Social Justice Warriors often tell us that games are not just games, and books are not just books. Everything must be political with them, from the movie theater to the arcade. Naturally, I’ve long disagreed with them on this matter. Sometimes, the political impact of a thing is minimal, if even present at all, and it is merely entertainment. After all, where is the grand political metaphor in a battle between giant robots and giants monsters? If you want to tell me that the new Quake Champions game being peddled by Bethsheda is somehow a matter of politics, please take this moment to laugh at yourself in my stead.
And yet, there is a grain of truth to their statement, if not precisely in the way SJWs mean it. I was pondering this the other day, when a friend and I were talking about the latest Star Wars flicks. Yes, we all know the prequels were generally atrocious, and what little was interesting was contained only in the last installment. The new Star Wars movies were at least a little more entertaining, but even they were shallow, ephemeral things. They were strictly popcorn-and-soda flicks.
So what did the original trilogy have that the successors lacked?
In this writer’s opinion, it was an enduring mythos, a sort of cultural memory embedded within it. A farm boy took to the stars and became a warrior, trained by what amounts to a religious monk of an ancient, dying order. A princess was trying to save her world, and an evil wizard hunted them all in the name of Imperial power. You could have stripped the story of high technology, and set the whole thing in the middle ages, and it still would have made sense. Yes, even the all-powerful superweapon. Replace the Death Star with Urban’s great cannon, throwing its weight against the walls of Constantinople, or something.
Now try that with the other stories, and you will find that they are utter disasters. They don’t operate on their own anymore. Now it’s a franchise cashing in on nostalgia more than anything.
Of all the cultural myths, the farm boy who became something greater may have been the most powerful. Ye gods, we once practically worshiped this idea. It was one of the enduring features of American culture, as distinct from the various European cultures that spawned it. You see, if our farmers and fishermen could throw out the British, of all people, was there anything truly beyond us? We didn’t need noblemen, you see. We had farmers. We didn’t need warriors, we had soldiers. There was no need for great nobles, or learned men of haute culture. We could bootstrap it all ourselves.
The farm boy might become a great philosopher, or an astronaut, or a general. He might become a President or a Congressman. Perhaps he would be the next great scientist or engineer. He didn’t need the pedigree of an aristocrat, or the brand name of some noble house. He didn’t need to go to the grandest of colleges, or know all the right people. He didn’t need to have the correct political opinions if, indeed, he even bothered much with politics at all. If you could do the job, you could do anything, and it didn’t much matter what dusty mid-western farm you crawled out of.
Of course, in practice, this idea was never quite so solid. Connections still mattered, credentials still mattered, and a rich man of the city would have an easier time than a poor man of the country. So it has always been, and so it likely always will be. Nonetheless, American culture remained very resistant to the idea of rule by a cultural elite, an embedded aristocracy who could heap disdain upon the peasantry from their lofty towers. The farmer still stubbornly believed that he could make it, and the academic knew not to be too haughty, lest he be toppled from the ivory tower.
Today, that’s all backwards. Heaping disdain upon the peasants of the flyover states and the South is all the rage among our supposedly-learned castes. There can be no more Luke Skywalkers in Star Wars, that is to say no more farm boys who ascend to the highest levels. If Star Wars was written by today’s establishment, Luke would have to be a girl who suffered oppression by the bigoted farm boys, then escaped to the Empire (which was, of course, politically correct and ruled by wise, learned Socialist oligarchs) to wield its military might against the hicks and unlearned morons of Planet Redneck.
Such disdain is everywhere, now. It’s not hard to find in the media, in entertainment, or social media. Some time ago, I remember watching a Youtube video where a man with a strong Southern accent went to great lengths to demonstrate his education and intelligence, discussing complex matters of science, history, and philosophy in an effort to disprove the notion that a Southern accent somehow implies stupidity. I remember wondering why this was even necessary. I’ve met many intelligent, educated individuals in the South, and I’ve encountered no more idiots here than in the other places I’ve been to. Why would this even have to be disproved?
