Today we return to the “Max’s Musings” series, where I opine on a series of topics in as short a form as possible. Let’s get going.
No Such Thing As Paradise
Did you hear about the school shooting in Nonthaburi, located outside Bangkok?
The incident shocked many, who felt it contrasted with Thailand’s outward image as paradise, a peaceful place full of some of the most wonderful people on Earth. The country, a popular tourist destination for decades, has more recently become the top destination for digital nomads, expats, and influencers.
I often criticize people for being too willing to accept things at face value without even the slightest bit of skepticism. No different when it comes to Thailand. It’s a wonderful country, but like households, there are always things lurking beneath the surface:
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Thailand is not some "Oh Thais are always so happy and sweet!" tourist paradise as its made out to be,
like every other modern society there is a LOT of resentments and stress beneath the facade.
In fact, if you spend enough time in one place, eventually, you’ll start to see a different side to them, it’s just that they don’t present it often:
There’s something to be said about how every society eventually goes through the same problems as all others, it just takes it longer to get there. Still, if you place Thailand and the U.S. side-by-side and asked me which country is less dysfunctional, I’d say Thailand. But it still remains less developed, its institutions less robust, and life is still difficult for the average Thai. Digital nomads and influencers are a bad source of information for understanding what life is really like in Thailand.
By the way, racism exists in Thailand:
We can laugh at that and call it funny. But this sort of thing comes out of a place of spite. The same people who seem so wonderful are also the ones who have no problem openly telling people of other groups what they think of them. Americans get so much derision, especially from other Americans, but it’s just an objective fact that we’re not this racist. We’re arguably the least racist people in the world.
My experience tells me it’s often times the nicest, warmest, most welcoming souls who are also the most capable of cruelty. You won’t find a finer crop of people than American Southerners, yet they’re the same folks who committed grievous acts of racially-motivated violence in the 19th and 20th century. Many of them owned slaves. It’s the duality of humanity. What makes us wonderful is also what makes us capable of so much evil. The Thai are the same way. All people of the world are the same way.
The line between good and evil truly does run down the middle of everyone’s heart.
The Banality Of Evil
When people show you who they are, believe them:
I think what COVID really showed was that liberals are the biggest conformists of them all. If Dr. Anthony Fauci told them to drink bleach, they absolutely would’ve done it. Fancy titles like “Dr.” are enough to convince liberals of anything.
Being a conformist isn’t a bad thing, of course. Not on its own. The problem is that liberals fashion themselves as inherently dissident, the reformers and revolutionaries, yet when the rubber meets the road, they’re the true conservatives, they’re the people unwilling to challenge the status quo.
There are many reasons for this, but among the top reasons is that liberals are addicted to comfort. So are conservatives, but liberals make assumptions about the world based on the belief the lights will always turn on, the water will never get shut off, safety is a given, and order is the natural state, not something to be imposed. That and their discomfort with violence. They see government as an exercise in meeting room deliberation and laws as nicely-asked requests, when in reality government is an exercise in force and laws aren’t suggestions. They’re orders.
The level of reality denial seen in 2020 by liberals shocked even me. It’s something I hope we never see again, but we unfortunately will. I now understand what they mean when they speak of the “banality of evil.” Evil doesn’t come in the form of monsters. They come in the form of normal, everyday people. That’s what makes evil truly frightening.
Men Aren’t Here To Be Your Villain
Rod Dreher said something interesting (among many interesting things!) the other day [bold mine]:
When I was living in Hungary, I would meet from time to time American men who had married women from what we used to call “Eastern Europe”. They all said the same thing: that Western culture had poisoned the minds of Western women they had dated. It was definitely not that they wanted wives who were subservient; they just wanted wives who weren’t constantly on an adversarial stance.
This is something that’s been on my mind for a long time now when it comes to the gender discourse. I once made note of the fact our society has turned men and women into competitors, something unprecedented in all of history. One of the most obvious, most predictable consequences of doing so was to make gender relations adversarial, to use Rod’s term, as well as toxic.
Remember: there are no such things as unintended consequences. There are only consequences considered and consequences neglected. In the haste to put men and women on a level playing field, we forced them to compete with one another and are now wondering why men and women are butting heads like they are. Maybe we’re not actually the smartest people to ever live?
Personally, I think you could go a long way towards mending gender relations, or at least making them less toxic, if women quit trying to make enemies out of men. To me, this is the biggest problem. You can ask people to change, but you can never ask someone to be the villain. Nobody will ever agree to that. No man asked for a woman to be a competitor, nor did any woman ask for men to be one, either.
