Who is closing the American mind?
About three decades ago a book was published named 'The Closing Of The American Mind' by a Jewish author, Allan Bloom. It became something of a watershed in the culture war. I have never read it, because the phenomenon is no great mystery to me. If you apply praxeology you will discover without too much difficulty the motive threads interweaving in the greater coming apart----I borrow that last phrase from Charles Murray, but I expand its meaning beyond Murray's original intent.
One of the threads is the exogamous tendency of the particular gene pools from which the WASP people sprang, which is accompanied by a libertarian preference for social policing over authoritarian government. This is a necessary backdrop, I believe, without which the phenomenon remains mysterious.
Against this backdrop one has to then take account of the rapid demographic change that proceeds from immigration of non WASP peoples in large numbers. The calm, sober modesty of ambition we saw in Harding and Coolidge was the last stand of the quintessential WASP culture in the political sphere. The Germanic minor key came to the forefront irreversibly as the progressive movement----populated mainly by people who produced no economic value----took hold of the public square.
In order to accommodate great diversity of culture in the public square, each has to let go some part of its inheritance. It is a trade off, with consequences. In order to accommodate large numbers of Catholics, the Protestants had to let go the intensity of their faith. Likewise, the Catholics let go public expressions of their faith, in order to integrate into a WASP society. This diminution of cultural substance in the public square is at the root of the nihilism Allan Bloom laments.
In due course, after the Nuremberg trials, a very intelligent and very vocal Jewish minority entered the public square, and mounted a determined demand for more radical change in its cultural substance. In a remarkably short time the levers of cultural power came under near monopoly control of talented and motivated Jews. In recent decades more words, thoughts, ideas----indeed, entire fields of study----were ruled out of bounds in the public square, and even placed under severe admonition in the academy. A Jewish biographer of Hitler said in the '90s Jews should congratulate themselves for the signal achievement of driving Christianity out of the American public square.
It so happens I care little about the fashions of the time, and I am not impressed by chutzpah, or pilpul. So, if you try to close my mind by yelling accusations at me you will only make me laugh in your face. I do not view Jewish perfidy as the master key to the universe----plenty of Jews are on our side, although they are outnumbered 1:4 by their cohorts on the other side. Allan Bloom's harshest critics were other Jews!
I am a student of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, so I have a better grasp of caste theory than most. If one takes a naive view of libertarian theory one may conclude that the profit motive trumps all. I have to tell you, my naive libertarian friends, market theory is not the master key to the universe. I'll give you a quick, telling example.
Alan Greenspan testified to Congress after the last financial crisis that he was shocked at the behavior of management in regard of their fiduciary responsibility, because according to his theory they should not have behaved in this way. In other words, the profit motive should have kept them from taking that level of excessive risk. He admitted he had to now rethink his theoretical framework. I have heard him speak more recently at the AEI, and it appears to me he is in the habit of pretending that progressive interventions in the market----not least, central banking----are inconsequential to market behavior! He appears shocked when he discovers that free market theory no longer predicts behavior in a made market----am I to take it he is really that dense? :)
No, the profit motive exists within a fabric of many other motives. It is a very strong motive, and will exercise generally a predictable influence on behavior. It may even be the strongest single motive, after the preservation of life. It is nonetheless interwoven with another powerful motive: the desire to see my future generations benefit from my labors. This is why endogamy and some variation of caste has been typical of societies where division of labor has grown to involve diverse groups of people.
The WASP civilization is counter intuitive, and unique in this respect. The chronic "virtue signaling" problem we have is not visible in any other type of society. The WASP peoples are twisting and turning, bending over backwards, falling over themselves; in short, making complete fools of themselves in their vain effort to make a diverse society that still reflects the moral universalist quintessence of WASP culture. It is all in vain, but who am I to tell them that? If they wish to commit suicide, how do I prevent it?
The new brahmin caste in America is growing, like a fungus does, on top of what is mostly a meritocratic, and still very dynamic hierarchy. The horizontal endogamy----Charles Murray has shown it----has appeared but it has not hardened yet. There is a brisk inter marriage rate between high IQ secular Jews and high IQ post Christian WASPs. There is a cosanguinity in formation that will harden into caste proper, inexorably. The WASPs wil suffer agonies of guilt, doubt and confusion over it. Whereas, some other peoples, like Talmudists and Brahminists, will take to it like ducks to water, because their religion has acculturated them to such a society.
I understand, no one else says this sort of thing. I understand, these are forbidden subjects. I understand, I am now to be driven out of polite society. I understand. I am giving you, I hope, a fuller understanding of why the American mind must be closed, who is closing it, and why. I am giving you, I hope, a theory with which to analyze the behavior of Google and Facebook and others. Hey Zuck, I'm done, you can ban me now. :D