Does Anyone Buy Books at Stores Anymore?

 

Shopping for Books and Reminiscing About the Old Way

Looking for books used to be fun, but there’s hardly any reason to go to the bookstore anymore. Of course I read digital copies too. They can be bought quickly and downloaded to a phone in seconds. But I like to hold the book, see the ink on the page and scribble notes in the margins. Our eyes get too much screen time as it is. I’m making an effort to buy more physical books again.

A New Era

I went looking for a copy of A Moveable Feast the other day. Hoping for a discount paperback, I shuffled into Barnes and Noble. It’s been a long time since I’ve purchased anything there. Used to be they had a section for $5 dollar books in a bin. Most were just hardcover copies of whichever Danielle Steele novel was popular years before, a lot James Patterson too. I could always find classics for cheap and in hardcover. Not that I need a hardcover, but it’s nice if you can find it. The bins are gone though. Instead we get racks of calendars, pens, penlights, bookmarks, phone chargers and other reading adjacent knickknacks. Often it's tchotchkes with no relation to the printed word (see above pic). I’m sure the margins are better on booklights than cheap paperbacks. 

I didn’t see any of those lap cushions with the flat wooden top for couch reading but I’m sure they were around.

B&N has a music side too. I realize this isn’t new. I’ve poked my head in a few times in the last few years, but I didn’t imagine they got rid of so much of what made it great. Instead of a messy, bustling place full of families it’s become a minimalist version of itself. Neat shelves with sharp white font letters on dark green backgrounds advertise the genres while large posters of the classics (Ulysses, Homer, The Grapes of Wrath) populate the walls. You can still hear the café blender whirring on occasion. They’ve taken out half the tables so the sound of wooden chairs being slid into place isn’t as frequent either.

A Former Life

The grit is starting to set in the way it does with old stores. The floor tile has gone from white to off-white and the carpets are threadbare in well-tread spots.  

 They haven’t overhauled the way Radio Shack did years ago. Radio Shack saw that consumer electronics were going the way of waterbeds and cassette tapes, there was less interest every day. They tried to stop the bleeding by reimagining their mall stores. They managed a funny Super Bowl ad in 2014 about their 80’s image. In the end it wasn’t enough. Borders, my favorite, went bankrupt in 2010 as well. There wasn’t anything special about Borders but I like the location here in Tulsa. I spent time doing homework a few nights per week in the café.

There was always a group of D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) gamers occupying a corner of the same café. I wanted to complain about the noise but how could I? It’s not let any of us were paying customers. I never bought anything but tea either. Borders never sold much as far as I could tell. I’m starting to see the problem.

Although closer geographically, it always felt like a ‘us too’ version of Barnes & Noble. They decided on Seattle’s Best coffee instead of the superior Starbucks. No one picks Seattle’s Best over Starbucks unless you can’t get Starbucks.

Once digital readers hit the market in 2007, Borders said enough. I’m not sure it was this reason alone but it was clear by this point they couldn’t compete with yet another slap in the face from Amazon. First they offered books for a fraction of the price, then they digitized the experience. Although Books A Million (BAM!) never had one either and they’re still around. Amazon’s Kindle captured the market and only B&N created their own line of e-readers. I have one lying around somewhere. It wasn’t the fancy color one that loaded the page correctly every time either. The black letters were hard to see on the hazy yellow backdrop. The buttons weren’t responsive either. I’d finish a page and hit the button to turn, nothing would happen. I tried again, nothing. Then I mashed it hard and it jumped 20 pages ahead. This happened frequently and I eventually gave up on it, tossing it in the drawer next to my Borders café punch card.

An Unexpected Turn

It's no secret what happened to the book sellers across the country. It’s the same thing that happened to Radio Shack, Circuit City and Toys R Us. Amazon took them out to the pasture like an old mare with a broken leg and put a bullet in them. Online shopping is what we wanted and it’s what we got. Besides, even B&N has an online option. It’s probably where all their $5 books are if they still even exist. It feels like Barnes & Noble is on in the twilight of its operation. I don’t pretend to know what their financials are, but I can’t imagine they’re selling enough in the stores to stay viable. Maybe they’re killing it online, enough to save the stores. If so, it doesn’t make sense to keep the stores afloat. You’d think a handful of warehouses would work better.  

