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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
This list is exactly backwards. It might be the correct order for a communist totalitarian state, but for a Republic it is the opposite.
Mask has it right in #98. Steyn rightly places the cause of our doom in culture and society, not in the fiscal straights in which we are presently. Look at the latest column in NR, where he describes the collapse of sexual activity in young Japanese.
“Sometimes a society becomes too stupid to survive.”
I was listening to Charles Krauthammer on Denis Prager’s radio show this afternoon. He declared himself a 7 on the USA pessimist-optimist scale where 1 is “we’re doomed” and 10 is wildly optimistic.
His reasoned that the in every generation when the country needed them we had the leaders we needed. In the 18th it was the founding generation. In the 19th we had Lincoln. In the 20th, Reagan. Now past performance is no guarantee of future results (and your results may differ) but he’s got a point. “God looks out for fools, drunks and the United States of America.” -Otto von Bismark.
Steyn is an optimist. Tamny is the goofball.
It’s far to early to predict accurately the fate of the United States. It seems certain that the verdict will be hammered out in violence. The question is what faction will be standing when it is over?
So who’s right? Is Steyn a crotchety old coot, or is Tamny a pie-in-the-sky goofball?
Haven’t read the (6 pages!!!) of comments (yet?), but I’d say that Tamny is using Steyn as a spring-board to get attention to what he wants to talk about, and isn’t too careful about trying to understand what Steyn was doing in the meantime.
Good way to get attention. Worked, no?
If we change before things hit bottom, how would you be able to tell it was an adjustment to avoid hitting bottom, rather than just– a change? Things change all the time, and it’s only after a crash that you can be sure something really was headed right for a crash. You can guess before, but…. well, can’t prove a thing.
Judith, read “After America”. Yes, Mark Steyn mentions the problems America has,and the probable consequences of those problems. But he also suggests ways to turn things around and notes there is still time to turn things around. In this regard,he is being an optimist. I know people who do not think there is time for America to turn things around,and compared to them,Mark Steyn is Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.
Like the Greek legend Casandra, Steyn has a gift of prophecy. In the legend, Cassandra warned the Trojans about the Trojan Horse and predicted the fall of Troy. Steyn is warning us about where our current trajectory is going to take us. Tammy should write a book about this “echo chamber”, so we can do a side by side comparison.
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.
Judith, read the comments, see what you unleashed. No optimists at Ricochet.
I think you’re miss-stating the opposing argument you’re panning but that aside – it looks like you’re claiming that our modern culture should make us optimistic.
Mark Steyn remarks most often about culture and the cultural decay we’ve experienced and he makes a very convincing argument that the fiscal destruction of capital we’re seeing has been preceded by an even larger destruction in social and individual capital, perhaps the starkest example being his comments on the Detroit bankruptcy and the massive illiteracy rate in Detroit making recovery extremely difficult and unlikely.
No- what I am saying is that continuous retailers of apocalyptic doom have been with us since time immemorial, and tend to be as correct as pollyanna purveyors of sunshine.
I’m more with Kevin Williamson.
And, Duane, hidden here seems your assumption — confident prediction — that History moves inexorably upward — a species of faith as much as any. It’s notable that in your list of problems there is no mention whatever of the ongoing collapse of the American family (Charles Murray),the determinant of ongoing appetite for statism.
The real explanation for that collapse cannot possibly be economic. Why? Because such collapse — along with explosive cultural vulgarity and, most tellingly, rampant misogyny (“c” word Bill Maher would be unthinkable in any earlier, more civilized era) — did not occur fifty (a hundred, two hundred) years ago when the overall wealth of the country was far, far less than today.
The real issue is the gender neutral society.
I’ve distilled it here and here in “sex wars” discussions. Hyperlinks therein are crucial, especially to Mansfield — Manliness is the most important book of our time. If_only_certain_Ricochet_women_would_read_it.
This also necessarily means — contrary to “fi-cons” — that simply “turning off the electricity” hardly entails “spontaneous order” emerging.
If conservatives are serious about the society they say they want — notably not in evidence by Ricochet editors — they will start prudently defending elements of_patriarchy.
On the “end of antibiotics” meme: I was able to see the effectiveness of an antiviral this year first hand, made possible by our rapid advances in genetics. From the viewpoint of a biotech entrepreneur, the threat list the CDC uses in Mama Toad‘s link to argue for higher funding levels is really a target list. We may not be to the point where we can design targeted antibiotics and antivirals within a single plague cycle, but that day is certainly coming. We can debate the efficacy of funneling more dollars into the CDC to effect that goal.
