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‘Suicide of the West’ Review
I just finished Jonah Goldberg’s Suicide of the West last night. Overall, I think it’s a very good book and one that people on both the Left and Right will benefit from reading. The book is not full of pop-culture references and humorous or snarky asides, which may disappoint regular readers of his G-File newsletter. It’s definitely a serious book, more in the style of his first title, Liberal Fascism, than his second, The Tyranny of Cliches. While I generally agree with the overall premise and conclusions, I do have a few quibbles about some of his writing decisions. Before I get into those, here’s a quick summary.
The basic premise is that we have reached a pinnacle when it comes to finding a way for humanity to prosper, and that if we aren’t careful we will throw it all away. He starts by observing that for most of human existence, life has been pretty miserable. We first appeared about 250,000 years ago, and for 99 percent of that time nothing changed. He points to about 300 years ago, when what he refers to as “the Miracle” happened, that life really started to improve drastically. The values of the Enlightenment combined with the economic benefits of capitalism combined in a place where they were allowed to develop (England) and then were given a true home here in America where they have flourished and changed the world. But the “Miracle” goes against human nature. We didn’t evolve in such a way to ensure the “Miracle” happened and if we let human nature take its course, we’ll lose what we have gained.
In fact, Goldberg makes a good case that we’ve already dropped below the pinnacle. The progressive movement of the early 20th century damaged the balanced structure that the Founders designed by letting an administrative state transform into a shadow government unchecked by the formal system defined in our Constitution. In that sense, I found the book to be kind of depressing. At this point, it would take a new revolution to free ourselves from the bureaucracy that we’ve allowed to take over so much of our formal government, and there’s no sign that people have the slightest interest in doing anything of the sort. Unfulfillable promises to “drain the swamp” aside, the administrative state is here to stay.
This biggest critique I have with Suicide of the West is the way Goldberg chose to start it. He explicitly states “There is no God in this book.” He makes his case without arguing that rights are “God given” or that the “Miracle” was predestined. I can understand why he wants to avoid the fallacy of appeal to authority, but that sentence is not true. God definitely is in the book. He admits as much in the conclusion, pointing out that without the societal changes wrought by Judaism and even more so by Christianity, the “Miracle” would not have been possible. Given that, the decision to start the book with a statement that will rub many evangelical Christians the wrong way seems an odd one.
Goldberg goes into great depth to support his arguments, and backs up his conclusions with considerable research. Some of it, such as the analysis of the positions of Burnham and Schumpter, can get a little dry. Like Sahara-Desert dry. And there is the point where Goldberg says that the “list [of Human Universals] is too long to reprint here,” followed by two solid pages of the list. Those missteps aside, the book is well done. Overall, the tone is a scholarly one. This is not a fiery tome that lends itself to sound bites and memes.
The second half of the book focuses on the fact that the “Miracle” isn’t self-sustaining. Just like capitalism has creative destruction, the “Miracle” allows ideas to flourish that are detrimental to the success it brings. It doesn’t change human nature, and if we lose our sense of gratitude for all the factors that led to the “Miracle” we’ll go back to our natural states of tribalism and authoritarianism. The identity politics of the left are incompatible with the “Miracle,” as is the authoritarian nationalism showing up in Europe and already exists in most of the non-western world. No one will even accuse Goldberg of being a MAGA-hat-wearing Trump supporter but the book isn’t an attack on Trump. (He started writing it before Trump even announced he was running for president.) He’s pretty clear in saying that he doesn’t see Trump as being a positive factor in all this but he does point out that Trump isn’t causing the problems. He’s just symptomatic of them.
I’m going to have to read the book again to clarify some of the ideas and where those lead. For example, it struck me early on that there is a tension between the idea that the “Miracle” increased freedom by allowing us to have profitable interactions with strangers, to not put friends and family first or give them special favors, and the conservative idea that the disintegration of the nuclear family has been bad for society. Goldberg does spend time talking about the importance of the family and other moderating institutions. There’s clearly a balance that needs to be established and better maintained. One interesting omission (in my mind anyway) is Federalism. He makes no mention of any level of government outside the Federal one. I think that might be part of the balance we need to restore to help keep the effects of tribalism at bay.
As I said at the beginning, I recommend this book for people across the political spectrum who are interested in serious discussion of the big picture issues today. I’m looking forward to hearing what other Ricochet members have to say.
