A very common error among budding eschatologists is not appreciating that when many cultures wrote of “the end of the world” that what they were actually predicting the end of an age. The 15th of September 1830 has been described as “the day the world took off”. On this date Stephenson’s Rocket, the first steam powered locomotive began the Industrial Revolution. However, the steam locomotive needed a steam engine. The first commercial steam engine went into operation in 1776. That same year, its inventor James Watt’s friend, Adam Smith, published The Wealth of Nations, and across the sea, the Declaration of Independence began the American Revolution. This age, from 1776 to 1929, is what I am referring to when I write and speak of the Romantic Era.
From the ideological foundations laid by Sir Francis Bacon and John Locke in the 17th Century to the writings of Voltaire and Rousseau, who both died in 1778, this world was born. Call it “the modern world” if you like. I prefer to think of it as our inheritance from the previous age. An inheritance so vast that we have been spending it for the past eighty years with each generation finding less and less of it remaining. Now it is nearly gone.
The best way to understand this age is to look at the book ends. During the Medieval period, very few, if any, members of society outside the aristocracy did much of anything worth noting. During the Early Modern Period, there was a bit more activity from this segments of society, but not much more than a trickle. But that trickle was a steady one that grew and grew until it exploded into a rushing torrent after 1776.
In the first chapter of the 1859 book Self Help by Samuel Smiles, the author makes an argument for helping ones self. This takes the form of a few well reasoned observations, but the bulk of the material is examples of great men of genius in a variety of fields of endeavour who all came from working or craftsman class backgrounds. It is hard for us to comprehend that this was something worthy of note, but prior to 1776 this level of accomplishment emerging from the so-called “lower” or “humble” classes was unheard of. What changed? People became free to pursue their goals without governmental regulations, controls, or restrictions. This was the age of the Self, the Individual, the I. Each man was expected to both do for himself and work with others to accomplish individual goals.
The world changed in 1929. Over the preceding decades, the foundations were laid for another age based not on independence but on dependence. The motto was not “can do” but “cannot do”. We might say that it started with Karl Marx and then the Fabian Societies. But the full flower did not bloom until 1917 with the Communist Revolution in Russia. From that beachhead more and more ground was gained with the rise of authoritarian governments throughout Europe.
The horrors of World War I brought the old age into question, but the world had bounced back during the Twenties. However, it was the fall of the stock market in 1929 that seemed to herald to the world that the Classical Liberalism of the Romantic Age marked by free markets and free people had failed. The people looked to their governments to save them and in doing so relinquished their freedom. The freedom bought in 1776 was sold in 1929.
In the United States during the Twenties, the socialist party could achieve six percent of the vote in their best year; however of the economic policies put forward in their election platform in 1928, every single one was adopted in law within fifty years. Or to phrase it another way, between 1928 and 1978 America became a socialist state. While the people waved the flag and spoke of freedom, each generation gave more and more freedom to their government in the name of security.
Samuel Smiles observed, “Whatever is done for men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively helpless.”
My father’s barber served in the Spanish-American War of 1900. This man told my father a story which my father told to me. I heard the story third person, but it has crossed a century. I find that amazing. How a story can cross time like that. We tend to conceive events of the past as more distant than they really are. My father was born in 1927, two years before the world ended, but he carried in him the influences of my grandparents and their age. This is my lost birthright.
The American generation born before my own are the infamous Baby-Boomers, born between 1945 and 1960. They have been called the most spoiled generation in American history. They were also the first generation raised with the new values of dependency upon the state. They are also the generation that will bankrupt the United States as they retire and demand their Social Security and Medicare checks.
My generation, born in the wake of the Boomers, have been called Generation-X, the 13th Generation, and the Slacker Generation. We were the first generation to not do as well financially as the previous one. We were the first to go from university to retail jobs. If I may generalize, we are a cynical lot. We grew-up under constant threat of nuclear annihilation from the Soviets, but unlike previous generations our response was “fuck it, then let’s party”. This is illustrated in the song 1999 by Prince and the Revolution. “Yeah, everybody's got a bomb we could all die any day, but before I'll let that happen I'll dance my life away.”
We were followed by the Millennial Generation, foolishly called Generation X also (because the name was too cool to let go) and Generation Y (because it follows X). These were the folks born between 1982 and 2000.
In their 1992 book Generations, William Strauss and Neil Howe laid out a pattern in American history of recurring generational types born during either an Awakening, Unravelling, Crisis, or High . Here is an excerpt from Wiki explaining it.
To put this in a more recent perspective, the Boomers are a, Idealist generation, followed by my Reactive peers, and then the Heroic/Civic Millennials.
