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Should Mark Steyn Lighten Up?
Glenn Reynolds calls our attention this morning to a piece in Forbes, written by John Tamny, entitled “Mark Steyn Resides In a Crowded — and Centuries Old — Echo Chamber of ‘American Doom'”. Here’s a sample:
Mark Steyn is easily one of the most entertaining – and frequently insightful – opinion writers in existence today. Agree or disagree, his National Review op-eds count as a must-read for many – including this writer – as evidenced by his popularity.
But right or wrong, and it says here that Steyn is wrong, one of his most popular modern narratives is the one about how the U.S.’s best days are behind it. To quote Steyn from a recent book, After America, “the prevailing political realities of the United States do not allow for any meaningful course correction,” and “without meaningful course correction, America is doomed.” …
To be blunt, ‘America’ has been ‘doomed’ for longer than the United States has even existed as a country. Steyn has entered an echo chamber of doomsayers that is long in tooth, and that could fill many Rose Bowls. Maybe Steyn is correct this time despite joining a chorus of naysayers who’ve always been wrong, but even if correct, it seems he misreads what ‘doom’ is, or what it will look like.
Tamny then goes on to assess the soundness of Steyn’s arguments regarding particular cases in point: long-term demographics, immigration, budget deficits. He concludes that Steyn’s overall take is narrow and unnecessarily fraught:
No doubt we can do much better, better in the sense that without all the barriers erected by government that our present lifestyle of plenty would seem like Haiti relative to what we could be economically. But to posit as Steyn and others have for centuries, that we’re on the path to destruction is not credible. And as evidenced by the massive capital inflows that our productive are still entrusted to deploy, markets confirm this basic assertion.
To be clear, ‘doom’ per Steyn’s definition isn’t some horrid future that never seems to reveal itself despite centuries of predictions offered up by our wise commentariat. Instead, ‘doom’ is today, it’s the ‘unseen,’ it’s what we don’t have when it comes to future Googles and Intels, cancer and heart disease cures, and transportation advances that would make the automobile and the airplane seem positively pedestrian. That’s what Steyn and the chorus of doomsayers might be talking about were they not so blinded by inconsequential notions of birthrate, unwashed immigrants who renew us, and deficits that investors line up to buy the income streams of.
So who’s right? Is Steyn a crotchety old coot, or is Tamny a pie-in-the-sky goofball?
In a funny way, the very quality of Steyn’s writing tends to make me suspect his conclusions a little. It’s too seductive. Reading him always gives me an uneasy feeling that I’m being lured down the path of despair by dazzling turns of phrase. I confess that I have not yet read After America because I’m afraid I won’t be able to resist Steyn’s rhetorical juggernaut. There’s only so much lacerating wit I can withstand before I swoon — and then where would I be?
I know there are many Steyn fans here at Ricochet. What do you feel, in your heart of hearts? Do you agree with him that America is down for the count? And if so, I have to ask: what are we all still yammering about?
Published in General
We haven’t reached the crisis point yet. When we do, either the serious people will come together and make the necessary changes, or they won’t and things will be over. ·53 minutes ago
When we reach the point where the buffoons you highlight acknowledge the damage we have instructed them to do we will not have sufficient resources to recover. Hence the reason for sounding the alarm now. ·4 minutes ago
Nah. I don’t buy that. Rome’s decline phase took longer than our little republic has even existed. We can feed off of what exists for a few hundred years still.
…and the third, possible scenario is that people will come together to make the ‘necessary’ changes and they won’t be able to because they waited too long, for a tsunami destroys all in its path. ·6 minutes ago
I heard it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, and aeroplanes… ·5 minutes ago
And Lenny Bruce is not afraid.
