Reconstructing History, Part 6: Culture, History, and the Future

Culture is a difficult topic. For some, any discussion of culture, especially looking at them objectively for the results they produce, is a third rail. I discussed this at length in Part 5—Does Culture Matter? of the Maskirovka series. Part 5 looks at cultural assessment. The other parts in the series are also good background, especially Part 6—A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Wrapped inside an Enigma which looks at the political and economic systems that are the heart of the movement to re-create history and a new future.

The Social Justice Warriors (SJW) want you to believe that all cultures have equal value—or at least the cultures they support and advocate. That is not true and never has been true. History shows clearly some cultures thrive, other get along, and some simply are failures. Some cultures value hard work and productivity, and some value leisure and are slower paced. SJWs and other social scientists have a low opinion of geopolitics in general, and cultural geopolitics in specific.

One of the cultural geopolitical generalizations is that cultures that arise where life is hard and food takes work tend to value hard work and productivity. Cultures that arise where life is easy and food plentiful tend to value leisure and have a slower pace. But then how to explain the difference between Eskimos, Laplanders and the Vikings? Physical geography and connectivity obviously flow into this as well. The Vikings, while in an inhospitable environment, had access to resources and decent farming land, so they evolved differently in the face of hard conditions. Their conditions were hard—but not too difficult. Jared Diamond discusses some aspects of this theory in Guns, Germs, and Steel. He won a Pulitzer Prize for it. His website uses the term “geographic determinism”.

Italy is an interesting case study. Northern Italy is alpine, and winters are cold, like Germany and other northern countries. Southern Italy is warm, and life is relatively easy. Northern Italy tends to be more productive and wealthier than southern Italy. There are periodic outbursts of separatism, as the northerners think they are carrying the less productive southerners.

So what does cultural geography/geopolitics and geographical determinism have to do with education and re-creating history? First, we need to understand that re-writing history is not about history per se. Rather, it is about breaking a path dependency (see part 1 and part 2 of the path-breaking strategy series) and creating a new future that is no longer dependent on path dependent futures. It is about changing the balance of power in society and who has control over the future and the allocation of societal resources. That is why the education institution focuses on re-creating history.

If they focus on the historical failings of society, they cast doubt on the society’s value and the factors that drive the society, such as culture, values, and governance. As the lead diagram shows, it is about controlling the narrative. Why?

First, the US is no longer a monoculture. It was probably never a true monoculture—immigrants brought culture with them even in the colonial era. But they were northwestern European initially and had much in common. As new immigrants arrive, such as my great-grandparents from Slovakia, they adopted the culture. The culture and values were why the immigrated to the US. The US became the Great Melting Pot and it absorbed cultural elements from all of its immigrants.

The new immigrants keep their own culture and there is a definite cultural clash. SJW, try to re-write American history to impose guilt on Americans and make them accept a many-cultured approach in the US.

Now, let us look at the Black culture. I am going to go out on a limb here and say the current Black culture is largely invented starting in the late 1960s. I can understand this. With Brown v. The Board of Education and other cases, plus the Great Society, Black Americans tried to embrace American culture and values and were largely rejected. The nature reaction is to reject that which rejects you. If true, Black culture is based on a rejection of traditional American values and culture. If a Black is doing well at school, they are often labeled as “acting white”. Same if they are trying to do well at work. Our cities, long controlled by the Black culture, are in ruins.

Going back to cultural assessment, the northwestern European culture is a hard-working, fast-paced culture that his highly competitive. The new cultures arising in the US are slower paced and less competitive. I know that sound harsh, but it is true. It does not mean the people in those cultures are less intelligent, it just means the culture is very different, and in a free market society, is not as competitive and produces lower results. When the Melting Pot was lit, this was not a problem as the new immigrants became part of the American culture and added their own flavor.

The Education Institution, however, sees this cultural clash and give and take as part of a history of “white privilege” rather than success. Therefore, the schools teach this concept of “white privilege” as part of 1619 Project and Critical Race Theory. They teach embracing the values of the new cultures entering the US and, rather than helping them to assimilate, they help them remain distinct and implicitly have greater value than the traditional American culture and values.

By re-writing history, they impose guilt upon the white Americans and force them to reject their own values that have led to so much success and prosperity.

Their goal should be objective history that helps correct the problems in society and leads everyone to a sustainable future of liberty and prosperity, rather than casting one group as villains and objectively discriminating against them.

Our Education Institution, which should be a bastion of critical thinking and ideas, is now a brooding fortress of one-way thinking. Academics and students that do not agree with this one-way thinking are branded and cast out. The brooding fortresses ban ideas that conflict with the new race-based approach that breeds guilt and self-loathing. All in the name of controlling the narrative to allow other cultures to gain the ascendency. As I discussed in part 3 of the Maskirovka series, this is essentially reverse cultural hegemony.

It is to set the conditions for follow-on changes and the Education Institution is at the forefront of this effort. It should be focused on raising the skills and abilities of all Americans rather than hobbling some and lowering the standards to promote “success” in other groups.

Instead, US education rankings keep slipping in global rankings, the standards for college admission keep falling and some SJWs consider mathematics racist.