As a child of the 80s (class of 87), I know what good music sounds like (From Van Halen, Metallica, to the Smiths, Duran Duran & Depeche Mode to Butthole Surfers, Dead Kennedys, etc… I could list dozens of more bands that you could sing in front of any audience without gratuitous profanity or sex), good television shows, and great movies.
The 70s/80s/90s culture, upon reflection, seem to be the end of the “naïvely, optimistic, naïvely patriotic, Authentically traditional “ period of American history.
A dude in my Spanish class war the full on spiked Mohawk. Of course, when I first saw him, I thought he was a clown. Turned out to be one of my besties.
John Hughes films. Walking 2 miles each way to school, from elementary through high school. Walking to the movies on Friday night that was 3 to 4 miles from our home. Playing ditch and kick the can at our community pool every summer night. Rarely checking in with your parents riding your bikes all over town. Having your cassette tape prepared for Casey Kasem’s top 40 To make tapes for your girlfriend or for your own Walkman.
The seeds for our current malaise had already been planted by the greatest generation’s tilt towards materialism with their kids—the Boomers—and we’ve only gotten further and further away from God/spirit/transcendent values to faith in science/materialism—but we had mostly innocent childhoods where we raised ourselves away from our parents.
Everyone had a friend or 3 whose parents divorced, but we nursed our traumas with a ‘range free childhood’.
Like many of you I suspect, I am still in touch with 10-15 of my hometown jr high and high school friends.
I’d go back—EVEN TO CALIFORNIA—in an instant. At my age now. I’m not nostalgic for my youth, but for our culture.
LOL. Being on both sides of the digital divide, we had an uncanny collective built-in Twitter BIOS that somehow informed all of us where the after parties were.
I spent a couple of years as the Officer Recruiter for the Army National Guard. In many ways I felt like the team captain. "I'll take you, you, you...no bro--you go Army Reserves or better yet, the Air Force..."
When I described to young Soldiers who I was looking for to attend OCS I used this description:
When I was in high school/junior college, we called our parties "keggers". The leader I'm looking for is the guy who, from another high school says to his buddies, "Alright. Brian, bring the car around to the alley. Jim, grab the tap. Jeff/Steve, toss the keg over the fence...we're taking this kegger to Lind Road (a road out in the sticks where there was always an after party...summer nights in Modesto with the temps in the 80s...)"
I want the officer who knows how to talk to Soldiers, not the flute playing Academy graduate with 1550 SAT scores.
That 'signal' was something we were all tuned into--even when the location of the party suddenly changed locations!
It was called freedom, and being a kid with endless possibilities, in a country that seemingly could solve the big problems. It was an optimistic time in America.
Everybody has always been materialistic. What changed in America is that we have been so anxious to make progress that we forgot parts of the past that were useful. And we began to doubt ourselves because we allowed the poison of the Left to flourish. The Left destroys everything, everywhere it goes. Self doubt turned into self loathing and apathy. Standards were forced down in the name of “fairness” and “equality” when what we should have done is expected excellence and good citizenship from everybody. And now the pendulum has swung. Will it swing back the other way? Yes. But we have a lot of work to do to clean out the rats nest of Washington DC, the universities, and the media. A lot of this simply not giving them our money or our attention. The government is the tough one to crack. But it looks like they are cracking up by themselves. That’s a good thing overall. But they will get more and more desperate and that is the danger.
"And now the pendulum has swung. Will it swing back the other way? Yes. But we have a lot of work to do to clean out the rats nest of Washington DC, the universities, and the media. A lot of this simply not giving them our money or our attention. "
I think that there's reason to believe that the pendulum will eventually retreat from its current outlier leftward swing, but that it will require prolonged national trauma of some sort to motivate the will to change.
People are so deeply embedded in ideological opposition--like I've never seen before in my life--that it will take bitter necessity to force them to retreat to a middle ground of compromise.
Right now, the national sensibility for both end of the political spectrum--the ones dominating the public debate--is no compromise, ever, on anything.
I moved to the central coast of CA in the early 70s, as a young adult. I could still find small abalone shells in isolated pockets in coves, and even *see*the little buggers in crevices.
But while a lot of old timers talked about harvesting them, no one ever got any at that time.
Too, when you passed thru Santa Barbara going south, where for years 101 had a stop light (yes! it's true!) there was an ab processing plant by the railroad with multiple 20 ft piles of shells.
So this is symbolic of what CA *used* to be, back before my time in the 50s/60s/70s/80s.
"The seeds for our current malaise had already been planted by the greatest generation’s tilt towards materialism with their kids—the Boomers..."
I think that's a good observation. The *tone* is a bit more accusative than I'd prefer, but here's how it worked, the mechanics of it...
Our parents (I'm a Boomer) first experienced the Great Depression, followed by WWII. When they got past this, they found themselves in a country that had all of its industrial capacity intact while the rest of the industrialized world was a shambles, with little to no capacity for a number of years.
This meant that the world had to buy from us, and business took off. This was when the inflated fallacy of "American exceptionalism" was born, in my opinion. It was hard to *fail*.
Now these adults, the Boomers' parents, got homes, had kids, and thought that "by God, all of the stuff I missed out on my kids can have..and *will* have...". This was ill-advised but it seemed deserved, and somehow *right*, to them.
So we grew up fairly spoiled (but not by today's standards!) and overconfident, with an inflated notion of our importance. We, like the present ascending generations, were going to "change the world". Of course this was insulting to the previous generation since it started from the assumption that the world could have been better, before, but our parents simply overlooked the obvious: stop fighting and love one another...right now.
But we still had simmered in the juices of the national trauma that had informed our parents' lives. We heard about, either by direct and heartfelt lecture, or listening to them recount it to their peers after a few drinks.
So we *knew* that hard times were possible, by direct contact with a trusted source (parents, teachers, clergy, etc.) , but we, ourselves, hadn't experienced it, and thought it exaggerated.