Now these are a recurring cycle: Idealist, Reactive, Civic, Adaptive, and then repeat. The last group of Reactives were the last true adult Romantics (born 1883-1900) and between the ages of 29 and 46 during the end of the world in 1929. To get some perspective, these were the guys who fought in World War I, made bathtub gin, drank cocaine, and attended Gatsby’s parties. They are affectionately known as the Lost Generation. But they were not the one’s responsible for the end of the world.
The collapse of the stock market was really no big deal. It was the way that the Federal Reserve attempted to fix it that caused the problem. It is too complicated to explain here, but suffice to say that the Fed should have left it alone, but on top of that it raised interest rates when it should have lowered them. This decreased the money supply so there was not enough money in relation to the level of production. This caused the Great Depression.
The problem was further exacerbated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. The banking system through the Federal Reserve destroyed the economy. The people were desperate, so the government began giving hand-outs. This created the illusion that the Fed and the US government solved the problem and made the people more dependent on government hand-outs as a normal function of government. Today, hand-outs account for over half the US budget, nearly all of the national debt, and all of the unfunded liability. This is paid for through taxation, inflating the currency, loans from foreign governments, and monetizing the debt.
What we see in 1929 is the beginning of a fundamental shift in consciousness that has become more and more entrenched with each generation. This understanding is only possible with hindsight. Imagine if once a month someone snuck into your house and painted it a slightly darker shade until it was black. Would you notice? When we look at the modern dependence on government and the demands for entitlements and attempt to find its source, we find it began in 1929. We can see the gradual progression from generation to generation on the path to total government dependency.
I read in an article recently that thirty years ago only one percent of entertainers in the British music industry had attended wealthy schools. Today it is sixty percent. I do not know how this trend plays out in other fields and in other countries, but if we look at the Nineteenth Century and see the vast numbers of geniuses emerging from the working class and then see the Twenty-first century elite being born to it, we must wonder where things changed. Yes, we do still see greatness emerging from the working class, but not at the same levels that we saw during the Romantic Era.
The more I learn about the Victorian ideology and zeitgeist, the more I am convinced that I have been robbed of my inheritance. I feel like Esau selling his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of stew. I had a choice. I could have dedicated myself to the ways of my father and my grandfather. But I was a slacker and it’s hard to leave the party when there is an open bar. I have been socially conditioned to a certain pattern of behaviour, and it is hard to break this kind of programming. In other words, I am a child of the apocalypse.
The past 80 years has seen a steady increase in government control, taxation, and regulation. There has also been an ever increasing demand from the people for more government control, services, and regulation. Let’s be honest here, the loudest voices have come from one group – the spoiled Boomers who have dominated American society for 60 years. Then the Xers and the Millennials say, “They got theirs, where’s ours?” Sorry kids, all outta money.
The Romantic Era lasted 153 years, though its influences bled well beyond that scope. I believe that the current age, the Socialist Age, is going to reach its end. This may take the form of a New Romantic Era or Neo-Feudalism. There is one factor that will decide which it will be – the will and character of the people. This was observed by Samuel Smiles in 1859.
From the ideological foundations laid by Sir Francis Bacon and John Locke in the 17th Century to the writings of Voltaire and Rousseau, who both died in 1778, this world was born. Call it “the modern world” if you like. I prefer to think of it as our inheritance from the previous age. An inheritance so vast that we have been spending it for the past eighty years with each generation finding less and less of it remaining. Now it is nearly gone.
The best way to understand this age is to look at the book ends. During the Medieval period, very few, if any, members of society outside the aristocracy did much of anything worth noting. During the Early Modern Period, there was a bit more activity from this segments of society, but not much more than a trickle. But that trickle was a steady one that grew and grew until it exploded into a rushing torrent after 1776.
In the first chapter of the 1859 book Self Help by Samuel Smiles, the author makes an argument for helping ones self. This takes the form of a few well reasoned observations, but the bulk of the material is examples of great men of genius in a variety of fields of endeavour who all came from working or craftsman class backgrounds. It is hard for us to comprehend that this was something worthy of note, but prior to 1776 this level of accomplishment emerging from the so-called “lower” or “humble” classes was unheard of. What changed? People became free to pursue their goals without governmental regulations, controls, or restrictions. This was the age of the Self, the Individual, the I. Each man was expected to both do for himself and work with others to accomplish individual goals.
The world changed in 1929. Over the preceding decades, the foundations were laid for another age based not on independence but on dependence. The motto was not “can do” but “cannot do”. We might say that it started with Karl Marx and then the Fabian Societies. But the full flower did not bloom until 1917 with the Communist Revolution in Russia. From that beachhead more and more ground was gained with the rise of authoritarian governments throughout Europe.
The horrors of World War I brought the old age into question, but the world had bounced back during the Twenties. However, it was the fall of the stock market in 1929 that seemed to herald to the world that the Classical Liberalism of the Romantic Age marked by free markets and free people had failed. The people looked to their governments to save them and in doing so relinquished their freedom. The freedom bought in 1776 was sold in 1929.
