It Was The Best Of Times, It Was The Worst Of Times

The fact is, there are a million things in this world materialism cannot compensate for.

Yesterday’s radicals are today’s conservatives. Source: Author

I’m going to keep this one brief (tall order, I know). I just want to dump some thoughts in reaction to things I read today.

First, I came across this tweet from account “just matt,” presented without edit:

the fundamental problem with american politics is that everything is better now than it was in 1990 or 2005 and absolutely no one wants to hear that

Really. I’ve been alive for the better part of three decades, all of that time spent in the United States, and I can’t recall anyone saying this. Don’t take that too literally; of course people have been saying this, but it’s never been the predominant narrative in the discourse. I doubt anyone sincerely believes any of it. This doesn’t mean it’s false - that’s a separate question, entirely - but if its true, why do so many people on both sides feel different?

It’s not really a both sides thing, either. The narrative that things aren’t that great in America, that life is getting much worse, for as long as I’ve been around, has been the prevailing message of the Left. Even during the later years of the Barack Obama’s presidency, this was still very much the narrative. Then something happened which led to a literal narrative-swap, and almost a decade later, we see one side saying things are actually fine and we need to keep things the same, and the other side says we’re in big trouble and radical changes are necessary. I wonder what that change was?

“just matt” goes into further detail on why life is better today than it was yesterday:

there are still problems no doubt but no one wants to hear that:

>poverty is lower
>goods are more plentiful & less expensive
>we are richer
>healthcare is more accessible
>crime is way down
>unemployment is down
>access to education is at a all time high

All of these points are arguable, but I don’t want to get deep into the weeds on that. This isn’t an argument about facts, this is an argument about narratives, because that’s what the world runs off of. Also, facts are worth arguing with those who can be regarded in good faith. I’m not saying just matt isn’t that guy, but I don’t know him well enough to give him the benefit of the doubt. My gut says he’s not and I go with my gut. It’s part of my prepper mentality.

I’ll say, though, that I am sensitive to the argument that things are actually better than they seem and there exists a tremendous gap between what people say and think for political reasons versus what’s really going on. I think the fact that the Left has revealed themselves to be the conservatives of our current pre-revolutionary moment shows even they never really believed things to be that bad, hence their sudden reactionary sentiment. On a more practical front, I often show, here on this blog, how perception is often not reality. I can sympathize with those who believe Americans are too divorced from reality.

So, for now, let’s assume everything just matt said is true. So why is it that Americans have also become more atomized and isolated than ever before? Loneliness is a crisis in the country, one even the scientific community recognizes. We are also more mentally ill than before, though some of that can be ascribed to increased diagnoses due to advances in medicine. That still raises the question: why are so many of us mentally ill?

I discuss crime a lot on this blog: statistically, we live in a safer society than we did 30 years ago. I’m not arguing that. But we also live in a more disorderly society now than we did 30 years ago. There are fewer criminals, but what criminals and social predators there are run roughshod over society and the system is running out of ways of bringing them to heel. This explains why so many of us feel that crime is getting worse, even though the numbers don’t bear that out. The fact is, there are some things the statistics simply don’t capture. I think liberals get this, too; they go to Japan and are aghast at how badly America compares, being the classic example.

As for healthcare being more accessible, I don’t know how you reconcile that with the constant criticisms of how expensive healthcare is and the calls for the U.S. to adopt a single-payer, universal model. If healthcare is indeed more accessible today, it does not show up in healthcare outcomes. But again, we don’t need to get too deep into the weeds on that. It’s just something to ponder on.

Speaking on the economy more broadly, the fact is, there are millions of Americans who have never enjoyed its benefits. Sure, living standards have risen, but this isn’t the same as prospering from it. As I alluded to before, once upon a time, all we talked about was how flawed the economy was, how unequal it was, how it didn’t work for the little man, Wall Street vs. Main Street, etc. Now that Trump’s tariffs are in effect, everyone wants to point to Wall Street as an indicator of economic health?

