The Failure of the Experts, "Americanization" of Children as a Net Negative, Infantilization of Young Adults, Is Giorga Meloni a Fake? The Banality of Elite Hollywood Sex Club Ownership
Hit the like button and use the share button to share this across social media. Leave a comment if the mood strikes you (be nice!), and don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already done so.
Great write up. A nice picture of the state of affairs. I agree whole heartedly that Meloni is a wolf in chic clothing. It's more of a status grab rather than a do what's in the interest of the Right because hey the latest trend is the boss babe and why would this be any less. Anyway, I appreciate the deliverables as they are always on point. One possible request. You mentioned the total state and I think it would be a great interview (if you are still doing them) to reach out to Auron Macintyre. He is actually writing a book on the Total State and he has been ushering a lot of the DR thought into the mainstream conservative influence sphere. It is being watered down but a discussion between the two of you would definitely provide a lot of great information. Just a thought and I look forward to more articles. Cheers
With regards to the competence of the experts, I think we're in the middle of a storm of events that could--emphasizing *could*, here, because making predictions is always fraught--seriously discredit the expertise of the ruling class. What I have in mind is the performance of the US economy under Biden's mainstream policies, along with the impact of sanctions on the EU and Russia, and finally the war in Ukraine. Longish post incoming here.
As a DC resident I'm fairly in tune with the policy consensus community and while I haven't tried to make anyone explicitly spell out exact predictions, I do have a pretty good sense of where they think these things are going. Naturally they think that Biden's governance of the country is superb (one even described the administration as "shockingly competent"), and that what he's doing is going to set the stage for a strong, dynamic economy, etc. The caveat here being that supposedly Biden may only pull it off just in time for the next administration to take the credit. Clever hedging.
There's a strongly held view that the sanctions on Russia are working. One good friend of mine deals with sanction laws pretty extensively as part of his job, and is far more involved with the nuts and bolts of them than most, so his opinion on this carries some significant weight; if he's wrong about this, then I really can't overstate how much it would discredit the sanctioneers and their understanding of how this stuff works. It's not really my area so I hesitate to make any snap judgments, but from my perspective the sanctions look like a pretty mixed bag insofar as certain parts of Russian industry have definitely been hit hard, but it doesn't appear that the country lacks for the basics, and certainly not for income from hydrocarbons. In terms of how they're impacting Europe, I think the American perspective is a pretty cavalier "You'll be fine, just put a sweater on, btw this is your fault for buying Russian gas in the first place" which is Nic's assessment as well from what I've seen.
Finally--they're very certain that Ukraine is winning, and going to win. One of my friends who works in foreign policy for a living has indicated that he believes the Russians wanted to do to Kiev what they did to Grozny in the 90s, but are military incapable of doing so (!). And no, I'm not exaggerating--he doesn't just believe that the Russians were routed at Kiev but that they literally do not have the capacity to destroy Kiev by any means even if they want to (!!). Another friend believes the same, and he works for the foreign policy arm of the country directly with a high level security clearance.
I don't want to claim that my interactions reflect a statistically optimized cross-section of the DC elite consensus, but these are very much the view of true consensus insider nonetheless. I'll be very, very interested to see how all this shakes out, and how they'll react if none of these things go as they expect them to.
Lets compare and contrast GRID/AIDS/HIV with COVID.
Its as if they read the AIDS conspiracy theories and formed a plan (I am not given to conspiracy theories when the dismal facts are known, however when in the Grip of the Insane...)
For me, the Iraq War hawks will always stand out as the best example of failed experts. Kristol, Kagan, Frum, Nichols, Boot et al. They’re essentially interchangeable. All with advanced degrees in the social sciences (majority with PhDs), most with experience in the federal government. And yet, for all that knowledge and experience, they convinced themselves of the most absurd fairytale that any bright high schooler with a basic knowledge of history could have refuted. And not only did they embark upon an absurd quest, they did so with minimal forces, despite ample analysis that such an operation would take hundreds of thousands of more troops. Thank goodness the internet is forever:
About 10 years ago I was having a conversation with a co-worker who was a lapsed Muslim. I asked him about his daughters and their upbringing.....and almost immediately he guessed what I was getting at and said, "You mean are they Americanized?"
He and I, without explaining, knew what we meant...I am an immigrant as well. And I bet you an American would have had no idea what we were talking about.
The article about young adults is absolutely nightmarish. It is utterly dystopian and absolutely revolting. The author of the article celebrates manga and anime, but as fun as those are they don't achieve anything. They are trivial. These are not childish adults, they are trivial adults. The last men in the flesh, the Nietzschean nightmare. I am actually upset about the article. Niccolo, how have you read the article and not seen anything else than a nightmare?