Whatever problems may exist with Western men, misogyny isn’t one of them:
And, to be fair, I heard often from young, unmarried Hungarian female friends that they preferred to marry Western men, who, in their view, did not come with the sexism that they said is natural to men from their own culture. I had no way of knowing if that is true about Hungarian male sexism, though in being part of Hungarian social life for four years, albeit as an outsider, I did pick up some clues that it probably was. Still, none of my female interlocutors struck me as feminists. In fact, all identified as conservatives (some as practicing Christians) who were eager to marry and have kids. But they were educated, and, they said, a lot of Hungarian men their age found that threatening.
Quite the dilemma. Western women are rejecting Western men because they’re neither feminist nor progressive enough. Western men are rejecting Western women because they don’t want to be antagonized, instead seeking women from more traditional backgrounds who not only prefer the more gender-egalitarian norms of Western men, while also being traditional enough to not view men as the enemy. Who’s making more sense, here?
Clearly, a big part of the problem is that Western women have such sky-high expectations of men as to be unrealistic. On top of that, even relationships have become politicized. Yet we’re ultimately speaking of an issue which cannot be resolved politically. In some ways, expecting the problem to get solved through governance is a concession that we’ve failed as a culture and society in one of the most fundamental of ways: to manage orderly relations between men and women.
Trump: King Of The Low Road
I’m on the record as speaking ill of former President Joe Biden. I don’t believe him to be a good man, the damage he did to the country irreparable. That said, what Trump says here is quite appalling:
One of the reasons I’ve never considered myself ‘MAGA’ is because it’s a personality cult where one must sacrifice both their integrity and humanity in the interest of “winning,” which, in practice, amounts to whatever makes Trump happy in that moment, whatever makes Trump look good in that moment. Except this doesn’t make Trump look good at all, nor do I understand how this could make him happy. But Trump is, according to MAGA, some benighted figure with the Mandate Of Heaven, so what do I know?
I’ve said this from the start, I’ll say this when Trump’s days are over - it’s baffling how anyone can regard him to be a great leader when he exhibits none of the characteristics of great leaders. No, wishing Biden well alone doesn’t make someone a good leader. But demonstrating class does. At the very least, say nothing. That alone says quite a lot. Or maybe a “good luck, Joe” and end it there. That’s what I would’ve said.
MAGA insists there’s no time for grace when you’re locked into a life-or-death power struggle. First off, we’re not. Second, good leaders show restraint. Trump clearly lacks it, otherwise, he wouldn’t have done stupid things like the tariffs and Iran war. Third, good leaders aren’t about showmanship. I once remarked how Trump doesn’t even compare to many of the autocratic strongmen the media liken him to due to his lack of seriousness. Even Hitler was a dead-serious, highly intelligent person. We’re now at a point where comparisons between Trump and Hitler are more insulting to the latter than the former.
Six years of Trump are long enough to know what this man’s all about. Anyone who thinks there’s anything left for him to prove is a retard. This is as good as it’s going to get and it ain’t too pretty.
Support The Troops To Stick It To Trump
Marine Corps veteran Elliot Ackerman criticizes media coverage of the spartan conditions aboard the Navy aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, currently deployed in the Persian Gulf:
All of which perhaps should be the level of concern this country always gives to the suffering and safety of the volunteers who make up its military, but usually is not. In this case, however, the wall-to-wall coverage of the Lincoln and the reported suicide attempt seemed to serve a different purpose. Critics of President Donald Trump pointed to the incident as evidence of his mishandling of the war in Iran, a conflict he had said would last weeks but has extended into months with no clear end in sight. Now, the criticism goes, that mismanagement is placing the troops under intolerable levels of strain.
This is a tidy argument against Trump, but ultimately a cynical one. Sadly, a service member trying to kill himself on deployment is an all too regular occurrence. Each year, we lose 470 to 525 uniformed service members to suicide; that number jumps more than tenfold when you include America’s 18 million veterans. (The total population of U.S. military veterans is around 18 million, in addition to somewhere over 2 million current service members.) Suicide in the ranks and the strain deployments place on service members and their families have proven endemic for decades, under both Republican and Democratic administrations. This crisis has run straight through George W. Bush, Barack Obama, the first Trump term, and Joe Biden. It did not spike with this president, and the lawmakers now discovering their outrage have said very little about the 17 veterans lost to suicide per day when the pointing finger has had nowhere partisan to aim. The post-9/11 American way of war—multiple deployments sustained by an all-volunteer force—has been hard on those who serve.
One of the reasons the military is the most trusted institution is because of the perception of selflessness among service members. Those who serve indeed suffer in silence, depending instead on the public to do the talking for them. Unfortunately, this has turned into both sides speaking on their behalf only when politically useful to do so, as Ackerman argues.
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People crack under these conditions. Life in the military is hard, physically and emotionally. When they say war is hell, this is also part of that hell. And to pretend that hell is specific to Trump is disingenuous.
