After reading yet another article on how the right is rising as a result of xenophobia, racism, latent sexism, islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and various other buzzwords that have become a mainstay of modern mainstream political reporting and journalism, I figured it was time to break down why the right is rising. It’s a complex issue, and “The Right” is a very diverse crowd. There are libertarians who wish to hold on to individual freedoms, and personal responsibility. People who find themselves exiled from the modern Republican party as a result of being largely classical conservatives, rather than Christian conservatives. There are Christian conservatives who find themselves disillusioned with mainstream conservative politics as a result of the focus on social issues over economic issues. There is a loose collective of the manosphere, free speech advocates and pro-gamergate, who find themselves on the right as a result of their fight against radical feminism and the authoritarian-regressive left and there are people like me, who find themselves on the right as a result of largely adhering to enlightenment philosophy, and classical liberalism. It is a very diverse crowd as far as perspective and ideas go. So, what are the catalysts for the growth of this movement?
The decimation of manufacturing in the West
Manufacturing was the backbone of the western economy since the industrial revolution, when the steam engine and various other industrial improvements lead to the death of agriculture as the primary industry and the growth of manufacturing. The manufacturing industry lead to the creation of the jobs that became the road to middle-class for large parts of the western population, the path to the white picket fence, 2.5 kids, and a wife lay with a solid manufacturing job. You could buy and pay off a house, a car, and send your children to college. In America manufacturing employees backed by strong unions, ensured that workers got great benefits and had a secure job. In the UK, it lead to an increase in public services, a higher quality of life and just like in America, a path to the coveted middle-class lifestyle [1]. As manufacturing, and thus the ability of large parts of the population to find a job that offers a good salary, solid benefits and job security has declined in most of the west [2] the growth of the service sector has increased. However, the major difference between the service sector and manufacturing is in three major areas:
- Education
- Labor vs Capital
- Social ability
Those service sector jobs that are available to the part of the population that lack an education, either in the form of certifications, a college degree or experience, are often low paying, with little to no benefits and job security. Many of these jobs are the reason for the growth of the group known as the “working poor“, who are largely clustered in retail (30%), services (37%) and sales (15%). The service sector, of which large parts of the jobs that lead to a middle-class income and lifestyle, require an education. Preferably a college level education, of which the cost has risen dramatically in the past 30 years. [5] Where manufacturing jobs had low barriers of entry, the service jobs that lead to a similar lifestyle offered by that of manufacturing have a much higher barrier of entry, both in terms of economic costs, but also in terms of ability to handle theoretical information, and cognitive abilities.
Finally, as Susan Cain [6] and many other authors have pointed out, the workplace is becoming increasingly reliant on social skills, especially in the aforementioned sectors where the working poor largely cluster. We can see this in the popularity growth of “emotional intelligence” [7] as a concept, and its ability to predict success in the workplace. [8] Add to it the plethora of policies that have been adopted by many companies, that can give cause for termination, related to political opinions, insensitive speech and decreasing size of the Overton window, and the change is well on the way to a collective and conformist society.
The widespread changes to the social contract, demographics and increasing heterogenity
Human beings have an innate need for stability, and a predictable ruleset, especially when it comes to governing the interaction of individuals (informal) and the individual and the state (formal). From the start of the 20th century, the world has become an increasingly small and interconnected place, especially since the second world war. On the state vs individual level, we have seen an increasing prison population and an increasing range of behavior become outlawed. The blasphemy laws are returning in many places in the form of hate-speech legislation and discrimination legislation. However, the major policies that have decimated communities are often identified as immigration policies in countries where integration has proven difficult. There has been a growth of parallel societies, for instance Molenbeek in Brussels, Rosenholm in Malmo where the population hold vastly different values, morals and perspectives than the native population. Furthermore, non-homogenous population is more likely to experience conflict [12]
From a resource perspective, having to split a joint pot of resources among more people, means less for each person. This is compounded when one views immigration through a cost-benefit analysis, on a purely economic level, where multiple reports show high financial costs related to immigration [9, 10]. This is without taking into account the cost of the current migrant crisis [11] A major part of the social contract in the western world is that the government taxes the population to pay for services the population desires. This can be viewed as a case of major risk-hedging and management, where the risk to each individual is reduced, in exchange for less volatility. For instance, paying 40% taxes when you are employed, to cover you for periods of unemployment. Or, everyone paying a certain percentage of their salaries to ensure that all of them have access to medical care in the case of illness.