If you grew up in the 90’s you assumed the mega book stores would grind the small sellers into the ground and ruin their business. Nothing typifies this better than "You’ve Got Mail" with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. That movie pulled a clever trick on us. It pretended to side with the ‘mom & pop’ seller (Ryan) while actually softening the corporate view (Hanks). But the business dynamics turned out to be something different. Big stores did put small ones out, but also the internet and ecommerce happened. It opened the door for big stores to be dragged out to the pasture in the same way the mom & pops were.

 I’m partial to Barnes & Noble. I worked there one Christmas season for extra money. They bought a large space at the local mall and punched out a wall for access inside and out. We seemed to be marking down older titles constantly and filling every empty space with book displays. The busyness eventually waned when January came around, but it never needed a music section or a Pokémon rack.

Conclusion

But times change and companies do what they must. I’m reminded of a quote from a character in Hemingway’s bull fighting classic The Sun Also Rises.

“How’d you go bankrupt?”

“Two ways, gradually, then suddenly”

I imagine the “slowly” part of bankruptcy is what you see coming, fewer customers and similar competitors. The “suddenly” part is what you don’t see, eCommerce and e-readers. I hope people keep going to book stores but I wouldn’t blame them if they didn’t. Will we miss them when they’re gone?

I did eventually find that copy of A Moveable Feast in paperback. At nearly $20 bucks I thought better of it and walked away. I’m sure Amazon has a copy for less.

 

  

Fall Class on 1 Corinthians: Reflecting on Culture

 

Critical Thinking and Biblical Studies: Paul and the Corinthians

I’ve been reading 1 Corinthians for the last two weeks.

 I’ll continue to be in that book for ten more weeks. Every fall we have a chance to enroll in classes that cover books of the Bible. We read selected portions and answer questions. Usually it’s just one or two chapters. I’m familiar with 1 Corinthians, but not about the culture in that community in Greece. The deep dive into cultural attitudes of the people is probably the biggest thing I’m learning. It’s the historical part of the bible that doesn’t always come through in the reading. History and culture animates so much of the Scriptures that we often miss the full context of a verse.

Historical Foundations

I find history to be endlessly fascinating. Not everything needs a two hour documentary or a 700 page book, but context is critical. I watch documentaries to learn about some unknown part of the country, industry or person. Those sports docs always suck me in. ESPN did one called The Last Dance, highlighting Michael Jordan and the Bulls. Ostensible about the final championship season, it recapped the Jordan years since the Bulls drafted him from North Carolina in 1984. There was a lot of new footage of the team on road trips and during practice. Everyone loved it too. I’m sure it was one of their highest rated documentaries of the year. 

I’ve watched a lot of boring shows too.

I started one about the travel cruise industry and turned it off after 20 minutes. Despite the logistical miracle of running a cruise line, it was less exciting than watching the crew eat lunch together. This is a reference to a Gene Siskel metric about films. If you’d rather watch a documentary of the same actors in the movie having lunch, it’s too boring. There was a way make it fun, but they missed. Get a charismatic host next time and have them walk excitedly from room to room and drop nuggets of information. Instead, they used a narrator who sounded like he was reading a recipe for wheat bread. Not all history shows are created equal. I can see some people thinking the Bible is boring too. But with the right teacher, curriculum and context, it wouldn't be.

Cultural Foundations

I’m not the type you have to convince to read, but a lot of Christians are. My hope for those who don’t like to read, is that the culture of Greece during the Roman empire will spark curiosity. Anything that puts the letter of Paul into a helpful construct, makes us understand the scriptures a little more. It also shows us how these issues people dealt with (pride, sexual promiscuity, greed) are still present today. The world isn’t as different as we imagine. Human nature is sinful in any age. That’s important, or we might think our issues are those of a ‘sophisticated’ society.

Sophistication is where the theory of human evolution shows up in modern life. It posits the idea that we evolve to higher states of consciousness the same way we escape our primitive bodies. First we swam then we crawled. Now we walk upright, discard our silly ideas about a spirit world and seek utopia. The world is as corrupt as it was in the time of Christ. History helps us put our life and times into a larger context.

The opposite problem is that we see the scriptures only through the lens of the time in which they were written.

