The Future and the Western World

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• First published on this blog in October, 2015

Whatever one’s political orientations are, and no matter what the individual context is, the sight of human suffering is always traumatic. As human beings, we are naturally upset when presented with photographs of starving African children, shrapnel-wounded Syrian schoolgirls, Burka’d Afghan women and brainwashed North Korean families. It is the way we were designed to be. Few things are more innate.

Given this predisposition, the arguments of ‘humanitarianism’ will usually find a public audience, and typically (from there) a political majority. For example, the view that it isn’t ‘fair’ for Americans to have ipads and super-sized milkshakes, while Malians have only bottle tops and sewer puddles is not one most people would feel comfortable disputing. Who would ever wish to be regarded as an elitist or social Darwinist? No-one, I would venture.

However, in the interest of truth, we must consider that at some point the privileged will have to draw a line around their advantages and prevent their being usurped. For if they fail to do so, the advantages will be watered down, or stolen outright, to be shared among the swelling masses until all have as much as each other, and very little alike.

It is a good time to reflect on this difficult issue. For if we think that the West enjoys obscene advantages at the moment, the developments of the near future will leave us bewildered.

We are living on the brink of a scientific revolution unlike any in history. The confluence of emerging competences in AI, robotics, nanotechnology, life-extension and genetic manipulation will make the gap between America and Mali today seem insignificant. Part of the world is about to accelerate through time into a dazzling future, and all other parts will be left languishing in a primitive angry, resentful past.

Most ordinary folk have no idea of what is about to be unleashed on the Western market. Misinformed by experience, they naively presume that technology will progress at the same rate as it did in the past. They do not realise that with every advance, technological development is speeding up.

To a 20 year old in 1980, military drones were science-fiction, as were iPhones, ipads, anti-satellite weapons and hypersonic vehicles. And yet all are now with us. It takes a healthy and imaginative mind to realise how much has been achieved in such a short period of time, and to appreciate that this kind of 35 year leap will soon take 5 years, then 4, then 3…

We would be fools to believe this scientific revolution will not have geopolitical consequences as large as its spectacle.

Right now, you can buy a PlayStation in Karachi, and perhaps even in Mali. This won’t be the case with the operating systems of the future. New technologies will be so overwhelming and expensive (and dependent on other technologies and infrastructures) that first-world lifestyles will fall entirely into their orbit, adapted to fit and absorb their possibilities. The first-world will begin to speak a language that the rest of the world cannot relate to, using concepts, humour, references and symbolism only applicable to the age the West (and the West alone) has arrived at. In time, technology will create a new cultural divide far greater than any created by religion or politics.

And as that divide grows, the West will have to make a choice. Let the rest of the world in on the future, and risk having our hard-won wealth and military advantages destroyed or turned against us by destructive and primitive beliefs; or else simply declare ourselves the winners of human history; the winners of the global lottery, and be happy and secure in our good fortune, willing to defend it from our competitors. Triumphalism, that is, and not humanitarianism.

While this sounds morally outrageous, recall that many of us indulge in this attitude already, even if only semi-consciously. When you’re out using your laptop in Starbucks, for example, you are doing so fully in the knowledge that you are part of the exclusive 20% of the world population who can afford to live so extravagantly. Though we might feel privately guilty about this, none of us make any great effort to change it. If a popular figure (Russell Brand, perhaps) called upon us to donate 90% of our wages each month so that the third and second worlds can lead a Western standard of life, we would all refuse. In fact, we would likely be indignant about it. Our civilisation has figured out the best way to live, to produce and to thrive. Theirs has not done so. Sub-Saharan Africa is among the most fertile regions in the world. The Islamic world is flush with resources. The reason for our success is our creativity; the things we have done with our hands and minds. Therefore, only we have a right to the fruits of our achievements. Perhaps this is the correct attitude…

‘Humanitarianism’ and its much vaunted idea of ‘international development’ certainly has a future. But I don’t believe its arguments are as future-proof as some believe. I’m interested in your views.

D, LDN

The Second American Revolution

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Well… there we are then. I’ve predicted the outcome of two major votes this year and been wrong about both of them. I’m not sure what to say. Perhaps there is nothing to say, other than to warn the reader never to take advice from me on lottery numbers or business investments.