I suspect Fazi is correct. It's either Meloni is a political genius and is selling smoke to globalist elites until she's in power, then she will pull an Orban, or, most likely she´ll trade off her ideas for a position as admin for Italy. Voters won't even get the block of illegal immigration
The infantlization of young adults piece was very interesting. I have been noticing this phenomenon in many unremarkable situations. One mundane example is as a young adult myself, the YouTube algorithm gods play the Obamacare/Healthcare. gov ad all the time. Ostensibly this ad is targeted towards mid-20 year olds but I couldn't help but notice how it seemed so childish. The music is similar to the one they play in children's cartoons, the fonts the very same. Here they are talking about such an important and "adult" topic as health insurance, but the cast, music and setting all seem suited more for a PBS Kids show.
Regarding the Americanization of Children, in my opinion if you can, dont send your kids to American schools. Unlike many others, I wont distinguish between public and private schools. Chances are if your school is in a "good area", it will instill the woke ideology on kids regardless of funding source. Essentially its practically impossible to get both good academic and cultural/moral education in this country. Those of us of immigrant background are somewhat lucky as we have social capital in the old country so we can send our kids more easily to schools there. I know affluent, distant relatives who have sent their American born kids to schools back home. Regular Americans will find it much harder, but if you can, do so. Some of my (female) classmates from high school have become elementary and middle school teachers. I know these people, they are completely insane. American schools are still somewhat "normal" because the Boomers and GenX are still around but they will be replaced soon. God only knows, what terror these depressed, degenerate, childless Gen Z pet "moms" will unleash on our children.
The bit about children not respecting their parents reminds me of the time I realized I was a grumpy old man at what would have been the ripe old age of about 30. I used to write for a freelance music and arts publication in Kansas City, reviewing concerts, interviewing people, etc. They sent me to review the Broadway touring production of “Spring Awakening” - I had a press pass and everything, hilariously - and my review was almost entirely devoted to talking about how “kids these days” aren’t smart enough to think they can carry themselves like the characters in the show and that I found the message distressing and not a little dangerous. It’s quite funny to me in retrospect.
As for the infantilism of adults, I can only say that whatever positives may exist are FAR outweighed by the negatives. I work with a group of people who are without question of above-average intelligence as a bloc and, even if they don’t read teen novels and jack off to hentai, they don’t seem to know or care even remotely about ideas. I’ve been trying to get any adults in my life to read just the single “Grand Inquisitor” chapter of Karamazov for months now and absolutely no one has expressed even a passing interest in this, let alone reading the book - arguably the greatest ever written - in its entirety. They don’t seem to have hobbies to speak of either. It’s just work, drink, watch Netflix, and hang with your family. I find it genuinely confusing.
My apologies for the overlong comment. Great write up this week!
Wow...yet another great edition of the newsletter Niccolo.
Delayed or even morbidly postponed maturation is an adaptation to the state of the nation. The labour market cannot provide stable employment at wages sufficient to enable family formation and replacement level fertility for everyone. So the system manages the fertility of the young and not so young in order to misdirect attention and stunt development of the surplus population, which is being replaced anyhow by migrants.
The condition of the wannabe-Eloi is further proof that dysfunction is the overriding aim of Western institutions. The last thing the oligarchs want is a population of capable, autonomous, people...demanding types whose expectations would be hard to satisfy.
That Americanisation is now a reliable risk factor for poor school performance explains all you will ever need to know about the education system. The next generation of the professional and managerial class (PMC) will have to make room for a great many more immigrants. The portion of the class recruited from native-born students educated in foreign language schools will inevitably help to ensure a widening cultural gap between the PMC and everyone else. This is another significant step towards neo-feudalism.
Reversing the failures of the US education system, assuming that it can be done at all, will take generations. In the meantime the US will just have to adjust to its decline.
Tomaso Fazi is interesting. Heard him speak at a roundtable some years ago re Future of EU. He was introduced as an anarchist. He spoke of the Euro Central Bank agenda of slash, burn, austerity. Italian establishment had tried every means to get rid of Silvio Berlusconi. Magistrates, political manoeuvres, courts, media, to no avail. As Fazi tells it, when SB baulked at implementing austerity policies on Italy, he was gone in jig time. Found Fazi very impressive and would look twice or more at his findings on Meloni. Fratelli has the stink of Gladio methinks. Would love to see an analysis of the eminence grices behind the party.
Hit the like button and use the share button to share this across social media. Leave a comment if the mood strikes you (be nice!), and don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already done so.