Published in General
Jonah also says
”In societies where the state picks sides—punishes dissidents, crushes minority faiths, etc.—control of the state becomes everything. In societies where there are a multitude of institutions, a cognitive switch is flipped, and people suddenly understand that everyone has a vested interest in keeping the rules of the game fair for everyone. As we shall see, this was the central insight of the Founders.”
My problem here, is that he left clearly wants to destroy everything that I value, and they have been on this mission for 70 years. You might say that is not true and we could have an argument about the facts.
But being afraid of someone else consumed with their tribalism is not being tribal yourself.
Though, the irony is, the Never Trump Movement has had that very tribal reaction to Trump. Being willing to overturn how we use the Electoral College, for instance, just to stop Trump seems to very much be “you believe everything you value will be destroyed” types of thinking.
Does Jonah address that, or is his ire towards the right only directed at Trump Supporters?
I 100% agree. It is the left who is busy changing this in this country, and I think 4 years of Clinton would have made this much, much worse.
I am still reading the book, but he has said in several interviews that he makes no policy recommendations in the book so I doubt he will fulfill your desires.
The book is not intended to be a statement on the 2016 election. He does mention Trump and his followers an an unfavorable light in the introduction, which I’ve said elsewhere on here is a huge mistake.
It isn’t inherently tribal, but that does not preclude being tribal in response to their tribalism.
Too late for that.
Nothing slows down Wilsonian Keynesianism and The Frankfurt School.
Then our country is over and our time is best spent discussing how to disassemble the nation and what to do next.
The sooner we have a bond market collapse, the better for the libertarians and the GOP.
True. I just don’t think agreeing with one column counts as “tribalism”.
And I 100% agree a swipe at Trump supporters was a mistake.
They did jack about the ACA. The march to centralized control continues unabated.
I think it may be too late, but I have kids, so I am willing to hold out hope. What we have is the best worst way to organize our fallen species.
Sounds like the book is a great call for action.
He doesn’t exclude the never Trump types from his criticism. The ones that refuse to give Trump credit for anything ever are just as guilty of unhealthy tribal behavior as the ones who think Trump can do no wrong.
Can you tell me more about his criticism of Hungary? My impression is that Hungary (together with Poland) is one of the few European nations refusing to be overrun by the Muslim horde. If cultural self-preservation is authoritarian nationalism, sign me up.
My suspicion of Jonah and other conservative intellectuals who play this equivalency game between Left and Right is that they’re vastly underestimating the threat from the Left (and Islamism). Ideas are everything, and leftist and Islamist ideas are bad for individuals and societies — demonstrably.
Too many of Conservative, Inc.’s recommendations sound like, “stand down,” for my taste. But, maybe that’s just me.
They inherently take and keep ground way better than the right or the libertarians. (This is where I spew out my tired nonsense, ad nauseam lol )
So what would your explanation of the Civil War be then? My former friends, all very “liberal” and all hating hating hating slavery so much they tithed themselves last year to send $$’s off to help younger Anti fa’s see to it that “Slave-y” statues were pulled down, have yet to make the connection between all their devices, I pads, iPhones made by slave labor in China. They have all claimed that any notion that the Civil War was like so many wars, something fought for profit, to be only another wrong-headed idea of mine.
Yet the war did come about at the same time that Northern factory owners were feeling an economic pinch, which the war efforts up north marvelously took care of.
You might as well just bend over, because we are going full communist no matter what.
I think that the slave labor in China is so sloppy and inefficient that Apple actually has to pay Chinese a fair wage to get decent labor. Most stuff made in China is done under the free market.
I guess the lower class workers in China just have not yet been educated to the benefits of that free market you extol. Just as the people in the rust belts are not happy about jobs having gone elsewhere. Or just as even Ford Motor execs have started to realize that if a whole generation of people is under-employed, they put off getting married and buying the first house, and then even put off getting a new car.
Recent, 2017 report on the work situation in China:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/18/foxconn-life-death-forbidden-city-longhua-suicide-apple-iphone-brian-merchant-one-device-extract
Today, the iPhone is made at a number of different factories around China, but for years, as it became the bestselling product in the world, it was largely assembled at Foxconn’s 1.4 square-mile flagship plant, just outside Shenzhen. The sprawling factory was once home to an estimated 450,000 workers. Today, that number is believed to be smaller, but it remains one of the biggest such operations in the world. If you know of Foxconn, there’s a good chance it’s because you’ve heard of the suicides. In 2010, Longhua assembly-line workers began killing themselves. Worker after worker threw themselves off the towering dorm buildings, sometimes in broad daylight, in tragic displays of desperation – and in protest at the work conditions inside. There were 18 reported suicide attempts that year alone and 14 confirmed deaths. Twenty more workers were talked down by Foxconn officials.
