Why the Anglo World is Collapsing
How the Dunces of Modern History Ended Up Being Us
Every age has a dunce. A society, or set of societies, that just don't get it. They don't learn history's lessons. They don't progress — they stagnate, and then regress, clinging desperately to failing ideologies, grasping at dead, obsolete ideas like a drowning person grasps at flotsam. But history's tide is unforgiving. It cares little for the fool who clings to the driftwood, instead of swims for the shore.
Every age has a dunce, and the dunces of this age, my friends, are us. You and me. The Anglos. I think that we have to confront a difficult truth. One that's especially difficult for me, as an Anglo, an English-speaker, and maybe for you, too. Our societies are not looking like they are going to make it.
Take a hard look at America and Britain. Do these seem like sane, enlightened, thinking societies to you anymore? Or just places where the most aggressively ignorant, cruel, and abusive rise to the top — cheered on by people who wish they were the most aggressively ignorant, cruel, and abusive?
Let's do a quick reality check about the state of Anglo societies. Britain and America are the only two societies in the world where the following things are true. Life expectancy is falling. Income is stagnant. People can barely make ends meet. I could go on. The point is very simple. Outside perhaps North Korea, these three things are true nowhere else in the world.
Anglo societies are collapsing, my friends. At light speed. Against all the odds — having become rich and powerful and even a little respected. Anglo societies are having the fastest, hardest, most ruinous collapse since the fall of the Soviet Union. The world is laughing in astonishment, glee, horror, and satisfaction. ("Build that wall!" Hey, dummy — don't you need healthcare?)
Do you need more "indicators"? Are you one of those people that needs "statistics" to tell you what is true about you are already living? Very well. Anglo societies are also the ones in which depression and suicide are soaring, in which trust has evaporated, between institutions and among people, in which social structures have collapsed, middle classes becoming a minority, a wave of new poor rising.
That is because Anglo societies were the only ones cutting investment in themselves. Did you know that schools in Britain are closing one day a week…because there's "no money"? Hospitals shuttering emergency rooms, for the same reason? Wait — how come there's always money for bank bailouts?
But at least Britain spent a few decades investing in itself. America never did — and the ruinous results are all too plain to see. America is a "rich" country in name only. Americans will never have the following things: rising incomes, savings, retirements, decent healthcare, a quality of life that the rest of the rich world takes for granted — just travel across an imaginary border to Canada and see how much better life is, in every imaginable way, from less crime, to no "medical bankruptcy", to a distinct lack of fascists in media and politics.
It's no surprise, then, that Anglo societies are also the ones in which extremism has raged to the very top of democracy, rendering it not really democracy at all anymore. Is Trumpism "democracy"? How about Brexit? Of course they are not. They are crude majoritarianism, self-inflicted catastrophe, the undoing of the pillars of democracy, as the enraged cry: "burn it all down! If I cannot have mine, I will take you down with me!" But why did Anglo societies make this mistake — austerity, nobody investing in anyone else, which then led to vicious extremism surging to the very top, destabilizing society?
Because Anglo societies have never really understood what democracy is.
Democracy is not me controlling, hurting, harming, or injuring you. It is me freeing you. Liberating you. To be, do, enjoy what? Greater happiness, trust, meaning, purpose, fulfillment, worth.
Now, this is the point at which I probably lose you. Anglos are trained to be so dumb, so uneducated, so dispirited, so Soviet, that by now, all that they can talk about is money. Shift to the ideas behind it, and bang! The Anglo mind shuts down. Hey, did you know Uber's about to go public!!111 No dollar signs — help! I don't know how to think! So I encourage you to read on—if only to challenge yourself. You can judge for yourself if anything I have to say matters.
That idea of democracy — me liberating you, expanding your freedom — might sound trivial to you. But the simple fact — the unfortunate fact — is that Anglo societies think and believe exactly the opposite. Maybe you don't — good for you. But you, like me, are in a distinct minority. How else would Britain have ended up…closing schools and hospitals? How else would Americans have ended up without healthcare and retirement? You see, if Anglo societies genuinely understood that democracy is me liberating you to achieve more happiness, security, meaning — more eudaimonia, in short, more of a truly good life — they wouldn't have denied each other precisely that.