When we got out of college, into the world, the US was at the tail end of its industrial hegemony, so things got a lot more competitive for us than for our parents in the 50s. Unless we stubbornly clung to the 60s dogmas about the Age of Aquarius--and some did--we basically got just as nasty as it took to succeed, because just as it had pretty much always been for white America since its foundation, failure was not an option for a self-respecting person. The basic value was success, as measured in financial security.
So we got really good at competing, just as viciously as needed to succeed.
But a fair number of the Boomers--and here's possibility their most off-putting feature--is that many, having gone 'way, 'way, 'WAY out on a limb in their youth, rhetorically by saying *publicly (loud and often) that the kinder, gentler values of the 60s were the only ones that counted, were too prideful to recant, and admit that the 60s stuff just could not work in today's world. Mankind was not yet ready, if indeed it ever would be.
So you ended up with cut-throat competitors who did very well financially, but who openly mouthed progressive sentiments and denied the realities of their existence.
You're right there is more accusation than deserved, but less than I have felt in the past. I'm beginning to see the difference between blame & responsibility. Blame is useless but easy. Responsibility is hard but the only way out.
Biblically this may be the 'sins of the father visiting until the third & fourth generations'.
Strauss/Howe's generational theory summed up with 'hard times make strong men; strong men make good times; good times make weak men; weak men make hard times.'
Grew up with a vile and evil Boomer step dad. We're estranged.
...but back to blame vs responsibility--if trauma is truly passed on below the conscious surface--then who can anyone really blame? Your dad? His dad? Where does it end?
Truth is the only way out is to own our own circumstances, heal ourselves to the degree capable (IMHO this requires Divine Intervention), and put your rucksack back on--move out and draw fire.
Humility over hubris. Love & understanding over blame.
Your sense of accusation is correct, but it is my inability to accurately communicate that you sense over my true feelings.
We call them the "Greatest Generation" for a reason. Of course they wanted to give their kids everything they were denied...and of course spoiled kids reap what they sow...it is all so predictable and inevitable.
Today I just hope we can avoid another WW which would turn Gen Z into the next Greatest Generation.
"Truth is the only way out is to own our own circumstances, heal ourselves to the degree capable (IMHO this requires Divine Intervention), and put your rucksack back on--move out and draw fire."
YES!
EXACTLY!!!
The past is gone, and attempting to even the score only brings the past frictions into the present. This can go on forever, like in the Balkans...
Yep. Turn your back on it (take a might swig of Jack Daniels, if you need it) and march forward to the best of your ability, always (or as much as your ego can bear it) take personal responsibility, if indeed the situation was under your control to decide one way or another.
For chrissake, don't attempt to keep score. That's the loser's path to self-esteem.
Caught the last part of the 70's as a 16 year old. It was magical in retrospect! They'd call it free range kids today. Such great memories with such a cool soundtrack in my head❤️
I think the biggest thing was we had more social cohesion. We liked different music, but we went to concerts and wore the band tshirts the next day. We attended Thanksgiving high school football games. Rode bikes. Knew your neighbors. Went to town Memorial Day parades. It wasn't perfect, but it was grand.
In the 70s and beyond it was possible to go into work on a Monday and talk to most of your co-workers about watching Roots, or All in the Family. This was probably a linear descendant of FDR's fireside chats.
That's all gone for as long as granular content is widely available. So that we're now all in our own la-la lands.
Mid to late 70’s for me, please. I didn’t have untroubled teen/young adult years, but it was a cake walk compared to the sheer volume of civilizational despair and joyless lunacy that that keep trying to overwhelm us with currently.
Chris, your encouraging tales of folks living a normal life and investing in the future, unafraid to experience the joy of rearing children is a balm to my soul.
Bifurcated was a great title. We are in the midst of a great spiritual winnowing process. Wheat from chaff, darkness or light, hope or despair.
Nostalgia brings out the positives, but sadly going back in time is never anything but a wish, and recreating the past in the present is not possible. Doesn't mean going back to the foundations of what made our country great shouldn't be something to work for.
"Nostalgia brings out the positives, but sadly going back in time is never anything but a wish, and recreating the past in the present is not possible."
I haven't been camping since my camping guy passed away, but I'm blessed by living semi-rural. Owls in the woods at night, birds singing in the woods. Our life mostly consists of gardening. So sweet.
We went to a fish camp for supper yesterday. No fishing, no camping - just a sweetly utilitarian restaurant dining room decorated with a lakeside mural (including the ceiling). There were no purple-hairs there, just good old rednecks enjoying a tasty meal in a 70s-style venue. A metal tray with fried fish, onion rings, hushpuppies and coleslaw while appreciating the lake view.
I have been known to swipe spoons as memorabilia. Yes, I know it's wrong to steal. At the fish camp, you get only a fork. And it's a fork no one would want to steal. It's the quintessential fork with no frills.
Got a place like that on a mountain lake in North Carolina. We drive two hours north just to enjoy it. Waitresses are school teachers out on summer vacation. Love it..
There's an amazing burger and fish place north of the nearest town to our farm (NC). In the very best possible sense, the kind of dive or hole-in-the-wall you don't want anyone else to find out about, while wishing tremendous success for the owner-operators. No more than six tables inside, push past the hanging screens (that don't keep the flies out) to come in and order, with HBCU pennants on the walls and a very polite, very patient stream of dine-in and take-out customers on a hot summer afternoon. I love the food and, even better, it restores my soul.
"Knowing that you're choosing" is an interesting concept. Having been raised and hence ideologically stuck in the radical Left for too long, I vaguely had an idea that I wanted to be married and have a family but was trying to accomplish that in a culture that was actively hostile to that. But it wasn't said plainly--instead it was just various failed relationships without understanding why. That is, because the idea of marriage/children is portrayed as bad to lib women while lib men were(maybe not anymore) told to be good supportive men and prepare for a role they were never going to allowed to fulfill. Sadly, for many of us the time has passed by but we didn't know because the raw ideology was hidden from us. We were trying to be "normal" in a culture that was going full speed over a cliff.