Extended deployments are nothing new. The service members sent to the Pacific or to Europe in World War II had no idea when they were coming home. During the surge in Iraq, the Army extended active-duty combat tours to 15 months—far longer and more lethal than the more than 260 days the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln have endured. To use the personal crisis of a single sailor as political ammunition does nothing to help or to support our troops; it is vulgar, an adjective that Trump’s critics often apply to him.
Even during peacetime, military life is difficult. It’s a job made more difficult when the partisans attempt to score political points using the military. Trump is 100 percent guilty in this regard. But so is the Left, increasingly so. The military is an influential, if not politically powerful, institution in America, and will become increasingly embroiled in escalating power struggle.
I’ll say this: if you really care about the troops, don’t just care about them when its convenient to your political cause. Care about them even when they’re not fighting wars. Don’t just thank service members for their service. Get to know them as people, get to know what life in the military is actually like. You may end up changing your mind, for better and for worse, about both the military and those who commit violence on our behalf.
“ID Required When We Say So, Bigot!”
My, the irony:
In response to criticism for the obvious disconnect between this and Mamdani’s strong opposition to voter ID, a spokesman for the Mayor’s Office came back with an all-time brain-dead response:
As if there’s any other reason to present ID. This is the caliber of people running the world’s most important city. This is the caliber of people who want total authority and power over you. This is people who truly believe themselves to be the smartest people ever to live and that everyone else is an uneducated fool who can’t figure the simplest things out. In reality, it’s people like Mamdani, the people trying to control our lives, who can’t figure simple things out, and it shows.
The Mayor’s Office further tried walking it back by saying the city-run grocery stores would require something akin to a library card. However, New York City’s own library system requires those applying for a library card to present proof of identity. Sure sounds like they’re asking you to present an ID, doesn’t it?
In addition to dealing with people of low intellect, we’re also dealing with people who make a career out of finding out how to lie to people and get away with it. The thing is, it’s one thing to deceive others. It’s another thing to engage in self-deception. That’s what the Mamdanis of the world are doing - being dishonest with others and, in doing so, deceiving themselves.
By the way, will theft be legal at these new government-run grocery stores?
You can shut down this nonsense by asking one question: shouldn’t everyone be allowed to steal, then? Better yet, if it’s okay to steal from businesses, why wouldn’t it be fine to steal from a government exchange? Or did she not think that far ahead?
Get Smart, Get Smacked
Kirill Basin, 40, Democratic Congressional candidate in Hawaii, learned the hard way that squaring off has consequences, suffering a humiliating defeat in the process:
Word of advice for any and all: if violence isn’t your thing, you’re better off not getting tough with anyone. This goes for triple if you’re running for Congress. Quadruple for liberals. I’m singling them out because of their attitude towards violence in general. If they think just barking loudly at someone is enough to cow someone, then they don’t understand how this works.
If you possess enough self-awareness to realize violence isn’t your thing, focus your energy on learning talk your way out of conflict, or avoid confrontation altogether. Nobody’s going to think less of you for it, trust me. They’ll gain respect for you, if anything. What will make people think less of you is to get into a confrontation and getting your ass kicked like Mr. Basin here.
Living In Virtual Insanity
Let’s shift to something more light-hearted. Remember Jamiroquai, their hit song, and the accompanying music video from 1996?
Can you believe this is 30 years old? 30 years ago in 1996 put you back in 1966. I assure you, the ‘60s were ancient history by the ‘90s. I think about this often, but it almost seems, at some point during the last 30 to 40 years, everyone and everything quit aging, even as time continued passing by.
Of course, much has changed since 1996. Yet instead of appearing old, stuff like the “Virtual Insanity” music video appear more modern, even futuristic, compared to anything contemporary. I don’t know what it is. Maybe nobody does. But I also know I’m not the only person who feels this way.
I suspect our culture has something to do with it. Back in the 1990s, the mood was much lighter and our attitude towards technology was more optimistic. That’s ironic to say, given that “Virtual Insanity” is literally a song about skepticism towards technology, a warning of what the future clearly held in store. At the same time, the culture being what it was, it conveyed a message of caution in an upbeat fashion. That’s what made it such a ‘90s song.
The music video was also famous for showing the performer, Jamiroquai’s lead vocalist Jay Kay, appearing to glide along the floor. Speculation ran rampant for years on how the video was shot. It turned out the concept was simple, yet so novel: everything moved except Jay Kay, who stayed mostly in one place, dance moves aside. Yes, the walls were moving and the camera was synchronized to move along with them.
It can be tough to pick up just from watching the video, underscoring just how creative a solution this was. In today’s age, when computerized special effects and AI can create just about any kind of… virtual reality, it’s astounding to look back and see what creative minds were able to achieve using practical methods just through brainstorming.
