Let's Not Sleepwalk Into Calamity
Complacency has hurt us in the past, so we must avoid it today
This post contains the usual topic historical events that relate to today—how the complacency that can lead to disaster. However, at the end of this piece, I lay out a change that will be occurring with regard to the essays I write in the future. For the past couple months, I have been chasing answers to increasingly complex questions and coming up empty. The world keeps on shifting, and I haven’t found many poeple who are willing to grapple with the world as it is. Far too many have ideals they wish society would adhere to, but no plan to actually make that happen, or whether they’re even possible. This essay is a lament, a warning, and a plan moving forward. Thanks for reading.
— Scott
There is a shakeup–or is it a shakedown?–occurring in America. Every institution, no matter how long it has been around and how meritorious it may be, is being questioned. I, for one, welcome the audit–if it’s done well, which does not seem to be the case right now, but that’s a topic for a different article. There has been a great amount of progress made in America and globally, but it seems we are becoming complacent. Fewer people are willing to answer for the rust that is showing under the glossy sheen.
But here’s the thing: we’ve been here before. Quite often. There are moments in history when society, the people, the institutions, seem to be acting on autopilot, sleepwalking through time. Then there are times when society is shaken to its core, the assumptions once taken for granted are being questioned and undermined. It is during these latter times, as I think we are in now, that societies prove their mettle. It is the hope that these times come from within, not without.
The threats coming from outside need not be foreigners, they can come from the people within who do not have institutional control. In the colonies, we saw both of these kinds of shocks occur in 1676 with King Philip’s War and Bacon’s Rebellion. By 1741, there were two more shocks that came as a surprise, though not to anyone paying attention, when the slaves near the Stono River and in New York City revolted. The colonies were not prepared for these events. But the signs were all there, so why did they fall into this trap?
In the northern colonies, there was a growing sense that change was needed with regard to the enslaved population. There was an ever present anxiety about the exact type of event that did occur happening in their cities–the same events which were becoming more common in the island colonies. But many figured that this would never actually happen in the mainland colonies–whether this was hubris or ignorance is hard to say. So when the revolts broke out, the response was swift and harsh.
The response was similar between the regions. Both colonies rooted out any possible sympathizer, often reaching far beyond the actual conspiracy. The aftermath was different, though. South Carolina enacted intense slave codes, and New York began to wonder whether slavery was worth maintaining as an institution. It took this shock to take action, or at the very least start asking questions. But it didn’t have to be this way.
If we look back at these several cases of major institutions being challenged, often in a majorly bloody fashion, we get a sense of what might happen if we are not carefully identifying these same types of blind spots today. It had been about seventy-five years since the last major labor uprising shook the colonies, and they had grown complacent. They were in the middle of a three decade rapid expansion of the slave trade. Few, if any, people were openly against the practice. In short, they were sleepwalking into calamity. I worry that we are doing the same today.
There are parallels to these events today. Seventy-five years ago saw the end of the greatest war in human history leave the world a wasteland, and history was inexorably altered as a result. Three decades ago, the rapid expansion of global trade networks, cutting of barriers, and mass globalization began to take hold of the economic world. It proved to be a great boon to society, but underneath it all, questions went unanswered and groups started getting ignored. The angst began to bubble, slowly at first, before bursting out in the name of Donald Trump.
Before I get too far into this analogy, I do want to pull back a bit. Firstly, it is obvious that the labor issues we see today are not the same as that of 1740. I also don’t want to give too much credit to those who are poking holes in everything they see. Sometimes the institutions, the experts, and the narratives are correct. Those that have been questioned already and came out stronger for it are those worth keeping. Furthermore, while I do think we need to be careful about the current state of affairs, I refuse to fall into the pessimism that has taken hold of many people online.
This growing cynicism and nihilism when it comes to American society, especially online, isn't new. There is a long tradition, especially in leftist circles, historically, of distrust with the United States government--with a very specific focus on the CIA and military industrial complex. There are histories and novels, documentaries and films that try to bring low the ideals that were pervasive after the Second World War. At its core, there was a growing need to scratch the golden surface and reveal the rotten core. As I’ve said, that’s all well and good, but only if the truth is brought to light. How much truth was revealed in those circles is hard to quantify.
There were countless new stories unearthed in the 1960s and 70s that brought to light new perspectives. More voices were heard, and history was fleshed out. This was a good thing. On the flip side, though, Howard Zinn became the avatar of this movement. But rather than flesh out actual missing history, it became a polemic. He didn’t turn toward objectivity to fight the myths, he just replaced them. What’s worse, the many imitations that have followed with titles that elicit intrigue by claiming to hold unvarnished truth are no better. They are often decades behind in their complaints, and bring nothing new to the table. It’s pure nihilism.
Unfortunately, the cycle has turned yet again, and there is a renewed desire to peek behind the curtain and uncover the puppeteer behind all the misgivings in the world. But this time, the right is getting more time in the sun, but it’s largely a bipartisan affair. The enemies they seek are not too different from before. They represent the movers and shakers of modern life. They are everyone from the billionaires who attend conferences as a career, tech CEOs, the Chinese Communist Party, and even entire racial groups. Regardless of who is doing it, what is being done is clear. They are pushing us towards destruction.