Then it hit me. The new American myth, carefully constructed by the SJWs and their ilk, is that farmers are stupid. Mechanics are dumb. Plumbers only ply their trade because they are too stupid to take gender studies courses. And since they are all idiots, of course their children must be idiots too. Indeed, they are all far too stupid to be permitted a say in how their own lives are run. As Tom Nichols once explained to me: Americans are too stupid to read maps, so why bother informing them about terrorist incidents? Being something of a Centrist, Tom is more charitable than most of the Leftists, whose disdain is much more direct. To those folks, America (and by extension, Americans themselves) is nothing more than a backward nation full of bigots, greedy thieves, murderers, and utter morons in desperate need of extinction.
Sometimes I wonder if the British once thought this way, too. Before the Revolutionary War, did they consider Americans to be stupid hicks? Did they see us as rednecks too dumb to manage our own affairs? Did they send their ships, soldiers, and mercenaries thinking the victory would be easy, because, damn, are those farmers stupid? We all know how that ended up.
But now, a two and a half centuries later, we’re back to where we started. The anointed, ivory tower aristocrats telling us what’s good for us — when we all know it’s a steaming pile of horse manure constructed solely to fool enough good people to keep the nobles planted atop their wobbly thrones. Their underestimation of the regular folks in the world, the farm boys and plumbers, may be what saves us, in the end. After all, it’s worked for America before, time and time again. It’s why, despite all the agitprop to the contrary, today America still remains the most powerful nation on Earth.
Whether it will be so tomorrow, I can’t say. All I can say is the politically-connected elite may soon be getting a refresher course in America’s most enduring and powerful cultural mythos. And that, my friends, is a story I’d pay money to read.
What the ivory tower set forgets is the farmers and hunters and the rest of the common men are the real power and the most dangerous to trifle with. Some examples: SGT. York, farmer: Chris Kyle, hunter: Simo Hayha, hunter and the most deadly sniper ever. There is a you tube reenactment video of the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1920, 40 minutes worth the watch.
The hubris of the left is astounding in it’s proportions.
It’s not merely hubris. It’s deep envy transformed to unrelenting hatred.
Hunters and farmers test themselves against the elements. If they survive and thrive, they do so because thru their toil they have earned Virtue.
It has been my experience that diehard leftists shrink from such challenges. Subconsciously, they doubt their ability to overcome obstacles based on their individual merit, talents and strength of will. Thus, they seek ego satisfaction thru alternate means – ones that will excuse their slothfulness and lack of spine and instead allow them to award themselves Virtue without sacrifice of any kind.
However, when confronted by those who have earned Virtue legitimately, it shakes their belief system and the foundation of their ego. From this comes fear, followed quickly by jealousy, then resentment and finally vitriolic emnity against the Truly Virtuous.
One can see from this why there can be no peace, no reconciliation, no meeting on a middle ground with the SJWs, the committed Progressives, or the likes of Antifa and other communofascists. In their world view, it’s a zero sum game – there are the Exalted and the Base, with them holding the higher position as a consequence of their belief system. Without the pillars of their beliefs holding up their ego and glueing together their group consciousness/hive mind, they subconsciously know that they are NOTHING. Thus, they will resist losing their self-awarded status as the Exalted even unto their last breath.
(Pretty good for a sunday nite rant, ain’t it? 😉 )
Seriously I urge everybody to watch the you tube video. It’s Catholic Poland crushes the Soviet invasion of Europe AD 1920. It’s inspiring and has action enough for a major motion picture. If Hollyweird would ever make a movie critical of the Soviets.
The masculine heroes of the past have been replaced by pajama boys and sneering thugs. Makes you wonder what’ll happen when the barbarians arrive in force?