But Anglo societies don't understand any of this. Their logic is as brutal as it is foolish as it is backwards. My goal in life is to maximize my own money, power, and control. And if that means taking away your happiness, purpose, worth, value, security — very well, so be it. In fact, all the better that way — me preying on you — because it proves how worthy I really am (but I'll get to that).
In other words, Anglo societies see eudaimonia itself as zero-sum — for me to have a good life, I must take it away from you. If I am to be happy, you must be unhappy. If I am to feel secure, you must be insecure. If I am to have worth, you must be worthless.
Where do we see that happening? Where don't we see it happening is the better question. Why else would a rich country close..schools and hospitals? Every aspect of Anglo life is shaped by the moral illogic of zero-sum gain now. That is why the crudest forms of social climbing have come to dominate culture wholesale — think of the false smile of the professional Instagrammer. It's the perfect example. I must establish my superiority. Look at my perfect life! But for me to feel the thrill of dominance in this way, I must make you depressed, envious, unhappy. Who is better off this way? Precisely no one is the answer — which is why depression has spiraled out of control in Anglo societies.
(I've given you a trivial example so far — Instagram envy. Now just extend it. What do our "best and brightest" — that tiresome, Social Darwinist phrase, do? The Ivy Leaguer and Oxbridge graduate go off to Wall St, or maybe Big Tech. There, they proceed to do absolutely nothing of real value, purpose, meaning, or worth. Maybe they become executives, or hedge fund managers. So what? They are hardly making great discoveries. They are selling ads. The only goal of this grim charade of progress is to pile up profit in fewer and fewer hands, by taking it, looting, extracting it from others. Hence, the Yale or Harvard graduate soon enough finds himself "raiding" pension funds, which is a polite way of saying: stealing peoples' life savings.
What the? Why are Harvard grads stealing people's life savings in broad daylight — and being celebrated for it? Because precisely the same moral illogic is at work. For me to have more, you must have less. You must have less than me — in every regard, power, money, worth, value — for me to have more. We cannot both have more — only one of us can win. And the one of us that is the strongest, the cruellest, the most abusive — he should be applauded, cheered, and adulated.)
Where does this insane, bizarre, upside down illogic come from? I'll answer that in just a moment. First let me spell it out a little more clearly at root, and then its roots will naturally reveal themselves.
Anglo thinking, the moral illogic which is , goes like this: I must be above you. Superior. Only then am I worth something. Then I am powerful. Then I can be valued. I am only worthy in precise proportion to my superiority — because no one has intrinsic worth. But if I am not above anybody, then I am nobody. If I am not in control of anyone, then I am not anyone. The only people I am better than are those who I have more money and power than.
Now see the flip side of this moral logic, which is where collapse comes from. If I do not dominate you, I myself am weak. You have dominated me. Life is either dominate or be dominated, predator or prey, control or be controlled, have power over or be powerless. Only the strong survive.
Thus, Anglos deny one another the most basic things of life — now, right down to schools and hospitals. Why would any sane person do that? The answer can only really be — because such people are seeking dominance over their neighbours. I must have more — therefore, you must have less. But that is not democracy, my friends. It is something just a shade away from the hatred that has come to rule these broken societies of idiots. It is tribalism and authoritarianism by any other name.
Hence, the only governing principle left in Anglos society is cruelty, abuse, violence. The most cruel, abusive, and violent win — and they win everything, taking more than 100% of the economy's gains, rendering life more or less unlivable for everyone else, who then rebel by wanting to burn it all down. The supreme are the ones who take what is theirs — and they can be no other way, because zero-sum moral logic dictates that I must take from you to have more for me. I must be a predator — or else I will be prey.
Do you see the roots of all this stupidity yet? They are the direct result of the moral logic of supremacy. Anglo societies invented supremacy — which then and today we call "white supremacy."
But they are being undone by the logic of supremacy applied to themselves too, now. You see, supremacy was not just the idea that the white man was superior — it was the idea that he was superior because he was the most rational, clever, ruthless, and strong. White supremacy, therefore, is a deeper idea in itself. Supremacy, period.
You can see supremacy very simply and clearly in two telling examples. Brexit — in which the Brexiter cannot be equal to the German or the French person or the Spaniard — but must rise above them. And in America's white middle class becoming a minority for the first time — and a tidal wave of racism, bigotry, and hate rising. Why? Because the American cannot be equal, you see. He must have someone to dominate, control, abuse. The problem is that today, that person is his neighbour, just as it is for Britain. Bang! Collapse — as a society eats itself.