The rest of us probably should be. ·8 minutes ago
I think this is an outline of Mark Steyn’s reasoning: Debt, dependency, constitutional derangement, and soft but suffocating tyranny will ruin the Americans. Complacency, grounded in simple ignorance, entitlement, progressivism, providentialism , national pride, and groupthink, prevents the Americans’ recognition of their danger. The Americans seem unshakable in their complacency, and such unshakable complacency makes their ruin nearly certain. A frank message of nearly certain ruin might overcome complacency and permit action. However, the frankest such message must include the very prediction that the Americans’ complacency, entitlement, progressivism, providentialism, national pride, and groupthink are so great as to make it nearly certain that they will not understand and accept their extreme danger in time to avoid it.
We haven’t reached the crisis point yet. When we do, either the serious people will come together and make the necessary changes, or they won’t and things will be over. ·53 minutes ago
When we reach the point where the buffoons you highlight acknowledge the damage we have instructed them to do we will not have sufficient resources to recover. Hence the reason for sounding the alarm now. ·4 minutes ago
Nah. I don’t buy that. Rome’s decline phase took longer than our little republic has even existed. We can feed off of what exists for a few hundred years still. ·9 minutes ago
Rome collapsed for several reasons. I doubt they owed more than the value of their entire economy in sovereign debt.
Maybe, instead of reading Steyn, you could read <a href=”http://www.amazon.com/After-Empire-Breakdown-Perspectives-Criticism/dp/B00EBFVSOC“> this</a>.
Steyn is not the only one. That book was published in 2002. De Tocqueville was even longer ago. “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”
I don’t see the way out except after collapse. Germany did it in 1923. We may not like what comes after. I, fortunately, will be gone.
Nah. I don’t buy that. Rome’s decline phase took longer than our little republic has even existed. We can feed off of what exists for a few hundred years still. ·9 minutes ago
Can we?
Did Rome make vast promises of wealth and comfort to it’s citizenry that it failed to deliver on?
Or is our national debt and future liabilities and promises that wont’ be met not that important?
(These are not rhetorical questions)
Kevin Williamson has made the argument in his latest book that when government fails the people and society will thrive. I agree with the basic premise that government is not the same as society and the people but we have a government that has eliminated that distinction in the minds of most people.
Nah. I don’t buy that. Rome’s decline phase took longer than our little republic has even existed. We can feed off of what exists for a few hundred years still. ·15 minutes ago
Egypt also lasted economically for centuries after its power collapsed, such was its wealth. The same will be true of us, I expect.
The important point, though, is not simply our economics. The important point is our freedom. We can be prosperous slaves for a very long time. But I don’t want to live in a gilded cage.
Mark is the most fun writer to read and a lot smarter than I am, but he gets overwrought at times based on assumptions and trends that we can’t predict. His demography regarding the Muslim world follows Malthus- the recent trend for which we have some marginal numbers extends perpetually, rather than that group being the same as every other group of humans in history.
You don’t need to continue the Muslim population growth at its current rate. If there are few Greeks and Italians and Spaniards being born today, there won’t be any more that those to be having children twenty-thirty years from now. The Muslims retake Spain by default. ·3 hours ago
Edited 3 hours ago
You can always find countries where that is the case- or cities- look at Dearborn. But overall, the trend is down. Iran has almost the lowest birthrate in the world.
We haven’t reached the crisis point yet. When we do, either the serious people will come together and make the necessary changes, or they won’t and things will be over. ·53 minutes ago
When we reach the point where the buffoons you highlight acknowledge the damage we have instructed them to do we will not have sufficient resources to recover. Hence the reason for sounding the alarm now. ·4 minutes ago
Nah. I don’t buy that. Rome’s decline phase took longer than our little republic has even existed. We can feed off of what exists for a few hundred years still. ·9 minutes ago
Rome collapsed for several reasons. I doubt they owed more than the value of their entire economy in sovereign debt. ·4 minutes ago
Well, no, not so much. The economics of debt were different then.
Can we?
Did Rome make vast promises of wealth and comfort to it’s citizenry that it failed to deliver on?