America, as you’ll now be aware, has just elected Donald J Trump to the highest office in the land. And with the GOP also triumphant in both houses of Congress, for the next four years, the New York billionaire will have an almost unprecedented level of control over the mechanisms of Western government,

This is the beginning of what will inevitably be referred to by historians as the ‘Trump Era’ – a four-to-eight year period dominated by the decisions and personality of a single, remarkable man.

I am both pleased and nervous about the result. As someone who made the case for Trump (as best I could on a UK-based blog), my satisfaction with the unexpected success of the Republican is naturally tempered with unease and foreboding.

Trump is not a perfect man – far from it. Many of the criticisms made by his opponents over the past 12 months (or was it lifetimes) were perfectly valid and based in solid fact. He is often boorish, unpredictable, erratic and – in some key ways – he is inexperienced. No matter how passionate your support for his reign may be, you cannot sensibly deny that his election represents a gamble.

But it was a gamble the people of America were forced by circumstance to make. The elite, which includes the press, has lost all contact with, and respect for, the ordinary population of the United States. Unless a US citizen lives in New York or Los Angeles, he simply doesn’t matter to the decision-making class. His voice, projected at a polite volume, is muffled to a whisper by distance, farmland and poverty. On Nov. 8th, therefore, he was left with no choice but to shout, to shout so loud that windows were broken, and so they have been.

Hillary Clinton prepares to give her concession speech in New York

Those members of the global elite currently tearing their expensively shampooed hair out have no right to be surprised by what has happened. How could their disregard and arrogance have led to any other destination? Trump was and is a shock of history, but he was not an unforeseeable one.

Nevertheless, the shockwaves of the election result have been palpable. Jonathan Freedland, a normally level-headed liberal commentator, spoke for many in the London-New York-LA bubble when he wrote (in an article dramatically entitled ‘Will Donald Trump Destroy America?’) “What if (Trump) goes ahead and deports 11.3 million undocumented migrants? What if he really does ban all Muslims entering the country? What if he tries to use the powers of the state to go after media organisations that have criticised him – making life difficult for the businesses that own inquisitive newspapers such as the Washington Post, for example – as he has said he will? What if he overturns abortion rights, even imposing “some form of punishment” on a woman who terminates a pregnancy, as he once suggested? And what if he really does build that wall?… There are plenty who believe that if Trump went ahead and actually implemented his programme, he would create a different country: closed, xenophobic and at odds with some of the founding principles – religious equality or freedom of speech – that have defined the United States since its founding. The country would still exist – but it would no longer be America.”

Freedland’s words may be misguided, but his tone is surely appropriate. This really is a major turning point in American history – a second American revolution, if you will. By the time Trump has finished his work, however that goes, America will be a drastically changed place. There are so many differences between his approach and that of his predecessors that such an outcome is irresistible.

Donald Trump, unlike Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and practically every president stretching back to the Eisenhower administration, is an Americanist. He believes that America, despite its size and power, is a real, flesh and blood country – with real, flesh and blood people living in it. America is not, to him, an idea, a hope, or a ‘dream’. It is a pulsating, living, breathing reality. If one thing divides him from the presidents of the recent past, it is that his focus is largely limited by loyalty and affection to and toward the United States (and those countries like it – *I was greatly encouraged to hear Mr Trump describe the UK as a special friend this week).

Donald Trump is not a neo-con, preoccupied with the security prospects of the Saudis, Turks and Qataris. He looks at the world with the purity of the patriot; an honest, crystalline simplicity. To him, something is either good for America, or not. That seems to be his only consideration.

I do understand and appreciate that many parts of the world (and parts of America) will be unnerved by Trump’s election. This is only inevitable. Change always brings anxiety. Nevertheless, such places and people must be calm and reasonable enough to give the president-elect a chance to show his governing style before jumping to rash conclusions.