This week's review makes Larry Kramer look like an optimist
Great write up. A nice picture of the state of affairs. I agree whole heartedly that Meloni is a wolf in chic clothing. It's more of a status grab rather than a do what's in the interest of the Right because hey the latest trend is the boss babe and why would this be any less. Anyway, I appreciate the deliverables as they are always on point. One possible request. You mentioned the total state and I think it would be a great interview (if you are still doing them) to reach out to Auron Macintyre. He is actually writing a book on the Total State and he has been ushering a lot of the DR thought into the mainstream conservative influence sphere. It is being watered down but a discussion between the two of you would definitely provide a lot of great information. Just a thought and I look forward to more articles. Cheers
With regards to the competence of the experts, I think we're in the middle of a storm of events that could--emphasizing *could*, here, because making predictions is always fraught--seriously discredit the expertise of the ruling class. What I have in mind is the performance of the US economy under Biden's mainstream policies, along with the impact of sanctions on the EU and Russia, and finally the war in Ukraine. Longish post incoming here.
As a DC resident I'm fairly in tune with the policy consensus community and while I haven't tried to make anyone explicitly spell out exact predictions, I do have a pretty good sense of where they think these things are going. Naturally they think that Biden's governance of the country is superb (one even described the administration as "shockingly competent"), and that what he's doing is going to set the stage for a strong, dynamic economy, etc. The caveat here being that supposedly Biden may only pull it off just in time for the next administration to take the credit. Clever hedging.
There's a strongly held view that the sanctions on Russia are working. One good friend of mine deals with sanction laws pretty extensively as part of his job, and is far more involved with the nuts and bolts of them than most, so his opinion on this carries some significant weight; if he's wrong about this, then I really can't overstate how much it would discredit the sanctioneers and their understanding of how this stuff works. It's not really my area so I hesitate to make any snap judgments, but from my perspective the sanctions look like a pretty mixed bag insofar as certain parts of Russian industry have definitely been hit hard, but it doesn't appear that the country lacks for the basics, and certainly not for income from hydrocarbons. In terms of how they're impacting Europe, I think the American perspective is a pretty cavalier "You'll be fine, just put a sweater on, btw this is your fault for buying Russian gas in the first place" which is Nic's assessment as well from what I've seen.
Finally--they're very certain that Ukraine is winning, and going to win. One of my friends who works in foreign policy for a living has indicated that he believes the Russians wanted to do to Kiev what they did to Grozny in the 90s, but are military incapable of doing so (!). And no, I'm not exaggerating--he doesn't just believe that the Russians were routed at Kiev but that they literally do not have the capacity to destroy Kiev by any means even if they want to (!!). Another friend believes the same, and he works for the foreign policy arm of the country directly with a high level security clearance.
I don't want to claim that my interactions reflect a statistically optimized cross-section of the DC elite consensus, but these are very much the view of true consensus insider nonetheless. I'll be very, very interested to see how all this shakes out, and how they'll react if none of these things go as they expect them to.
I was reminded of an older Sailer article about immersion schools and thought he wrote about Croatian immersion, turns out it was Slovak. I’m slippin https://www.unz.com/isteve/the-future-of-new-york-city-public-schools/
Lets compare and contrast GRID/AIDS/HIV with COVID.
Its as if they read the AIDS conspiracy theories and formed a plan (I am not given to conspiracy theories when the dismal facts are known, however when in the Grip of the Insane...)
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/the-virus-hunting-nonprofit-at-the-center-of-the-lab-leak-controversy
For me, the Iraq War hawks will always stand out as the best example of failed experts. Kristol, Kagan, Frum, Nichols, Boot et al. They’re essentially interchangeable. All with advanced degrees in the social sciences (majority with PhDs), most with experience in the federal government. And yet, for all that knowledge and experience, they convinced themselves of the most absurd fairytale that any bright high schooler with a basic knowledge of history could have refuted. And not only did they embark upon an absurd quest, they did so with minimal forces, despite ample analysis that such an operation would take hundreds of thousands of more troops. Thank goodness the internet is forever:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/what-to-do-about-iraq-2064
About 10 years ago I was having a conversation with a co-worker who was a lapsed Muslim. I asked him about his daughters and their upbringing.....and almost immediately he guessed what I was getting at and said, "You mean are they Americanized?"
He and I, without explaining, knew what we meant...I am an immigrant as well. And I bet you an American would have had no idea what we were talking about.
The article about young adults is absolutely nightmarish. It is utterly dystopian and absolutely revolting. The author of the article celebrates manga and anime, but as fun as those are they don't achieve anything. They are trivial. These are not childish adults, they are trivial adults. The last men in the flesh, the Nietzschean nightmare. I am actually upset about the article. Niccolo, how have you read the article and not seen anything else than a nightmare?