Sometimes I look around my neighborhood and I wonder if people really know what’s happening. They kind of don’t, because they’re busy planning bbqs, neighborhood carnivals, congregating at the swimming pool, and running off to sports camps. I want to scream at them sometimes for acting like everything is NORMAL.
But one of the gifts of your writing, Chris, is to actually appreciate that. Be grateful that normal is still a thing. And hope it stays and can weather whatever’s next.
I had a couple tears in my eyes last night at the regular weekly outdoor music event that happens downtown in my old timey small town just watching a dad shout to his two young teen sons to look for cars before they ran across the street to him with ice cream cones from the local creamery, then watching a tiny girl in a pink dress walking her two tinier white puppies on two tiny blue leashes so obviously thrilled and proud. Tears, normal, life, love, human. I think we're gonna be okay.
I think this bifurcation has a parallel in what I see as the fundamental difference between the (for lack of a better term) “center right” and the increasingly monolithically woke left: the left is captured by ideologies that require nothing but faith, and are impervious to contradictory evidence or logic. Homelessness only requires more housing (because homelessness is a symptom of capitalism’s failure to provide basic necessities); Palestine is only a failed project because Israel is racist and imperialist; teens are suicidal only because their gender identity isn’t affirmed by society. To believe these things one must be both stone ignorant and captured by a series of inchoate but powerful utopian fantasies. Whether he understands them or not, Joe Biden repeatedly espouses these religiously held positions. On the other hand, regardless of his obvious personality flaws, Trump appears to have no ideology: he has a few basic beliefs that most Americans hold: a strong America is the best guarantee of peace and security; some people and societies are evil; runaway bureaucracy is an impediment to prosperity etc. I think Trump embodies the spirit of American pragmatism of the Jamesian sort, and this resonates because this is how people live their daily lives.
That woke ideology requires no faith at all - it requires constant pride, envy, lust, etc. The ideology requires nothing more than praising sin as virtue.
I was the typical clueless male with no real purpose or life plan until I met my wife. She is a strong woman who gave me a purpose and reason to succeed. One, I wanted to make sure I could support her and our family and, two, I didn’t want her to be disappointed in me.
One of the greatest gifts I have received in life is that each of my four sons has found a wife who encourages and supports them just like their mother did to me.
It’s difficult to grow up & mature if you don’t have a family to be responsible for. It’s telling that the left says that by noticing & remarking on the decline of our country is a negative outlook. And to want to fix it is basically un-American! I believe some will double down on the gaslighting (Jill, KJP & others) while others work behind the scenes to “fix” their big problem. Killary/Newsom? Who’ll be on top?
If some people want to have purple hair or pretend they are dogs or the opposite sex and be Communists or Satanists or fake Palestinians , AND they don’t want conventionally normal heterosexual people around because they hate us, then let’s break up. You guys live in your land and I’ll live in mine. That way I don’t have to fix all your broken shit and look at your dissipation and alienation. And you don’t have to tolerate normalcy and work ethic and striving for excellence ( not that this tolerance thjng happens).
Yes, it would mean breaking up the country into two or three separate entities. That’s mostly a matter of money and legal agreements like Brexit. But all sets of people would be happier all around. Probably would have less power and money at the government level, but if the people want it, they could do it.
I just think this is easier than trying to convert 1/2 the population onto the opposite reality. I don’t see that happening in the best case scenario for a long time. And in the meantime these people are ruining the rest of us.
Let them shoot up and panic over the climate.
The rest of us can raise families, go swimming, have a barbecue and do something constructive with our lives.
Great plan! Wonder how long a nation with NO ONE who is willing, or even knows how, to grow food, build anything, or fix anything will survive? A nation with millions of 'managers', and no plumbers or welders, where very few understand what makes the lights come on when they flick the switch, or why water comes out when they turn the tap, or where the sewage goes when they flush.
We're coming up to our week-long "family day" at the ranch. This year, there will be over twenty of us. Kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids. All of whom will "go swimming, have a barbecue and do something constructive". Enjoy your Forth!
That’s kind of funny because my son is an electrician. He’s a straight, white, Christian, married, redneck man but when something comes up, he’ll say, “Well, yes, but I *identify* as a strong, independent, lesbian, black woman.”
I agree with everything except" both will be happy." Purple hairs will NEVER be happy( not that I care) misery is the only meaning in their lives. Question :how do we draw up the lines to separate Absurdistan from the rest of us? And how soon can we do that?
Observation: the Absurdistanians will likely need to Uber in pizza and Plan B . I say we don't accept their gov money. I doubt they can last more than 1 generation as no one wants to work, so no tax base to support their Utopia and since they won't be reproducing much due to gender confusion and abortion. After they all perish, we colonizers can take their country back and return it to it's former glory. 🤣🤣
I feel this—two different, equally available realities. I have four young 20/teens, and I spend so much time trying to make sure they see the beauty in the life-giving choices. The other options are so dire.
Exactly. It's all been a conspiracy for four fucking years. Where are the watchdog groups? Why wasn't the 25th amendment invoked? Where are the whistle blowers?
When's the DOJ going to release those Biden audio tapes?
They won't because it will reveal to all exactly what's going on:
That the Cadever-in-Chief gets treats, for good behavior, from Nurse Ratchet (Dr. Jill) like a dotting mother clapping for her toddler just for leaving his diaper dry.
Perhaps part of the conspiracy is now they can install a candidate who didn't get a single primary vote.
Democracy dies in darkness.........................
The Demonrats were stupid turning away RFK Jr. I watched therealdebate.com last night. If they wanted their party to be in power he would have had a great chance. Although I'm not crazy about a lot of his policies his answers were more common sense and intelligent than the other 2 duking it out.