In Israel, there is some stress over President Trump’s words regarding the conflict with the Palestinians. Back in the primary debates, Mr Trump shocked the gathered by stating that it wasn’t helpful to pick a side in foreign conflicts and that he would, as president, strive to be more fair-minded. Since then, Trump has reconfirmed his intention to make a ‘deal’ on the Israel-Palestine face-off. What does he mean by this? What kind of ‘deal’ does he have in mind? We have no way of knowing, so worrying about it is a waste of time.

As on Israel, so on many other issues. Trump is simply a mystery to us at this point. Will he tame his fiery populism upon entering the White House? Will he go back on his promises made at his roaring rallies? Will the wall be built? What will happen to the 11 million illegal migrants currently embedded in American society? We don’t know. We can’t know. Only time will tell us.

It is my belief that Donald Trump will either be the greatest president of the past 50 years, or he will be the worst. There is no in-between with him. His personality is too spectacular, his confidence too muscled. As things stand, the former seems more likely to me than the latter.

D, LDN

 

D-Day

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Nervous? I am. In fact, to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure I’ve ever been so on edge before an election in my life. On Wednesday morning, barring some unforeseen chaos, America will have a new president elect. As to whether that president will wear a tie or a pantsuit is still anyone’s guess.

I have stopped paying attention to the polls. The last couple I saw, published only a few hours apart, predicted a Clinton victory and a Trump victory respectively. This tells us nothing except that the contest really is down to the wire.

The New York Times is, as far as I know, the only notable publication daring to predict a landslide for one particular candidate. In today’s online edition, the paper’s resident statisticians give Hillary Clinton an 84% chance of winning the election. For context, the paper notes that (according to this calculation) “Mrs. Clinton’s chance of losing is about the same as the probability that an NFL kicker misses a 38-yard field goal.”

I don’t need to tell you that such brazen overconfidence is terribly unwise at this point.

We have, whatever the media may fill time by saying, no real way of knowing what the final imbalance will be on Wednesday morning. We know only that two radically different Americas will have fought with purpled-faced passion for the right to determine the national (and, in some ways, global) future – their preferred visions as different from each other as can possibly be imagined. Perhaps not since the Civil War has there been such stark and violent disagreement between the peoples of the (ostensibly) United States.

There remains nothing more to say now other than to hazard a final prediction. Before I do, I must first make clear the difference between what I think will happen and what I am personally hoping for. These are, as I will explain, sadly out of sync.

I believe (perhaps I should say – I fear) that Hillary Clinton will edge the contest on Tuesday. My reasoning for this is based not on the polls, but on the strange logic (if it can even be called logic) of the US electoral college. As you’ll be aware, it ultimately doesn’t matter who leads the national polls. America’s presidents are elected by a much more convoluted mechanism. Based on unbiased (non-US) media analysis, the road to a Hillary victory appears at present much clearer than the road to a Trump triumph. In order to pull off an upset, Mr Trump must ‘flip’ numerous states in which the Republican support base is traditionally weaker than the Democrats’ – and do so in spite of a massive blitz of hostile propaganda in those states (Clinton’s attack ad spending in this election has resembled more the budget for a military invasion than for a political campaign).

True, a Trump victory is still possible, and we mustn’t lose hope. I was, you may remember, wrong about the outcome of the Brexit vote (along with pretty much everyone else in Britain). However, there is nothing to gain from wishful thinking, and I prefer to state my opinion truthfully.

Whoever wins on Tuesday, America has been undeniably altered by the long, gruelling contest up to this point. A forgotten and despised community – the White working class – has organised into a coherent and readily deployable political force. This force will outlive Trump’s candidacy and go on to influence many elections to come. This is bad news for both parties, but in particular for the Republican mainstream – a tired-out, uninspiring and treacherous collective more concerned with dollars and cents than with people and destiny. If Trump does indeed lose, therefore, there are still a lot of reasons to be thankful for his having stood at all.

The Democrats, even if they win, will be greatly wounded by Clinton’s effect. Almost singlehandedly, the nominee has peeled off a previously loyal base of youthful idealists, casting them adrift into the political wilderness in search of a third party able to satisfy their lust for European socialism and big government. It would be no surprise to me were these idealists to coalesce with the stray Republicans mentioned previously. Both groups do, after all, have the same complaint in kind. They both understand all too well that the elite no longer gives a damn about their welfare or identity. Never has a genuine third alternative looked more realistic than now.

