Good morning from the US! I enjoyed reading the Weekly Round-up. A treat to complement the Sunday croissants, the way the NYT used to before it went insane, starting about 20 years ago.
There is a crisis of experts in the United States. Covid really crystalized it, although the crisis was in the building for a long time. Some might say it dates back to the 2008/09 crash. At first, the economists had failed to predict it, and the policy makers (including Obama) failed to punish the big financial institutions who were behind the greed leading up to the crash, and even worse, rewarded them! Occupy Wall Street seems so quaint these days, barely remembered. But there was genuine anger at the classes of people who'd proclaimed they knew best and had betrayed that trust. And ever since then, the classes of experts and the larger American public seems to have gone into two different trajectory.
Then COVID came along. One could write a million substacks on the failures of experts with COVID, but it's sufficient to say what COVID revealed clearly was how deeply Democratic the American expert classes was and how politically biased they were and how it affected their reaction to COVID in blatantly obvious ways, and perhaps worse, how susceptible they'd become to wokery. A prime example was in 2020 when shutdowns were everywhere and state and national public health authorities were telling people to stay home and avoid crowds and not congregate etc cetera. Quite understandable.
Except, of course, for BLM protests. Somehow that was different. The same public health officials were proclaiming it was just to assemble for the protests as if COVID somehow was excluded from such gatherings.
Nowadays, the usual legacy media sources are filled with stories proclaiming "experts say, studies show, data indicate" without actually saying anything about those "facts" or where they came from or that they are quite often just opinions rather than facts. And we're left with the sudden emergence of public health documents now using pregnant persons and chestfeeding instead of pregnant mothers and breastfeeding. And, of course, the humorous but sad phenomena of experts, including X number of Nobel prize winners, saying inflation won't happen, to inflation is a right wing bogeyman, to inflation is only transitionary, to inflation is real but a good thing, to finally, oops, we've got inflation and it's bad. Meanwhile, many of us are left scratching our heads thinking, we knew inflation comes when you dump trillions of deficit spending into the economy in such a short time period. How come these PhDs and Fed policy wonks didn't know this simple economic lesson taught in Econ 101? Unless, of course, there was a political reason to conveniently ignore this and hope for the best (to be fair, Larry Summers, possibly the best economist in the US, did warn about inflation, but was outright ignored).
Which brings me to a joke someone sent to me, a spoof of the game show Jeopardy:
Trebek: "These include 'experts say,' 'studies show,' 'evidence suggests,' and 'data point toward.'"
Contestant: "What are weasel words from lying shitlibs and fraudulent media?"
Trebek: "Correct. You control the board."
All in all, as a child of academia and who grew up in a world dominated by heavyweight Hopkins doctors and researchers, it's sad to see how the class of experts have morphed into a quasi-religious caste. And like the once-untouchable clerics of the past, they're now inviting their own ridicule, but which they cannot understand either. The danger is when people no longer listen to the experts because of their own pervasive failures and arrogance and petty politics and invented crises, when something does happen that does need expertise, who will trust the experts?
I think the medical profession endorsing BLM protests because 'racism is a disease' was a genuine moment for some people, not just me. no pretence that it's actually about health, it's all just politics.
As Traldi says, there are incentives. and a lot comes to do with Taleb's skin in the game. You can consistently be wrong about everything, you can ignore awkward facts because they're protected by taboos, and thrive.
I’d personally like to read more of your analysis of the crime situation in Britain, depressing as it is. I think you’re making a real contribution to public life by raising the issue and documenting the wilder examples of leniency towards the violently psychopathic. I’d be interested to hear some testimony from people inside the legal profession, maybe a dissident QC or parole person who’d be willing to speak on condition of anonymity etc. Is it just softie judges or is the rot systematic at this point?
Another theme might be ‘Time to Emigrate?’ With opportunities for younger people drying up and the 70s making a comeback (with hints of the 30s), is it time to cut our losses and get out, and if so where? (I speak from personal experience, as I was in China working as a teacher for a few years, and now plan to emigrate again asap).
I've heard Poland from a couple of people. Lucky the language is so easy and should be possible to crack easily. America is obv richer but the politics is worse, Ditto Canada now.
I like the idea of buying one of those run-down 18th century shacks in a picturesque but dying Italian town for €1, but you’d need a remote job of some kind and sufficient funds to do the place up.
