SHORTPOD (27): POLARISATION AND HYSTERIA AS EXPRESSIONS OF CIVILISATIONAL DECAY

Affirmative Right Chief Editor Colin Liddell comments on the growing polarisation and hysteria in the West, as revealed by the recent struggle over Brett Kavanaugh's elevation to the Supreme Court.

Liddell argues that the shrill emotionalism from both the Right and the Left are essentially crude attempts to regain an "understanding" of the World. These are inevitable responses to civilisational decay and our inability to now relate to the world socially and collectively through trusted elites, complex myths, and a sophisticated, nuanced culture. 

NAMELESS VLOGCAST: GRAMMYS DRIVE OFF A CLIFF

Andy Nowicki, aka "The Nameless One," comments on the precipitous 20% drop in ratings in just one year for the Grammy Awards show. Does this point to the accelerating polarisation of the country in the year since Trump became President, combined with a growing detestation of the celebrity class and its tiresome moral signalling?  

THE WISCONSIN IDEA MEETS THE AMERICAN REALITY

Scott Walker, or "Harley," as he would have liked to have been called, would seem to be a pretty traditionally Wisconsin guy. His political rise though, was actually only made possible by the decline of traditional Wisconsin.

by Ryan Andrews

The official center of Downtown Madison is a pedestrian-only, shopping/dining district called, fittingly, "State Street." It runs for about a mile, and at one end is the State Capitol, while at the other end is UW-Madison, Wisconsin’s flagship university. Locals probably associate the area more with raucous Halloween parties and homeless people than anything else, but State Street is obviously designed to be the symbolic cultural center of the state, physically linking the two great institutional expressions of its people.

It is a nice touch, I think, and it has long been much more than symbolic. Many readers, I am sure, are at least somewhat familiar with "the Wisconsin Idea"—the idea that "the boundaries of the university are the boundaries of the state." This means that the university is to expand the benefits of its knowledge to every citizen of the state.