Philosophical Foundations

It goes, Paul’s warnings to the Corinthians were for those people at that time. We shouldn’t read too much into the relationship between their sins and ours. Sure, we can read his words and get a better sense of his instructions and scolding. But we have different ideas today about women in society and slavery. It's not a parallel reading.  

But leaning too heavily on history can contextualize the meaning away. The way to read the Bible is both in its time, and existing as a guide for today. The word of God existed in the past and present, it carries the same impact into the future.

America needs to bring back the importance of the Bible as a common book. What I mean by “common” is connected at all levels of society. Cultures need values that work across all levels. The Bible used to serve that purpose. Even non-religious people (in Anglo societies) realized the underpinning of the Bible on law, medicine and philosophy. George Bernard Shaw, socialist playwright, and G.K Chesterton argued different sides on much of the philosophy of their day. Both were raised in a British society where the Bible formed the basis of cultural learning. Shaw had to undercut belief in God in an established Christian society. He was a radical among the common classes.

Today, Chesterton would be the one arguing against the established humanism of the day. The schools are steeped in postmodern thought and churn out students with that worldview. This means science, medicine and law have been remade into something closer to the views of Shaw than Chesterton. This is in part, because we don’t study the Bible anymore. We’ve let the post modernists tell us that it can’t be rightly understood because of author bias. Once you’ve broken down the importance of scripture for social cohesion, it gets relegated to churches and parochial schools only. Then, in debates on ethics or education or scientific theory it gets treated like astrology, mysticism.

Conclusion

I think the world is ready for another renaissance. We need a new age of enlightenment, one that’s focused on the Light of the World. The twentieth century and the twenty first, have seen enough selfish philosophies to turn us inward for the rest of time. It’s time for critical thinking again. The apostle has something to say about it: “Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, ‘He catches the wise in their own craftiness’ and again, ‘The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile’.” I Corinthians 3:18(NKJV)

Labor Day Monday or Run Day

 

Celebrate The New Bridge With a Run: Tulsa's Gathering Place

Today is Labor Day, September 2, 2024. 

I started with a long run this morning because the weather was nice. It was 68 at the start and only went up a few degrees at most. Moisture and humidity weren’t a big issue today, but usually are in the summer. I’m not clear on which metric is the one I should pay attention to for jogging. Is it humidity or dew point? I finished very sweaty, but I’m sweaty in the winter too. I had enough oxygen to do all 12 miles of the loop, thanks to the cooler temp. I went to the river.

New Bridge New Pathway

Tulsa’s Gathering Place just got a lot more popular this weekend. It’s always a big draw anyway, but this weekend they finished the pedestrian bridge that goes from the park to the electric company across the river. I should've taken a picture. This under-construction image is all I could find online. It’s been closed for years. I have only the vaguest memory of the old bridge that connected the bike path on the east side to the west side, across the river. This time they put in a new dam and a slick walking bridge with a giant bend in it. The west side of the river is lower than the east. To compensate, the new bridge contains a gradual drop from the east bank which is roughly 30 feet higher. I think we can expect the Tulsa Run to incorporate some of the new paths this year.

The new look along the river meant new walking paths on both sides. The pedestrian bridge is part of the Gathering Place project. The largest phase was completed 7 years ago and is as popular as ever. I don’t have the statistics to back it up, but I can promise that foot traffic has increased along the river since. I wasn’t jogging much back then, but it’s the kind of place that demands to be seen. I made a lot of trips to and from there when I drove for Uber. Visitors to the area want to see it as well.  

Old Bridge Old Memories

I moved here in 2008 and made a few trips to the river path before The Gathering Place became a mega attraction. Back then, the Riverwalk in Jenks was a popular spot. I enjoyed sitting along the scenic patio and smoking cigars until late in the night. The half dry riverbed always seemed unnecessary. Why can’t they keep enough water in it? I wondered. I’m hardly an engineer though. Does it make sense to keep the water flowing for purely aesthetic reasons? Probably not. But enough people thought the same thing and so the city has begun managing the water. 

That pedestrian bridge has a new dam underneath it; it also feeds the newly created kayak park. Not to mention, the upstream part of the river now is filled with water again. It’s enough to start hosting raft races and rowing sports.

