Daniel Greenfield at Sultan Knish nails what is wrong with our society by holding Japan up to us as mirror:
Go here to read the brilliant rest. We have made technology and consumerism ends in themselves with predictable results. The irony of course is that a dying culture cannot support either technological advance or consumerism long term. Materialism always is a dead end, as we are finding out now, and at the end of that dead end we won’t even have shiny toys to titillate us. Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that issues from the mouth of God is not a religious statement from Christ, but simple sober analysis by Him. We have attempted to deny that very old truth and the consequences are clear to all with eyes to see.
The man’s commentary is in need of amendment and correction.
1. European cities are not ‘filled with immigrants’. Non-indigenous muslims make up about 5% of Europe’s population. A great deal of the immigration is intra-European movement. Also, Europe’s fertility problems are considerably less acute than Japan’s or those of the other countries of the affluent Orient. Europe in general has seen a mild recovery in fertility over the last 15 years and it is not inconceivable that they could return to replacement levels in a few decades. Germany remains in problematic condition, but France and Britain are near replacement levels.
2. There is a reason politicians do not run on 1922 platforms. A 1922 platform would require the following
– an 85% reduction in military expenditure
– elimination of civilian espionage services and overseas aid programs (bar episodic war relief).
– tearing up all of our trade agreements and jacking up tariffs
– elimination of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and unemployment compensation.
– elimination of actuarial pools for the banking system (i.e. the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation).
-elimination of the whole portfolio of means-tested welfare expenditures absent some alternative.
-releasing about 85% of those currently incarcerated in federal prisons
—
The institutions of the central government are incapable of even passing a coherent expenditure plan and the mix of poor institutional design and confused public attitudes has not given us a central government with an unqualifiedly coherent direction in nearly fifty years. No such program could ever be enacted by anything but a Pinochet-style military regime and even then it would likely have to be phased in over time.
That aside, politicians, crummy though they are, actually have to make policy, listen to congressional testimony and lobbies, and listen to disgruntled citizens. A 1922 program might be attractive to some hack with a column at The American Conservative and no concern for or conception of ends, means, and effects, but all that person is doing is striking attitudes.
I wonder what the prophet Amos would say had he lived in this day and age. Oh, I forgot – chapter 6 (this is an old, old story that humanity repeats over and over again like an insane alcoholic who thinks that just this one more time he can drink with impunity):
1 Alas for those who are at ease in Zion,
and for those who feel secure on Mount Samaria,
the notables of the first of the nations,
to whom the house of Israel resorts!
2 Cross over to Calneh, and see;
from there go to Hamath the great;
then go down to Gath of the Philistines.
Are you better than these kingdoms?
Or is your territory greater than their territory,
3 O you that put far away the evil day,
and bring near a reign of violence?
4 Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory,
and lounge on their couches,
and eat lambs from the flock,
and calves from the stall;
5 who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp,
and like David improvise on instruments of music;
6 who drink wine from bowls,
and anoint themselves with the finest oils,
but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph!
7 Therefore they shall now be the first to go into exile,
and the revelry of the loungers shall pass away.
8 The Lord God has sworn by himself
(says the Lord, the God of hosts):
I abhor the pride of Jacob
and hate his strongholds;
and I will deliver up the city and all that is in it.
9 If ten people remain in one house, they shall die. 10 And if a relative, one who burns the dead, shall take up the body to bring it out of the house, and shall say to someone in the innermost parts of the house, “Is anyone else with you?” the answer will come, “No.” Then the relative shall say, “Hush! We must not mention the name of the Lord.”
11 See, the Lord commands,
and the great house shall be shattered to bits,
and the little house to pieces.
12 Do horses run on rocks?
Does one plow the sea with oxen?
But you have turned justice into poison
and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood—
13 you who rejoice in Lo-debar,
who say, “Have we not by our own strength
taken Karnaim for ourselves?”
14 Indeed, I am raising up against you a nation,
O house of Israel, says the Lord, the God of hosts,
and they shall oppress you from Lebo-hamath
to the Wadi Arabah.
Well Mr McClarey the man’s essay was missing his own point, until you added in our own words, about the words of Christ.
Values, left or right, can be just secular values: and the loss or gain of them, leftist values or rightist values, would be as meaningless as the man-construed values themselves.