Or is our national debt and future liabilities and promises that wont’ be met not that important?
There wasn’t the promises of a welfare state, but there was a massive grain dole and they spent lavishly on public buildings and festivities. The purpose (keeping the population chilled out) is the same.
Most of these problems can be turned around with a fairly simple program. Start with a balanced budget and add some deregulation.
The deregulation will spur the economy, generating more tax revenues, and the budget will soon be in surplus. You can use that surplus to pay down the debt.
But things have to be [crappy] enough for the political class to want to make changes. Nobody is there yet, even Republicans. We can increase our military spending by 80% in real dollars this century, but if we “cut” a tiny amount with the sequester, we’re “gutting the military.”
Nobody, Republicans or Democrats, wants to give up their gravy train, so they won’t make the minimal changes necessary. The important things to them is perpetuation of that gravy train, which they’ll protect, but they’re not moving to do so, that tells me we’re not at a crisis point yet. There isn’t the political will to fix things.
Mark is the most fun writer to read and a lot smarter than I am, but he gets overwrought at times based on assumptions and trends that we can’t predict. His demography regarding the Muslim world follows Malthus- the recent trend for which we have some marginal numbers extends perpetually, rather than that group being the same as every other group of humans in history.
You don’t need to continue the Muslim population growth at its current rate. If there are few Greeks and Italians and Spaniards being born today, there won’t be any more that those to be having children twenty-thirty years from now. The Muslims retake Spain by default. ·3 hours ago
Edited 3 hours ago
You can always find countries where that is the case- or cities- look at Dearborn. But overall, the trend is down. Iran has almost the lowest birthrate in the world. ·0 minutes ago
And it varies widely within countries. Salt Lake City has the highest birth rate in the developed world.
I love how every Bad Thing Ever started around 1967, before that the real world was Father Knows Best. Has anyone ever read history of the immigrant populations in the tenements of NY in the ’20’s? Most familes were fatherless, most fathers spent all their time looking for booze.
In the Hoover Institution archives, there are stories such as this: “Nine (!) 14-17 year old girls were arrested at what turned out to be a drugs and sex party. In 1953. One was pregnant.”
Humanity has been the same for 10,000 years. Some countries survive, others don’t- but it is generally the culture, not the economy that does them in, and the culture ebbs and flows, because humans are the same creatures we have always been. The Flood came when God decided to clean things up after murder became a pandemic.
Judith, read the comments, see what you unleashed. No optimists at Ricochet.
I think Mark Steyn is right on the money if — and only if — present trends continue. Our economics are insane, bureaucracy is crippling free enterprise, social breakdown is bearing bitter fruit and our foreign policy is suicidal.
That being said, “present trends” don’t need to continue and they rarely do. Five years ago, who expected fracking to help the U.S. threaten Saudi Arabia as the chief energy exporter? Who expected Obamacare to publicly fail –not within years, but days of its public launch?
Numerous unexpected events will occur over the next few decades and our response to them will decide our future. The outlook is dim for the U.S., but it was far more dim at the eve of the Civil War, WWII and Cold War.
One solid prediction: Steyn has been a must-read for years and he will continue to be for years to come.
That being said, my natural cynical inclination is to point out that the world has always been going to hell and the good old days never were so good. We’re just not that special.
The 20th century was the most murderous century on record.
The 19th century didn’t have antibiotics.
The 18th century didn’t have dental anesthetic. ·5 hours ago
Edited 5 hours ago
Funny. At the current rate, the 21st century won’t have antibiotics either, and the 22nd won’t have health care.
And if we’re extremely unlucky, I think we can simultaneously top the 20th century’s butchery this century, too.
What is Tammy’s history? Is she a lib that thinks we are Doomed when a Repub is in the White House and everything is peachy-keen when a Dem is in power?
Tammy is a Doom Denier. I’m gonna trademark that.