New Future New Activities

The Arkansas river will never be deep enough for water skiing or boats with motors. But kayaking and canoeing are on the horizon. I saw a few people on those standup surfboards things that you paddle with a big oar. It’s more than we had before and based on the number of people out at the river, it’s something we’ve been waiting for. To me the most important reason for the water is still the aesthetic one. No one wants to stare out at a sandy bottom creek bed while blowing out rich cigar smoke from their Partagas. I’m not one to ask about the cost or the practicality. I guess it’s one of those quality-of-life things that’s hard to slap a price tag on.  

These are things you think about when you have time to jog in great weather and notice your surroundings.

Today, I started at my usual 41^st street parking lot on the east side of the river and ran toward 71^st. Then, across the river at 71^st and up toward Turkey Mountain. There was an organized race happening when I passed through. I saw Fleet Feet banners and a finish line. I guess they were using the trails though, because I had a clear shot down the path and toward the "sh*t factory". It’s a crude description, but also accurate. The path goes right through the sewage treatment plant. Some days I have to hold my breath. 2 miles or so past that is the soccer fields and a detour I used to use because of the work being done on the new pedestrian bridge. I didn’t use the detour this time. It’s open again. The trail runs into the newly added paths on the west side.

Conclusion

At this point I thought about crossing over the new pedestrian bridge. It’s only been open for a day after all.  But instead, I opted to stay on the west side and cross at a farther point. I had a little steam left in the tank and felt like pushing it. When the weather is great and you don’t have a plan for the day, push a little more. That’s my motto at least. Lately it’s been too hot and I’ve been exhausted, also lazy. A cooler morning like this is just what I needed. And what a day for it.

Happy Labor Day (2024) Tulsa!!

All the Light We Cannot See: Book Review

 

Protecting Humanity and Living Through War

I enjoyed this book for its rich descriptions of the war mindset and the loss of place that pervaded the world during this time. At its core, it’s a story of how beauty, truth and humanity must be protected in dangerous times. War’s anti-human nature demands an all-consuming drive toward a common goal. World War II isn’t unique in this, but because of the Nazi push toward control it feels that way. All the Light We Cannot See shows humanity as the hidden, protected thing we value most.

Setting

The author Anthony Doerr does this in a few ways. First, in the person of Marie-Laure and her position as a protected store of value. Second in the character of Werner, the orphan with a technical mind that impresses a senior level Nazi officer.

We know about the ugliness of war, it’s everywhere in the bombed cities and starving citizens. But also the beautiful and transcendent exist in the midst of it. It’s never completely destroyed despite the best efforts of conflict. Beauty must be kept hidden though. It’s too important to treat casually.

Such is the story of the Sea of Flames diamond from the museum where Marie-Laure’s father (Daniel) works as a locksmith. He’s detailed to a fault and skilled at hiding small objects in models he builds. He does this for his daughter, who is blind, and prides herself on unlocking the secret hiding spot for trinkets. He creates miniatures of the city she lives in, first Paris and then Saint Malo. It’s a practical game designed to teach her how to find her way by counting drains in the street.

Separation

They are forced to flee Paris as the Germans threaten to take over the city. They hide out with her uncle, Daniel’s brother Etienne, in the coastal city of Saint Malo in France. He’s a recluse who hasn’t stepped outside his mansion since the Great War. He was a radio broadcaster who sent signals across the country with his massive transmitter. Etienne is a picture of the loss and devastation of war. His broadcasts are meant to communicate with his brother who was killed in the Great War. “…I thought that if I made the broadcast powerful enough, my brother would hear me. That I could bring him some peace, protect him as he had always protected me.” (page 161).

Etienne’s radio becomes a transmitter for the French resistance despite his initial reluctance to have any part of it.

Werner and Jutta are brother and sister at an orphanage in Germany who hear the educational broadcasts Etienne created before the war. Werner is an orphan in Germany with a gift for assembling radios and fixing broken parts. It’s a skill he parlays into a position at a school for kids from connected families in the third Reich. The school prepares kids for battle and separates the soft kids from the tough. It’s here that he again, distinguishes himself as an intelligent pupil and gets special placement with an officer who devices a way to triangulate radio transmission and find the location. 

Through Werner’s school experience he sees the cruelty of a wartime footing. The sensitive souls are beaten in submission by the pliable. It’s a necessary transition that turns Werner’s stomach, for a while. His sister Jutta’s voice, the voice of conscience against the Nazi regime.