As for the song’s message… it was prescient, wasn’t it? I mean, just read the lyrics:
Futures made of virtual insanity
Now, always seem to be governed by this love we have
For useless twisting of our new technology
Oh, now there is no sound, for we all live underground
1996 was already a pretty high-tech world. It pales in comparison to how things are today, but it was sophisticated enough that any intelligent person could see what was coming up the road. Again, the only real difference was our attitude towards it. It was mostly optimistic with a dash of consternation. Since it hadn’t completely overwhelmed us nor consumed our daily lives, we were still able to live in the “real” world, real in the sense that our world wasn’t viewed entirely through a filter as it is today. Disconnecting wasn’t a choice. It was a part of the process.
Even things like hyper-polarization today are the result of viewing the world entirely through a filter. I’m on record as saying that I believe social media to be more indicative of reality than appreciated, but I also think living in a shared reality, even a fabricated one, does much to temper polarization. It probably explains why America, despite being more polarized than the rest of the developed world, was still a far less fractured society back in the world which produced Jamiroquai and “Virtual Insanity.”
What have I been saying a lot lately? There are no such things as unintended consequences. If musicians could see the negative impact technology would have on society, what’s your excuse? By the way, it says something about our culture today that there’s virtually no dissent like there was back in the ‘90s. It calls to mind something Shahid Bolsen once said about why he believes there’s never going to be a revolution in America: A people capable of revolution has to be a people capable first of imagination.
Since our culture today propagates the narratives our institutions impose, there’s no foundation for revolution. It’s not everything, no. But it gets at what people like Scott Greer say about how things like civil war or revolution require the existence of competing institutions. There has to be an alternative offered to the status quo. I’m not saying there was an alternative presented in 1996, but our culture then was at least willing to say something different than what our institutions were saying.
I’ve said more than I’ve intended, so we’ll close by observing that until our culture is more willing to say things like what Jamiroquai said in 1996, nothing will change for the better.
R.I.P., Brenda Fricker
This is already old news, but since I didn’t have a chance to say it then, I want to say it now. Fricker was a mainstay in the movies of my childhood, known for portraying motherly figures. She passed away at 81 last month, which is kind of funny, given that she seemed quite elderly to me when I was a kid. Similarly, I thought Steve Martin was 70 when I was a kid. Turns out he’s 70-something now.
My most memorable Brenda Fricker role was in 1994’s Angels in the Outfield. It’s this scene that always stayed with me over the years, even as I remembered little else about the film:
I’m less of a believer than I am. But this scene still spoke to me because it explains, better than any theologian ever could, why people believe in the first place. We believe because we need someone to look out for us. We need to believe that someone or something is ultimately in control, because we have so little control ourselves. It’s why we get up and face each day’s challenges - because we have faith that it’ll all work out in the end. If we didn’t even have the slightest glimmer of hope, we’d just stay in bed.
We like to think that controlling our own destiny is a good thing. Maybe it’s just me, but I find that frightening. Not because I don’t believe in agency - I absolutely do - but because humans are fallible. What gives me confidence isn’t knowing that I’ve got it. What gives me confidence is that someone or something out there has my back, and will be there for me when it all goes wrong.
The scene from Angels in the Outfield also reminds us of a time when it was easier to speak more openly and honestly about faith, including Christianity, when even our popular culture occasionally reflected those values. This was all within living memory. Brenda Fricker’s passing is a reminder of the world that once was, and no longer is.
What are your thoughts on anything we talked about? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.
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Men and women competing reminded me of this Jordan Peterson video I've used a few times: https://youtu.be/PgIErTULONc?t=174
It's cued to the last 3 minutes or so where he talks about the differences between men and women: not skills; interests. There is approx a 1 s.d. difference between men and women in preference for things vs people respectively. 1 s.d. is a huge variance in statistics. There is no cross-sex psychological attribute that even comes close.
This is what that looks like: https://claude.ai/share/8ea7c29f-369e-4331-b2a4-90660ce32958 He's right that the tails contain all the action, and the tails at +/-2σ are sex skewed 17:1. Which is why therapists are female and mechanical engineers are male by about 10:1 ratios each.
1 s.d. means we're about 65% alike psychologically (important, since successful communication -- and mating -- requires psychological overlap) but different enough to really add value to each other as a team. Almost as if men and women were intentionally designed to collaborate (not compete) with each other.
BTW: As he mentions later in the video, the interest differences are clearly biological not cultural. The Scandinavians (most sexually egalitarian society ever) have among the largest interest variance by sex.
Anyone who is surprised at Thais behaving badly has no comprehension of Thai history. Anyone who is surprised at racism in other cultures is a naive idiot.