Earlier, I said the Warren G. Harding administration was corrupt. It happened 98 years ago so nobody called me a Nazi or banned me from Facebook. Most Americans think history started about the time they were eight (which is true of many generations) so nobody gives a rat’s ass when I blog about “dusty musty” Harding. Nobody who voted for Harding is sending me comments; “before you bitch about Harding you should really look into Taft who was even worse”.
The whole thing was hashed out and digested. The people went through the experience and then forgot about it.
Except they didn’t forget about it, we forgot about it. For them it was traumatic. It was a series of nasty revelations. Ugly facts were discovered, discussed, dissected and debated. Favoritism was unearthed, money was followed, some rich dudes got embarrassed, etc… Testimony was read, depositions were typed up, speeches were made, congressmen harrumphed, moralists clutched pearls, and newspapers complained. I’m sure friends and family bitched about it over Thanksgiving dinners.
The whole deal sucked for them but means nothing to us. We, the people of the future, don’t react because it’s “from long ago”. Take a leap with me and imagine a time in our future; a time as far from now as we are from Harding (who took office in 1921). Imagine the year 2117.
Do you suppose some history lecture in 2117 will sound like this?
“In the early parts of the 21st century, despite a good standard of living and promising developments in what would be the ultimate game changer of sexbots delivered by drone, the populace was not at ease. Governance in the United States was mired in corruption or at least allegations of it. The people tried distracting themselves with many things: movies about superheroes, memes with cats, lawsuits about cake bakeries, boycotts of chicken sandwiches, debates about healthy diets, recycling, rearranging bathrooms in public spaces, elaborate decision matrices about which kind of gun is more dangerous than some other kind of gun, the colorful antics of what folklore researchers have dubbed “Florida Man”, and so forth. Someone (for reasons we still don’t understand) even launched a car into space! (We’ll be visiting that strange artifact on our next field trip.) Some of the issues of the early 21st century remain ill understood. For example, we’re not sure why there was alarm about an opioid epidemic simultaneous with the multi-state decriminalization of marijuana. The “Ted Nugent Theorem” seems inadequate to address this matter. (If you check your footnotes you’ll see ‘marijuana’ is the historic term for the herb we now add to our morning coffee under the brand name “California Sanka”.)
Regardless, circular debates weren’t entertaining enough to calm an increasingly alarmed citizenry and everyone was running around complaining about how terrible things were. Historians suspect an underlying malaise was compounded by the psychosis inducing effects of social media. We now understand the ill effects of social media can be ameliorated by “getting a life” but this was not well understood at the time.
Turning back to governance; of course, we know now that the corruption of the time was largely related to…”
I’d like to hear the rest of that lecture, wouldn’t you? It might be an eye opener.
Look around yourself in 2019 and think about what it’ll look like to someone from 2117. Among other things we’re probably in a time of corruption. Such a simple answer, yet it feels vaguely unreal.
We’re up to our armpits in information that hints at the situation but it’s hard to digest. We cling to the normalcy bias that this current era isn’t a time of stupidity. Who wants to be in a time of corruption and stupidity? That sucks! More comforting to assume it’s a one-off thing and and all the bad shit definitely has a lot to do with the others anyway.
But the unease we feel is a real thing. It tells us the easy answer isn’t sufficient to explain away events that don’t seem… right. We find ourselves conflicted between what we expect and what we experience. It’s because we’re too close to the situation to stand back and say “yep, that’s a standard generic case of cyclic asshattery, they happen from time to time.”
Before I let this idea drop, ask yourself to whom you’re applying my blanket word “corruption”. You’re likely a fan of one team and you might think it’s the other team that’s the entire problem. Maybe that’s true. Or maybe not. I don’t have a time machine so I don’t know. I do know that for every person that breathes a sigh of relief Hillary Clinton didn’t win in 2016, there’s an equal and opposite person who wakes each day pissed that Donald Trump is alive and breathing. Doesn’t that seem at least a little… odd?