The epidemic caused a media sensation – suicides and sweatshop conditions in the House of iPhone. Suicide notes and survivors told of immense stress, long workdays and harsh managers who were prone to humiliate workers for mistakes, of unfair fines and unkept promises of benefits.
I never said it was easy. I never said it was perfect. Nothing is. Only that there is participation and choice even in tribal societies . Same as we enjoy? No, but then even various iterations of our civilization haven’t enjoyed what we enjoy today, and in some respects older or there iterations enjoyed things that we do not.
@Carol Joy
Tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of Chinese have been lifted out of absolute poverty because of the free market. I need to compare the suicides of Chinese peasants to Chinese factory workers and even if some version of capitalism creates more suicides it needs to be compared to the grinding misery of absolute poverty.
Oh, has that been my goal? News to me. My goal here has been to consider the idea of tribalism critically. For every distinction raised between civilization and tribalism there are serious similarities. For every distinction one could make a serious argument that our civilization has engaged in similar practices depending on frame of reference.
Perhaps these are not really different options at the same level. Perhaps one could be both constitutional and tribalism simultaneously. Perhaps even civilization and constitutions require a baseline of tribalism to even work. It’s not new or rare for conservatism to bemoan multiculturalism. That we respond differently to divergence than say the Iroquois (sometimes) doesn’t mean we don’t respond or that the the underlying motivations are different.
I’m also trying to zero in on how we’re using the term. Is it being defined narrowly or broadly? Too narrow and it becomes definitionally irrelevant. Too broad and it becomes meaningless and applicable to targets not intended.
This is true enough. However, what I’m questioning is whether there can even be a “larger society” without some level of qualities that seem to be termed as tribal. Seems to me that without some deep cohesion as a prerequisite then any larger society will be weak to nonexistent.
So is tribalism simply a narrow range of allegiances? What’s the line then between not enough competing allegiances or even too many?
There is the vampire capitalism version of the free market, which allows for such lifestyles of unmitigated suffering of the many workers of Shenzen. Then as a contrast,we can reflect on the family capitalism version of the free market such as Americans had from 1945 on, which allowed for a Golden Age to come about.
Somehow whenever there is an outcry over such extreme vampire practices, the same companies like Apple that had overlooked the dire conditions that were leading to suicides and that had pretended that all was fine suddenly wake up and insist on things being made better for the workers. And the products still get built, without any markets coming to a grinding halt. Maybe the Investment Class loses some small increment of a profit, but all in all, they don’t lose enough for anyone to argue over the advantages of making things better for workers.
As long as there are human beings involved, there will some level of qualities of tribalism.
I am just starting the book. I wonder, though, if differentiating between tribal and non-tribal isn’t erroneous. Different tribes have different cultures and some succeed better than others. The United States has had a set of cultural characteritcs that have made it a very successful tribe, but the decline in constituent institutions and the rise of inherently hostile subcultures (sub-tribes?) is threatening the larger tribe and its success. As an argument, this may be a distinction without a difference, but I am not sure that spending time, energy, and passion on tribal-non-tribal distinctions is well spent.
You are wrong. What the West has is different.
But hey, maybe you know better than the likes of Dr. Perterson and Professor Hanson. I am sure you have more years than them combined in study of such things.
The Establishment Clause separates government and religion. So why couldn’t Jonah’s book? I read the History of God by Karen Armstrong a long time ago. The god referred to in this thread is a single diety. Well, that god had a long, hard time getting approval from his earliest appearance at Mount Sinai. Yet the founders, god fearing Christians, didn’t think religion was an essential ingredient for sound governing. On the contrary. They feared it.
Yet it was the derivative laws of the Bible (old and new testaments), not the Koran, that were incorporated into the Constitution, the legal, social and political system.
Suicide is an apt term. We are losing. The individualists who comment here are not Nationalists or Tribalists. We are Patriots. And the Barbarians are at the gates. They use Lawfare, our reasoned, humane social and legal system against us. They mangle sound religious doctrine to intimidate. And violence as well. How to defeat them? That’s Goldberg’s theme I hope. Debating the existance of God isn’t going to help, nor the fine ethical deliberation on human nature. We don’t need Rabbis, Priests, Philosophers, Lawyers and Politicians. We need warriors. Where’s Patton when you need him?