In response to Amy’s comment #40,
I believe your prediction, regarding your generation’s unwillingness to finance the awful burden that we are leaving for them, will play out as you describe.
However, there are many other government programs whose benefactors, upon loosing their ‘goods and services’, will not react with the same ‘stiff upper lip’ that those of my generation have been raised to adopt.
The country will be in for rioting and looting and the imposition of martial law and we will all be touched by it.
To paraphrase David Mamot; “…there is 100 years of evidence that Marxism, Socialism, Racialism and the Command Economy leads only to shortages, despotism and murder.”
Hey, this post made Taranto’s Best of the Web Today, under “Questions Nobdy is Asking.” Personally, I find Mark Steyn very entertaining, but also very discouraging. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303471004579165770011291240
He isn’t overdoing it. In Canada we went through the extremely difficult work of reforming government. I see the US working through the stages of denial that happened up here. Politicians know what happens, and they are the losers. They will delay as long as it is possible to delay, which only makes the awful choices more dire. Compounding costs take on a parabolic characteristic, and it is far easier to deal with them early on.
Remember, Steyn knows the smell of decline. He smells it in the US.
Eating seed corn fills the stomach just as well as the surplus that you normally eat. The catastrophe happens all at once.
No- what I am saying is that continuous retailers of apocalyptic doomhave been with us since time immemorial, andtend to be as correct as pollyanna purveyors of sunshine.
I’m more with Kevin Williamson. ·2 hours ago
I hope Kevin Williamson is correct but I think history is on Steyn’s side.
We’ll see what the American culture and national character decides. When the government stops working as it’s been put in motion the last 60 years will the people ask for more government to fill the vacuum or will they exercise their liberty to claim their birth right as free citizens?
Steyn also makes the powerful point in After America and elsewhere that the presumption that prosperity as America knows it is the historical default is simply not true and that operating on the idea has lead to a lot of very consequential mistakes.
There’s no quick and/or easy fix for the high rate of fatherless homes and a culture which far and wide derides the values which have created prosperity in the past.
No- what I am saying is that continuous retailers of apocalyptic doomhave been with us since time immemorial, andtend to be as correct as pollyanna purveyors of sunshine.
I’m more with Kevin Williamson.
I hope Kevin Williamson is correct but I think history is on Steyn’s side.
We’ll see what the American culture and national character decides. When the government stops working as it’s been put in motion the last 60 years will the people ask for more government to fill the vacuum or will they exercise their liberty to claim their birth right as free citizens?
Steyn also makes the powerful point in After America and elsewhere that the presumption that prosperity as America knows it is the historical default is simply not true and that operating on the idea has lead to a lot of very consequential mistakes.
There’s no quick and/or easy fix for the high rate of fatherless homes and a culture which far and wide derides the values which have created prosperity in the past.
Amen. I think there’s a lot of “can’t_happen_here” wishful_thinking going_on. America has been the historical exception, not the rule.
Well, as someone who has been suffering for a long time from fevers and bodily aches that may or may not be related to the Lyme spirochete, I support biotech innovation!
I’m more with Kevin Williamson.
I haven’t gotten as far into Kevin Williamson as I would like yet, but from what I have heard him say, I agree. I just see the destabilization as hurting the majority while serving as an opportunity for the nimble. But the nimble can take care of themselves regardless, and I am more concerned about the resulting human suffering than gleefully anticipating the just desserts to be delivered to the Democrats’ core constituency.
The folks getting pounded and, as things stand, are soon to be pounded even worse, are folks who played by the rules and made career decisions based on promises that they did not realize could never be met. Should they have? I did, but folks dismissed me as a hair shirt. Now their public pensions that were all guarantees and no sound fiscal plan (aside from taxing 2013 for work performed in 1973) to achieve promised payment levels mean their pensions are severely impacted, and standards of living are headed for the floor.
We could mine Detroit alone for enough tragedies to last a millennium. Meanwhile, DC is the lone flower blossoming in the whole field.
And, Duane, hidden here seems your assumption — confident prediction — that History moves inexorably upward — a species of faith as much as any. It’s notable that in your list of problems there is no mention whatever of the ongoing collapse of the American family (Charles Murray),the determinant of ongoing appetite for statism.