If I had a time machine, I could go to the future and see how it all pans out. Alas all I’ve got right now is the feeling that nobody in America is simultaneously happy with both parties. Is there a person who’s happy with the content of debate? Is there a single voting citizen who thinks Trump and Hillary were both morally square? Did anyone have the idea that both sides were simultaneously “honorable” when they voted in 2016? Most of us can, at best, extend our sympathies to half the equation. If I were playing poker I’d say that’s a “tell”.
While damn near nobody thinks both sides are clean, a growing percentage of us are thinking “a pox on both their houses”. That sounds like a populace starting to accept they’re in a time of corruption. Perhaps we’re starting the long slog of working through it.
I think today is what it felt like in 1921. They didn’t know future historians would say “of course that was a very corrupt situation” but they knew weird shit was afoot. (It also occurs to me the people of 1921 were just starting the interesting journey of prohibition. It was the first few years of a time when damn near everyone broke a clear and unambiguous law. Why? Perhaps they no longer felt bound by a law that was “dumb”? Is there the whiff of “consent of the governed” at play in way prohibition made so many citizens act like criminals in the roaring twenties?)
The folks in 1921, and most of us over a certain age in 2019, know things don’t always suck. Maybe that’s the key? One must recognize what’s right before your eyes: “This situation is not average but rather the part of a cycle. It’s unpleasant but not unprecedented. It’s a low ebb but it’s not forever. Like that one time I ate bad guacamole, this too will pass. The manner of the passing will be just like the guacamole. Time to process some political corruption. Hand me a roll of toilet paper and let’s get this over.”
(Forgive the metaphor but FFS look at politics both in America and elsewhere. What metaphor would be better?)
In my life I’ve seen things work more rationally. I’ve seen, elections that were resolved without rancor. There was a time before hanging chads (Al Gore versus Bush Jr.). Before there was “voter intent” and “lets sue” there were times of “we counted this shit and even though we don’t like it, here’s the number”. (There was a time when even the folks on NPR acknowledged a president they didn’t like as legitimate!) Looking around now, you almost need to have seen those times yourself to know it’s possible. Rationality can (and likely will) happen again.
Sure, there’s always pockets of corruption (I’m looking at you Chicago) but that’s a different story. I’m talking about the saner world which I’ve been fortunate enough to experience.
There was a time when folks might vote for Person A without calling all of Person A’s opponents racist shitheads or lying bastards. When Person B gets elected, the ones who preferred A could shrug their shoulders and think “oh well, maybe next time”. No shit… I’ve seen it with my own eyes! Going into hysterics isn’t the way every election necessarily plays out. It’s just the way they play out recently.
Governance is the same. I’ve seen laws that were sorta popular on one side and sorta popular on the other side and congress muddled through in a generic mushy unsatisfying middle ground and it wasn’t quite so nutty. There would be whole years without one group or another dressing strangely and marching around the streets.
I’ve also seen politicians try to do something that “will change things in a big way” and then decide to not crush their opposition in hopes of getting their brass ring. I’ve seen them back off when it’s viciously opposed by a large portion of the electorate. There was this feeling that the opponents, even if they weren’t the guy’s core voters, were still citizens. Occasionally a politician could squeeze out enough votes to make their signature thing into law but they didn’t want to create an unhealthy level of butthurt. Perhaps, in those times, the American people had fewer mutually exclusive demands?
Call 2019 what you want but not every political era is a series of scorched earth, knife fight, cage matches where the winner dances with glee at the humiliation of their mortal enemy. A congressmen didn’t always act as if their opponent was from hated alien territory of Tennessee or New Hampshire and therefore should not jut be outvoted but righteously hated and if possible completely destroyed. I’ve even seen presidents that we’re widely accepted as “clean” by basically everyone. It can, and has, happened, perhaps even a majority of elections but not in all times. Not in the time of Harding (which we don’t care about) and not recently (which has us acting like fools).