At his heart he is a Democrat and will support the agenda. Or he will be a lame duck. I am deeply suspicious of him after he have an interview stating he supports" no limits on abortion" and when asked if that meant he supports full term abortion to the ninth month he said" yes". Only to change his view point AFTER his VP said she was"surprised by his position"and they had not discussed it before .
I got to thinking.... It's not like the Republicans ( in office) didn't know. They see this too. Why didn't they do anything years ago? Then I remembered.... We are a two party system.... Them against us. 💔
Nearly 48 million TVs tuned in last night. And I think the media's shocked response (scripted in my opinion) allowed the audience to be shocked, too, and helped let the media off the hook for their propping Biden up well past his sell-by date.
In any case, it'll be interesting to watch how this plays out.
Come to the South. This is how we live. Kids going fishing and hunting without adults, surfing, boating, biking to school. Yes there are drugs, unfortunately, but I rarely see homeless people sleeping in public or opening drunk or drugged, and other than in our couple of big cities, no encampments. (Those seem to happen behind shopping centers and are routed regularly, not allowed to continue.) Families have kids, go to church, have yard sales, cook out. We’re not perfect but we’re a lot better than anywhere Blue.
There's places like that in the Eastern Mid-West, too. Ohio (stay out of the big cities), and Indiana (less big cities to stay away from). Both not blue.
I don't think there is much choosing going on. I think we have arrived at the end game of what we call, 'science'. Better called, the experimental method. It works. We live in a material world unimaginably rich in power over the matter. If you want to call it 'progress,' fine. There are a dozen suitable words to describe what has changed us. St. Paul writes, "in beholding we are become changed." As our mastery of the material world increases, our dependency on materialist thinking grows. The spiritual dimension of man is now incoherent and enfeebled. The religious people don't have spiritual understanding because their minds are as full of materialist notions as anyone else's. Almost no one is willing to turn their back on Mammon and his charms and allurements.
Anyway, we are miserable because we no longer understand who we are. We think we are like the machines that serve us, except we believe we should serve ourselves. If you are going to believe in progress you have to have faith in yourself. Not much to hope for - we are all dying, one way or the other. Nobody gets out alive.
I lived in Portland for 48 years until I couldn’t stand it any more and fled 25 miles east to the conservative town of Sandy. Imagine if these homeless people used their resourcefulness and ingenuity ( it takes some smarts to do what they did) to avail themselves of the many drug treatment opportunities that the city applies and then procure gainful employment? I guess that’s not a viable option for them.
Portland used to be really pretty. It was always liberal, but it was livable. It’s a hellish cesspool now.
Thanks, Chris! Much needed and appreciated. I am a lucky man. I live in a seniors apartment building on a quiet street lined with huge old oaks and maples. Vancouver is still OK in my neighbourhood. Best is, on the first floor is a day care and so below me is the sound of happy little kiddies playing. There are lots of young parents raising lots of little kids in my neighbourhood. It helps a lot!
We have three adult sons, none married. The youngest has told me that "all the girls are miserable". I suspect he's right, seems to be a lot of that going around.
“No, they weren’t scared — they just got her back into the boat. Like, obviously.”
I assume you immediately called the local sheriff for their having violated professional licensing statutes by untrained & uncertified laymen pulling the girl into the boat?
And then there’s the underlying crime of having put to sea in a vessel not encased in bubble wrap.
That's a GREAT reminder. It's so easy to get worked up about stuff. Our beautiful little tourist town attracts lots of the type that want to escape and bring their horrible ideas with them. Summer is particularly bad of course with traffic, waiting on lines and the attitudes but once school starts most of it dissipates.
Who's ready to just go back to the 80's?!
As a child of the 80s (class of 87), I know what good music sounds like (From Van Halen, Metallica, to the Smiths, Duran Duran & Depeche Mode to Butthole Surfers, Dead Kennedys, etc… I could list dozens of more bands that you could sing in front of any audience without gratuitous profanity or sex), good television shows, and great movies.
The 70s/80s/90s culture, upon reflection, seem to be the end of the “naïvely, optimistic, naïvely patriotic, Authentically traditional “ period of American history.
A dude in my Spanish class war the full on spiked Mohawk. Of course, when I first saw him, I thought he was a clown. Turned out to be one of my besties.
John Hughes films. Walking 2 miles each way to school, from elementary through high school. Walking to the movies on Friday night that was 3 to 4 miles from our home. Playing ditch and kick the can at our community pool every summer night. Rarely checking in with your parents riding your bikes all over town. Having your cassette tape prepared for Casey Kasem’s top 40 To make tapes for your girlfriend or for your own Walkman.
The seeds for our current malaise had already been planted by the greatest generation’s tilt towards materialism with their kids—the Boomers—and we’ve only gotten further and further away from God/spirit/transcendent values to faith in science/materialism—but we had mostly innocent childhoods where we raised ourselves away from our parents.
Everyone had a friend or 3 whose parents divorced, but we nursed our traumas with a ‘range free childhood’.
Like many of you I suspect, I am still in touch with 10-15 of my hometown jr high and high school friends.
I’d go back—EVEN TO CALIFORNIA—in an instant. At my age now. I’m not nostalgic for my youth, but for our culture.
bsn
Best of all: no laptops, cell phones, or (anti-)social media.
"Go out and don't come home till dinner!" -Every mom back in the day
LOL. Being on both sides of the digital divide, we had an uncanny collective built-in Twitter BIOS that somehow informed all of us where the after parties were.
The fidelity of the "signal" still amazes me.
I spent a couple of years as the Officer Recruiter for the Army National Guard. In many ways I felt like the team captain. "I'll take you, you, you...no bro--you go Army Reserves or better yet, the Air Force..."