Humans need their narratives, but sometimes I wish these narratives would cut both ways. We may not be living in the brightest of ages, but were are at the end of a mighty good run. In the past 30 years we have seen rapid industrialization bring billions of people out of poverty and starvation, seen the rise of the greatest technological advance in the dispersion of information since the printing press, and monumental breakthroughs in medical, physical, and biological science. This is the progress that our ancestors could only dream of.
However, there is still an underbelly that requires us to examine it, lest we risk disaster. We have a new technology that could make certain skills--and personal connection as a whole--worthless. The same information technology is melting our brains, making us less focused, and sapping our energy. Our infrastructure is showing massive cracks and the world is on the verge of war. People are losing their personal stake in the progress that is occurring, leading to disenchantment. To ignore these would be a costly mistake.
It is vital to our future success that we stay cognizant of both.
In 1738, it would have been clear to the colonists that they were living in the good times. The wars that shook up New England, created refugees from the frontiers, and strained supply lines were twenty years gone. Trade was booming. Piracy was eradicated. Across the entire socioeconomic spectrum, Americans were better off than Britons. And three years later the illusion was gone.
We cannot afford to do the same. But we also cannot ignore the good that has brought us here. We must understand that the water is dirty, but the baby needs protecting. However, I struggle with finding the right people who understand what is going wrong and what could be done to fix it. There are plenty of preachers for the institutions, they abound on Substack. The same goes for the nihilists. But who is speaking for the middle?
I’ve come to realize that I can’t expect someone to do this work for me. I just need to do it myself. Since I don’t have the audience, or the power, or the connections to make any sort of difference, this is the perfect opportunity for me to read more deliberately. There is no pressure, and no lives depending on me. It’s just me and my books and my wife who has to listen to it all. On top of that, I’ve already gotten a head start.
This project of mine, this podcast, these essays, have been enlightening to me, and I hope they continue to be, especially as I transition in the next months from examining the more stable colonial life to the life during the revolution. There is much to learn about history that can be applied to today. We will never repeat the past, but it does inform the future. If we start to see the same lines converging as they did in the past, we better prepare.
I find that far too many people are sleepwalking through this new era we seem to be at the precipice of. History is not over, and the world cares not what we want it to be, so we must accept it for what it is. The Russians seem unwilling to concede their blustering failure, Ukraine doesn’t want to accept their lesser defeat, death cults remain in power throughout the Middle East, China is closing in on our military capabilities—and perhaps has surpassed them. Pax Americana is no more. Perhaps, President Trump is helping end it by threatening to abandon NATO, though this may have been on the way without this provocation. Had we continued to sleepwalk in this dream world where America reigns supreme, we would have fallen off a cliff.
I am not a fan of everything this administration has done. But I’m glad some questions are being asked of the world. They are questions that need more people seeking answers. These are questions like:
Why are we the majority funder of a war in Europe that Europeans don’t want to fight?
Why are Europeans actively funding their supposed opposition?
When does an alliance become a burden? How long can an organization dead set on eliminating their neighbors continue to be allowed to exist?
How many products can we rely solely on a single country for before they realize they have the upper hand? When does an adversary become an enemy?
Where are our alternative sources for critical materials coming from?
What institutional knowledge have we lost due to offshoring?
What happens when friends are replaced by AI bots? When do skills overtake credentials in hiring?
Does society crumble when people stop caring about human creations?
Why don’t people want to work? Do we really need immigrants to replace workers?
How much can we expect the government to give? Why aren’t men reading?
Will AI mean the death of work or the death of culture?
What drives happiness in America?
Most of these questions cannot be answered in a history book. But they need to be answered if we are to retain American culture, sovereignty, and global importance. So, I have decided to branch out from historical works alone, and start expanding my own base of knowledge.
I have created a comprehensive list for myself to help flesh out the economic theory, philosophy, geopolitics, art criticism, and everything in between. I will only be reading about a book every two months, so this will not interfere with my production schedule. However, this allows me to read some 80 books by the time the podcast reaches its conclusion. This New America Project–the name is a work in progress–will help me move beyond the descriptive to the prescriptive. I will be able to determine where things went right and wrong from the view of society down to the very soul of single Americans.
Because of this new direction, I will likely be changing the way I release essays. My original goal was to write essays that were direct companions to the podcast episodes. I have realized this has limited what I can talk about and forced me to create boxes around my content that have begun to constrain, rather than focus. I often wish to write about books, recent events, and–though rarely–internet drama, but find no angle within the context of the history being discussed.
So, it is highly likely that I will be changing the essay release schedule. They will likely be more variable in length, and relevance to the podcast specifically. However, I will continue to focusing on history and how the impacts and parallels to modern day. Also, the podcast will remain the same--just the extra content here that will be changing.
In the end, I hope to not only fill in the missing pages of American history, but understand what a New America could look like. Societies don’t fall from outside forces alone. Sometimes they crumble slowly as the people lose sight of who they were and could be. When we stop questioning our assumptions, we only further threaten collapse. We cannot let that happen, and I don’t intend to.
If you would like to join along in the reading journey, I will be writing a short (less than 500 words) piece on each of these books as I complete them. I am starting—well, have already started—THE ONCE AND FUTURE WORKER by Oren Cass. Given that much of the tumult has been driven by the tariffs to start the second Trump administration, I wanted to hear from someone who wrote in far greater depth in the positive direction of this policy.
Thanks for sharing! It was an interesting read, and also informative.