Luke Ford

Comments at Steve Sailer:

* A lot of savvy young people of the internet generation now know how this stuff is engineered, though — the information is in, we were born in it, and this is why so many young white men are way more to the right than Steve’s commentariate. We know why it’s happening and we know who’s doing it, and we don’t BS around it like a lot of boomers still do. There’s a reason why the same trends were present in Russia up until recently; because the same people who were in charge over there are now in charge over here. This is about people: who is running the show, in charge of crafting the youth culture, and able to promote their policies and agenda. Presently in the US, that is an alien elite who wants to see us destroyed. So we are dying…

* It used to be that social observers could, with some justification, conflate class with race. But given the rather precipitous drop in life quality indicators – including, er, life itself – for lower status whites, that is no longer a tenable position.

In other words, the author of the piece above fails to realize the rather wide gulf that now exists between upscale whites and downscale whites. The latter, especially in Appalachia, are essentially the forgotten people of America. Their communities have been devastated by idleness, substance abuse, decline in religiosity, destruction of marriage and other social institutions, yet they are not endlessly valorized in the media as blacks and Hispanics are. Indeed, they are told that they are the enemy of the good in this country.

Some of the underlying causes are due to mass immigration of menial laborers, but much of it has to do with other reasons, such as the shift to the polarized high-tech/service dual economic structure, the decline of marriage and religion, the disintegration of civic society, including its most basic structure – family, that existed as social glue even (or especially) in poor areas.

Put another way, the “progressive” evolution of American society in the last 20-30 years has been catastrophic for the left side of the IQ bell curve among whites. Blacks were the first to suffer from this “benevolent” poison of the Left; now whites with lower IQ profiles are undergoing the same change. In some ways the trends are worse for downscale whites, because the exceptional ones from downscale white communities can pick up and move to upscale white areas and assimilate themselves easily (the way upscale blacks can’t or won’t). This essentially leaves the worst-off behind with few role models and leadership to rescue the communities from their plight.

I get to observe this firsthand, because I live in both a super zip area and West Virginia (though I should stress that my area of WV is relatively intact and affluent as far as WV goes). My super zip is full of bright/hardworking people from WV who fled their declining communities and built new, affluent lives for themselves. Most of them are crystal clear that they hold their former communities in low regard and intend never to return.

Interestingly, what new “menial” jobs there are in parts of WV are not geared to downscale white men, but to downscale white women. A prime example is a call center for, say, Verizon FiOS. Verizon used to staff several call centers with blacks. They couldn’t do math (deal with billing issues) and they often angered customers with poor customer service. At some point Verizon realized the customer service and retention issue this was causing and started to staff/relocate its call center to WV with white women without college degrees (but with high school diplomas), because these women were comprehensible, pleasant with the customers on the phone, and smart enough to resolve common billing issues on their own.

On the one hand, this is good news – it means money in the pockets of those who need it; on the other hand, left out from these new jobs, of course, are less educated white men, which exacerbates some of the current problems – downscale white women have better jobs and more money than the downscale white men, hence the latter make, literally, poorer marriage partners. So this helps to perpetuate the dynamic of single parenthood, idle men, etc. – again, a repeat of what blacks have suffered.

It’s not certain what can be done at this point. Curtailing mass immigration would help, certainly, but that will be far from enough. In any case, economic aspects are only a part of the problem.* It’s not clear how the social aspects are to be addressed, as social capital is famously easy to consume but difficult to replenish once depleted. One thing that is clear is that the lower class does not do well left on its own devices. Whether black or white, those on the bottom rung of the educational/IQ profile need strong families and social-religious institutions that enforce salutary social norms (e.g. chastity, thrift, work ethic, soberness, etc.).

*One educational suggestion that I get behind is to replicate the German model of three-tiered secondary school system, i.e. dramatically cut down the number of those who are headed to universities; increase technical (non-college) education, including apprenticeships, for the swollen middle portion; and provide practical, useful basic work skills (e.g. basic communication/English) for the menial labor class at the bottom.

* There are ZERO laws in the US granting white people a privilege.

In high contrast, there are thousands of laws, including especially federal laws, that grant whole classes of victim cult freaks an undeserved privilege.

When a victim cult freak refers to white privilege, it is actually referring to the benefits white people derive from hard work, honesty, and independence.

A victim cult freak panoply:

Women are federally entitled because of Male oppression
Jewish are federally entitled because of Gentile oppression
Queers are federally entitled because of Straight oppression
Muslims are federally entitled because of Christian oppression
Disabled are federally entitled because of Healthy oppression
Afro-blacks are federally entitled because of White oppression
Latinos are federally entitled because of Gringo oppression
Hispanics are federally entitled because of Gringo oppression
Military Veteran are federally entitled because of Militia oppression
2-party System Dependents are federally entitled because of Independent oppression
Aboriginals are federally entitled because of Paleface oppression
Asians are federally entitled because of Occidental oppression
National Socialist are federally entitled because of Local-state Government oppression
Crony Capitalist are federally entitled because of Honest Businessmen oppression
Crooks are federally entitled because of Law-Abiding people oppression
Zionist are federally entitled because of Anti-Fascist oppression

Comments at Steve Sailer:

* I do think the cultural element may the the ur-source for the other differences. I say this because it is not just the pundit class who are less conformist. The British are less deferential to judges than we litigation-whipped Americans are. British are more cynical and dismissive of their politicians than we are, the US having too many secular cultists who cannot distinguish between the political and the religious. In the workplace too, British can be–or used to be–surprisingly candid and irreverent to their supervisors. They weren’t insubordinate, just extremely cheeky by US standards. Perhaps it was sort of safety valve for the class system? Since no one expected the class system to change, verbal fusillades from the inferior class harmlessly told the Establishment of their temperature without creating an obligation to do anything.

* In this country, the side switchers have tended to be people published in low circulation fora who had other income streams or could count on a ready stream of philanthropic funding (extended before or after switching sides). Right to left have included Garry Wills (academic posts), Edward Luttwak (in a way, and, again, academic posts), Michael Lind (misc. philanthropies), David Brock (sorosphere &c), and Damon Linker (whatever crumbs he gets). Left to right have included Irving Kristol (misc. philanthropies), Norman Podhoretz & family (American Jewish Committee), Seymour Martin Lipset (academic positions), James Q. Wilson (academic positions), Charles Murray (misc philanthropies), Richard John Neuhaus (misc. philanthropies, ministerial backstop), and Joseph Epstein (Phi Beta Kappa Society, academic post). Tacking one way and then another over the years have been Nathan Glazer, Robert W. Tucker, and Glenn Loury (f/t academics all).

* An American is his job, so it’s dangerous to be Mickey Kaus because you won’t get hired again by your former friends. The identification of job and status is not as extreme in UK. I remember Toby Young making this point about conformist Americans.

* Brits just like to argue. Debating is a national sport in Britain. Perhaps because their social life revolves around the local pub, where people gather to drink pints and talk for hours.
Another factor could be the great tolerance for individual quirks and excentricities, and for different opinions. Whereas conformity is a virtue in America, in England it’s perceived as a weakness and lack of character. There’s no greater sin than to be boring and conforming. Excentricity is feted and revered, unlike in America.
Of course, PC of late has greatly eroded UK’s freedom of speech and stifled debate.

* The British were a mono-culture until recently, with shared white ancestry. If you’re part of the in-group, you can say what you please among the other in-group members. They’re like your family, and you tolerate more obnoxiousness from your relatives than you would from a stranger. It’s only been recently that out-group members have appeared in Western cultures, and that certain cynical in-group people have been using them as a wedge to divide their own white group against itself.