In the United States during the Twenties, the socialist party could achieve six percent of the vote in their best year; however of the economic policies put forward in their election platform in 1928, every single one was adopted in law within fifty years. Or to phrase it another way, between 1928 and 1978 America became a socialist state. While the people waved the flag and spoke of freedom, each generation gave more and more freedom to their government in the name of security.
Samuel Smiles observed, “Whatever is done for men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively helpless.”
My father’s barber served in the Spanish-American War of 1900. This man told my father a story which my father told to me. I heard the story third person, but it has crossed a century. I find that amazing. How a story can cross time like that. We tend to conceive events of the past as more distant than they really are. My father was born in 1927, two years before the world ended, but he carried in him the influences of my grandparents and their age. This is my lost birthright.
The American generation born before my own are the infamous Baby-Boomers, born between 1945 and 1960. They have been called the most spoiled generation in American history. They were also the first generation raised with the new values of dependency upon the state. They are also the generation that will bankrupt the United States as they retire and demand their Social Security and Medicare checks.
My generation, born in the wake of the Boomers, have been called Generation-X, the 13th Generation, and the Slacker Generation. We were the first generation to not do as well financially as the previous one. We were the first to go from university to retail jobs. If I may generalize, we are a cynical lot. We grew-up under constant threat of nuclear annihilation from the Soviets, but unlike previous generations our response was “fuck it, then let’s party”. This is illustrated in the song 1999 by Prince and the Revolution. “Yeah, everybody's got a bomb we could all die any day, but before I'll let that happen I'll dance my life away.”
We were followed by the Millennial Generation, foolishly called Generation X also (because the name was too cool to let go) and Generation Y (because it follows X). These were the folks born between 1982 and 2000.
In their 1992 book Generations, William Strauss and Neil Howe laid out a pattern in American history of recurring generational types born during either an Awakening, Unravelling, Crisis, or High . Here is an excerpt from Wiki explaining it.
Prophet/Idealist. A Prophet (or Idealist) generation is born during a High, spends its rising adult years during an Awakening, spends midlife during an Unraveling, and spends old age in a Crisis. Prophetic leaders have been cerebral and principled, summoners of human sacrifice, wagers of righteous wars. Early in life, few saw combat in uniform; late in life, most come to be revered as much for their words as for their deeds.
Nomad/Reactive. A Nomad (or Reactive) generation is born during an Awakening, spends its rising adult years during an Unraveling, spends midlife during a Crisis, and spends old age in a new High. Nomadic leaders have been cunning, hard-to-fool realists, taciturn warriors who prefer to meet problems and adversaries one-on-one.
Hero/Civic. A Hero (or Civic) generation is born during an Unravelling, spends its rising adult years during a Crisis, spends midlife during a High, and spends old age in an Awakening. Heroic leaders are considered to have been vigorous and rational institution-builders, busy and competent in old age. All of them entering midlife were aggressive advocates of technological progress, economic prosperity, social harmony, and public optimism.
Artist/Adaptive. An Artist (or Adaptive) generation is born during a Crisis, spends its rising adult years in a new High, spends midlife in an Awakening, and spends old age in an Unravelling. Artistic leaders have been advocates of fairness and the politics of inclusion, irrepressible in the wake of failure.
To put this in a more recent perspective, the Boomers are a, Idealist generation, followed by my Reactive peers, and then the Heroic/Civic Millennials.
Now these are a recurring cycle: Idealist, Reactive, Civic, Adaptive, and then repeat. The last group of Reactives were the last true adult Romantics (born 1883-1900) and between the ages of 29 and 46 during the end of the world in 1929. To get some perspective, these were the guys who fought in World War I, made bathtub gin, drank cocaine, and attended Gatsby’s parties. They are affectionately known as the Lost Generation. But they were not the one’s responsible for the end of the world.
The collapse of the stock market was really no big deal. It was the way that the Federal Reserve attempted to fix it that caused the problem. It is too complicated to explain here, but suffice to say that the Fed should have left it alone, but on top of that it raised interest rates when it should have lowered them. This decreased the money supply so there was not enough money in relation to the level of production. This caused the Great Depression.
The problem was further exacerbated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. The banking system through the Federal Reserve destroyed the economy. The people were desperate, so the government began giving hand-outs. This created the illusion that the Fed and the US government solved the problem and made the people more dependent on government hand-outs as a normal function of government. Today, hand-outs account for over half the US budget, nearly all of the national debt, and all of the unfunded liability. This is paid for through taxation, inflating the currency, loans from foreign governments, and monetizing the debt.