Another solution is to move convert to Mormonism and move to Utah, and maybe your children can be part of the future Mormon ruling class:
yeah that would be fun. I do have a remote job now - finally - but also children.
I saw a whole empty village in Calabria or Appulia going for a tiny amount once, I think complete with a Norman castle. Would be 'epic', as my son says a lot.
TBH if the substack ever made serious money, if I was up there with your Sullivans, your Weisses, your Ygelsias, I would think about a castle. Although prefer France to Italy.
if I'm honest I do spend a lot of time looking at French castles on property websites already.
What about Ireland? It's not perfect but I've noticed the small population size means the government can't become too unrealistically progressive. But one would have to put up with rain and damp. And it is a very damp country.
And I'll throw this out too: Dubai. Believe it or not. Yes, it's a petty tyranny and it's all about the money, but it's also a fairly libertarian and pragmatic place once you have a few basic understandings of what not to do. It's an interesting example of a very successful city-state that is incredibly diverse, but it works because there's a strong host culture that is clearly #1 and you don't question it. Downside is that it's shockingly expensive these days.
Whether it's the ACLU or Stanford University or San Francisco, once populations remove all their conservatives is it really just a matter of time before they eat themselves? Of course the old folks will tell you SF was lost the day Moscone was shot and Feinstein took over, but the unconditional surrender to de-civilization has been something else entirely.
I do look forward to JK Rowling being hounded for her (fictitious) school having a house named after a (fictional) racist. Once they've destroyed all the real schools in the name of progress they'll be coming for the fake ones.
But we deserve this. We didn't stop them with the Confederates even though we all knew better.
Great round up Ed, don't let it disappear quietly.
"There is a correlation between social liberalism and mental illness". A quick thought: which came first? Do people adopt liberal attitudes due to psychological peculiarity combined with bizarre cultural norms? Or does being a liberal slowly drive you insane? Both?
It would be nice to hear your opinion on 'What is a woman?' documentary that makes the rounds these days, watched last night and still trying to get my head around it - it almost feels like a parody.
and I better watch that documentary. The issue of gender/sex feels so surreal now I feel like I could get in real trouble if I started speaking my opinion.
At a brunch with neighbors yesterday (just bagels while a bunch of kids under 10 were running through a makeshift water slide) the topic of gender/sex did come up among the parents. Then one of the mothers hushed us and said "not in front of the kids!" I can't tell you whether she was afraid of giving the kids the wrong idea, or if she was afraid of the kids hearing something the parents disapprove of that may counter what they may hear at school. Perhaps it was both. These would be educated parents, most would have voted for Biden. Outside a progressive bloc, I'd think most people are quietly concerned about where this is coming from and where it's going and also why it's suddenly so sensitive and why certain influential factors are loudly proclaiming we're not allowed to talk about it either. And there is the struggle between wanting to be kind and considerate with thinking, hold on, wait a minute.
"..Now, with the war dragging on, Europe, organized in a European Union subordinate to NATO, will find itself dependent on the bizarreries of the domestic politics of the United States, a declining great power readying itself for global conflict with a rising great power, China. Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan should have amply documented the American penchant to exit if their, always and by definition well-intentioned, efforts in other parts of the world fail for whatever reason, leaving behind a lethal mess that others must clean up if they require a minimum of international order at their doorsteps...
One explanation that is too rarely invoked for the recklessness with which the United States all too often enters into and exits from far-flung military adventures is its location on a continent-sized island, away from those places where it might feel an urge to provide for what it considers political stability. Whatever the United States does or does not do abroad has few if any consequences for its citizens at home.... There is, if only for this reason, an enduring temptation in American foreign policy to be guided by wishful thinking, deficient intelligence, sloppy planning, and a fickle tailoring of international policies to domestic public sentiments. This makes it all the more amazing that European countries should, apparently without any debate, have so completely left the handling of Ukraine to the United States. In effect, this represents a principal turning the management of his vital interests over to an agent with a recent public record of incompetence and irresponsibility."
Being an expat for so long did show me how insular Americans are, even the progressive, worldly Americans whose views of the rest of the world is mainly an extension of the progressive neighborhoods of New York or DC to their equivalent in other countries, rather than a pragmatic realism. That the US exists so independently of even its closest neighbors does form the American perspective of the greater world - it barely, if at all, exists. The rotating nature of American presidential administrations and their short attention spans was offset by an establishment bureaucratic class of foreign policy experts, but they are now largely discredited, even in the eyes of many Americans (both among the far left and far right, for different reasons).