When I described to young Soldiers who I was looking for to attend OCS I used this description:
When I was in high school/junior college, we called our parties "keggers". The leader I'm looking for is the guy who, from another high school says to his buddies, "Alright. Brian, bring the car around to the alley. Jim, grab the tap. Jeff/Steve, toss the keg over the fence...we're taking this kegger to Lind Road (a road out in the sticks where there was always an after party...summer nights in Modesto with the temps in the 80s...)"
I want the officer who knows how to talk to Soldiers, not the flute playing Academy graduate with 1550 SAT scores.
That 'signal' was something we were all tuned into--even when the location of the party suddenly changed locations!
bsn
Hah!
You know, I heard Bill Clinton described as "guy guy at the frat party who always tapped the keg"...
Thinking about it, it seems right.
Too funny!
bsn
DP,
100%!!!
I almost wrote, I’d go back without the phones and computers, but it was already getting too long.
bsn
It was called freedom, and being a kid with endless possibilities, in a country that seemingly could solve the big problems. It was an optimistic time in America.
Everybody has always been materialistic. What changed in America is that we have been so anxious to make progress that we forgot parts of the past that were useful. And we began to doubt ourselves because we allowed the poison of the Left to flourish. The Left destroys everything, everywhere it goes. Self doubt turned into self loathing and apathy. Standards were forced down in the name of “fairness” and “equality” when what we should have done is expected excellence and good citizenship from everybody. And now the pendulum has swung. Will it swing back the other way? Yes. But we have a lot of work to do to clean out the rats nest of Washington DC, the universities, and the media. A lot of this simply not giving them our money or our attention. The government is the tough one to crack. But it looks like they are cracking up by themselves. That’s a good thing overall. But they will get more and more desperate and that is the danger.
"And now the pendulum has swung. Will it swing back the other way? Yes. But we have a lot of work to do to clean out the rats nest of Washington DC, the universities, and the media. A lot of this simply not giving them our money or our attention. "
I think that there's reason to believe that the pendulum will eventually retreat from its current outlier leftward swing, but that it will require prolonged national trauma of some sort to motivate the will to change.
People are so deeply embedded in ideological opposition--like I've never seen before in my life--that it will take bitter necessity to force them to retreat to a middle ground of compromise.
Right now, the national sensibility for both end of the political spectrum--the ones dominating the public debate--is no compromise, ever, on anything.
...and prisoners will be executed... :^)
Ditto this whole thing, so nostalgic for myself and for the millions of kids who have/will never be fortunate enough to experience anything like it.
Cali in the 80's was pretty cool. Great place to be a teenager ❤️
Yup. San Diego for me. Best years of my life
Marin in my late teens, San Diego/San Luis Obispo for my 20s/mid 30s. LA for my mid/late 30s, and Portland OR for the last 35+ years.
"What a long strange trip it's been..." :^)
For sure. Strangest life I've ever known...
Hah!
One of my favorites!
Oh my, 60s and 70s were nigh-on glorious. I used to fantasize about how even better it probably was in the 40s and 50s.
I think America was at its strongest in the 50's and 80's....and happiest
YES! Exactly!!! Me too.
I moved to the central coast of CA in the early 70s, as a young adult. I could still find small abalone shells in isolated pockets in coves, and even *see*the little buggers in crevices.
But while a lot of old timers talked about harvesting them, no one ever got any at that time.
Too, when you passed thru Santa Barbara going south, where for years 101 had a stop light (yes! it's true!) there was an ab processing plant by the railroad with multiple 20 ft piles of shells.
So this is symbolic of what CA *used* to be, back before my time in the 50s/60s/70s/80s.
"The seeds for our current malaise had already been planted by the greatest generation’s tilt towards materialism with their kids—the Boomers..."
I think that's a good observation. The *tone* is a bit more accusative than I'd prefer, but here's how it worked, the mechanics of it...
Our parents (I'm a Boomer) first experienced the Great Depression, followed by WWII. When they got past this, they found themselves in a country that had all of its industrial capacity intact while the rest of the industrialized world was a shambles, with little to no capacity for a number of years.
This meant that the world had to buy from us, and business took off. This was when the inflated fallacy of "American exceptionalism" was born, in my opinion. It was hard to *fail*.
Now these adults, the Boomers' parents, got homes, had kids, and thought that "by God, all of the stuff I missed out on my kids can have..and *will* have...". This was ill-advised but it seemed deserved, and somehow *right*, to them.
So we grew up fairly spoiled (but not by today's standards!) and overconfident, with an inflated notion of our importance. We, like the present ascending generations, were going to "change the world". Of course this was insulting to the previous generation since it started from the assumption that the world could have been better, before, but our parents simply overlooked the obvious: stop fighting and love one another...right now.
But we still had simmered in the juices of the national trauma that had informed our parents' lives. We heard about, either by direct and heartfelt lecture, or listening to them recount it to their peers after a few drinks.
So we *knew* that hard times were possible, by direct contact with a trusted source (parents, teachers, clergy, etc.) , but we, ourselves, hadn't experienced it, and thought it exaggerated.
When we got out of college, into the world, the US was at the tail end of its industrial hegemony, so things got a lot more competitive for us than for our parents in the 50s. Unless we stubbornly clung to the 60s dogmas about the Age of Aquarius--and some did--we basically got just as nasty as it took to succeed, because just as it had pretty much always been for white America since its foundation, failure was not an option for a self-respecting person. The basic value was success, as measured in financial security.
So we got really good at competing, just as viciously as needed to succeed.
But a fair number of the Boomers--and here's possibility their most off-putting feature--is that many, having gone 'way, 'way, 'WAY out on a limb in their youth, rhetorically by saying *publicly (loud and often) that the kinder, gentler values of the 60s were the only ones that counted, were too prideful to recant, and admit that the 60s stuff just could not work in today's world. Mankind was not yet ready, if indeed it ever would be.
So you ended up with cut-throat competitors who did very well financially, but who openly mouthed progressive sentiments and denied the realities of their existence.
