter of which refers to all those twisted buildings I’ve blogged about).

Ignoramuses (alternate plural: ignorami) and ingénues are no doubt taken in by The Rebranding Shuffle. Those more wizened and skeptical? Not so much. Indeed, I find it embarrassing and even shameful how reliably and guilelessly the usual talking heads in the media launch the obvious, repeated games of Hide-and-Seek. They are presumably handed scripts to speak, and golly, those oversized paychecks surely do purchase plenty of compliance. Here’s some irony for ya: I’ve used the terms mainstream media (or MSM) and legacy media fairly interchangeably for some time to identify major news brands in existence long before the Internet came along to disrupt their business model and render actual news gathering moribund. Somehow, they manage to creak along by buying up independents, merging, and enlarging themselves so that now only a handful of brands operate under the control of a very few corporate overlords. They have mostly kept their logos, mastheads, and brand recognition, but they are empty shells of their forms selves and have shed all believability as gatherers and purveyors of news. Of course, they have plenty of cohorts among new media that have also yoked themselves to metrics as a false measure of their relevance, forsaking mission, truth, and integrity. Frankly, it’s unseemly when hundy billionaires can simply purchase formerly prestigious members of the Fourth Estate as their playthings. Same with private companies that operate as common carriers but really ought to be tightly regulated. So henceforth and in recognition of yet another instance of corporate capture, I’m adopting new nomenclature (meant pejoratively): corporate media.

/rant off

Disqualified Candidates

Not yet time to discuss presidential candidates for the U.S. election still thirteen months away, but since the election cycle is now permanent rather than periodic, several wannabes have already announced and are out beating the airwaves and Internet with appearances and stump speeches. I advocate a 4- to 5-month campaign window (or shorter) prior to election day and a complete blackout of poll results for 2 weeks prior to the election. Will never happen, of course; permanent campaigns are giant money-making enterprises. Still, time-limited campaigns would suffice for voters who pay attention to gather information on candidates and the blackout would allow (nay, encourage!) voters to cast ballots according to conscience and policy alignments rather than voting strategically when presumptive winners are reported in advance, spoiling outcomes. That’s how it used to work, anyway. Since 2000, every presidential election occasions melodramatic hype cycles where results are contested and unresolved despite inaugurations taking place.

Based on how U.S. presidents invariably act once in office, signal issues might immediately disqualify candidates. That would be lessons learned from experience. My issues are simple ones: willingness (nay, eagerness!) to engage in unnecessary wars and allowing (nay, ordering!) torture of enemies by U.S. agents in the military and/or intelligence services. Every past U.S. president since the early 20th century is thus disqualified for me as they all have blood on their hands for action I find deeply offensive. U.S. military adventurism also proves extremely wasteful, benefiting no one outside the military-industrial complex. Those running for office who announce intentions to align with precedent are either war hawks or war pigs (pick you animal, I guess) or war criminals in the making and are all IMO disqualified. Hard to know precisely what prompts U.S. leadership to undermine and invalidate their own efforts so uniformly. No doubt a combination of factors contribute, including racketeering, profiteering, and maniacal attempts to control frankly uncontrollable historical events and trends. Indeed, some suggest that the American psyche is still reeling from the horrors of WWII and the onset of the Atomic Era and Cold War, unable to conceptualize others as anything other than enemies bent on our destruction. I heard something similar about Russians, whose many historical traumas (going back centuries) are reputedly so great they cannot understand the world clearly and so cling to strong (nay, bellicose!) leaders at least who feign certainty.