But the more divided Americans become by their own internal cultural wars, the more America will retrench from overseas influence. Is this inherently a bad thing? People fear China, but perhaps China is more bark than bite? China has its own internal problems too. Who knows!
As for what to call this new ideology that is everywhere, I really really like Eric Kaufmann's "Left-Modernism," as he lays it out in _Whiteshift_, which is not really intended to be pejorative, just descriptive and precise. Kaufmann has this really good section in the book where he describes how it gets started in not the 1960s, as one might expect, but the 1910s! And with roots in the 19th century.
I've actually seen people attempt to trace the roots of Left-Modernism (i.e., Woke) even further back to things like Martin Luther or the English Civil War, but that's a bit too ambitious for me haha.
Nice to hear that you're a Rick Mayall fan. I think I've watched every episode of The Young Ones all the way through maybe a dozen times. Also this is the best thing Ben Elton's ever done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo9_aBj1Z84
Is there still any British comedy like this being made, or is it all Americanized Nish Kumar type sludge now?
Yes I will write about Eric's book at some point, is on my list to do. is very good.
I used to be obsessed with both the Young Ones and Blackadder. I wanted to be Rid Mayall. Strangely, of my favourite comedies, my kids like Red Dwarf the most.
On freedom of association, I would recommend this piece on Arendt's foresight here: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/hannah-arendt-antiracism-little-rock
Excellent discussion, Mr. West, and I wish you many more paid readers!
thank you!
Good morning from the US! I enjoyed reading the Weekly Round-up. A treat to complement the Sunday croissants, the way the NYT used to before it went insane, starting about 20 years ago.
There is a crisis of experts in the United States. Covid really crystalized it, although the crisis was in the building for a long time. Some might say it dates back to the 2008/09 crash. At first, the economists had failed to predict it, and the policy makers (including Obama) failed to punish the big financial institutions who were behind the greed leading up to the crash, and even worse, rewarded them! Occupy Wall Street seems so quaint these days, barely remembered. But there was genuine anger at the classes of people who'd proclaimed they knew best and had betrayed that trust. And ever since then, the classes of experts and the larger American public seems to have gone into two different trajectory.
Then COVID came along. One could write a million substacks on the failures of experts with COVID, but it's sufficient to say what COVID revealed clearly was how deeply Democratic the American expert classes was and how politically biased they were and how it affected their reaction to COVID in blatantly obvious ways, and perhaps worse, how susceptible they'd become to wokery. A prime example was in 2020 when shutdowns were everywhere and state and national public health authorities were telling people to stay home and avoid crowds and not congregate etc cetera. Quite understandable.
Except, of course, for BLM protests. Somehow that was different. The same public health officials were proclaiming it was just to assemble for the protests as if COVID somehow was excluded from such gatherings.
Nowadays, the usual legacy media sources are filled with stories proclaiming "experts say, studies show, data indicate" without actually saying anything about those "facts" or where they came from or that they are quite often just opinions rather than facts. And we're left with the sudden emergence of public health documents now using pregnant persons and chestfeeding instead of pregnant mothers and breastfeeding. And, of course, the humorous but sad phenomena of experts, including X number of Nobel prize winners, saying inflation won't happen, to inflation is a right wing bogeyman, to inflation is only transitionary, to inflation is real but a good thing, to finally, oops, we've got inflation and it's bad. Meanwhile, many of us are left scratching our heads thinking, we knew inflation comes when you dump trillions of deficit spending into the economy in such a short time period. How come these PhDs and Fed policy wonks didn't know this simple economic lesson taught in Econ 101? Unless, of course, there was a political reason to conveniently ignore this and hope for the best (to be fair, Larry Summers, possibly the best economist in the US, did warn about inflation, but was outright ignored).
Which brings me to a joke someone sent to me, a spoof of the game show Jeopardy:
Trebek: "These include 'experts say,' 'studies show,' 'evidence suggests,' and 'data point toward.'"
Contestant: "What are weasel words from lying shitlibs and fraudulent media?"
Trebek: "Correct. You control the board."