Anyway, that's how it looks to me now.
A. Hairyhanded,
You're right there is more accusation than deserved, but less than I have felt in the past. I'm beginning to see the difference between blame & responsibility. Blame is useless but easy. Responsibility is hard but the only way out.
I like your explanation. I also think there is something to the idea that trauma is passed on genetically: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fearful-memories-passed-down/
Biblically this may be the 'sins of the father visiting until the third & fourth generations'.
Strauss/Howe's generational theory summed up with 'hard times make strong men; strong men make good times; good times make weak men; weak men make hard times.'
Grew up with a vile and evil Boomer step dad. We're estranged.
...but back to blame vs responsibility--if trauma is truly passed on below the conscious surface--then who can anyone really blame? Your dad? His dad? Where does it end?
Truth is the only way out is to own our own circumstances, heal ourselves to the degree capable (IMHO this requires Divine Intervention), and put your rucksack back on--move out and draw fire.
Humility over hubris. Love & understanding over blame.
Your sense of accusation is correct, but it is my inability to accurately communicate that you sense over my true feelings.
We call them the "Greatest Generation" for a reason. Of course they wanted to give their kids everything they were denied...and of course spoiled kids reap what they sow...it is all so predictable and inevitable.
Today I just hope we can avoid another WW which would turn Gen Z into the next Greatest Generation.
bsn
"Truth is the only way out is to own our own circumstances, heal ourselves to the degree capable (IMHO this requires Divine Intervention), and put your rucksack back on--move out and draw fire."
YES!
EXACTLY!!!
The past is gone, and attempting to even the score only brings the past frictions into the present. This can go on forever, like in the Balkans...
Yep. Turn your back on it (take a might swig of Jack Daniels, if you need it) and march forward to the best of your ability, always (or as much as your ego can bear it) take personal responsibility, if indeed the situation was under your control to decide one way or another.
For chrissake, don't attempt to keep score. That's the loser's path to self-esteem.
70's were even better
Caught the last part of the 70's as a 16 year old. It was magical in retrospect! They'd call it free range kids today. Such great memories with such a cool soundtrack in my head❤️
Can't disagree. Although I was born in early 71'
I think the biggest thing was we had more social cohesion. We liked different music, but we went to concerts and wore the band tshirts the next day. We attended Thanksgiving high school football games. Rode bikes. Knew your neighbors. Went to town Memorial Day parades. It wasn't perfect, but it was grand.
100%. And that's exactly why I miss it
Personalized access to media shattered this.
In the 70s and beyond it was possible to go into work on a Monday and talk to most of your co-workers about watching Roots, or All in the Family. This was probably a linear descendant of FDR's fireside chats.
That's all gone for as long as granular content is widely available. So that we're now all in our own la-la lands.
The early Cretaceous better, still!
;^)
Mid to late 70’s for me, please. I didn’t have untroubled teen/young adult years, but it was a cake walk compared to the sheer volume of civilizational despair and joyless lunacy that that keep trying to overwhelm us with currently.
Chris, your encouraging tales of folks living a normal life and investing in the future, unafraid to experience the joy of rearing children is a balm to my soul.
Bifurcated was a great title. We are in the midst of a great spiritual winnowing process. Wheat from chaff, darkness or light, hope or despair.
”Choose ye this day, whom you will serve.”
"...sheer volume of civilizational despair and joyless lunacy that that keep trying to overwhelm us with currently"
I can once remember reading in a Vonnegut novel a narrative reference to "the Nightmare Ages".
Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Pretty much on the money.
Amen
Pinnacle of music too.
Hell yeah
I connect to popular music in the 60s/70s, then a big gap until grunge, which was the last genre that seemed to speak to me.
Oh, well!
Meeeee
Nostalgia brings out the positives, but sadly going back in time is never anything but a wish, and recreating the past in the present is not possible. Doesn't mean going back to the foundations of what made our country great shouldn't be something to work for.
"Nostalgia brings out the positives, but sadly going back in time is never anything but a wish, and recreating the past in the present is not possible."
Yes, exactly.
It is, however, a pleasant and cheap vacation.
It's why I've read Chandler repeatedly: cheap vacation.
Right now I'm onto Houellebecq. It's not a vacation, but then it's not Celine, either.
Indeed. Sigh
🖐🙌🙋♀️🙋♂️🤚
I haven't been camping since my camping guy passed away, but I'm blessed by living semi-rural. Owls in the woods at night, birds singing in the woods. Our life mostly consists of gardening. So sweet.
We went to a fish camp for supper yesterday. No fishing, no camping - just a sweetly utilitarian restaurant dining room decorated with a lakeside mural (including the ceiling). There were no purple-hairs there, just good old rednecks enjoying a tasty meal in a 70s-style venue. A metal tray with fried fish, onion rings, hushpuppies and coleslaw while appreciating the lake view.
I can feel your description of this dinner in my bones, down to the metal trays.
I have been known to swipe spoons as memorabilia. Yes, I know it's wrong to steal. At the fish camp, you get only a fork. And it's a fork no one would want to steal. It's the quintessential fork with no frills.
Got a place like that on a mountain lake in North Carolina. We drive two hours north just to enjoy it. Waitresses are school teachers out on summer vacation. Love it..
There's an amazing burger and fish place north of the nearest town to our farm (NC). In the very best possible sense, the kind of dive or hole-in-the-wall you don't want anyone else to find out about, while wishing tremendous success for the owner-operators. No more than six tables inside, push past the hanging screens (that don't keep the flies out) to come in and order, with HBCU pennants on the walls and a very polite, very patient stream of dine-in and take-out customers on a hot summer afternoon. I love the food and, even better, it restores my soul.
Sounds nice. It would be nice to have something like that here, other than Long John Silver's. Blah.