I love how every Bad Thing Ever started around 1967, before that the real world was Father Knows Best. Has anyone ever read history of the immigrant populations in the tenements of NY in the ’20’s? Most familes were fatherless, most fathers spent all their time looking for booze.
In the Hoover Institution archives, there are stories such as this: “Nine (!) 14-17 year old girls were arrested at what turned out to be a drugs and sex party. In 1953. One was pregnant.”
Humanity has been the same for 10,000 years. Some countries survive, others don’t- but it is generally the culture, not the economy that does them in, and the culture ebbs and flows, because humans are the same creatures we have always been. The Flood came when God decided to clean things up after murder became a pandemic.
Judith, read the comments, see what you unleashed. No optimists at Ricochet. ·14 minutes ago
Like, like, like, a thousand times like.
That being said, my natural cynical inclination is to point out that the world has always been going to hell and the good old days never were so good. We’re just not that special.
The 20th century was the most murderous century on record.
The 19th century didn’t have antibiotics.
The 18th century didn’t have dental anesthetic. ·5 hours ago
Edited 5 hours ago
Funny. At the current rate, the 21st century won’t have antibiotics either, and the 22nd won’t have health care.
And if we’re extremely unlucky, I think we can simultaneously top the 20th century’s butchery this century, too. ·12 minutes ago
I’m not a pessimist about that antibiotics thing.
As to the rest, it’s too early to tell.
That’s the thing. It’s a fallacy to extrapolate in a straight line.
I would like Tammy to be right. Just like I’d like Peter Diamandis to be right. As I concluded one of my existential performance art pieces, I act like I believe the future is so bright I gotta wear shades. I am underwhelmed by both of them. In the case of Diamandis, I do not believe that Moore’s Law is a force of nature, nor that every awesome thing we can concieve of will actually be produced in the next couple of years. In the case of Tammy, he misstates the problems. Declining birthrates are a problem because if fewer are born, we have fewer talented people too. Likewise, if the world at large is collapsing, it is entirely possible to prop up the US on the “least bad option” plan, but when the whole world crashes down, those props come with it. This can be seen clearly in our debt structure: it’s all short term. No one is betting that the US will do great 10 years from now, they are betting that it won’t collapse in 4 years. I believe we won’t collapse by 2017 years -I am less certain about 2025.
Regarding Rome, it depends on where you start and end the Doom Clock. Maybe Aurelius was the end of the good times and Romulus Augustus the final conclusion, or maybe Constantine X.
However, if we look at the Republic, the story is much worse. Gaius Grachus won a second (and illegal) term as Tribune of the Plebs in 121BC. The Battle of Actium ended the Republic in 31BC, but we could give it a couple of years to make it a solid century for the Republic to fall.
If FDR was Grachus, we’re more than half-way there.
If the War on Terror is the Social War (91), we’re less than 60 years from the Principate.
If our current politics is early Marius and Sulla, it’s less than 50 years, and we have 3 civil wars to look forward to.
That being said, “present trends” don’t need to continue and they rarely do. Five years ago, who expected fracking to help the U.S. threaten Saudi Arabia as the chief energy exporter? Who expected Obamacare to publicly fail –not within years, but days of its public launch?
Numerous unexpected events will occur over the next few decades and our response to them will decide our future. The outlook is dim for the U.S., but it was far more dim at the eve of the Civil War, WWII and Cold War.
One solid prediction: Steyn has been a must-read for years and he will continue to be for years to come.
I agree with your comment, as far as it goes. However, there’s still the problem of complacency and its causes.
That being said, my natural cynical inclination is to point out that the world has always been going to hell and the good old days never were so good. We’re just not that special.
The 20th century was the most murderous century on record.
The 19th century didn’t have antibiotics.
The 18th century didn’t have dental anesthetic. ·5 hours ago
Edited 5 hours ago
Funny. At the current rate, the 21st century won’t have antibiotics either, and the 22nd won’t have health care.