Our economy today runs on three things: consumer spending, government spending, and foreign investment. I guess you can run an economy like this, but consumer spending requires people to have easy access to credit or high incomes, government spending requires a strong currency and access to a money printer, and foreign investment requires low costs. Where’s the wealth being generated for Americans? To really benefit from this economy, you need assets and property, which many Americans have, but still many others don’t. This explains the wide divergence between how the economy is doing on paper versus how Americans think the economy is doing.

Not to belabor the point, but it’s interesting how there’s been such a concerted effort to invalidate Americans’ experience with the economy, while a similarly concerted effort exists to validate the experiences of Black Americans, for example. We’re supposed to be skeptical of Americans who express economic dissatisfaction, but we’re supposed to accept the validity of the Black experience in America without question, unless you want to be known as a racist. More on that later.

Despite all the mentioned benefits of life today, Americans have only grown further apart from one another. We have no shared culture, we are low-trust, and we are more purposeless than ever before. Nobody really knows what any of this is for; what’s our shared purpose? What’s our destiny as a people? Nobody can answer these questions because, well, there are no answers. An aimless, drift-less society is what we are, yet this is also when a society is most vulnerable. It’s literally what decadence amounts to.

Anyone who doesn’t understand the significance of this, why having a shared purpose and destiny as a people matters, ought to know: a people without a shared purpose and destiny will always be defeated by people who have them.

The only thing just matt was right about was this:

the only areas of american life that haven’t seen improvements in the past 10, 20 or 30 years are housing costs and political stability

The thing about political stability is that it’s not something that goes bad just because people got pissed off. That’s the implication just matt makes in his opening tweet. Even through the socially tumultuous 1960s and 1970s, the American political system remained stable. Political instability is always the result of a series of systemic failures, a political order that’s become stagnant and unresponsive to the demands of the citizenry, the urgency of the moment. Life has certainly improved over the years, but not only are we lagging in many other areas, the political system has run out of answers for our problems. We’re running on momentum now, and that momentum is running out.

After reading just matt’s short thread, I was instantly reminded of something our friend

Rod Dreher

once said. Many months ago, Dreher mentioned a documentary he’d watched on YouTube about Nazism. If my memory is stable, it was about Nazism’s occult roots. Dreher cited a saying from the end of the documentary, which went something to the effect of, “There is something about a fully-stocked refrigerator which fails to satisfy the human psyche.” I’m probably off, but that was certainly the gist of it.

Meaning, once all needs have been meet, once your daily sustenance and survival is all but guaranteed, there’s still something lacking. Humans will look for it, oftentimes in the worst places. Hence, terrible things end up happening despite material riches. Or, they never find it, and they lead meaningless lives of quiet desperation, leaving this world never knowing what any of it means, what any of this was all for.

The fact is, there are a million things in this world materialism cannot compensate for. I think we all understand this, but politics makes it impossible for us to come to a consensus on it. In many ways, America’s great divide isn’t political. Not strictly so. It’s theological. It’s spiritual. We’re divided on the question of reality, on what the meaning of our lives are, what value our lives really have, and whether we should use the terrifying power of the state to answer these questions by force, providing our lives meaning and purpose in the process.

And that’s as much philosophy you’ll get out of Max.

Narrative War Over Austin Metcalf’s Murder

In my initial post about the case, I made use of the term “aspirational information” in reference to the murder of Austin Metcalf, a racially-charged killing. I first heard it used by defense attorney Andrew Branca, who uses it to describe information that is false or at least hasn’t been corroborated by fact, but members of the public would like for it to be true. Basically, it’s information disseminated for the purpose of crafting narratives to mold public opinion.

Here’s another example of aspirational information being disseminated concering the Metcalf murder:

People on the far right want this Austin Metcalf situation to be the white version of Black Lives Matter so bad so y’all can be painted as victims.