"Knowing that you're choosing" is an interesting concept. Having been raised and hence ideologically stuck in the radical Left for too long, I vaguely had an idea that I wanted to be married and have a family but was trying to accomplish that in a culture that was actively hostile to that. But it wasn't said plainly--instead it was just various failed relationships without understanding why. That is, because the idea of marriage/children is portrayed as bad to lib women while lib men were(maybe not anymore) told to be good supportive men and prepare for a role they were never going to allowed to fulfill. Sadly, for many of us the time has passed by but we didn't know because the raw ideology was hidden from us. We were trying to be "normal" in a culture that was going full speed over a cliff.
Amen
Sometimes I look around my neighborhood and I wonder if people really know what’s happening. They kind of don’t, because they’re busy planning bbqs, neighborhood carnivals, congregating at the swimming pool, and running off to sports camps. I want to scream at them sometimes for acting like everything is NORMAL.
But one of the gifts of your writing, Chris, is to actually appreciate that. Be grateful that normal is still a thing. And hope it stays and can weather whatever’s next.
I had a couple tears in my eyes last night at the regular weekly outdoor music event that happens downtown in my old timey small town just watching a dad shout to his two young teen sons to look for cars before they ran across the street to him with ice cream cones from the local creamery, then watching a tiny girl in a pink dress walking her two tinier white puppies on two tiny blue leashes so obviously thrilled and proud. Tears, normal, life, love, human. I think we're gonna be okay.
I think this bifurcation has a parallel in what I see as the fundamental difference between the (for lack of a better term) “center right” and the increasingly monolithically woke left: the left is captured by ideologies that require nothing but faith, and are impervious to contradictory evidence or logic. Homelessness only requires more housing (because homelessness is a symptom of capitalism’s failure to provide basic necessities); Palestine is only a failed project because Israel is racist and imperialist; teens are suicidal only because their gender identity isn’t affirmed by society. To believe these things one must be both stone ignorant and captured by a series of inchoate but powerful utopian fantasies. Whether he understands them or not, Joe Biden repeatedly espouses these religiously held positions. On the other hand, regardless of his obvious personality flaws, Trump appears to have no ideology: he has a few basic beliefs that most Americans hold: a strong America is the best guarantee of peace and security; some people and societies are evil; runaway bureaucracy is an impediment to prosperity etc. I think Trump embodies the spirit of American pragmatism of the Jamesian sort, and this resonates because this is how people live their daily lives.
That woke ideology requires no faith at all - it requires constant pride, envy, lust, etc. The ideology requires nothing more than praising sin as virtue.
I was the typical clueless male with no real purpose or life plan until I met my wife. She is a strong woman who gave me a purpose and reason to succeed. One, I wanted to make sure I could support her and our family and, two, I didn’t want her to be disappointed in me.
One of the greatest gifts I have received in life is that each of my four sons has found a wife who encourages and supports them just like their mother did to me.
It’s difficult to grow up & mature if you don’t have a family to be responsible for. It’s telling that the left says that by noticing & remarking on the decline of our country is a negative outlook. And to want to fix it is basically un-American! I believe some will double down on the gaslighting (Jill, KJP & others) while others work behind the scenes to “fix” their big problem. Killary/Newsom? Who’ll be on top?
What a gift! What a legacy!
Just awesome to hear!! Good for you and yours!
Let’s see- how not to make this too complicated…
If some people want to have purple hair or pretend they are dogs or the opposite sex and be Communists or Satanists or fake Palestinians , AND they don’t want conventionally normal heterosexual people around because they hate us, then let’s break up. You guys live in your land and I’ll live in mine. That way I don’t have to fix all your broken shit and look at your dissipation and alienation. And you don’t have to tolerate normalcy and work ethic and striving for excellence ( not that this tolerance thjng happens).
Yes, it would mean breaking up the country into two or three separate entities. That’s mostly a matter of money and legal agreements like Brexit. But all sets of people would be happier all around. Probably would have less power and money at the government level, but if the people want it, they could do it.
I just think this is easier than trying to convert 1/2 the population onto the opposite reality. I don’t see that happening in the best case scenario for a long time. And in the meantime these people are ruining the rest of us.
Let them shoot up and panic over the climate.
The rest of us can raise families, go swimming, have a barbecue and do something constructive with our lives.
Great plan! Wonder how long a nation with NO ONE who is willing, or even knows how, to grow food, build anything, or fix anything will survive? A nation with millions of 'managers', and no plumbers or welders, where very few understand what makes the lights come on when they flick the switch, or why water comes out when they turn the tap, or where the sewage goes when they flush.
We're coming up to our week-long "family day" at the ranch. This year, there will be over twenty of us. Kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids. All of whom will "go swimming, have a barbecue and do something constructive". Enjoy your Forth!
They would come snot-crying, diseased and begging for help within a few years.
Years?
More like weeks.
Or even days.
After the criminal gangs take over, the food runs out, lights go out, and the taps run dry.
You too, bro.
Stay frosty.
To your specific point: 😂
https://open.substack.com/pub/dianelgruber/p/biden-cant-find-a-queer-black-electrician?r=1lnuf2&utm_medium=ios
That’s kind of funny because my son is an electrician. He’s a straight, white, Christian, married, redneck man but when something comes up, he’ll say, “Well, yes, but I *identify* as a strong, independent, lesbian, black woman.”
We laugh.
i agree. in the end we'd take it all back anyway....because they won't be able to stay above "replacement" baseline.
I agree with everything except" both will be happy." Purple hairs will NEVER be happy( not that I care) misery is the only meaning in their lives. Question :how do we draw up the lines to separate Absurdistan from the rest of us? And how soon can we do that?
Observation: the Absurdistanians will likely need to Uber in pizza and Plan B . I say we don't accept their gov money. I doubt they can last more than 1 generation as no one wants to work, so no tax base to support their Utopia and since they won't be reproducing much due to gender confusion and abortion. After they all perish, we colonizers can take their country back and return it to it's former glory. 🤣🤣
🙌 Amen!