Not only did I not say that, I didn’t even intimate that. I specifically said that we don’t know what direction things will take- because the “woe is everything, we are all dooooomed” group has been wrong approximately as often as the “everything is peachy keen and getting better!” group is wrong.
Every problem described here is indeed a problem. The ultimate resolution- whether and how- is a complete unknown to us at this point.
I reiterate- we have had societal breakdown issues since the republic was founded. Somehow we muddled along, stumbling into “kinda solutions”, forced into after failing by trying all the easy stuff- Williamson’s point.
My criticism of Mark Steyn’s doomery pointed out that his Malthusian demography completely ignores the demography challenges of our national opponents– which need to be considered.
Unless we fundamentally change the entitlement society, Steyn is right.
Is there hope that we can change it?
There’s always hope.
#teamcrotchetyoldcoot
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. ·48 minutes ago
Impressive. I’m not sure I take a lot of hope from that, but it’s more than nothing.
“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?”Well, Ms. Levy, perhaps you’d be informed.
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. ·48 minutes ago
Impressive. I’m not sure I take a lot of hope from that, but it’s more than nothing. ·5 minutes ago
Every once in a while that Classical Studies minor is relevant. :D
BTW, Amos was our Lenten study this year. We might as well have been reading from today’s headlines. ·52 minutes ago
I learned in my middle school history class that a nation called the United States annihilated many of its own citizens during what was called “the Civil War” or some such. Afterwards, the US dwindled into obscurity. No one really knows much more about it.
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.
Judith, read the comments, see what you unleashed. No optimists at Ricochet.
I think you’re miss-stating the opposing argument you’re panning but that aside – it looks like you’re claiming that our modern culture should make us optimistic.
Mark Steyn remarks most often about culture and the cultural decay we’ve experienced and he makes a very convincing argument that the fiscal destruction of capital we’re seeing has been preceded by an even larger destruction in social and individual capital, perhaps the starkest example being his comments on the Detroit bankruptcy and the massive illiteracy rate in Detroit making recovery extremely difficult and unlikely.
As someone once said (everything has been said by someone), the surest way to go broke is to bet against the United States of America.
On the other hand, the reason lotteries are so popular is that eventually somebody collects the jackpot.
Tsk, tsk, tsk. She is as smart as Steyn by some folks’ lights.
And, Duane,hidden here seems your assumption — confident prediction — that History moves inexorably upward — a species of faith as much as any. It’s notable that in your list of problems there is no mention whatever of the ongoing collapse of the American family (Charles Murray), the determinant of ongoing appetite for statism.
I reiterate- we have had societal breakdown issues since the republic was founded. Somehow we muddled along, stumbling into “kinda solutions”…
And this is precisely why I say you finally agree with those who think the necessity of historical change in some unidirectional manner is likely (hence my words “hidden,” “seems”) more evident than anything like natural right or natural law. The economic and/or social dislocation from eras prior to the Progressive era (or its full manifestation, in which we are now living) were of a wholly different sort because there were nonetheless prevailing, fairly solid grounds for real politics; in other words real grounds for our claims to individuality and right. The Civil War and Harry Jaffa’s work are actually the profoundest proofs of this…
We agree to disagree; these things rachet and yo-yo. I don’t see 100% of the changes of the progressive era to be evil, nor do I buy everything Harry Jaffa says.
Some changes that came about over our objections occurred because we were wrong, and by objecting so strenuously we gave up our opportunity to shape the rules. Other changes were demanded by the citizenry; we ,ay not like that, but the “customers” ultimately rule in any market; you can’t do things the same way in 1800 as you do in 2013 with 350 million people.
Steyn is simply wrong to rely on his demography stats. When a lefty does that, we call him out. The fact is, no one knows where we are inevitably bound.
It’s undeniable that in Europe Muslim’s are having most of the children. Will this continue? Who knows, but Steyn points out that many immigrants live in enclaves that don’t integrate with the native populace and culture so they are less likely to take on the same birth rates and habits. And it’s undeniable that these host countries are curtailing their liberties according to the sensibilities of their “guests”. Anti-semitism is on the rise in France and Sweden. Muslim women who immigrate to Europe from more moderate middle-eastern countries find that in Europe they are being forced to conform to orthodox Islamic customs (e.g., Europe is more radicalized than their place of origin).
The problem comes when you extrapolate in straight lines. All these factors you mention are dynamic, not static.