Supremacy says that life is a battle, and the human being's job is to rise above the rest. But to rise above the rest — because they are all climbing, too — means pulling as many others as you can down. Because the higher you rise, the less room there is on the pyramid. Supremacy therefore selects for the most ruthless, immoral, indecent — the violent, abusive, and cruel — and calls them the "best and brightest." But they are not. They are just the most violent, abusive, and cruel. They are the "fittest", to be sure, in supremacy's terms — the ones who can do the most injury to others, and therefore reign supreme over them. But that is all they are.
Supremacy, in other words, creates predators — and then selects for the greatest, hungriest, and most vicious predators among them. You don't have to look much further than America's halls of power to see that. You don't have to look much further than Anglo culture to see it, whether work or play. You don't have to look much further than the concepts Anglo society's endlessly regurgitates — "grit", "reslience", today's latest codewords for being able to simultaneously receive pain, and give cruelty — to see it.
Anglos are inheritors of one of history's greatest mistakes. One of the human mind's most fatally foolish ideas. Supremacy. Supremacy was applied to white men, it's true. But as an idea, it has never really left Anglo society. They are still obsessed with, controlled by, governed by the idea of supremacy — that people are locked in mortal combat for meaning, purpose, happiness, worth, value, and nobody has any worth at all if they cannot dominate anyone else.
The reason that this idea is a mistake — why it has led to Anglo collapse — should be painfully obvious. If I am trying to pull you down, and you me — where can we go? If I am trying to take your happiness and meaning and worth away — and you mine — where do we end up? We end up racing to the bottom. We end up degenerating and atrophying, socially, culturally, politically. We end up stagnating economically, since all predators do is take — not create, build, imagine.
Anglo societies are in the predator's trap. Everyone in them is taught to contest everyone else for supremacy — but the result of this moral illogic, which is precisely equivalent to saying that no one has any inherent worth, no one deserves anything, everything in life is zero-sum — is that we waste our lives trying to kill one another, basically. No, really. What else does it mean when I take away your healthcare? Your kids' education? I'm denying him life, in the purest sense, am I not?
The rest of the rich world has learned the great lesson of history. That cooperative nonviolence is the hand of progress. Social democracy is based on that principle. And it's not a coincidence that social democracies are all forging ahead, whether Sweden or Canada, even in troubled times — while us Anglos are collapsing into the abyss. The abyss of what supremacy must lead to. Extremism, fascism, authoritarianism. All the things that are the opposite of democracy.
Democracy is me liberating you to enjoy more eudaimonia — more happiness, meaning, purpose, trust, belonging, intimacy, truth, grace.But Anglos don't understand that, and they never have. They seem incapable of understanding this beautiful and vital lesson of history, so true and full of grace. They don't to give one another more eudaimonia. They just want to give one another less, by taking it from each other, in an endless cycle of brutish, stupid violence. That is what supremacy demands, because that is how one proves one is superior. And the result of that can only be collapse, my friends.
Hence, our countries — English-speaking ones — have become global laughingstocks. Bad jokes, which the world gasps at, incredulous. We stand caught between an impossibility: humiliated by our worst, and embarrassed by our best. People do not respect us, nor should they. All that is why the world is torn between two responses to the self-inflicted collapse of the Anglo world. A kind of jaw-dropped laughter, at the sheer stupidity of us. And a kind of vengeful, satisfied gloating — after all, we are the ones who have kept them down for so long, toppling governments and poisoning their democracies. Only now we are doing it to ourselves. If I was them, I'd gloat, too — and call it karma, justice, retribution. Those Anglos have finally got theirs!
The world see the lessons of Anglo collapse that we ourselves don't and can't see. Supremacy, its desperate insecurity, its terrible folly, dividing the world into predator and prey, leads to collapse. Because if everyone's a predator, society eats itself. The world is beginning to learn this. But us? We are still the same old stupid, stupid supremacists — only now we are fighting to dominate and demean and destroy ourselves. That is why we are humiliated. Yet nobody has humiliated us but us. We are the idiots of history now, my friends.
Umair
March 2019
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