Three cheers for speaking Arabic at home I guess…
On Parag Khanna:
https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii51/articles/gopal-balakrishnan-news-from-nowheresville
I suspect Fazi is correct. It's either Meloni is a political genius and is selling smoke to globalist elites until she's in power, then she will pull an Orban, or, most likely she´ll trade off her ideas for a position as admin for Italy. Voters won't even get the block of illegal immigration
The infantlization of young adults piece was very interesting. I have been noticing this phenomenon in many unremarkable situations. One mundane example is as a young adult myself, the YouTube algorithm gods play the Obamacare/Healthcare. gov ad all the time. Ostensibly this ad is targeted towards mid-20 year olds but I couldn't help but notice how it seemed so childish. The music is similar to the one they play in children's cartoons, the fonts the very same. Here they are talking about such an important and "adult" topic as health insurance, but the cast, music and setting all seem suited more for a PBS Kids show.
Regarding the Americanization of Children, in my opinion if you can, dont send your kids to American schools. Unlike many others, I wont distinguish between public and private schools. Chances are if your school is in a "good area", it will instill the woke ideology on kids regardless of funding source. Essentially its practically impossible to get both good academic and cultural/moral education in this country. Those of us of immigrant background are somewhat lucky as we have social capital in the old country so we can send our kids more easily to schools there. I know affluent, distant relatives who have sent their American born kids to schools back home. Regular Americans will find it much harder, but if you can, do so. Some of my (female) classmates from high school have become elementary and middle school teachers. I know these people, they are completely insane. American schools are still somewhat "normal" because the Boomers and GenX are still around but they will be replaced soon. God only knows, what terror these depressed, degenerate, childless Gen Z pet "moms" will unleash on our children.
The bit about children not respecting their parents reminds me of the time I realized I was a grumpy old man at what would have been the ripe old age of about 30. I used to write for a freelance music and arts publication in Kansas City, reviewing concerts, interviewing people, etc. They sent me to review the Broadway touring production of “Spring Awakening” - I had a press pass and everything, hilariously - and my review was almost entirely devoted to talking about how “kids these days” aren’t smart enough to think they can carry themselves like the characters in the show and that I found the message distressing and not a little dangerous. It’s quite funny to me in retrospect.
As for the infantilism of adults, I can only say that whatever positives may exist are FAR outweighed by the negatives. I work with a group of people who are without question of above-average intelligence as a bloc and, even if they don’t read teen novels and jack off to hentai, they don’t seem to know or care even remotely about ideas. I’ve been trying to get any adults in my life to read just the single “Grand Inquisitor” chapter of Karamazov for months now and absolutely no one has expressed even a passing interest in this, let alone reading the book - arguably the greatest ever written - in its entirety. They don’t seem to have hobbies to speak of either. It’s just work, drink, watch Netflix, and hang with your family. I find it genuinely confusing.
My apologies for the overlong comment. Great write up this week!
Wow...yet another great edition of the newsletter Niccolo.
Delayed or even morbidly postponed maturation is an adaptation to the state of the nation. The labour market cannot provide stable employment at wages sufficient to enable family formation and replacement level fertility for everyone. So the system manages the fertility of the young and not so young in order to misdirect attention and stunt development of the surplus population, which is being replaced anyhow by migrants.
The condition of the wannabe-Eloi is further proof that dysfunction is the overriding aim of Western institutions. The last thing the oligarchs want is a population of capable, autonomous, people...demanding types whose expectations would be hard to satisfy.
That Americanisation is now a reliable risk factor for poor school performance explains all you will ever need to know about the education system. The next generation of the professional and managerial class (PMC) will have to make room for a great many more immigrants. The portion of the class recruited from native-born students educated in foreign language schools will inevitably help to ensure a widening cultural gap between the PMC and everyone else. This is another significant step towards neo-feudalism.
Reversing the failures of the US education system, assuming that it can be done at all, will take generations. In the meantime the US will just have to adjust to its decline.
Tomaso Fazi is interesting. Heard him speak at a roundtable some years ago re Future of EU. He was introduced as an anarchist. He spoke of the Euro Central Bank agenda of slash, burn, austerity. Italian establishment had tried every means to get rid of Silvio Berlusconi. Magistrates, political manoeuvres, courts, media, to no avail. As Fazi tells it, when SB baulked at implementing austerity policies on Italy, he was gone in jig time. Found Fazi very impressive and would look twice or more at his findings on Meloni. Fratelli has the stink of Gladio methinks. Would love to see an analysis of the eminence grices behind the party.