This might be an argument that proves too much. Washington had many contemporaries who were deeply opposed to slavery. Even some slave owners, famously including Thomas Jefferson, were deeply ambivalent about the institution and publicly grappled with its immorality: “I weep for my country when I reflect that God is just.” So while yes our values are contingent upon our circumstances to a degree, there is still a great deal of moral variance between people with shared material conditions. At any stage of human history, some people have held values out of step with their sociopolitical firmament, for better or worse.
This is what I call the well-fed wolf theory of civilization. Meme version: https://ibb.co/j4S2Lqw
Incidentally, I don't find these realizations particularly scary. Or, more precisely, I didn't find them scary 10 years ago when technology seemed to be moving ever forward, democracy seemed to be self-sustaining and the invisible hand of the market was doing its job. With all the hiccups and rifts that have opened up over the last decade, I'm getting less sure...
TL;DR most of the great rulers and conquerors of history were but glorified sociopaths.
Now, the West had a good run, because and to the extent it was able to keep sociopaths away from the levers of power (sociopaths being unablepr unwilling to use power for anything other than their own aggrandizememt), but that has come to an end. The Iron Law Of Oligarchy wins in the end. The difference is that the sociopaths now have infinitely more powerful tools available.
“Military service today may be seen as a low-status and distasteful profession — quite literally grunt work — but it used to be venerated deeply as a path to honor and a cornerstone of civic duty.”
I’m not sure whether to be offended that you’re punishing this on Memorial Day weekend, or just astonished at how ignorant your statement is. The military has lawyers, doctors, clerks, programmers, basically every kind of job. Warships are like small towns that have their own restaurant, recycling depot, power plant, dentist office, law office, machine shop, and the list goes on. There’s even “grunt work” like what I do working in a Manhattan skyscraper. Most of us in the military work in an office of some kind most of the time, and that’s true across all of the branches.
If your image of the military is just the infantry, then yes it is a lot of digging holes and extreme daily physical activity. But at least in the Army the combat forces are outnumbered by support troops at least 7 to 1 last time I checked. The infantry curiously has some of the highest IQ members who go on to achieve political success in civilian life, especially those who served as tier 1 operators (Navy Seals, Special Forces, etc), so it just doesn’t make sense to write that there is no public reward for military service. Although, one of the biggest reasons I’ve seen for people joining is to pay for college or to transition careers by getting paid to learn new skills. That’s more of a trade and less of a service, but everyone I know who wears a uniform has sacrificed something personal in relation to their service.
Americans are increasingly less and less patriotic, more selfish, and less grateful. Part of that relates to the presentism you wrote about in your article about the 1619 Project. Americans are more aware of past wrongs now and motivated mainly by a fight for what they consider to be just, and that fight tends to be domestic rather than international. If the youth these days consider the US to be fundamentally and irredeemably unjust then they won’t fight for its continued success unless things get markedly so bad that there’s no alternative. For better or for worse, the world we live in is defined by American hegemony and I’m personally proud to support that.
This might be an argument that proves too much. Washington had many contemporaries who were deeply opposed to slavery. Even some slave owners, famously including Thomas Jefferson, were deeply ambivalent about the institution and publicly grappled with its immorality: “I weep for my country when I reflect that God is just.” So while yes our values are contingent upon our circumstances to a degree, there is still a great deal of moral variance between people with shared material conditions. At any stage of human history, some people have held values out of step with their sociopolitical firmament, for better or worse.
This is what I call the well-fed wolf theory of civilization. Meme version: https://ibb.co/j4S2Lqw
Incidentally, I don't find these realizations particularly scary. Or, more precisely, I didn't find them scary 10 years ago when technology seemed to be moving ever forward, democracy seemed to be self-sustaining and the invisible hand of the market was doing its job. With all the hiccups and rifts that have opened up over the last decade, I'm getting less sure...
I can't recommend "Darwin's Cathedral" highly enough.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin's_Cathedral
Not read "The Secret of Our Success" either, but it sounds like a very similar thesis to "Sapiens."
TL;DR most of the great rulers and conquerors of history were but glorified sociopaths.
Now, the West had a good run, because and to the extent it was able to keep sociopaths away from the levers of power (sociopaths being unablepr unwilling to use power for anything other than their own aggrandizememt), but that has come to an end. The Iron Law Of Oligarchy wins in the end. The difference is that the sociopaths now have infinitely more powerful tools available.
“Military service today may be seen as a low-status and distasteful profession — quite literally grunt work — but it used to be venerated deeply as a path to honor and a cornerstone of civic duty.”
I’m not sure whether to be offended that you’re punishing this on Memorial Day weekend, or just astonished at how ignorant your statement is. The military has lawyers, doctors, clerks, programmers, basically every kind of job. Warships are like small towns that have their own restaurant, recycling depot, power plant, dentist office, law office, machine shop, and the list goes on. There’s even “grunt work” like what I do working in a Manhattan skyscraper. Most of us in the military work in an office of some kind most of the time, and that’s true across all of the branches.
If your image of the military is just the infantry, then yes it is a lot of digging holes and extreme daily physical activity. But at least in the Army the combat forces are outnumbered by support troops at least 7 to 1 last time I checked. The infantry curiously has some of the highest IQ members who go on to achieve political success in civilian life, especially those who served as tier 1 operators (Navy Seals, Special Forces, etc), so it just doesn’t make sense to write that there is no public reward for military service. Although, one of the biggest reasons I’ve seen for people joining is to pay for college or to transition careers by getting paid to learn new skills. That’s more of a trade and less of a service, but everyone I know who wears a uniform has sacrificed something personal in relation to their service.
Americans are increasingly less and less patriotic, more selfish, and less grateful. Part of that relates to the presentism you wrote about in your article about the 1619 Project. Americans are more aware of past wrongs now and motivated mainly by a fight for what they consider to be just, and that fight tends to be domestic rather than international. If the youth these days consider the US to be fundamentally and irredeemably unjust then they won’t fight for its continued success unless things get markedly so bad that there’s no alternative. For better or for worse, the world we live in is defined by American hegemony and I’m personally proud to support that.
I think Samuel Clemens stated it slightly more cynically and on a personal level, but the Corn Pone Theory of Principles applies here also.