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Few people alive today in the West can remember a time when people were free to associate with whomever they chose. It requires some mental exertion to imagine a society in which a tavern or men’s club could legally exclude women, or a commercial enterprise could hire (or refuse to hire) a person for any reason it pleased—and nobody saw it as any of their damn business.
Though human nature can be suppressed, it usually manages to reassert itself in one form or another. “Birds of a feather flock together” and all that. People find workarounds. In our current world, an approximation of free association is most often achieved via narrowly-defined interest groups. If you establish a gun club, specializing in cowboy-style revolver shooting, you will probably not be bothered by the presence of too many woke lesbian illegal aliens. But this method is far from airtight, and one is always fearful of complaints, lawsuits, and other harassment. There are, however, a number of loopholes that are entirely legal. For example, the family business, which I believe is still exempt from certain kinds of interference. Another is the residential community with an “over 55” age restriction. Money certainly helps. If you have a lot of it, you can buy your way into association with a better class of people. You can live in the best neighborhood, send the kids to private school, etc. But this path is not what it used to be, as every word and action is under scrutiny. A path to free association that once saw widespread use in the U.S. was the ethnic enclave. Remember the tapestry of ethnic neighborhoods in New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and other large cities? The iron fist of “civil rights,” notably the destruction of neighborhood schools via forced integration, put an end to that culture. Once a common feature of American life, today a successful enclave requires extremely high levels of homogeneity and unity. The groups that can still pull it off include the Amish, Orthodox Jews, lower-class blacks, and various Asian nationalities. And let us not forget the Indian reservation, which is the gold standard of exclusivity. Strong communities and a true aristocracy cannot develop unless people are allowed to segregate themselves into micro-worlds, based on any number of parameters: education, political views, religion, wealth, to name just a few. The difficulty in achieving this detachment accounts for much of the reticence to form families. Free association manifests itself in effective separation between classes, and in social and occupational groupings that are composed exclusively of a specific human type. These types evolve and are maintained by means of closely-held traditions, and strict rules for recruitment. Naturally, the rules are set by the people within a given domain, not by the legislature. This ancient social foundation was largely in effect in the U.S. until the 1960s. In Western Europe, it lasted even longer. Today, we still have traces of this structure. Almost every field retains an image, however archaic, of its consummate type: the orchestral conductor with long, unkempt hair; the stocky, wisecracking taxi driver; the stoic, unflappable nurse; the absent-minded professor; the slimy salesman; and so on. Until recently, when you stepped onto a commercial airliner and peered into the cockpit, you were almost guaranteed to see two physically fit white men, former Air Force pilots, clean shaven, with short hair. This is the human type most suited to the task at hand. And it could develop and be sustained only under conditions of free association. Obviously, this logical and natural organization of society has been largely destroyed. This accounts for much of our dysfunction and chaos. However, as we transition back to a reality-based world (see my post of 2/10/25), perhaps free association will make a comeback. The dismantling of DEI and other forms of government meddling is an encouraging sign. This must continue until the entire “civil rights” edifice is demolished, to be replaced by a resurgent zeitgeist of liberty, and its corollary, a decentralized, spontaneous ordering of society.
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In one of my posts on the scamdemic (12/3/2024), I referred to the Orwellian phenomenon, “we have always been at war with Eastasia.” In other words, the astonishing capacity of the Left to reverse ideological positions at breakneck speed, and then act as if it had always been that way. Down the memory hole goes the old way of thinking.
In addition to the switcheroo on Big Pharma, who were upgraded from villain to hero, a prime example of this behavior is the treatment of the working class. Once worshiped by the Left, they were downgraded from heroes to Deplorables, and from there to Garbage. Below is a post that I wrote on this subject, on the original AWOL Civilization blog, in 2007. * * * The Redneck Paradox It has become common practice, in polite circles, to mock and deride a certain sector of American society. I am speaking of the ordinary working class, particularly those living far in the hinterland, and those with a strong attachment to traditional values. It is now de rigueur to launch blustering condemnations of this vague yet threatening tribe. People who would never dare utter a word of criticism against a minority feel perfectly at ease disparaging, often viciously, the enemy they alternately refer to as rednecks, white trash, Christian fundamentalists, holy rollers, or crackers. All of these labels blur into an image of the blue-collar guy in the pickup truck. Of course, the more that “tolerance" is preached as a general ideological position, the more vehement the condemnation of the working class. The blinders of political correctness have shut down the possibility of complaining about, or in some cases even perceiving, the real dangers and the really dangerous people. A substitute was needed at which to redirect the emotional energy. Not that there aren’t other targets; the same crowd inveighs against oil companies, Republicans, law enforcement, etc. The difference is that this particular target is composed of people who used to be the darlings of the Left. We’re talking about the proletariat! Who would have thought that the Working Man was destined to become an enemy of the people? But isn’t the Working Man supposed to be oppressed? Robbed of his labor’s surplus-value by greedy capitalists? One of the reasons for this twist of fate is that the Working Man represents one of the last bastions of traditional American values: he works, goes to church, has a family, owns guns, and believes in liberty (the horror). Also, he is less “educated," and thus less exposed and susceptible to the neo-totalitarian brainwashing that has rotted away the minds of much of our population. This resistance is resented by the high priests of collectivism. I realize that economic Marxism has been replaced by cultural Marxism, and local oppressed masses by Third World oppressed masses. But still, is it not ironic that our latter-day Marxists detest the proletariat? It’s the Redneck Paradox. |
Dystopian literatureWelcome to the blog! While you're here, check out the six dystopian novels by Gary Wolf. His latest is The Cubist Supremacy. 
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