The foundation of such as system is that all citizens within a given country, contribute towards those programs. It is a given, that some will cost more than they ever pay in, and some will pay in much more than they ever cost. However, this is understood and accepted among the population. When you add more people to such programs, who cost more than they ever pay in, that means less for the existing members. To put it in the simplest terms, if you are living in a tribe of 20 in the wilderness somewhere, adding another member will not happen unless that new member can make a meaningful contribution to your tribe.
Furthermore, a country either becomes better off, or worse off depending on how well a generation manages the resources left to it by the previous generation. Therefore, every managing generation has an incentive to ensure that their children and thus grandchildren are taken care of once the current managing generation hands the country over. Present costs, therefore means trading future benefits for present benefits, thus taking from your children and grandchildren.
The disruption of the family and communities
In earlier times the family was the cornerstone of the community, the larger community was viewed as consisting of smaller communities. With the destruction of the family that has taken place over the past 50 – 60 years, the effects of a more mobile population that is not tied to the land as it was during the agricultural period or resources and factories as it was during the industrial period. Furthermore, the average person moves frequently during their lifetime to find work, and thus will spend less time building ties to their community [13]. With multiple sets of parents, perhaps living in different locations, often far away from other relatives, it follows that communities become transitional rather than static. When you add to it diversity of culture and perspective, you also reduce the ability of those communities to bond over shared values. A community is built on an aggregate average of the values held by its members depending on influence.
With families breaking up, communities transitive in nature, adding to it that community size is drastically increasing from the traditional size to number in the thousands, how could it be tight knit? People may belong to a social group and find themselves ostracized the next, as the result of a social justice warrior attack, saying something inappropriate or in the case of divorce the peer group split or siding with the other party.
The destruction of the male
Every community needs a common enemy and for the past 50 years or so, no target has been more accepted than the male. He is the bumbling father who cannot do anything right, with the wife who has the patience of a saint who he is lucky to have found. He is the boogeyman of feminism, who has oppressed womankind since the dawn of time, who is most likely only kept from engaging in widespread rape-sprees because of consent classes. He starts all wars, is the cause of inequality, and the embodiment of the patriarchy. He started as the head of the family, the one who was respected for putting food on the table, for taking care of his family, who earned status for raising well behaved and productive children, for doing his duty to his country, and to his community. Now he is derided for only doing those things.
How is a man to maintain his self-respect when he is born in a politically incorrect state as a member of the only group that the west not only permits discriminating against, but actively encourages discriminating against? A boy is born into this world, and is entered into a school system that is built for and staffed mostly by women. A school system where girls are out-performing the boys, yet the narrative is that girls are the marginalized party [14]. That has a deficit of strong, male role-models, and where the natural proclivities of your boys are not encouraged. Where they will be diagnosed with things like ADHD and learning disabilities in much higher number than girls. [15]
If by a stroke of luck, the boy manages to get out of early education and into junior high without a diagnosis of ADHD and a drug regiment, then he faces a new challenge. Coming of age has always been a challenging time, but it is fairly recent that what many 30 – 40 years ago would deem clumsy behavior leads to suspensions, formal charges and could severely damage a boy’s future. This is when he will first learn that being sexual and being clumsy, is not acceptable in today’s school system. If by a stroke of luck he finishes high school with a decent GPA, without an ADHD diagnosis and without being hit with the “he made me feel uncomfortable” he now enters college, where during his freshmen orientation he is sat down in a “consent workshop” where he is told that if the woman has had a drink, she cannot consent and he is a rapist. If the woman decides that on second-thought, she didn’t really want sex, he is now a rapist. [16] Because feminists, tired of being laughed at when they say “all men are rapists” have decided to pursue a legal system where every man can be made into a rapist.
If by some miracle he gets through college without being hit with a Title-XI [17] and dragged through the proverbial coals by social media, power-hungry politicians, unethical and incompetent journalists, incompetent prosecutors and without having his life threatened [18, 19, 20] he will enter the workforce. A workforce where diversity initiatives, and their advocates will tell him how he is privileged, while merit no longer matters and his chance of making it up the corporate ladder is slimmer than ever.
The creation of the Sisyphus society
When he finally lands a job where he can pay the bills, feel some sense of satisfaction, and can actually feel secure, he has found himself a wife, had a couple of children and is starting to come into his own as a pillar of his community. He feels respected, and people ask his advice. He shows off pictures off his perfect family, in their home, on their boat, on vacations, and then suddenly he finds out that his wife is not happy. She is unfulfilled and wants a divorce. He is now stuck paying alimony, child support and at best he is back where was when he graduated college, in a small one-bedroom apartment, while his wife is cruising around India empowering herself on an “Eat, Pray, Love” tour.