I will post a celebration or condemnation of the result as soon as possible after it has been announced.

See you on the other side of this madness. Breathe slowly. It’s almost over!

D, LDN

PS: I am very interested to hear if the readers of this blog concur with my prediction. Perhaps I’m being unduly pessimistic?

Donald Trump’s Argument for America

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D, LDN

Alt-liberalism: A Mini-Manifesto

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In my post regarding the ‘alt-right’ political movement/subculture, I mentioned that I do not consider myself a ‘rightist’ of any kind, but rather an ‘alt-liberal’. This is a concept I thought was worth taking further. What is an ‘Alt-liberal’ of my personal style? To define the concept as I intended it, I offer the following mini-manifesto of what I believe to be positive alt-liberal principles. –

We are liberals, but…

… we do not believe that Islam and other reactionary third-world cultures are compatible with – or preferable to – the way of life historically prevalent in Western nations.

… we do not believe that immigration is necessarily a good thing –  but that its value depends entirely on the type of immigrants being admitted. Muslim immigration is a self-inflicted wound and one we must stop inflicting on ourselves.

… we do not accept that egalitarianism is an achievable political aspiration. Humans vary naturally in intelligence and ability and any attempt by the state to enforce an artificial equality will lead inevitably to the Gulag.

… we view political correctness as an over-prescribed and unhealthy solution to the failures of social cohesion. Social cohesion is best achieved when reactionary and barbaric ways of thinking (including racism) are voluntarily rejected and replaced with honesty, cosmopolitanism and understanding.

… we believe in speaking plainly about the superiority of the West and do not worry about offending primitive cultures.

… we support the defence of secularism from all its enemies, including the cultures of immigrants.

… we believe that sensible limits should be put on the size and power of the state.

… we are grateful for, and enthusiastic about, capitalism – an economic system that has improved the lives of millions and has proved to be the only workable kind of social organisation.

… we do not condemn, but celebrate consumerism and materialism as means of satisfying innate human drives and desires.

… we support democracies over tyrannies. We do not support – nor sympathise with – autocratic regimes.

… we are not pacifists and recognise that many wars (WWII, the US Civil War, etc..) have been for the common good.

… we reject anti-Semitic incitement disguised as ‘anti-Zionism’.

… we actively support the continued dominance of the United States of America over the military affairs of the world. This has been an undeniable blessing for humanity and has served to maintain stability and peace.

D, LDN

Election Fatigue (and its electoral effects)

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Despite the far-reaching importance of the result (for America and the West more broadly), I cannot deny that I have become rather exhausted by the 2016 Presidential election. And I am far from alone.

Back in July of this year, Quartz.com reported that “after nearly two years of media speculation, around-the-clock coverage of bitter primary battles, and an escalating contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton that has engulfed social feeds, two-thirds—67%—of 18- to 35-year-olds say they are worn out by news coverage of the election, the Pew Research Center has found… And the rest of the population isn’t far behind. The November election is almost four months away, but most Americans are already sick and tired of hearing about it from the news media. Fifty-nine percent say they are spent by the exhaustive news coverage, according to a Pew survey.”

One can only wonder how such people feel at this point, after a further three and half months of rolling, droning debate and endlessly repeated talking points.

So, if you’ll forgive me for mentioning the election once more, what effect will this ‘election fatigue’ have on the final result? Which candidate stands to benefit? There is every reason, I believe, to speculate that Hillary Clinton will bear the brunt of this phenomenon and that Donald Trump has the most to gain from it.

Conventional wisdom and political polls have agreed for some time that Hillary Clinton is almost a dead cert for the presidency come November 8th. But this confidence is based on methods of collecting data which do not allow for the factors of voter apathy and simple laziness.

UK pollsters, you will remember, made the very same error back in June with respect to the EU (Brexit) referendum. Right up until the day of the vote, the remain campaign enjoyed a comfortable lead of two to three percentage points over leave. Indeed, so pronounced and consistent was this finding that Nigel Farage himself speculated on the evening of June 23rd that remain had ‘edged it’.