I propose that right now, when people are shrieking as if this politician or that is lurking in the bushes by their back door and might kidnap the dog or pee in the mailbox… it’s a time of corruption. More importantly it’s a time of corruption as experienced by a people not yet ready to fully grasp it but who are getting there. I think the time is approaching soon. I don’t know how long it’ll take. 98 years is enough to opine about Warren G. Harding without getting sued or fired. Hopefully, it’ll be faster than that.
AC, we’re probably about the same age (I’m 54). I remember those days, too, & I miss them.
I used to love a good argument, in the classical sense; not the Monty Python sense, & certainly not the present one. The give-and-take of ideas that didn’t agree, that might even be diametrically opposed, with no rancor. A might convince B, B might sway A, or each might walk away still thinking the same as when they began. The thing is, we could still respect one another, even in disagreement.
Things have become so partisan that everybody seems to want to come to blows immediately. I try to be aloof from it, but now, unless it’s an old & trusted friend, I usually don’t bother with even philosophical disagreement, let alone political.
It’s a damned shame. Folks are missing not just an entertaining exchange, but a chance to widen their own perspectives & learn a little.
Now get off of my fucking lawn, ya little bastards!
I also miss discussing things with adults. The best one can do is to take solace when you can and stay away from crowds. It’s a bit quiet at the figurative adult’s table in a society that’s gotten juvenile but best to stay aloof and wait. Hopefully, kids (of whatever age) will choose to level up. When they do, we’re there to welcome them and glad to have the company. (I practice what I preach. I manage my blog not for maximum “hits” but to give myself and others a place where adults can have a laugh and the habitually triggered are mocked.)
There are plenty of rational thinkers out there. For the moment we’re pushed into the corners; not gone so much as unseen; hidden beneath a torrent of lesser bullshit. The rising tide of nitwits who confuse slogans with thought isn’t more important but it sure is louder. Perhaps they whole thing is an ill effect of social media and 24/7 “news”. Many sites only want to farm “likes”. With goals like that, it makes sense to focus on boobs, bitching, and bullshit. One can easily make hits stampeding the audience; the tragic end to such a pointless path is to wind up woke, broke, and eventually you realize you’re CNN.
Additionally, there’s the effect of population cohorts who’ve never had to test their theories in the real world. Decades ago they’d get their education at the hands of economics and Murphy’s Law if nothing else. After all, it doesn’t take much interaction with the real world to find that theory isn’t the same as practice. Theory alone in the real world leads to blown engines, crop failures, bankruptcies, broken hearts, and lost opportunities. In past decades the inexperienced would get sorted out right quick; they’d learn before they could cause too much damage. Soon they’d generate real results and real successes almost by accident. They’d observe how their ideas pan out and adjust to reality or fail. A nine year old an a bicycle learns about gravity just as a college student learns about career choices and why you don’t want a meth head for a roommate. Right now the latter isn’t always happening.
Publicly, you can see immaturity in that too much is made of people who, due to incomplete minds, must live entirely in theoretical worlds; politics, media, celebrity, sportsball, education, or social media. Why we suffer these fools is a mystery. (This isn’t to belittle the “bi-cultural” folks who can handle the real world AND sojourn into the fake land of ideas. A professor who can rebuild an engine in his/her spare time is an entirely different animal and far more interesting that one who rambles about intersectionality but can’t do anything else.)
I’m convinced things seem weird for temporary reasons. We temporarily have more than the usual lot of people who cannot think. It’s not a lack of mental horsepower so much as the lack of application. A life that never required thought creates a thoughtless sub-adult.
I’m optimistic. It’ll pass. Hopefully soon, but who knows. Whether it passes in a decade or a century… it will invariably pass. Some black swan event will cause most to shake out of the minute to minute fruit fly level timeframe of social media. Folks will learn to shield themselves from the pointless tempests of the hive mind. Only a few will refuse to grow; they will either go stark raving mad or they’ve already done so.
Face it:
The REAL reason nobody called you a Nazi or banned you from Facebook is that President Harding did not have enough melanin content in his skin. Nor was he Muslim nor homosexual.
