I try not to get spittle-flecked about the Boomers, but …

(Thanks to Bryce for the link.)

Is there a single iota of conservative wisdom NOT contained in The Gods of the Copybook Headings? http://t.co/pZUIpUGV2e

— Outsideness (@Outsideness) June 23, 2014

Well, is there?

Anarcho-Monarchism asks: Is the word ‘capitalism’ worth defending? It concludes in the affirmative.

From the perspective of Outside in, however, this post misses the most crucial level of the question. Capitalism — like any ideologically contested term — is cross-cut by multiple meanings. Of these, its generic sense, which “simply means that private individuals own the means of production” is far from the most objectionable.

Yet, far more significant is the singular sense of capitalism, as a proper name, for a ‘thing’ or real individual. To grasp this, it probably helps to consider the word as a contraction of ‘terrestrial capitalism’ — not describing a generic type of social organization, but designating an event.

A biological analogy captures the distinction quite precisely. Consider ‘life’ — understandable, certainly, as a generic cosmic possibility, defined perhaps by local entropy dissipation, or other highly-abstract features. Contrast this sense with ‘terrestrial life’ — or, even better, the biosphere (we might say ‘Gaia’ if the hopelessly sentimentalized associations of this term were avoidable). Terrestrial life began at a definite moment, followed a path-dependent trajectory, and built upon a dense inheritance, as exemplified most prominently by the RNA-DNA chemistry of information replication, the genetic code, genetic legacies, and elaboration of body-plans within a comparatively limited number of basic lineages. Terrestrial life is not a generic concept, but a thing, or event, meriting a proper name.

Before it is an ideological option, capitalism is a being, with an individual history (and fate). It is not necessary to like it — but it is an it.

Panda-hugger Martin Jacques on the global tide:

A month ago, China overtook the US to become the largest economy in the world by one measure. By 2030 it is projected that the Chinese economy will be twice as large as America’s and larger than the European Union and America combined, accounting for one third of global GDP. This is the world that is coming into being, that we must learn to adapt to and thrive in. It is a far cry from the comfort zone we are used to, a globe dominated by the West and Japan: in the Seventies, between them they were responsible for two thirds of global GDP; by 2030 it will be a mere one third

During the preponderant part of the modern period, China’s civilizational competences were oriented to keeping the Pandora’s box of runaway modernization firmly sealed. Western intervention put an end to that, and the escape is now almost certainly irreversible. That is why, in broad outline, Jacques’ prognosis is correct. An accommodation to fate is in order.

(‘Doom’ — as tagged — means no more than fate, as we have begun to explain, or at least to explore.)

This might trigger something:

Perhaps I lack the imagination to do so, but I just can’t see Jewish feminists, homosexual restaurateurs, black power advocates, Chinese mathematicians, and Amerindian Aztec nationalists locked in any kind of permanent alliance against what they imagine anachronistically to be the WASP establishment. Their enemy has become diffuse and milquetoast, while the contenders for power and gain have at least as much that divides as unites them. I have every reason to believe these anti-WASP, anti-bourgeois activists don’t like each other very much even if they think they can use each other in a power struggle against an enemy that doesn’t show up. Over the years I’ve noticed the pervasive anti-Semitic prejudice among blacks, the revulsion for gays among blacks and Hispanics, and the escalating struggle for favor from government bureaucrats among blacks, Hispanics and Asians. The question is when these contradictions will overwhelm the system. I’ve no doubt they will in the end.

(If it doesn’t, that’s OK. It’s your call …)

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@RadishMag has found the troll-meme of the decade:

The US capital should not be named after some old dead cishet white male. Rename it "Obamagrad" — for great social justice! #RenameDC

— Karl F. Boetel (@RadishMag) June 20, 2014

The Zeitgeist demands that Cathedral Central be called #ObamagradDC #DistrictOfChavez (HT @williamsbk).

ADDED: Gregory Hood is in the zone. (This is where it began. See Karl’s comment below.)

… (the Middle East version):

Why can’t America be more like China?

(a) Stay out
(b) If you have to interfere, help whoever’s losing (but not too much)
(c) Recognize there’s an intricate theological argument going on that we can’t hope to understand:

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It’s not about white people.

Robert Zubrin’s intense (and appalled) discussion of Alexander Dugin’s revolt against the New Atlantis climaxes:

In short, Dugin’s Eurasianism is a satanic cult.

Despite inevitable NRO simplifications, it’s a gripping read throughout.

(Much of interest also in the obstreperous comment thread.)

ADDED: Gregory Hood on Zubrin on Dugin.

Richard Fernandez has written many brilliant things, so this might not — necessarily — be his greatest moment, but it’s the post most perfectly substituting for what this blog would want to have said. Discussing the prospect of impeachment proceedings against the POTUS, he speaks through the avatar of an imagined Republican senator, to say exactly what is needed:

And after we get rid of him, after a decent interval, aren’t we’re going to do again? This time with an historic Woman president, Asian president, Gay president? You really need never run out of Jonahs.

I say …

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