This is a fantastic look-back and summary of a time, a people and a mindset. The dates change and so do the personalities, but the post-war domestic denazification mindset among our own elite never does.
And the donor class continuously cuts a deal with our enemies.
I lived in NYC from 1967 to the middle of the Dinkins era. (He thought about whites just like Mayor Lindsay did, just like Mayor Warren Wilhelm did, just like Mayor Mamdani does.) Woke didn’t surprise me; it was just another instance of its Eternal Return.
Until whites realize that we are both not responsible for black people’s problems, nor can we fix black people’s problems, this mindset will keep metastasizing in newer, more destructive ways.
The blank slate fallacy has been married to Liberalism since the 1960s. I don't think that Liberalism necessarily leads to the blank slate, but Yankee moralizing does. Greer sources Liberalism and particularly American Liberalism but I would actually source it to American Christianity, particularly Yankee Christianity, with its penchant for moralizing and thinking every non-American wants to be American and is destined to be Christian, they just need to be exposed to us and our way of life.
Christianity has of course has fallen out of favor with the American Left but the underlying moral structure has remained, just in non-Christian form - what a leftist might call "humanism", as in "we're all valuable humans and all born with unlimited potential yadda yadda" just like old Christians thought that a peasant farmer in Baluchistan was actually a Christian just waiting to be exposed to Jesus.
To tie this into the race riots of the 1960s, Yankees by this time had long been taking over control of the institutions and imposing their moral standards on the country, even beginning to convince hee-haw whites. To them, blacks just hadn't been given enough "opportunity" and this was partly true due to systemic racism, yes, but nothing happens in a vaccuum and the Yankee moralizers did not live among blacks like southerners did. The Yanks saw this issue in only the most superficial way which was "blacks poor, whites affluent" so therefore something is wrong with the system as opposed to the people (i.e., blank slate), and on top of that, it's a moral obligation to help those in need despite their bad decisions (i.e., Christian morality).
Fast forward to 2020 and the same Yankees are encouraging Koreans to embrace transsexuality. Thankfully the long march has been halted...so far.
This is perhaps the most important lesson. Same with the gays. All this PRIDE stuff was supposed to stop when gay marriage was legalized. Same with women. They are dominating every sphere of life and still claim to be oppressed.
The President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, set up by LBJ in 1969, is another example of a committee supposedly staffed with centrists that ended up producing a report far more radical than anyone anticipated.
The radicalization of the American establishment in the 60s and 70s (yes, mostly "Heritage Americans") is an underappreciated phenomenon.
In a way, the commission was correct. We did have Belfasts break out all over the country...it's just that only one side showed up to fight. A Belfast where all the catholics gave up and moved south into the Republic wouldn't have been much of a conflict either.
Great article. The big lesson to me from all this is that the slippery slope is real. Right-wingers need to push back immediately and firmly. The other lesson is that it took right-wingers selling out for liberalism to truly get a stronghold in America. Liberals on their own wouldn't have been able to transform they way they have since the 1960's.
This is a fantastic look-back and summary of a time, a people and a mindset. The dates change and so do the personalities, but the post-war domestic denazification mindset among our own elite never does.
And the donor class continuously cuts a deal with our enemies.
I lived in NYC from 1967 to the middle of the Dinkins era. (He thought about whites just like Mayor Lindsay did, just like Mayor Warren Wilhelm did, just like Mayor Mamdani does.) Woke didn’t surprise me; it was just another instance of its Eternal Return.
Until whites realize that we are both not responsible for black people’s problems, nor can we fix black people’s problems, this mindset will keep metastasizing in newer, more destructive ways.
The blank slate fallacy has been married to Liberalism since the 1960s. I don't think that Liberalism necessarily leads to the blank slate, but Yankee moralizing does. Greer sources Liberalism and particularly American Liberalism but I would actually source it to American Christianity, particularly Yankee Christianity, with its penchant for moralizing and thinking every non-American wants to be American and is destined to be Christian, they just need to be exposed to us and our way of life.
Christianity has of course has fallen out of favor with the American Left but the underlying moral structure has remained, just in non-Christian form - what a leftist might call "humanism", as in "we're all valuable humans and all born with unlimited potential yadda yadda" just like old Christians thought that a peasant farmer in Baluchistan was actually a Christian just waiting to be exposed to Jesus.
To tie this into the race riots of the 1960s, Yankees by this time had long been taking over control of the institutions and imposing their moral standards on the country, even beginning to convince hee-haw whites. To them, blacks just hadn't been given enough "opportunity" and this was partly true due to systemic racism, yes, but nothing happens in a vaccuum and the Yankee moralizers did not live among blacks like southerners did. The Yanks saw this issue in only the most superficial way which was "blacks poor, whites affluent" so therefore something is wrong with the system as opposed to the people (i.e., blank slate), and on top of that, it's a moral obligation to help those in need despite their bad decisions (i.e., Christian morality).
Fast forward to 2020 and the same Yankees are encouraging Koreans to embrace transsexuality. Thankfully the long march has been halted...so far.
Give the blacks everything they beg and whine for and its still not enough...
This is perhaps the most important lesson. Same with the gays. All this PRIDE stuff was supposed to stop when gay marriage was legalized. Same with women. They are dominating every sphere of life and still claim to be oppressed.
You are not describing American liberalism, you are describing American leftism.
There is very little liberal left to it.
The President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, set up by LBJ in 1969, is another example of a committee supposedly staffed with centrists that ended up producing a report far more radical than anyone anticipated.
The radicalization of the American establishment in the 60s and 70s (yes, mostly "Heritage Americans") is an underappreciated phenomenon.
Excellent Scott
In a way, the commission was correct. We did have Belfasts break out all over the country...it's just that only one side showed up to fight. A Belfast where all the catholics gave up and moved south into the Republic wouldn't have been much of a conflict either.
Great article. The big lesson to me from all this is that the slippery slope is real. Right-wingers need to push back immediately and firmly. The other lesson is that it took right-wingers selling out for liberalism to truly get a stronghold in America. Liberals on their own wouldn't have been able to transform they way they have since the 1960's.