What we see in 1929 is the beginning of a fundamental shift in consciousness that has become more and more entrenched with each generation. This understanding is only possible with hindsight. Imagine if once a month someone snuck into your house and painted it a slightly darker shade until it was black. Would you notice? When we look at the modern dependence on government and the demands for entitlements and attempt to find its source, we find it began in 1929. We can see the gradual progression from generation to generation on the path to total government dependency.
I read in an article recently that thirty years ago only one percent of entertainers in the British music industry had attended wealthy schools. Today it is sixty percent. I do not know how this trend plays out in other fields and in other countries, but if we look at the Nineteenth Century and see the vast numbers of geniuses emerging from the working class and then see the Twenty-first century elite being born to it, we must wonder where things changed. Yes, we do still see greatness emerging from the working class, but not at the same levels that we saw during the Romantic Era.
The more I learn about the Victorian ideology and zeitgeist, the more I am convinced that I have been robbed of my inheritance. I feel like Esau selling his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of stew. I had a choice. I could have dedicated myself to the ways of my father and my grandfather. But I was a slacker and it’s hard to leave the party when there is an open bar. I have been socially conditioned to a certain pattern of behaviour, and it is hard to break this kind of programming. In other words, I am a child of the apocalypse.
The past 80 years has seen a steady increase in government control, taxation, and regulation. There has also been an ever increasing demand from the people for more government control, services, and regulation. Let’s be honest here, the loudest voices have come from one group – the spoiled Boomers who have dominated American society for 60 years. Then the Xers and the Millennials say, “They got theirs, where’s ours?” Sorry kids, all outta money.
The Romantic Era lasted 153 years, though its influences bled well beyond that scope. I believe that the current age, the Socialist Age, is going to reach its end. This may take the form of a New Romantic Era or Neo-Feudalism. There is one factor that will decide which it will be – the will and character of the people. This was observed by Samuel Smiles in 1859.
National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice. What we are accustomed to decry as great social evils, will, for the most part, be found to be only the outgrowth of our own perverted life; and though we may endeavour to cut them down and extirpate them by means of law, they will only spring up again with fresh luxuriance in some other form, unless the conditions of human life and character are radically improved. If this view be correct, then it follows that the highest patriotism and philanthropy consist, not so much in altering laws and modifying institutions, as in helping and stimulating men to elevate and improve themselves by their own free and independent action.
The government of a nation itself is usually found to be but the reflex of the individuals composing it. The government that is ahead of the people will be inevitably dragged down to their level, as the government that is behind them will in the long run be dragged up. In the order of nature, the collective character of a nation will as surely find its befitting results in its law and government, as water finds its own level. The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly. Indeed, liberty is quite as much a moral as a political growth,—the result of free individual action, energy, and independence. It may be of comparatively little consequence how a man is governed from without, whilst everything depends upon how he governs himself from within. The greatest slave is not he who is ruled by a despot, great though that evil be, but he who is the thrall of his own moral ignorance, selfishness, and vice. There have been, and perhaps there still are, so-called patriots abroad, who hold it to be the greatest stroke for liberty to kill a tyrant, forgetting that the tyrant usually represents only too faithfully the millions of people over whom he reigns. But nations who are enslaved at heart cannot be freed by any mere changes of masters or of institutions; and so long as the fatal delusion prevails, that liberty solely depends upon, and consists in government, so long will such changes, no matter at what cost they be effected, have as little practical and lasting result as the shifting of the figures in a phantasmagoria. The solid foundations of liberty must rest upon individual character; which is also the only sure guarantee for social security and national progress. In this consists the real strength of English liberty. Englishmen feel that they are free, not merely because they live under those free institutions which they have so laboriously built up, but because each member of society has to a greater or less extent got the root of the matter within himself; and they continue to hold fast and enjoy their liberty, not by freedom of speech merely, but by their steadfast life and energetic action as free individual men.
There is less social mobility in Britain nowadays than in the 1960s and, I would wager, than there was even a hundred years ago or more. This is due almost entirely to the low character of those who now compose the working class (a misnomer, since many do not work.)
ReplyDeleteFor further reading on this point, I recommend James Bartholemew's 'The Welfare State We're In'.
"I had a choice. I could have dedicated myself to the ways of my father and my grandfather. But I was a slacker and it’s hard to leave the party when there is an open bar."
'Slacking' is a perfectly rational adaptation to the circumstances, provided that one uses the extra time for worthwhile and personally enriching pursuits. The current levels of inflation and taxation make working and saving (beyond a certain amount for emergencies) a fool's goal.
Current laws also make it ill-advised for men to marry or procreate -- further incentive not to save. Besides, the best way to bring down the system is simply for men to walk away. Starve the beast.
"There is one factor that will decide which it will be – the will and character of the people."
Because I agree with Smiles about the ultimate importance of national character, I do not hold out much hope.