“The world’s ending, Steve.” A longtime friend said this to me recently, and the certitude with which it was asserted really struck me. It was a prelude to a larger point about the importance of things like longtime friendships in times of crisis, but what has stuck with me is the assertion itself. The sheer confidence of the statement. No bet hedging. Just, “This is what’s happening, man.”
Hi Steve, I resonate with almost every word of this article. The most difficult thing that will happen in the next decade is the destruction and reformation of the central world views of hundreds of millions or billions of people. But which ones?
In the end, I think it will be the woke. Our elites can't turn wrenches or drive trucks. Once the pain of the current systems makes 'deplorables' decide to assert their leverage in real terms over our 'betters', they'll take action. Why did that Canadian trucker strike cause such massive overreaction by the government and press? Because it was the spark that could cause a worldwide conflagration of similar acts of defiance. That firestorm cannot be prevented. The biggest unknowns are when it will happen and how kinetic the struggle becomes.
"I’m not sure how this ends, but my apocalypse-o-meter isn’t going off on this front."
Mine is. I haven't remotely felt this way since the Wall fell.
One of the many problems with Putin is that he seems to have fallen into the trap of believing his own bullshit. I read just yesterday that he has stashed his ex-wife and children from that marriage in a nuclear shelter complex in Siberia. His concubine and their four kids are in Switzerland with Swiss passports, but that's a separate issue for the Great Monarch. The inner circle is repeating megalomaniacal insanity on loop--the letter from Medvedev to Poland a couple days ago being the most recent example.
I mean, really: this whole invasion was a giant case of believing his own bullshit...and it's filled 10,000+ Russian families with the ultimate grief.
If Putin continues to get crushed by Ukraine--the nation's counterattacks are increasing in scope and success--I can see him using WMDs. And while the budget for rest of Russia's arsenal appears to have gone into oligarchical pockets, the Strategic Rocket Forces are Russia's claim to literal world-breaking power. I cannot imagine those ever rotting on the vine all that significantly.
He escalated to his hypersonic missile, and it's interesting that we have no pictures of the impact zone. Were it a dud, that would be something Ukraine would gleefully note for the world. I have no difficulty seeing him go up the chain as things get worse. And they will, make no mistake.
The idea that lawyers in a "free" country may be opposed to the presumption of innocence is depressing beyond belief. I am reminded of the old explanation:
In England you are innocent until proven guilty.
In France you are guilty until proven innocent.
In America you are innocent until the papers come out the next day.
And in Russia you are guilty until proved guilty.
Nowadays, in any country, you are innocent until someone tweets and then you are in the old Russian position.
I am coming to terms with the reality that I am that cosmopolitan figure who stands 'above' or 'outside' my time, place, culture, family, nation, etc. Whether that is a product of Liberalism (note: it is) or not, doesn't much matter at this point. That is my culture, and I am bound to it just as the most remote tribesman is bound to his. And yet my culture is a void. That begs the question, 'What does it mean to be bound to nothing?" Fundamentally, my critique of Liberalism has always been a positioning of myself against 'all of it', against The Void. I don't posit an alternative, and I don't really think there is one on that level of large scale social solutions. I agree with Skojec here that there isn't really anything to fight, just a slow dissolution. All we have is The Void. There isn't even terra firma within The Void so there is nowhere to stand and oppose it given our cosmopolitan existence.
We are already in a 'metaverse' of sorts. There is nothing left to do but to strike out in another direction and commit to it. We have to find something more real that this simulation of reality that is The Void, something above it or beneath it. For Skojec, maybe that was the Trad movement. But the absorption of our religious leaders into The Void, the near absence of the prophetic voice, calling us out to the wilderness is maybe the most morale crushing blow. I should not have more hope in finding a way out of The Void in voices coming up out of paganism than I do in the average Catholic Priest, but that seems to be where we are. I shouldn't have more hope for Skojec approaching the transcendent Good now than I would have before his crisis of faith.
I've been meditating on the Rich Young Man who went away sad, and on Colan throwing his sword in Chesterton's Ballad of the White Horse, and on the Kingdom of Heaven being taken by force. We can't plan or scheme a way to build the dust and ashes of our dead culture into a living thing. Our children won't be saved by our prudent defense of , but by our reckless abandon in pursuit of. Carving out our little piece of the pie of death to feast on like 'christian' vultures is no answer. What is The Good that I would pursue with this doggedness? Whether the sword strikes home or not? Whether anyone will join me or not? I think the answer to that is the answer that Dostoevsky, Pope John Paul II, and Pope Benedict all gave, Beauty. I can't think of a better answer.
“Seek first the Kingdom.” Regardless is what’s going on, the mission remains the same. We have work to do until the end. There are good things out there Americans just don’t know about. Iran is the world’s fastest growing Christian country. China, 10,000 baptisms daily. God is still moving. What matters.