Arrangement

The book was written by Anthony Doerr in 2014. He got the idea to set the story in Saint-Malo (France) after visiting the city and marveling at how, despite its drastic reconstruction since the war, it still looked ancient. He alternates characters throughout and uses short chapters to keep the reader engaged. I don’t know why this works better than long chapters but it seems to. The story jumps forward and backward a little bit, but never gets confusing. We instinctively understand the timeline and the characters’ places in it. But there is pain, loss and unanswered questions. 

We all like a tidy wrap up with novels but we don’t get always get them. Such is the case in war. It’s grief, acceptance and then new beginnings. Doerr wants us to feel the unfairness and the uncertainty of life on a daily basis.

Characters

The museum that Daniel and Marie-Laure in Paris sent one courier with the famous Sea of Flames diamond to hide it from the Nazi treasure hunters. They also sent multiple fakes. The idea being, no courier is sure which of them carries the real thing. But all are required to hide it. Von Rumpel is the Nazi collector who searches for the diamond after failing to get it from the museum in Paris. He represents the banality of evil and how greed destroys the soul. He's not inherently evil, he loves his family but becomes obsessed in his pursuit and it overtakes him.  

Another character that undergoes a significant change is Frederick, a student at the school Werner attends. He’s a gentle soul with the mind of a scientist. School is very difficult for him. He’s not as athletic, or brutal as the others. Although he is pragmatic about the difficulty, the training is designed to create warriors not scientists. He’s not up to it and the kids are merciless toward him. His character represents the death of innocence and wonder. Only cold killers are allowed to go forward. If you’ve seen Full Metal Jacket, you’ll think of Vincent D’Onofrio’s Private Pyle.

Conclusion

All the light's theme is the connection we seek to those around us, and how we survive without becoming monsters. The “light” we can’t see is about the humanity that animates all people. We can’t see it in war. Our objectives are to survive and protect. In the same Marie-Laure can’t literally see, war closes off our ability to see beauty and worth in others. It closes off our ability to explore for the sake of learning about the natural world. What kind of life would Werner lead if not for the school and the war? But even in the darkness, light gets through. Marie-Laure still reads her braille books and learns about radios from her uncle and problem-solving skills from her father. She represents the light of humanity even without the ability to see.

It's over 500 pages but reads very quick. I recommend it with the caveat that it’s quite dark in spots. Never gratuitous, but the entire story is set in wartime and that mean death and man’s inhumanity to man.

Shen Yun Get's Unfairly Targeted by NYT

 

China’s Influence on America’s Media Giant

The New York Times did a hit piece on the American dance company Shen Yun. Like most hit pieces, it’s unfairly negative but with a hint of truth. But Shen Yun’s faults are beside the point. The attack by the NYT is illustrative of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) influence on American media. China uses agents living in the United States to go after their political enemies on our own soil. Shen Yun is emphatically anticommunist and as such, faces attacks. They tell the truth about the repressive regime and its organ harvesting against members of the Falun Gong. Expressed in dance and music and colorful imagery, the performers travel all over the world spreading their message.

Pressure Abroad

The CCP makes it their mission to go after Chinese democracy dissidents, living in the US. Last year, two men were arrested in New York for allegedly running a foreign police station and going after Chinese who had fled Beijing’s oppression. They threatened their families both here and abroad. In 2018, the same station, allegedly coerced another Chinese citizen to return to the country or risk having their relatives killed. These stations operate through non-profits a lot of the time. That’s the word from the legal NGO Safeguard Defenders at least.

In this case, the non-profit responsible for the police station in New York is called American ChangLe association. A second case, filed in Los Angeles accuses two citizens of the PRC of trying to submit a fraudulent whistleblower complaint against US members of the Falun Gong. Both men, who lived in Los Angeles at the time, pleaded guilty. This was less than a month ago. In America we’re used to seeing coercion tactics among foreign countries in China’s periphery. In South Korea, the Chinese government has put pressure on Seoul to revoke Shen Yun’s charter. Diplomatic pressure is what they specialize in. Attacks on our own soil are becoming more frequent however.

Not a Lot Here

Why is the hit piece on Shen Yun illustrative of China’s influence in our own country? Because it shows me that the Times will go after an American company over the silliest of complaints, at the behest of a big rich country.