I think he is talking about the fact that shared cultural values must be in place for a culture to work well. True– but-just be any values? He doesn’t talk about the way Western civi has done so well- based on the values of our shared revealed religion. Trying to impose state or secular values won’t work, for Goodness’s sake 🙂
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The consequence of an ageing population, like Japan’s was pointed out by Spengler at Asia Times, “it will spend less and save more for retirement. That is, demand will shift from present goods to future goods, that is, securities. The price level of present goods falls. The price of future goods rises, that is, the compensation for waiting for the future declines, and the rate of interest falls. The ageing population trades surplus present goods for future goods, that is, exports goods and purchases securities with the proceeds, shifting the current account balance to surplus. The exchange rate will rise…”
Cultural wastelands – it’s even more serious than what commenters have described above.
Japan and now increasingly the West doesn’t have access to low cost, safe, non-polluting energy. The one form thereof which would meet criteria for cost-effectiveness and environmental safety is nuclear, but using that requires an attention to detail, a level of integrity, procedural adherence, devotion to duty and continuous self-assessment that is discouraged by and absent in today’s hedonistic, licentious society. Natural gas, coal, oil, etc., all pollute, and their apparent cost-competitiveness will be short lived as Japan’s and our nukes are shuttered (five recently in the USA – San Onofre 2 and 3, Crystal River, Kewanee and now Vermont Yankee). And wind and solar are a joke (if wind was so great, why don’t we use sailing ships for merchandise transport across the ocean, and if solar was so great, why don’t we bake bricks the way the ancient Sumerians did?). So we will be left with no access to cheap and safe energy. No technological civilization can last long that way. Everything we have – refrigerators, stoves, air conditioners, hot water heaters, cars, etc. – relies on low cost energy supply, and none of us are prepared to return to the 19th century way of doing things. This is a very serious problem, and I submit that its our licentious and hedonistic ways that have caused this. If we can’t keep our pants zipped and our legs closed, how can we manage the atom, which is the greatest, best, cheapest and safest form of energy, but one requiring all the integrity, procedural adherence and compliance with law that every godless liberal progressive Democrat regards as anathema?
When the lights go out and the air conditioners and refrigerators stop, remember that I told you so. There’s enough uranium and thorium to fuel a civilization of 12 billion for the next 10 thousand years without polluting the environment.
And PS, don’t get me started on Fukushima which killed only 6 people outright, and those from industrial accidents. The new designs of passive safety (GE’s ESBWR, Westinghouse’s AP1000) completely obviate that scenario, and besides, Japan never adopted the safety upgrades that US BWRs implemented post-TMI. If they had, the event at Fukushima might very well not have happened. Japan’s culture rejected continuous self-assessment (which is the cornerstone of nuclear QA), attention to detail and procedural adherence. Now look at the result.
Liberal – “I don’t need to assess myself because it’s all relative!” Godless horse crap!
I’m a fan of anime, which isn’t the same thing as being an expert about Japan, but it does provide some insight.
Culture can err, in general, in two different directions with regard to sexuality: 1) disrespect for women, and 2) if it feels good, do it. The first is more of a problem among traditional cultures while the second is more modern (but not exclusively modern). It’s difficult to have both faults, but Japan has managed it. There’s a weird fascination with schoolgirls and not-particularly-consensual acts. There’s also “compensated dating”, which isn’t as bad as it sounds, but isn’t good either. And kinks are treated with the respect that any good modern culture would grant them since the days of Freud.
The US and Europe are definitely under the sway of problem #2, although the hip-hop world is guilty of #1 as well. I don’t know where I’m going with this, and I don’t know which is the chicken and which is the egg between culture and sexuality, but I do think that Japan is uniquely messed up. I don’t think there’s anything in Asia that has a strong tradition of respect for women. I suspect that this is one of those things that historians will be able to see clearly, that the virtuous middle is a rarity.
Look at the state of so-called traditional areas of the country: McDonald’s on every corner, Wal-Marts in every town, Starbucks on every street. We have become such a bland, un-inspiring, superficial culture. We have long rejected both beauty and productivity. Especially in conservative regions, it seems like nothing is valued anymore. IN North Carolina, they bull-dozed countless acres of valuable farmland in my area. (Piedmont Triad)
In Republican regions of Pennsylvania and Virginia, historic American battlefields have constantly been threatened by short-sighted developers. (The Wilderness Wal-Mart and the Gettysburg Casino). I thought only liberals attacked America’s heritage.
So, when will conservatives CEASE being their own worse enemies? What wise people willingly destroy valuable resources?