The pollsters were wrong in that case, commentators have decided in retrospect, because they did not factor in the passion and commitment of the leave side and the corresponding deficit of passion and commitment of remain. When the day of the vote came around, the leavers poured out onto the streets in massive numbers, while millions of remainers stayed away from the polls for no better reason than laziness and a mistaken belief that their side was predestined to win comfortably.

The Brexit referendum was done and dusted in a relatively short space of time. The US Presidential election has been, in accordance with warped tradition, dragged out for over a year now, enough time for passions to diminish except in the hearts of those most committed to their favoured candidate.

No-one is passionate about Hillary. No-one has ever been passionate about Hillary (and I include Bill in that). Trump, by contrast, has long inspired an almost fanatical, even spiritual devotion in his supporters. Despite the polls and pundits saying what they will, it may well be this lop-sidedness, the superior passions of the Trumpsters, that ultimately settles this contest in the GOP’s favour.

D, LDN

Trump in Gettysburg

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Donald Trump has frequently been accused (sometimes justly) of being short on detailed policies. This speech, delivered in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, is very valuable for its detail and clarity. In it, he outlines the agenda for the first 100 days of his administration.

D, LDN

Perfectionland: Notes on Nihon

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I wasn’t in Japan for long – only five days – but it was enough to appreciate the essence of the place. The country, as I had expected to discover, is a marvel; remarkable, thrilling, inspiring and blessed with so many natural advantages that it leaves one feeling furiously envious. The people I met were beautiful and ultra-civilised – if also slightly robotic. The climate was milder than I expected (having previously visited unbearably humid South Korea). The natural environment (and especially the trees) I found dazzlingly attractive. And though I am not a ‘weeaboo’ by any stretch of the imagination, I did come away with a newfound appreciation for manga and J-Pop (especially the bizarre girl-group AKB48 – seriously look them up).

I have, of course, always understood the Western fetish for East Asia and for Japan in particular. The appeal of homogenous, orderly and affluent societies to those stranded in multiculturalised urban jungles is perfectly obvious. Japan is a dream of faultlessness; a magical perfectionland, where the girls are thin and pretty, the IQs are through the roof and crime and disorder are almost entirely absent. Who could fail to be attracted to that?

It is revealing that many of the leading luminaries of the Western far-right have had personal experience of Japan. The current leader of the white nationalist British National Party (BNP) Adam Walker, for example, spent many years  there teaching English to children. Jared Taylor, leader of the neo-segregationist website American Renaissance, also spent many years living in the country and speaks the language fluently. This makes a lot of sense to me.

A Western citizen exposed to Japan for a considerable period of time will inevitably come to resent the fact that his or her own country has gone down such a different, self-destructive path. Why can’t England be like Japan? Why can’t London be like Tokyo? Exposure to Japan can by itself turn a liberal into a reactionary.

Of course, there is no new shift in policy available to us that can make England into Japan or London into Tokyo, and any effort to bring such changes about will be a failure (and a bloody one at that). This is because Japan has dodged the bullet of decline for reasons that are inherently Japanese.

First, Japan has always been insular. Indeed, prior to the Meiji restoration, Japan maintained the strictest policy of cultural isolation in human history, even at times forbidding its citizenry the right to leave the archipelago on pain of death. Second, Japanese people are, on average, smarter than Europeans by two to three IQ points. This is not an insignificant difference and it has real-world consequences. Finally, Japanese men have lower levels of testosterone than Europeans, meaning that libertinism, crimes of aggression (and increasingly even reproduction) are much rarer there than in other parts of the world.

Given that Europeans cannot become Japanese simply by changing national policy, those who (like Jared Taylor and Adam Walker) dream of importing Japanese advantages into the West are sadly deluded. The best we can do is envy them quietly and try not to get too depressed.

D, LDN

Ann Coulter: “In Trump We Trust”

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The beautiful and tack-sharp Ann Coulter continues to rise in my estimation. Here, the long-legged conservative goddess discusses her latest book “In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome”.

D, LDN

Trump’s Best Speech (So Far)

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ICYMI, this was Trump’s best speech of the campaign so far. He placed his candidacy in the broader historical moment, justifying the extraordinary nature of his platform.

D, LDN