The article is loaded with complaints that could’ve come from any American football team or Olympic wrestling program. I was forced to play through injuries. Coaches/teachers were pushy and demanding. They said I didn’t have heart and I needed to loose weight. They embarrassed me in front of my peers.

 Elite sports is highly demanding and stressful. These are athletes, not accountants. It’s a grueling life that most of us aren’t cut out for. The physical and emotional demands have to be high or the performance suffers. But sure, they probably overlooked legitimate injuries and forced people to perform hurt. Again, all within the realm of pro sports. It doesn’t feel like enough of a problem to warrant an “investigation”.

Cult or Legit

I’ll acknowledge a few differences here. Falun Gong is the quasi-religious philosophy that underlies Shen Yun. And yes, it's culty. An enigmatic leader (Li Hongzhi) who's followers study his teachings in a compound and use meditation to achieve enlightenment? That's basically cult behavior 101. But before the group was declared illegal (1999) they had close to 100 million adherents. That’s more mainstream religion than cult. But after they silently protested against the government in Beijing, the hammer dropped.

The CCP hates challenges to its authority more than most. After that big protest in 1999 it was open season on Falun Gong believers.. Always a non-violent movement, they were tossed into prison and summarily beaten. The organ harvesting came after that. It’s not hyperbole either, this really happens on a massive scale. I don’t care how nutty your religion, surgically removing your vital organs after putting you under anesthesia is demonic.

Another thing about the NYT article. As a Christian I know how crazy some of our beliefs sound to non-believers. The idea that God created the universe in 6 days is one; that same creation was saved from a flood by hunkering down in an ark with 2 of every animal is another one. I’m not making a moral equivalence here. But we live in a country that doesn’t restrict religious belief or practice. I’m not sure if the adherents of Falun Gong would consider it a religion anyway. What is clear however, is that their message of “truth, compassion” and “tolerance” is best understood through a Shen Yun performance.

Historical Sideline

I see a lot more of the Shen Yun ads than most people. I read the Epoch Times, a principle financier of the show that’s trying to reinvent Chinese culture around the world. They aren’t reinventing it, so much as taking it away from the CCP (Chinese Communist Party). Ever since the 1960’s, Chinese culture has been defined by whatever the communist party says it is. Under Mao Zedong, history that didn’t promote workers rights and revolution was destroyed by the Red Guards. Capitalism was a filthy poison from the West (enemies) and only through revolution could the country purify its sordid past. That meant the resources, education and social constructs began servicing the communist party. The wealthy were sent to labor camps or shot. Agriculture was organized under strict social controls. The ideas of Marx were put in place at scale. Millions died.

Art and culture meant ugly labor posters and propaganda that pushed collectivization. After Mao’s death the CCP moved away from total control and started seeking foreign investment. Private companies began to pop up, although sharply controlled. Chairman Deng Xiaoping set much of the country on a path toward prosperity, if not liberalism. He cracked down hard on democracy advocates, as did Zhang Zemin who followed Deng. He, more than any other Chinese leader, persecuted the Falun Gong movement.

Media Matters

Li Hongzhi fled the country for America. He's been waging ideological war on the communist party ever since. As to the hit piece on his efforts, the Epoch Times thinks the article is a gift to Beijing. I understand they’re biased. They’re a part of the same family of financers trying to undercut the CCP around the world. But it’s also probably true. American and British newspapers are constantly getting kicked out of China for exposing this or that. Or, for writing critical stories about party functionaries. Maybe they’ve run afoul of the Chinese government enough times to offer a quid pro quo in the form of a nasty article on Beijing's enemy.

The CCP’s influence has grown in so many other sectors in America, why wouldn’t it also affect media? It’s not just propaganda, in other words, messaging that tells the CCP’s version of history. The China Daily and other social media sites serve this purpose because they’re owned by the party. It’s also censorship of articles that makes the party look bad. They can put pressure on the ownership to make a story go away. Or pay to get an investigation started on enemies, like Shen Yun and the Falun Gong. This is probably what happened with the New York Times.  