If these are the facts.
1. Austin has a history of bullying and beat up Karmela Anthony a week prior
2. He seen Karmelo at the track meet with his brother and tried to initiate violence again.
3. Karmelo’s lawyer can easily make a case for self defense and that he feared for his life.
4. You know people can get killed in a fight. Especially if Karmelo is 5’11 140 and the twins are 6’2 200 each.

Politics has really radicalized your common sense. Deal with the facts, don’t put your political agenda to it. Y’all are like the bitter ex girlfriend that wants to get it back in blood for the OJ Simpson trail, BLM, and DEI, but this isn’t it.

Note: the author of the tweet, X account “Lou facts,” was the same person who claimed to have spoken to a coach who works at the school Metcalf went to who supposedly has inside knowledge of an incident which may have precipitated the fatal encounter. If true, it raises the question why this coach is speaking to someone whose only claim to fame is as an X account and, more importantly, why they haven’t shared such important insight about this incident to police.

Anyway, I don’t argue with points #3-4, but I’ve seen nothing to suggest #1-2 is based on fact. Not only that, I haven’t seen this information anywhere else, and the one source this information seems to stem from isn’t credible. Yet many, most of them Black, unfortunately, are citing it as an indisputable fact of the case.

Here’s another exhibit of aspirational information:

New information suggests that Austin Metcalf may have been the aggressor.

If true, this may have led to his own death.

I HATE that so many young men simply aren’t taught impulse control, de escalation and conflict resolution.

Young men….

PLEASE understand that walking away when possible IS THE WAY.

Note: there’s nothing all that meaningful being said here, nothing specific about how Metcalf was being the aggressor. Most importantly, there’s no source cited. This all comes off as saying something for the sake of saying something, or worse, saying something with the intent of muddying the waters, to poison the well, to shift the narrative in a subtle way.

The suggestion that Metcalf’s own actions may have led to his own death is pernicious: the only way Metcalf’s death could be justifiable is if he not only was the aggressor, but he posed the threat of death or great bodily harm to his killer, Karmel Anthony. In other words, was the threat triangle - intent, means, opportunity - fulfilled? We don’t have enough information to even begin discussing that.

The Black community appears to be working hard to ensure that a specific narrative of the incident prevails in the public sphere, to paint Anthony as the victim and Metcalf as the aggressor. The most blackpilling thing about it is that it just might work. Sympathy for the Black community remains high, even as the country’s fatigue over race is setting in. Our institutions, the media especially, remain predisposed to unquestionably validating the Black perspective, so I doubt there’s going to be any real major outcry against Anthony’s actions as there was against George Zimmerman, Derek Chauvin, Kyle Rittenhouse, or Daniel Penny.

None of this means any of you need to accept the narrative. It’s more important now, than ever before, to be skeptical. For one thing, never believe something just because you saw it on social media. This doesn’t mean you should give greater credence to what you see in the mainstream media, absolutely not. But it does mean to seek corroboration. What this mysterious high school coach has to say about the events leading up to Metcalf’s death hasn’t been corroborated by anyone else. Yet it’s the one piece of information Anthony’s defenders are using to claim his innocence.

Until there’s corroboration, treat it as hearsay, as a rumor. That’s all it is.

Finally, I want to address the fact there’s apparently no video recording of the incident. Apparently, everyone, including Andrew Branca, find it difficult to believe nobody caught the incident on camera, given both their ubiquity and the reflexiveness with which people now record events.

Perhaps it’s another consequence of social media: we think something literally didn’t happen unless it was caught on camera. The reality is, life mostly still happens off-camera. Perhaps the incident wasn’t recorded because nobody was expecting something like that to happen and, when it did, it happened so quickly, as violent encounters often do. Anyway, don’t let things like that mess with your head too much. Uncertainty is the enemy’s friend. Clarity is yours.

That’s all I’ve got today, so let’s chat - do you think things are actually much better now than before? If you do, in what ways? Do you agree with the premise that our politics are a a result of nobody wanting to recognize that? Any more thoughts on the killing of Austin Metcalf?

Talk it out in the comments.

Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.

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