Over the weekend, I saw (for perhaps the 12th time) “The Magnificent Seven” from 1960. Nothing has changed for me – I STILL want to be like the guys portrayed in that film – even Calvera! 🙂
Heinlein’s Starman Jones fits the mold perfectly. Farm boy goes to space as the lowliest member of the crew, shovelling crap from the farm animals onboard, comes home as the captain of the ship.
The religion that has replaced Christianity is sanctimonious self-adulation – when the SJWs look in the mirror they don’t see a pile of odd looking flesh they see self-Jesus
“Self-Jesus.” Lol. Very true, but I can’t say I’ve ever heard it described that way.
There is another aspect of that breed of humankind that (I believe) sets them apart. It is the continual recognition that FACTS rule, not opinions or beliefs.
Farmers can’t bullshit their way through planting a crop. A hunter can’t hide upwind from his prey and be successful. Cognitive dissonance cannot apply nor can rationalization. These are two social constructs that reality of the real world does not recognize.
Neither can deny reality for very long without paying a hefty price for doing so. The urban leftist, far away from anything that might harm him, feels no such pressure. Indeed, Communism itself is an ideology that espouses reality denial, but in such a way that the consequences are kicked down the road. Short term gain, long term loss.
But the inevitable correction is all the more impactful for being delayed. A hunter who makes a mistake can quickly learn and adjust. A socialist politician who makes a mistake may very well destroy his own civilization. The price for the leftist’s mistakes is much higher.
The Dangerous Child method discussed here: https://alfin2101.wordpress.com brings a lot of these meandering threads together into an emerging fabric of strength.
The secret is to begin at a very early age and utilise the child’s natural facilities and inclinations to shape a Dangerous Child of the child’s own making. It is a parallel reality that mainstream society will never be ready for.
In the 18th century Parliament viewed pretty much everyone outside Parliament and those of the class who would belong to Parliament as stupid hicks and rednecks. Even, pretty much, included their king, George III (who was led to understand would be accepted by The Right People so long as he agreed with them. Did not matter whether you were in the American Colonies, Cornwall, Yorkshire, Kent, or Scotland. You were a redneck and hick who needed leading.
That is the key to understanding the American Revolution. It was not a war between American colonists and Britain. The colonists *were* British, and thought of themselves as British. It started out as a good old-fashioned British push back against the excesses of Parliament, of a kind done in Britain on several occasions previously. It was only after Parliament ignored the push back that the colonists armed themselves – again in good old British tradition. They were not fighting the crown or for independence – they were fighting Parliament, or specifically the party in power – the Tories. (That is why those loyal to Britain were tarred as Tories – they were viewed as lackeys of the Tory Party.
It only became a revolution (and fight for independence) after Parliament bullied George III into signing a proclamation declaring the colonies in a state of insurrection and traitors against the crown if they continued opposing Parliament. (George did this in large part because he had been raised to always defer to Parliament.) After that, the fat was in the fire, and the colonies *were* in rebellion against the crown. So they went all the way to independence.
But the main cause was really that Parliament treated 1/4 of the population of Britain the way they treated the other 47/68ths of the British population – like rubes, hicks, and rednecks.
I think you have touched on something profound here. I especially appreciate your notion of the cultural memory of “small town boy makes good”. That is/was a profound statement about the particular American culture — one that, as you point out so well, has lately become sung to the tune of “The World Turned Upside Down”.
Secondly, there is an elemental truth to the simple fact that when/if times turn tough, it will be those who understand the more grounded principles who will survive and even thrive.
Let the SJWs and their ilk have their day in the sun. Come nightfall, the world becomes a much more elemental place, and the survivors will be those who understand the unbreakable connection between ourselves and our most distant “primitive” ancestors.
As a fourth generation farmer, thank you, if some of these snowflakes and ivory tower bigots had to actually depend on themselves they’d die. Just like Mao they believe if they command “produce” it will grow, because they said so. asshats would be hungry FAST, My 18 yr old son is taking over, we grow crops and milk cows, all organic, you learn to respect mother nature and it’s God, the very idea that man can change the climate is malarkey, believe me we are powerless, nature will win, but these ivory tower types think that the weather can be commanded.