All in all, as a child of academia and who grew up in a world dominated by heavyweight Hopkins doctors and researchers, it's sad to see how the class of experts have morphed into a quasi-religious caste. And like the once-untouchable clerics of the past, they're now inviting their own ridicule, but which they cannot understand either. The danger is when people no longer listen to the experts because of their own pervasive failures and arrogance and petty politics and invented crises, when something does happen that does need expertise, who will trust the experts?
I think the medical profession endorsing BLM protests because 'racism is a disease' was a genuine moment for some people, not just me. no pretence that it's actually about health, it's all just politics.
As Traldi says, there are incentives. and a lot comes to do with Taleb's skin in the game. You can consistently be wrong about everything, you can ignore awkward facts because they're protected by taboos, and thrive.
Great recommendations, Ed.
I’d personally like to read more of your analysis of the crime situation in Britain, depressing as it is. I think you’re making a real contribution to public life by raising the issue and documenting the wilder examples of leniency towards the violently psychopathic. I’d be interested to hear some testimony from people inside the legal profession, maybe a dissident QC or parole person who’d be willing to speak on condition of anonymity etc. Is it just softie judges or is the rot systematic at this point?
Another theme might be ‘Time to Emigrate?’ With opportunities for younger people drying up and the 70s making a comeback (with hints of the 30s), is it time to cut our losses and get out, and if so where? (I speak from personal experience, as I was in China working as a teacher for a few years, and now plan to emigrate again asap).
Keep up the good work.
Where should people emigrate to?
I've heard Poland from a couple of people. Lucky the language is so easy and should be possible to crack easily. America is obv richer but the politics is worse, Ditto Canada now.
I like the idea of buying one of those run-down 18th century shacks in a picturesque but dying Italian town for €1, but you’d need a remote job of some kind and sufficient funds to do the place up.
Another solution is to move convert to Mormonism and move to Utah, and maybe your children can be part of the future Mormon ruling class:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-022-00327-y?fbclid=IwAR1Vl8H1FSD3abBB6zdN5uKFxiZUDy4x4F-5hwOb2IP5XW0qV_ly3gX5Wjw
yeah that would be fun. I do have a remote job now - finally - but also children.
I saw a whole empty village in Calabria or Appulia going for a tiny amount once, I think complete with a Norman castle. Would be 'epic', as my son says a lot.
A whole village, plus a castle? That actually is epic.
I think buying a fief and calling yourself Prince of Calabria would be a fine culmination of the Ed West character arc ;)
TBH if the substack ever made serious money, if I was up there with your Sullivans, your Weisses, your Ygelsias, I would think about a castle. Although prefer France to Italy.
if I'm honest I do spend a lot of time looking at French castles on property websites already.
Portugal? Quite popular at the moment.
What about Ireland? It's not perfect but I've noticed the small population size means the government can't become too unrealistically progressive. But one would have to put up with rain and damp. And it is a very damp country.
And I'll throw this out too: Dubai. Believe it or not. Yes, it's a petty tyranny and it's all about the money, but it's also a fairly libertarian and pragmatic place once you have a few basic understandings of what not to do. It's an interesting example of a very successful city-state that is incredibly diverse, but it works because there's a strong host culture that is clearly #1 and you don't question it. Downside is that it's shockingly expensive these days.
A bit late, but I actually liked the first series of Blackadder. I don’t know why Curtis and Atkinson are so down on it.
wow that's like Brendan O'Neill levels of contrarianism!
Whether it's the ACLU or Stanford University or San Francisco, once populations remove all their conservatives is it really just a matter of time before they eat themselves? Of course the old folks will tell you SF was lost the day Moscone was shot and Feinstein took over, but the unconditional surrender to de-civilization has been something else entirely.
I do look forward to JK Rowling being hounded for her (fictitious) school having a house named after a (fictional) racist. Once they've destroyed all the real schools in the name of progress they'll be coming for the fake ones.
But we deserve this. We didn't stop them with the Confederates even though we all knew better.
Great round up Ed, don't let it disappear quietly.
"There is a correlation between social liberalism and mental illness". A quick thought: which came first? Do people adopt liberal attitudes due to psychological peculiarity combined with bizarre cultural norms? Or does being a liberal slowly drive you insane? Both?
thanks. There will definitely be one this weekend! I think I need a better name though.