Therefor he is fair game for ANY rants.
temporary?
like saying the little ice ages were temporary
they were, but only went away after much death and destruction.
I can’t say how long it’ll last but it’ll be shorter than an ice age. Russia, which went full retard, was Soviet less than a century. My example about Harding is under a century and my Red Scare example is half that.
You know the saying about these sorts of things “if something can’t go on… it won’t”.
Periods of peak dumbass might last a couple hundred years (as it did in some locales in Medieval Europe. Or it might last longer (which sucks). But it’s just as likely to get kicked in the nuts by a Black Swan event that nobody sees coming. An era of “forever stupid” may come to an abrupt end even in out lifetimes.
Remember, it was only 3 years ago that an anemic economy was “the new normal” to which I had “to get used to” because we lacked a “magic wand to bring the jobs back”. In 2016 the DOW dipped a bit and that idiot Krugman said it would “never recover”. Now it’s doing rather well. All the media’s prognosticators of doom (including the idiot Krugman) are still employed but they were rather incorrect in their projections.
All is not lost. Some glimmer of hope is that the easily stampeded idiots people seem to be turning on themselves more often lately. That’s a good sign.
Take heart, hold out hope, and stay away from crowds. I could be wrong but I’ve seen stupid ebb and flow before.
I just found your blog today, two clicks off Instapundit. Great thinking and writing, also funny. Love the history perspective, my husband is a long time history amateur (in your sense) and got me more deeply into it.
The decline of the mainstream broadcast mass media and the rise of social media has made many more people aware of corruption than in the ’50s-’90s. For example, most people my age, who were kids when JFK was offed, still think he was King Arthur, when he was as corrupt as, well not LBJ, but close, and as randy as Clinton. The media covered for him, Jackie came up with the Camelot trope and now you have to read the detailed history (not the stuff taught in school!) to see what was obvious to some at the time. I was only 7, but my Chicago liberal parents wrote in Adlai rather than vote for either JFK or Nixon, because they were both so corrupt. And don’t forget, that election was stolen and the GOP didn’t fight it (an early sign of a continuing pattern). So the current era of corruption starts decades earlier than most people think.
Forty years ago, you had to chase down conspiracies and conspiracy theories through word of mouth and underground publications. The Illuminatus Trilogy was written in 1974. I just reread it to keep sane during the 2016 election and it was shocking how insightful it was in an acid head way.
Today, there’s so much information that it’s a question of learning to tease out truth from fake news, agitprop, psyops and retail trolling. Most folks don’t have those skills yet, so the crazy is incredibly visible to folks who never saw any fnords before and they don’t know how to parse it, so they go tribal.
Technical revolutions, especially communications ones always have unintended consequences, like printing and Brand Luther leading to the Anabaptist takeover of Munster.
Glad you found my little blog. Welcome!
I started amateur study of history during the Obama years. I was tired of modern politics and thought “the middle ages is pretty remote, I’ll learn about that to escape the madness of now”. Also I wondered “how much of this shit has happened before?” Turns out the answer is “all of it… many times… again and again”. I shoulda’ seen that coming!
I’m not sure if it’s a relief to see the cycles but it does give me a private chuckle when nitwits understand history as “about the time Nintendo was popular” put on funny outfits and stomp around in the streets. They’re ranting over this or that “unprecedented disaster” and honestly think it’s true. It’s like watching a kitten do algebra; or a LARP version of those funny videos when college students explain that America invented slavery and gleefully sign petitions against “women’s suffrage”.
I’m also pretty sure we’re living through a giant uncontrolled experiment into what happens if we stick a direct connection to the hive mind in everyone’s pocket. Turns out it’s very disruptive; dopamine hits that make cigarettes seem wimpy! It’s definitely another version of the changes wrought by Gutenberg.
Speaking of which I didn’t know about the Anabaptist takeover of Munster until I listened to it on Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History. What a story! It’s one of my favorites.