JEWISH CHEERLEADERS OF DECLINE

A cheerleader for Tel Aviv's
professional basketball team.

by Andy Nowicki

The “JQ,” or “Jewish question,” is a contentious issue in Alt-right-land. I have made my own thoughts known on this matter elsewhere (see here and here), but to summarize: I acknowledge the existence of highly disproportionate Jewish influence in the media, government, and various levels of the entertainment industry, as well as many other notable societal institutions. I chafe against the notion that it’s crass bigotry to observe that Jews do indeed often tend to be rich and powerful people, or to note that Jewish interest groups are quite frequently heavy-handed, obnoxious, and dishonest in their tactics and rhetoric.

THE SPENGLER TRAP

                                       

by Buffalo Jenkins

One of the problems I wrestle with personally since opening my eyes to the realities of political and natural life is the following conundrum: can western civilization BE saved?

After reading The Decline of the West (1922) by Oswald Spengler, I accepted his theory as sound that civilizations are like living things: they are born, have a peak period, and an eventual lingering decline and death. If we accept his theorem then we are looking at being locked into irreversible decline regardless of what we do, so that even if we weren’t facing outsider invasion via immigration, falling birth rates due to feminism, and our host of other problems, we would merely be declining in some other fashion. The West as a concept and as a civilization, is doomed. One way or another.

MANCUR OLSON AND THE DECLINE OF NATIONS

The last days of Rome.

by Mike Newland

Why do great and powerful nations which appear unbeatable decline and fall? One might immediately conclude that they are simply overcome by the growth of inevitably superior forces despite all the advantages in resources which being powerful has brought them.

The best known example is Rome which enjoyed extraordinary abilities in organisation and in the technology it could apply by the standards of the day yet still collapsed.

Mancur Olson (1932-1998) was an American economist who addressed this question from the point of view of how things work in societies as a result of the formation of groups pursuing particular interests. How do incentives to combine together in self-interest affect what happens? See his book "The Rise and Decline of Nations."

The virtue of democratic government at first sight is that any group which feels itself disadvantaged can form a coalition and lobby to improve its position. That is certainly the version of democracy purveyed by politicians on the stump. It’s in principle correct if you ignore the obstacles placed in the path by a system protecting its power interests against interlopers.

But there is a paradox here, Olson argues. It is logical to think that if enough people are discontented and agree on a common interest that they will act in concert and influence how things work. In reality they often do not.

“REACTIONARIES” — AGAINST WHAT?

by Brett Stevens

They tell us we are reactionaries. Against what are we reacting?

The obvious answer is liberalism, since its mental lock on the population of the West is used to exclude any common sense that might limit the license of the mob.

But I think it goes farther: We are also reactionaries against hubris.

The modern definition for hubris is "excessive pride," but the original definition — the one that sent thousands of editors with liberal sympathies scurrying to erase, obliterate, and destroy — is more complex.

DOWNFALL

by Brett Stevens

The world is changing. We are slowly reversing two thousand years of decline.

Like most decline, ours has not been absolute. It happens in stops and starts, in little increments, working inward from the details. It’s like getting the flu during a busy work week: on Monday, you sneeze (once). Tuesday the eyes water. Wednesday morning you feel a little off, but have a sudden burst of energy. Wednesday afternoon it looks like a cold. Thursday you’re a wreck.

Despite the relative density of most people, more and more of the people who make crucial decisions are noticing that a wrong turn occurred in the past. When you take a wrong turn, you re-trace your steps and go back to where you made the wrong decision, and then fix it, preferably without undoing anything positive you’ve done since that time.

We live in a society of people drugged on the progressive vision that says greater year numbers and greater permissiveness go hand-in-hand, and mean that we’re getting somewhere. These will try to tell you that changing anything we do to a version from the past is a defeat, but they’ve obviously never trailblazed any woods. When you take the wrong course, the sooner you fix it and get back to the old course, the more you win.