And - good question. surely goes both ways.
good pointers Ed, thanks.
An article I think you & readers of this substack will appreciate is this one https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2022/05/the-eu-after-ukraine/
It would be nice to hear your opinion on 'What is a woman?' documentary that makes the rounds these days, watched last night and still trying to get my head around it - it almost feels like a parody.
thanks. will read
and I better watch that documentary. The issue of gender/sex feels so surreal now I feel like I could get in real trouble if I started speaking my opinion.
At a brunch with neighbors yesterday (just bagels while a bunch of kids under 10 were running through a makeshift water slide) the topic of gender/sex did come up among the parents. Then one of the mothers hushed us and said "not in front of the kids!" I can't tell you whether she was afraid of giving the kids the wrong idea, or if she was afraid of the kids hearing something the parents disapprove of that may counter what they may hear at school. Perhaps it was both. These would be educated parents, most would have voted for Biden. Outside a progressive bloc, I'd think most people are quietly concerned about where this is coming from and where it's going and also why it's suddenly so sensitive and why certain influential factors are loudly proclaiming we're not allowed to talk about it either. And there is the struggle between wanting to be kind and considerate with thinking, hold on, wait a minute.
Thanks for the link, Elias.
I was taken by the following two paragraphs:
"..Now, with the war dragging on, Europe, organized in a European Union subordinate to NATO, will find itself dependent on the bizarreries of the domestic politics of the United States, a declining great power readying itself for global conflict with a rising great power, China. Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan should have amply documented the American penchant to exit if their, always and by definition well-intentioned, efforts in other parts of the world fail for whatever reason, leaving behind a lethal mess that others must clean up if they require a minimum of international order at their doorsteps...
One explanation that is too rarely invoked for the recklessness with which the United States all too often enters into and exits from far-flung military adventures is its location on a continent-sized island, away from those places where it might feel an urge to provide for what it considers political stability. Whatever the United States does or does not do abroad has few if any consequences for its citizens at home.... There is, if only for this reason, an enduring temptation in American foreign policy to be guided by wishful thinking, deficient intelligence, sloppy planning, and a fickle tailoring of international policies to domestic public sentiments. This makes it all the more amazing that European countries should, apparently without any debate, have so completely left the handling of Ukraine to the United States. In effect, this represents a principal turning the management of his vital interests over to an agent with a recent public record of incompetence and irresponsibility."
Being an expat for so long did show me how insular Americans are, even the progressive, worldly Americans whose views of the rest of the world is mainly an extension of the progressive neighborhoods of New York or DC to their equivalent in other countries, rather than a pragmatic realism. That the US exists so independently of even its closest neighbors does form the American perspective of the greater world - it barely, if at all, exists. The rotating nature of American presidential administrations and their short attention spans was offset by an establishment bureaucratic class of foreign policy experts, but they are now largely discredited, even in the eyes of many Americans (both among the far left and far right, for different reasons).
But the more divided Americans become by their own internal cultural wars, the more America will retrench from overseas influence. Is this inherently a bad thing? People fear China, but perhaps China is more bark than bite? China has its own internal problems too. Who knows!
Good stuff Ed.
As for what to call this new ideology that is everywhere, I really really like Eric Kaufmann's "Left-Modernism," as he lays it out in _Whiteshift_, which is not really intended to be pejorative, just descriptive and precise. Kaufmann has this really good section in the book where he describes how it gets started in not the 1960s, as one might expect, but the 1910s! And with roots in the 19th century.
Here's Curtis Yarvin tracing its ancient history for the three minutes or starting from where I've linked here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OF1jbAjWcw&t=1729s
I've actually seen people attempt to trace the roots of Left-Modernism (i.e., Woke) even further back to things like Martin Luther or the English Civil War, but that's a bit too ambitious for me haha.
Nice to hear that you're a Rick Mayall fan. I think I've watched every episode of The Young Ones all the way through maybe a dozen times. Also this is the best thing Ben Elton's ever done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo9_aBj1Z84
Is there still any British comedy like this being made, or is it all Americanized Nish Kumar type sludge now?
Yes I will write about Eric's book at some point, is on my list to do. is very good.
I used to be obsessed with both the Young Ones and Blackadder. I wanted to be Rid Mayall. Strangely, of my favourite comedies, my kids like Red Dwarf the most.
wow, that's hilarious