The comfortable postwar order gives way as old conflicts and demons return.The comfortable postwar order gives way as old conflicts and demons return.
Last year the Davoisie practiced denial. This year they know fear.
Much of post-Cold War Western history is the story of an effort to consolidate postethnic and postreligious democracy at home and to export it to the Balkans, the former Soviet lands of Europe, the Middle East, postcolonial Africa and beyond.
The hope was that democracy combined with economic growth would cure ethnic and sectarian hate. That seemed to be the lesson of Europe’s experience post-1945, but this was too sanguine and too simplistic a reading of a complicated history. For more than a century, rising ethnic conflicts in Europe coexisted with and were often driven by rising levels of economic growth and democratic activism. The spread of literacy and the appeal of democracy (often interpreted as the right to ethnic self-determination) sharpened the national and ethnic rivalries promoting generations of European war.
Something similar is happening across much of the world. With the increasing ethnic and religious diversity of many Western countries, ethnic tensions and the curse of identity politics are on the rise from Minneapolis to Milan.
Very similar thesis to that of Return of the Strong Gods, which @kepford and I have both read, and would recommend to others.
Also love his use of the word Davoisie
It is interesting that this secular democracy thing does seem to have reduced tensions between European nations, when it isn't having that effect elsewhere.
I also wonder how much of that was due to various specific post-war factors, like high economic growth due to post-war rebuilding, American largesse in funding reconstruction and fighting communism, and the specter of communism causing the population to unite around a perceived common threat
I would also add that Europe has far more culturally in common with one another than say, the East or South. Also... we forget how short the time has been since WW2 in the grand scheme of things.
I'd be interested in knowing how often Europe has gone 80 years without a war. I don't think it's been common for them.
Yeah, same here. I don't think it is.
Hoppe does discuss this in his writings pointing out that the wars now are much worse(bloody/long) though. He's primarily talking about the world wars.
Which could be part of why they became less common. The costs went way up and, since they no longer conquer and pillage, the benefits went way down.
Maybe.
Hoppe argues that fiat money allowed the wars to be much longer and larger than before. Also that since the ideal of democracy has taken hold and the social contract idea of it being our consent of the governed that the care-taker leaders have less skin in the game.
After all, the idea of a King robbing you for his war is much easier to grapple with than the Prime minister using tax money and fiat money to pay for a war. These caretakers have less skin in the game.
I think the technology aspects can't be over-looked either. The threat of nuclear war has also likely played a role.
For sure. It's not just a bunch of the common rabble who get killed in modern wars.
Yeah... nice to see more people expressing what at this point is glaringly obvious to me. Reno really does an incredible job of telling the story of how we got here. You can disagree with him on his political opinions but he does a pretty good job of trying to not inflect that on the reader. I'm less sympathetic to his critiques of the Austrian economists. For one, I don't think they would look at global trade and be happy with what it is today.
One area where I think he has nailed it on the US problem and that of Europe is the idea of cultural homelessness. Another is that when you push religion out of the culture as has been done with much gusto in Europe and the US something else takes its place. Something that can never replace it. The state. The ideals of democracy which really are hollow. The worship of wealth.
I'm 100% in favor of free trade and capitalism (free markets, not crony) but absent a moral foundation, like the one provided by the Christian church we get what we have today. A selfish, pleasure obsessed society that have a deep longing they can't seem to fill. Reno wars that there is a risk of society swinging to authoritarianism and cautions that returning to the Church and centrality of God as supreme is a better direction.
This is where I most agree with him. I am not moved to defend the political system that firebombed Tokyo any more than I am to cheer on Trump. I would like to see more honesty about the use of power when its being moralized by commentators.
@SimpleStacker I think you might like this book I'm reading.
― William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony
It is funny to me how pretty much all of the people I know that accuse Trump of treason and J6 of insurrection also claim to oppose nationalism. I don't think they know what it means. And these are Christians. I don't hear many Christians at all appalled by the blasphemy in our culture but I hear many on both sides appalled by the blasphemy against the state/Constitution/Democracy. I don't think we have come to grips with how idolatrous Christians have become of the state, ideals of democracy, or the Constitution. The order of those depends on your voter registration.
The author is VERY Methodist in his view of Christianity but I really appreciate his critiques of both the right and the left Christian movements.
Blasphemy is still here, the object of it has just changed. You can see people avoiding blaspheming when they refuse to say whether men can get pregnant
Bingo
🔗 https://archive.is/2hqER
FYI, the link I posted should already be unpaywalled (WSJ has a share feature for subscribers).
Not that I mind if anyone posts links to archive.is either
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/davos-men-create-hard-times-ab916c68
not for me!
One should also really not want to have their clean KYC'd reflinks to be mingled with my dirty tor exit IPs.
WSJ can come at me bro
Feels like a rather broadstroke for the half-a-dozen or so conflicts mentioned. I'm not thay informed about all of them, but I was pretty sure at least one of the big ones now (Iran) is more economic than ethnic. Maybe the argument is just about the West, but even still, it feels pretty general.
I think that's partly his claim too, which is that the economic issues are driving a wedge between ethnicities and fomenting identity politics