All posts filed under: Political Discussion & Analysis

Throw-Back Thursday: Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America (Chris Arnade)

Published by Charles Haywood

Last year, I went to the State Fair, and simply sat and watched the people pass by. The vast majority were lower class, and looked it. I tried, for a change, to ignore the externals and imagine myself conversing with individuals with whom, to an outside observer, I have nothing in common. Chris Arnade wrote Dignity to document a similar exercise, though one far more in-depth. He travelled the country, talking to many people from the lower classes, what he calls the “back row.” Then he wrote up what he had learned, and added a great deal by filling the book with pictures, so that the reader can perform the same exercise I did at the State Fair, and ponder respect and the back row in today’s society.

The Managerial Revolution: What is Happening in the World (James Burnham)

Published by Charles Haywood

Who rules? That’s what we all want to know. The Managerial Revolution, James Burnham’s still-influential 1941 book (the subject, for example, of recent pieces by Aaron Renn and Julius Krein), gave that eternal question a fresh answer. Broadly speaking his was, we can see eighty years later, indisputably the correct analysis. Burnham agreed that capitalism, private enterprise as the engine of the ruling class, was dying, the usual opinion in that tumultuous time, but made the entirely new claim that what would replace it was not, as most assumed, socialism, but a new thing. Namely, the ascent of managers, a new ruling class, who would hugely expand government and use it to mold society into new forms for their own benefit.

Podcast with Good Ol Boyz: Foundationalism with Charles

Published by Charles Haywood

My recent appearance with Maarek and Bog Beef of the Good Ol Boyz podcast. We cover patronage, elites, what young people should do with an eye to the future, as well as much more. And, of course, we talk about Foundationalism. This one should not be missed. It is available here on Patreon (audio only—no sexy Charles on video today), [Note that this podcast episode is currently behind a paywall; it may be available for free later, but as always, I encourage everyone to spend a few dollars to support quality content, and there is much more outstanding content available from the Good Ol Boyz than just me!] (Language warning for the delicate.)

The Stakes: Trajectory of Tyranny (Michael Anton and Charles)

Published by Charles Haywood

The people, they demand yet more Michael Anton and Charles! This time, of Ukraine, Canada, and tyranny in general and as currently being applied. I am again pleased to announce that The Claremont Institute, in the form of The American Mind, a publication of the Institute, has published another Special Edition of its regular podcast, featuring Professor Anton and yours truly. It is available here in audio, or on all the usual podcast platforms, or here on YouTube in audio format.

On the Marble Cliffs (Ernst Jünger)

Published by Charles Haywood

As the twenty-first century grinds on, with history returning in spades, Ernst Jünger, German warrior and philosopher, grows more relevant every day. This book, On the Marble Cliffs, I view as his third book in an unrecognized trilogy advising us how we should conduct ourselves under different types of tyranny. It fits with two other books, more famous, The Forest Passage (1951) and Eumeswil (1977), which also parse freedom and oppression, each with a different focus and tone. This book, fiction both dreamlike and phantasmagoric, is lesser known and even harder to grasp than the other two. Yet it serves the same purpose: to instruct us how an individual in society should act when threatened by, or subsumed by, tyranny.

Uncivil Society: 1989 and the Implosion of the Communist Establishment (Stephen Kotkin)

Published by Charles Haywood

How will our current regime fall? That’s what we all want to know. For those who have eyes to see, it is obvious the American regime is extremely fragile. It awaits only the inevitable crisis for it to collapse. I am staking my reputation, such as it is, on this claim. But because we cannot see precisely how this will come to pass, many believe, against all evidence, that our regime can grind on for decades. Reading Stephen Kotkin’s analysis of how Communist regimes in Eastern Europe collapsed in 1989 offers us insights into our own immediate future. Uncivil Society does not offer total clarity about the future, for nothing can do that, but it confirms many of my own thoughts, and so it must be an excellent book.

Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty (Carl Schmitt)

Published by Charles Haywood

“Sovereign is he who decides the exception.” Among serious students of political philosophy, at least on the Right, these may be the most famous words of the twentieth century. That sentence opens this work, Political Theology, which consists of four linked essays, bound by the theme that most exercised Carl Schmitt in the early 1920s—the edge cases of sovereignty. In the post-World War II decades, such questions seemed very remote and theoretical, part of the turmoil of a benighted age we had left behind. But we were wrong, about all of it, and Schmitt was right, that this topic is universal and timeless. Thus, from Schmitt we can learn much that we can be sure will be directly applicable to the 2020s.

Stalin’s War: A New History of World War II (Sean McMeekin)

Published by Charles Haywood

We are not a serious society. Our ruling class are men of no substance, lacking all knowledge and incapable of competent action on any front. The masses, while they sense a great deal is very wrong, are distracted by propaganda and ephemera. We feel we can afford to be unserious, because all of us lead lives of unprecedented material comfort. Any lack is eased by speedy delivery of sedatives designed to mask and hold down chthonic spiritual despair. To be sure, we do not lack for heralds of the coming storm—but we, high and low, have forgotten what a storm looks like. Read this book and you will remember, and you will also know what it is to live in a serious society.

Industrial Society and Its Future (Theodore John Kaczynski)

Published by Charles Haywood

What role should technology—the complex of machines and computers that undergirds our world—play in our future? This is a crucial question, and among thinking people today there exists a distinct split. Some, such as James Poulos in his soon-to-be-released Human, Forever, call for fully accepting that technology exists and is not going away, while refusing to surrender our humanity. Others, such as Paul Kingsnorth, entirely reject what he calls the “Machine,” and intimate that our technology-dictated future is an anti-human grotesquerie, followed by inevitable total collapse. Theodore Kaczynski falls squarely into this latter category, and this, his famous Manifesto, outlines what should be done—goals he notably took to heart.