Likely presidential candidates for the two major political parties (if reports are to be believed) are both disqualified by my metrics for only slightly different reasons having to do with their conduct and participation in forever wars instigated by the U.S. It’s a worn-out script and needs to change. Thus far, roughly four alternative candidates have emerged that deserve to be considered, though the clown car is certain to vomit up quite a few more. They are Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy on the Rep. side, Robert Kennedy, Jr. on the Dem. side, and Cornel West for the Green Party. Each I disqualify for reasons obvious and disappointing. As each speaks with media, I increasingly learn just how objectionable they are. Of course, anyone given enough rope can inadvertently hang themselves after entanglement with complex issues and combative interviews. That’s easily understandable for regular folks but less so for presidential candidates. I wouldn’t consider voting for Desantis because he’s a budding authoritarian. Vivek Ramaswamy was impressive out of the gate deploying garden-variety platitudes with deft but eventually revealed himself as a climate emergency denier, actually making the façile argument that CO₂ is plant food. He’s also unaccountably hung up on antagonizing China (considering its current role as manufacturer for the world, everyone now depends on China). RFK, Jr. holds promise but is intemperate with respect to promulgating conspiracies, which have been central to his consumer advocacy but don’t fit comfortably inside a presidential campaign. His views on Israel (well aligned with current policy) also lack believability once one investigates even a little bit. Cornel West, though a highly respected academic and cultural critic, completely lacks credibility as a politician running for a third party that has never gained any real traction.

Unless a major surprise emerges in the coming months, I suspect there will be no worthwhile alternatives to the usual slate of defects on the primary ballots or the eventual presidential ballot. For years, I didn’t vote because I refused to hold my nose and support candidates easily disqualified out of hand. I was shamed and guilted in the last two decades to participating in the charade, voting for some lesser evil to avoid a greater one, though I’ve never believed a vote cast strategically meant anything other than that I was be duped by the two-party system. That rhetoric is repeated ad nauseum, of course, which gives voters nothing to vote for but only to vote against. Accordingly, we are forced to adopt a negative identity and vote our hates and fears. No wonder the world has gone mad.

Falsifying Reality

… we now live in a culture of no truth, only battling portfolios of narrative spin, at
least according to the Marxian wokesters who have seized the machinery of law,
so there with a snap of your fingers goes jurisprudence — as in: I swear to tell
the truth, the whole truth, blah blah … The joke is on you. There is no truth
anymore, so stop insisting that there is anything like it to determine …
—James Howard Kunstler

Thus far in 21st-century America (started long before), the public has been treated to a veritable parade of obfuscations, gaslighting, brainwashing, psyops, bald-faced lies, and flagrant fact reversals (the last in the Orwellian sense of DoubleThink: we’ve always been at war with Oceania). Some I would characterize as howlers, whoppers, and gobsmackers. The result? Academic, political, and journalistic authority are now so badly injured and undermined that no one with reasonably adult cognition trusts official pronouncements and policies on subjects that take the least bit of examination to puncture the heavy curtain thin veil of falsehood. Indeed, given the degraded state of the infosphere (led by CIA-inflected Wikipedia, untrustworthy search results, heavily slanted recommendation algorithms, and straight-up censorship by government and its proxies), it is incumbent on every adult to adopt healthy skepticism, reserve judgment until the dust has settled, and seek truth if/when/where it can be found. That process may involve significant delays as honest information is unreported, blacked out, kept under government seal, curated, and spun before being ultimately revealed or leaked. The alternative to undertaking that process is to allow oneself to be coopted by propaganda in its various forms, which requires the sort of dreamy innocence of a child’s belief in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Charming perhaps, even adorable under some conditions, but not a respectable adult approach.

Aside I: Though already memory holed for many adults, only 23 years ago, U.S. presidential election results were unknown for a period of weeks until the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in to adjudicate and put a controversial end to the dispute. Results of the two most recent presidential elections were also hotly disputed. Though outcomes didn’t require weeks to determine, many Americans experienced a distinct sense of betrayal (in both directions, Rep. and Dem.) that the entire electoral process was subverted on purpose via gerrymandering, voter suppression, questionable electronic voting machines, insecurity of main-in ballots, etc. Thus, the integrity of the vote can no longer be trusted. Indeed, that something so fundamental to American politics as fair elections that embody the will of the electorate ends up mired in perpetual controversy is reminiscent of various despotic banana republics (real and fictional) that predetermine electoral outcomes and ask force their citizens to lump it. Further shenanigans are expected in the next U.S. election, which are migrating down ballot.