I used to be a very orthodox feminist. I think Mary Harrington is leading the way on that subject these days. I tend to agree with her. I don’t write about it much because it’s become such a toxic subject where it feels impossible to speak about it in a constructive way. I may revisit it though!
"Nothing more natural, then, he says, than that we would want to stop reproducing this society altogether by becoming childless and sterile and to commit self-injury and the annihilation of consciousness through drugs, self-harm and suicide, even as we simultaneously believe this is the greatest model of life that has ever existed."
This hit hard. I thought I was just depressed.
That's another feature of the system, of course; when the endstate is for everyone to be a monadic consumer, its logic says that any harm befalling the individual is prima facie that individual's responsibility and can only be corrected through consumption.
To us it says: "Depressed? There's something wrong with you -- take a pill for that. Everyone else is happy in this best of all possible worlds."
"Can a sense-making framework as durable and holistic as that of the great civilizations ever be created in the absence of religion?"
A prominent sociologist of the 1950s and 1960s, Philip Rieff, grappled with this very question in his book "The Triumph of the Theraputic." He was quite pessimistic about what he then called our emerging cultureless society where there may be an outward order but no inward one.
Rieff was also quite sure that this then newly emerging culture would have a type of discipline on a massive scale but nothing that could be understood as morality-- and that this coming age would be that of anti-credal man without anchors.
"The ethos of the sexual revolution is today simultaneously ultra puritanical and ultra libertine depending on the context, so that the abandonment of your wife and children is now less of a social faux pas than asking someone out on a date at work - you can only get publicly disgraced and fired for the latter."
It's like a contradictory "Draconian Freedom," in which more and more previously taboo things are officially permitted, but each comes with a Byzantine architecture of rules, standards, and trap doors. They unsettle more foundational standards of civilization while robbing us of the thrill of breaking the original taboo! Perhaps that's the crowning achievement of our era, we've successfully made hedonism not fun.
Brilliant stuff. It makes me think of both Alasdair Macintyre and, more recently, Patrick Deneen, both of whom made smilar points about the utter hollowness of the current experiment. But this review goes right to the heart of it, as you say, with the claim about the lack of 'sense making'.
And if indeed we know at some deep level that none of this hangs together (and I think we do) then it also makes sense that at the same deep level we might be trying to subconsciously end the whole thing. Which in turn might explain otherwise inexplicable cultural trends and movements.
Much to chew on. Is there a place we can find the original essay?
none of this is particularly new its a classic paleoconservative narrative. Im honestly struck by the weird ways that paleocons where right, they essentially claimed that neocons and CRT where basically identical, and since our current culture is essentially a mash up of the 2 you gotta give them credit on what i used to think was their most insane claim. both essentially used claims to "protect the innocent" to hide power grabs and miltirized violence, while deflecting criticism with claims of lived experience and that critics where insensitive to victims. Compare for instance the neocon "victim's rights" campaigns too Must We Defend Nazis and the METOO movement. If your into this type of thing i recommend Paul Gottfreid, who is literally the only person on the right i have ever taken seriously. He requires a strong stomach because he is genuinely bigoted but his history and structural critques are actually quite interesting, hes also among very few people who dont start with the idea that democrats and the left want to help women and minorites but that they only want power.
I used to be a very orthodox feminist. I think Mary Harrington is leading the way on that subject these days. I tend to agree with her. I don’t write about it much because it’s become such a toxic subject where it feels impossible to speak about it in a constructive way. I may revisit it though!
"Nothing more natural, then, he says, than that we would want to stop reproducing this society altogether by becoming childless and sterile and to commit self-injury and the annihilation of consciousness through drugs, self-harm and suicide, even as we simultaneously believe this is the greatest model of life that has ever existed."
This hit hard. I thought I was just depressed.
That's another feature of the system, of course; when the endstate is for everyone to be a monadic consumer, its logic says that any harm befalling the individual is prima facie that individual's responsibility and can only be corrected through consumption.
To us it says: "Depressed? There's something wrong with you -- take a pill for that. Everyone else is happy in this best of all possible worlds."
"Can a sense-making framework as durable and holistic as that of the great civilizations ever be created in the absence of religion?"
A prominent sociologist of the 1950s and 1960s, Philip Rieff, grappled with this very question in his book "The Triumph of the Theraputic." He was quite pessimistic about what he then called our emerging cultureless society where there may be an outward order but no inward one.
Rieff was also quite sure that this then newly emerging culture would have a type of discipline on a massive scale but nothing that could be understood as morality-- and that this coming age would be that of anti-credal man without anchors.
And here we are!
"The ethos of the sexual revolution is today simultaneously ultra puritanical and ultra libertine depending on the context, so that the abandonment of your wife and children is now less of a social faux pas than asking someone out on a date at work - you can only get publicly disgraced and fired for the latter."
It's like a contradictory "Draconian Freedom," in which more and more previously taboo things are officially permitted, but each comes with a Byzantine architecture of rules, standards, and trap doors. They unsettle more foundational standards of civilization while robbing us of the thrill of breaking the original taboo! Perhaps that's the crowning achievement of our era, we've successfully made hedonism not fun.
Brilliant stuff. It makes me think of both Alasdair Macintyre and, more recently, Patrick Deneen, both of whom made smilar points about the utter hollowness of the current experiment. But this review goes right to the heart of it, as you say, with the claim about the lack of 'sense making'.
And if indeed we know at some deep level that none of this hangs together (and I think we do) then it also makes sense that at the same deep level we might be trying to subconsciously end the whole thing. Which in turn might explain otherwise inexplicable cultural trends and movements.
Much to chew on. Is there a place we can find the original essay?
I know there are essay collections of his out there so it’s possible it has been reproduced elsewhere but I found it in this book. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15049773-ireland-after-the-end-of-western-civilisation
That's worth reading for the title alone! Thanks.
I found it on an archived version of his website in the wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20081121063446/http://www.desmondfennell.com/essay.htm
none of this is particularly new its a classic paleoconservative narrative. Im honestly struck by the weird ways that paleocons where right, they essentially claimed that neocons and CRT where basically identical, and since our current culture is essentially a mash up of the 2 you gotta give them credit on what i used to think was their most insane claim. both essentially used claims to "protect the innocent" to hide power grabs and miltirized violence, while deflecting criticism with claims of lived experience and that critics where insensitive to victims. Compare for instance the neocon "victim's rights" campaigns too Must We Defend Nazis and the METOO movement. If your into this type of thing i recommend Paul Gottfreid, who is literally the only person on the right i have ever taken seriously. He requires a strong stomach because he is genuinely bigoted but his history and structural critques are actually quite interesting, hes also among very few people who dont start with the idea that democrats and the left want to help women and minorites but that they only want power.
Great post! I'm gonna look into this Fennell guy.