Hi Steve, I resonate with almost every word of this article. The most difficult thing that will happen in the next decade is the destruction and reformation of the central world views of hundreds of millions or billions of people. But which ones?
In the end, I think it will be the woke. Our elites can't turn wrenches or drive trucks. Once the pain of the current systems makes 'deplorables' decide to assert their leverage in real terms over our 'betters', they'll take action. Why did that Canadian trucker strike cause such massive overreaction by the government and press? Because it was the spark that could cause a worldwide conflagration of similar acts of defiance. That firestorm cannot be prevented. The biggest unknowns are when it will happen and how kinetic the struggle becomes.
"I’m not sure how this ends, but my apocalypse-o-meter isn’t going off on this front."
Mine is. I haven't remotely felt this way since the Wall fell.
One of the many problems with Putin is that he seems to have fallen into the trap of believing his own bullshit. I read just yesterday that he has stashed his ex-wife and children from that marriage in a nuclear shelter complex in Siberia. His concubine and their four kids are in Switzerland with Swiss passports, but that's a separate issue for the Great Monarch. The inner circle is repeating megalomaniacal insanity on loop--the letter from Medvedev to Poland a couple days ago being the most recent example.
I mean, really: this whole invasion was a giant case of believing his own bullshit...and it's filled 10,000+ Russian families with the ultimate grief.
If Putin continues to get crushed by Ukraine--the nation's counterattacks are increasing in scope and success--I can see him using WMDs. And while the budget for rest of Russia's arsenal appears to have gone into oligarchical pockets, the Strategic Rocket Forces are Russia's claim to literal world-breaking power. I cannot imagine those ever rotting on the vine all that significantly.
He escalated to his hypersonic missile, and it's interesting that we have no pictures of the impact zone. Were it a dud, that would be something Ukraine would gleefully note for the world. I have no difficulty seeing him go up the chain as things get worse. And they will, make no mistake.
Steve,
The idea that lawyers in a "free" country may be opposed to the presumption of innocence is depressing beyond belief. I am reminded of the old explanation:
In England you are innocent until proven guilty.
In France you are guilty until proven innocent.
In America you are innocent until the papers come out the next day.
And in Russia you are guilty until proved guilty.
Nowadays, in any country, you are innocent until someone tweets and then you are in the old Russian position.
I am coming to terms with the reality that I am that cosmopolitan figure who stands 'above' or 'outside' my time, place, culture, family, nation, etc. Whether that is a product of Liberalism (note: it is) or not, doesn't much matter at this point. That is my culture, and I am bound to it just as the most remote tribesman is bound to his. And yet my culture is a void. That begs the question, 'What does it mean to be bound to nothing?" Fundamentally, my critique of Liberalism has always been a positioning of myself against 'all of it', against The Void. I don't posit an alternative, and I don't really think there is one on that level of large scale social solutions. I agree with Skojec here that there isn't really anything to fight, just a slow dissolution. All we have is The Void. There isn't even terra firma within The Void so there is nowhere to stand and oppose it given our cosmopolitan existence.
We are already in a 'metaverse' of sorts. There is nothing left to do but to strike out in another direction and commit to it. We have to find something more real that this simulation of reality that is The Void, something above it or beneath it. For Skojec, maybe that was the Trad movement. But the absorption of our religious leaders into The Void, the near absence of the prophetic voice, calling us out to the wilderness is maybe the most morale crushing blow. I should not have more hope in finding a way out of The Void in voices coming up out of paganism than I do in the average Catholic Priest, but that seems to be where we are. I shouldn't have more hope for Skojec approaching the transcendent Good now than I would have before his crisis of faith.
I've been meditating on the Rich Young Man who went away sad, and on Colan throwing his sword in Chesterton's Ballad of the White Horse, and on the Kingdom of Heaven being taken by force. We can't plan or scheme a way to build the dust and ashes of our dead culture into a living thing. Our children won't be saved by our prudent defense of , but by our reckless abandon in pursuit of. Carving out our little piece of the pie of death to feast on like 'christian' vultures is no answer. What is The Good that I would pursue with this doggedness? Whether the sword strikes home or not? Whether anyone will join me or not? I think the answer to that is the answer that Dostoevsky, Pope John Paul II, and Pope Benedict all gave, Beauty. I can't think of a better answer.
Ain't it the truth!
Steve - just found you again. Nice to know you are still writing.....
“Seek first the Kingdom.” Regardless is what’s going on, the mission remains the same. We have work to do until the end. There are good things out there Americans just don’t know about. Iran is the world’s fastest growing Christian country. China, 10,000 baptisms daily. God is still moving. What matters.
Better times can be, and often have to be, homemade.
This all reminds me of two songs by Bob Dylan from Oh, Mercy: Political World and Everything is Broken.
https://youtu.be/jg29g6D0sPs
https://youtu.be/fV3Y5XgidEQ