I think they're basically trying to do that in Oregon:
13th Oregon County Votes To Secede And Join 'Greater Idaho' | ZeroHedge
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/13th-oregon-county-votes-secede-and-join-greater-idaho
Oregon, not Washington…but yes. Won’t happen at this time, but the impulse is there.
yes, mistyped ... fixed now :).
I feel this—two different, equally available realities. I have four young 20/teens, and I spend so much time trying to make sure they see the beauty in the life-giving choices. The other options are so dire.
Jumping the gun on another topic;
Big losers of the night: The MSM and the Chattering Classes! They all knew! They knew for a long time! Credibility gone for years and years.
Exactly. It's all been a conspiracy for four fucking years. Where are the watchdog groups? Why wasn't the 25th amendment invoked? Where are the whistle blowers?
When's the DOJ going to release those Biden audio tapes?
They won't because it will reveal to all exactly what's going on:
That the Cadever-in-Chief gets treats, for good behavior, from Nurse Ratchet (Dr. Jill) like a dotting mother clapping for her toddler just for leaving his diaper dry.
Perhaps part of the conspiracy is now they can install a candidate who didn't get a single primary vote.
Democracy dies in darkness.........................
"Dr" Jill is not a physician. They lie to their own supporters.
i know. that's why i said she was nurse ratchet
Amen, brother
The Demonrats were stupid turning away RFK Jr. I watched therealdebate.com last night. If they wanted their party to be in power he would have had a great chance. Although I'm not crazy about a lot of his policies his answers were more common sense and intelligent than the other 2 duking it out.
At his heart he is a Democrat and will support the agenda. Or he will be a lame duck. I am deeply suspicious of him after he have an interview stating he supports" no limits on abortion" and when asked if that meant he supports full term abortion to the ninth month he said" yes". Only to change his view point AFTER his VP said she was"surprised by his position"and they had not discussed it before .
100% agree.
They've made their own beds...
They're falling. Time to push them.
Tulsi Gabbard
But... They were 'shocked' at the performance Biden gave last night, right?
Quite the (media) performance.
Right?! Seven more months at least. How effing irresponsible
I got to thinking.... It's not like the Republicans ( in office) didn't know. They see this too. Why didn't they do anything years ago? Then I remembered.... We are a two party system.... Them against us. 💔
Nearly 48 million TVs tuned in last night. And I think the media's shocked response (scripted in my opinion) allowed the audience to be shocked, too, and helped let the media off the hook for their propping Biden up well past his sell-by date.
In any case, it'll be interesting to watch how this plays out.
Update: Censorship way, way up on Yahoo Comments on many topics since the debate disaster. The ground shifted under "their" feet.
it's intentional theater.
Come to the South. This is how we live. Kids going fishing and hunting without adults, surfing, boating, biking to school. Yes there are drugs, unfortunately, but I rarely see homeless people sleeping in public or opening drunk or drugged, and other than in our couple of big cities, no encampments. (Those seem to happen behind shopping centers and are routed regularly, not allowed to continue.) Families have kids, go to church, have yard sales, cook out. We’re not perfect but we’re a lot better than anywhere Blue.
There's places like that in the Eastern Mid-West, too. Ohio (stay out of the big cities), and Indiana (less big cities to stay away from). Both not blue.
I don't think there is much choosing going on. I think we have arrived at the end game of what we call, 'science'. Better called, the experimental method. It works. We live in a material world unimaginably rich in power over the matter. If you want to call it 'progress,' fine. There are a dozen suitable words to describe what has changed us. St. Paul writes, "in beholding we are become changed." As our mastery of the material world increases, our dependency on materialist thinking grows. The spiritual dimension of man is now incoherent and enfeebled. The religious people don't have spiritual understanding because their minds are as full of materialist notions as anyone else's. Almost no one is willing to turn their back on Mammon and his charms and allurements.
Anyway, we are miserable because we no longer understand who we are. We think we are like the machines that serve us, except we believe we should serve ourselves. If you are going to believe in progress you have to have faith in yourself. Not much to hope for - we are all dying, one way or the other. Nobody gets out alive.
I lived in Portland for 48 years until I couldn’t stand it any more and fled 25 miles east to the conservative town of Sandy. Imagine if these homeless people used their resourcefulness and ingenuity ( it takes some smarts to do what they did) to avail themselves of the many drug treatment opportunities that the city applies and then procure gainful employment? I guess that’s not a viable option for them.
Portland used to be really pretty. It was always liberal, but it was livable. It’s a hellish cesspool now.
Thanks, Chris! Much needed and appreciated. I am a lucky man. I live in a seniors apartment building on a quiet street lined with huge old oaks and maples. Vancouver is still OK in my neighbourhood. Best is, on the first floor is a day care and so below me is the sound of happy little kiddies playing. There are lots of young parents raising lots of little kids in my neighbourhood. It helps a lot!
We have three adult sons, none married. The youngest has told me that "all the girls are miserable". I suspect he's right, seems to be a lot of that going around.
that's because they're probably all real MEN.
i guess that's odious these days. you clip enough peacock feathers and the peahens are affected as well.
the only true law of history is the law of unintended consequences.....but maybe that's what they wanted.....
“No, they weren’t scared — they just got her back into the boat. Like, obviously.”
I assume you immediately called the local sheriff for their having violated professional licensing statutes by untrained & uncertified laymen pulling the girl into the boat?
And then there’s the underlying crime of having put to sea in a vessel not encased in bubble wrap.
You associate with highly dangerous people… 😂
That's a GREAT reminder. It's so easy to get worked up about stuff. Our beautiful little tourist town attracts lots of the type that want to escape and bring their horrible ideas with them. Summer is particularly bad of course with traffic, waiting on lines and the attitudes but once school starts most of it dissipates.
Keeping the kids close and the grand kids closer.
Can the 80's just come here instead lol