BTW Eisenhower was a farm boy, one time he said that “we could not win without the farm boys, they can fix and reason their way through anything”
Why Plumbers, Electricians, etc Will be the millionaires of the future
https://youtu.be/22YtlEp62pk
he does disparage farmers somewhat but he is right
And no matter how smart SJW’s get they’ll likely never be able to fix a toilet.
> And that, my friends, is a story I’d pay money to read.
No need: http://www.baen.com/a-state-of-disobedience.html
“Plumbers only ply their trade because they are too stupid to take gender studies courses. ”
My cousin, David Klein, is a plumber (Quality Plumbing, 248-967-DRIP, “A flush is better than a full house.”), as are two of his sons. All of them are far over on the right side of the bell curve. I once asked one of his sons if it would pay to advertise as being “the smartest plumbers in town”, and he said, “not likely”, but I want my plumber to be as smart as my doctor or lawyer. My son has worked as a plumber, got 1550 on the SAT and is just a few credits shy of a degree in physics.
My dad was a veterinarian who did a lot of surgery. My late uncle was an eye surgeon. They both respected experts. It didn’t matter if you cut their hair expertly, cut their grass expertly, or did surgery expertly.
How many of our “leaders” in Washington know how to solder an electrical joint, let alone weld? How many of them could frame a square wall out of 2X4 even with the hint “diagonals”?
We are ruled by people who can’t do much of anything besides manipulate rules.
I like the idea of having a president who made a career out of building things.
Quality Plumbing, 248-967-DRIP, “A flush is better than a full house.”
Clever. And conjures quite an image.
And thankfully, it was not this plumber’s image – http://thinknice.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/PlumbingTruck.jpg
Check out the history of Story Musgrave: http://www.storymusgrave.com/biography_biographies_anne_lenehan_page01.htm
He is a true example of a farm boy that escaped to the stars.
Thanks for posting the link about him, I was fascinated to read about him.
I think the mythos you describe isn’t dead, it’s alive and well in a perverted form. It’s the “Elite” and the SJW’s who see themselves as the plucky heroes fighting the forces of evil. It doesn’t matter that they occupy some of the most expensive real estate in the western hemisphere (Manhattan, Malibu, Marin County, Aspen, etc.) or that their incomes are vastly greater than the average American, the movie that’s running through their heads is one where they’re saving the world from the tyranny of Ted Nugent, Sarah Palin, and Phil Robertson.
Can we please, oh please, find a word other than “elites” to describe the people who believe without evidence that they are elite? It drives me crazy to cede that ground, to accept their self-designation as “a select part of a group that is superior to the rest in terms of ability or qualities.” Tell me the ability or qualities that the “coastal elites” possess that the rest of us should acknowledge as “superior.” I have the academic credentials; I eat the snooty food with the proper fork; I can breathe their rarified air, move in their circles, and draw respect rather than sneers. But I prefer to associate with people who believe that self-esteem derives from achievement, that there’s a difference between self-esteem and merit (which derives from achievement that not just you yourself but also other people value), and that you can’t declare yourself “elite” – it’s a badge others award you.
Remember in “Atlas Shrugged,” when Dagny is looking for John Galt in Colorado and stops at a burger joint? The hamburger she eats is on a basic level just a hamburger, but it is also a sort of archetype of Hamburger, well seasoned, perfectly cooked, and served quickly. It was a hamburger prepared by someone who knew what he was doing and was confident in the real value of his work product – it didn’t rely on creating a new standard in order for others to appreciate it. The cook was an elite hamburger cook. “Elite” doesn’t mean “participating in an activity that only the peers I choose to recognize can appreciate”; it means “doing something very well, such that everyone who knows about what I’m doing can see and acknowledge that I’m good at it.”
These days elite has become a contempt word not meaning what it used to. A better form would probably be elitist but most people are lazy in their use of language (myself included).