And if we’re extremely unlucky, I think we can simultaneously top the 20th century’s butchery this century, too. ·12 minutes ago
I’m not a pessimist about that antibiotics thing.
As to the rest, it’s too early to tell. ·14 minutes ago
Then maybe you don’t want to read this…
Funny. At the current rate, the 21st century won’t have antibiotics either, and the 22nd won’t have health care.
And if we’re extremely unlucky, I think we can simultaneously top the 20th century’s butchery this century, too. ·12 minutes ago
I’m not a pessimist about that antibiotics thing.
As to the rest, it’s too early to tell. ·14 minutes ago
Then maybe you don’t want to read this… ·0 minutes ago
Oh, I’m very familiar with antibiotic resistance and the danger it poses. I just think we’ll solve the problem with technology.
Can anyone point to a society which was able to stem the tide and change course before they hit the bottom? Or, as I fear, is human nature such that drastic change or course correction is always preceded by hunger and desperation?
Today has enough worries of its own. While as a nation, there are a lot of depressing statistics out there, especially the illegitimacy rates and rates of dependency. I can see it going any number of ways. I’m thinking of all the doomsayers about oil and energy predicting that we are running out. They have been predicting that for as long as I can remember and decades before I was born, but that hasn’t played out. The reason for that is there are corrective economic forces at play. When energy becomes scarce, it becomes more expensive, and subsequently more energy is explored and people adapt to how much they use. There is a natural equilibrium that works out. However, I don’t know if there is a natural balancing force when it comes to social realities, or at least that natural balancing force is being suppressed by the welfare state. In the end, I’m really not sure what will happen. All I can do, is live my life and trust in God.
Funny. At the current rate, the 21st century won’t have antibiotics either, and the 22nd won’t have health care.
I’m not a pessimist about that antibiotics thing.
As to the rest, it’s too early to tell. ·14 minutes ago
Then maybe you don’t want to read this… ·0 minutes ago
Oh, I’m very familiar with antibiotic resistance and the danger it poses. I just think we’ll solve the problem with technology. ·35 minutes ago
This is like any epidemiological issue- the vulnerable populations will sequester and be vulnerable, the bugs may exist, but they have to be spread somehow. There are a lot of device means of killing bacteria (e.g., NTP)- and the bacteria do not kill, it is the toxins they release upon lysis that kills. It is quite possible that we will at some point neutralize toxins, or pump up immunity. Or use more narrowly focused anti-infectives, since the broad spectrum gram negative stuff is not terribly efficient even at best. Future drugs of all types will be much more tailored.
The way we did things in the past was quite primitive.
I suppose it depends on how you look at it. No civilization has lasted forever, but some have taken course of action that bought them decades or centuries. I’m thinking of someone like Diocletian in the Roman Empire or perhaps Lincoln and the American Civil War. I can’t think, off hand, of any civilization that went from a golden age into decline and then back to a golden age.
I suppose it depends on how you look at it. No civilization has lasted forever, but some have taken course of action that bought them decades or centuries. I’m thinking of someone like Diocletian in the Roman Empire or perhaps Lincoln and the American Civil War. I can’t think, off hand, of any civilization that went from a golden age into decline and then back to a golden age. ·0 minutes ago
Egypt might prove to be an example here … the Middle Kingdom was a golden age, but the 12th dynasty ended suddenly and prompted a 100 year invasion of the Hyksos. Eventually, the pharaoh was able to win back Egypt and the Seventeenth Dynasty kicked off another golden age, wherein Egypt had its most prolific builders and conquerors.
So even if it can be done, recognize that the Second Intermediate Age lasted about a century.
I’m afraid not. Whether it’s Rome or Jerusalem, we wait until crisis has come to act (too many to list) or believe that things will be different this time (e.g., Marcus Aurelius appointing his blood successor Commodus rather than an “adopted” man of merit).
BTW, Amos was our Lenten study this year. We might as well have been reading from today’s headlines.