He loses contact with his children over time, his wife remarries and now step-dad takes over most of the dad responsibilities, and thus he becomes a stranger in the lives of his own children. How can he become the best man he can be when there is no standard to being the best man possible?
Summary and conclusions
Comedians, pundits, newscasters and many others like to make fun of people who protest by either screaming or carrying signs with “I want my country back” and I suppose they are an easy target. You an make the joke “The country is still here!“, or make cracks about how they want to whip the country back into slavery, however, if you spend even a minute or two analyzing the situation, it is pretty obvious what they want.
They want back to a place where the social contract is more equitable, and where the politicians, the pundits, the “financial interests”, the “academics” and various others have not taken a machete to every step of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. A social contract where people won’t have to worry on Thursday if they’ll have a job on Monday because the boss decided to outsource everything to a low-cost country to beef up the bottom line to secure a huge Q1 bonus, even though their margins are still the best in the industry. A social contract that does not involve them having to take on $50.000+ in debt to get a college degree so they can get the job their dad got right out of high school.
A social contract where they actually know who their neighbors are, and where they can be a part of a community where they get to experience a majority pleasure.
For men, I think many of us would like a social contract where we are not constantly put in double-binds. If wives leave their husbands, it’s because the husband sucks. If the husbands leaves the wives, it’s because he’s having a mid-life crisis. If a husband takes care of his kids and his wife she leaves because he is predictable, boring and does not do it for her. If a husband seeks full custody, he is the bastard trying to take children away from their mother, if he does not he is a lazy parent.
If a man after studying relationship statistics, decides that women are just not worth the hassle and risk, then he is a perpetual virgin, if a man decides to pursue women as a life goal, then he is a “PUA” and a “fuckboy“.
The most retarded thing about the entire narrative regarding Brexit, Trump, AFD, NF, The Sweden Democrats, and the multitude of other right wing parties and processes that are taking place, is that the same idiots that have cause it are asking themselves “What the fuck happened?” and the simple answer is “you did”. You are the people who kept stacking the lumber, soaking it in petrol and flicking matches at it until it caught fire and singed your eyebrows off, then you kept doing the same thing.
The politicians that slowly and meticulously stacked the firewood, with policies that make it more profitable to produce in low-cost countries and ship merchandise across the globe, while building their own positions of power. The corporations with more dedication to their quarterly earnings than their long-term sustainability, with the revolving door CEO policy, ensuring that the only dominant force is “how can I maximize my stock options in 3 years or less” have poured petrol on the fire.
Finally, the press supposedly supposed to check politicians and corporate interest, but in bed with them so often and under such questionable circumstances that if they were a male college student after 2 drinks, they would be facing a title XI kangaroo court. Populism is rising, because every horse-trade, and deal done between globalist politicians and multi-national corporations have come at the expense of the common people, yet has been reported as beneficial to the common man by journalists owned by corporate interests and politicians.
This is why Trump is winning, this is why Nigel Farage is winning, this is why Geert Wilders, Marine Le Pen, and the right wing is storming forward, they are winning because the people have a shred of faith in their integrity and their interest lies with that of their own country.
If it wasn’t for Hanlon’s razor, I would put money on it being intentional.
Sources and references
[1] http://www.bls.gov/fls/flscomparelf.htm
[2] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-28/why-factory-jobs-are-shrinking-everywhere
[3] http://www.worldbank.org/depweb/beyond/beyondco/beg_09.pdf
[5] http://nces.ed.gov/FastFacts/display.asp?id=76
[7] https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/emotional-intelligence
[9] http://www.cream-migration.org/files/FiscalEJ.pdf
[11] http://fortune.com/2015/11/05/migrant-crisis-eu-europe/
[12] http://www.fsd.uta.fi/fi/aineistot/luettelo/FSD2588/bgF2588e.pdf
[13] https://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/how-many-times-the-average-person-moves/
[14] http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/05/the-war-against-boys/304659/
[16]http://www.independent.ie/life/are-sexual-consent-classes-a-step-too-far-34418518.html
[17] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_IX
[18] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_lacrosse_case
[19] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_on_Campus
[20] http://www.mindingthecampus.org/2015/06/did-mattress-girl-tell-the-truth-not-very-likely/
[21]
[22]