Conclusion

Whatever one thinks of Shen Yun and the Falun Gong and the Epoch Times, they are a major irritant to Beijing. When you think of China, does your mind go to Mao Zedong or the Cultural Revolution or the Tiananmen Square Massacre? Does communism loom large in your mental map of the country? I imagine this is what Shen Yun wants to change. If they can untether the CCP from the cultural history of the place, they’ll make people understand what a tragedy communism is. The culture of the place is still defined by the communist party. It wasn’t always.  

Conformity Kills Creativity: Challenge Group Think Everywhere

Conformity Must be Defeated in Modern Life and Institutional Thinking

I was thinking about conformity the other day. It’s one of those amoral words where context is everything. It’s necessary for armies to take ground and high school football teams to score touchdowns. Ego is a killer in team sports. The unit is supreme when selfishness is kept at bay. It’s a disaster in the creative arts. Ever see the Chinese Communist propaganda posters from the Cold War era? They’re drab and one dimensional. It’s all “duty” and “labor” and “service”. It resembles religion because it has to. The input from free peoples isn’t wanted. Democracy is for capitalist dogs.

Conformity is terrible for ideas as well. After years of doing things one way it becomes tough to change. Institutions become entrenched in protecting themselves instead of creating new, better ways, to innovate. It’s true in corporations as well as government offices. As members in a social contract, however, we deserve to have a functioning state. But if it’s functioning specifically against the interests of the citizens, it’s time for change. Americans overwhelmingly wanted border security when George W Bush was president, also when Obama was elected. We never got it because Washington didn’t want it.

Conformity crushes opposing voices and popular concerns.

Changing Views

 In large part the way I read news has changed. A regular Economist subscriber for over a decade, I finally canceled my subscription around 2017 or 2018. They were very unfair to Trump. Not because he’s a Republican either. I’m used to them dumping on Republicans. With Trump it was especially nasty. He was clearly an outsider within the normal range of political animals and globalists hated him with a fierceness. I wasn’t on board with Trump at first. As a general rule I hate braggers. But I hate liars even more. Washington is full of liars. They wanted cheap labor and a dependent class from an open border. They didn’t care about the “huddled masses yearning to be free” like they told us.

 For whatever DJT’s sins as an exaggerator, he stood out as someone speaking truth to a corrupt cabal. I would’ve snickered at the phrase “corrupt cabal” before 2016 but now it’s as obvious as the border crisis.

Compromising Views

I’m of two minds on the idea that all politicians are compromised by some hidden fault or sin. Every corner of America sends representatives to the House and Senate. No matter their background or values, they mostly end up voting the party line. I don’t mean the partisan line either, I mean the D.C. groupthink line. Many of them are compromised.

The rest though, just want to be liked in their circles of influence. Peer pressure gets us all at some point. Why would we think it’s different in the nation’s capital? I heard Thomas Massey of Kentucky say something like this on Tucker Carlson’s show. Could he be downplaying the blackmail? Of course. He can’t exactly say the people he works with everyday are all crooks and perverts. He can’t possibly know anyway. Rumors are just rumor.

But I think his assertion is largely true. For the truth on why so many representatives end up voting against their previously stated principles, look to Occam’s Razor.

Peer pressure is the least complicated answer. We all know how powerful this can be when we think of high school. It’s only the most unique kid that charts a course of their own making, aside from any outside influence. Even that kid will feel pressure in some areas of life.

Changing Narratives

Conformity is so powerful and so simple that we often don’t consider it when trying to understand why our rep voted the way they did. That they caught him with a prostitute is a more complicated explanation, even though it happens. Ask Trump what it’s like being the most hated man in government circles. People all over the country used to love him. He was the “You’re Fired” guy from TV. He taught New York City how to rebuild old towers and make them prosperous again. He donated money to the Democrats and bought and desegregated Mar a Lago.

Now he’s Hitler.

He told Americans that China was ripping them off and that Washington D.C was in on it. He ran on border security because it mattered to the rest of the country. He blasted his enemies from his Twitter bully pulpit. He played the populist with such zeal it scared established politicos. Then he won. A wealthy brat from Queens who never missed a chance to promote himself, won. He’s been a target since then. From lawfare skullduggery to an assassination attempt, they want him gone. Trump doesn’t conform.

I won’t pretend that all of his qualities are beneficial to him or the country. But he plays offense. He attacks and pushes and forces. Because of this the Economist depicted him with a KKK hood for a bullhorn and implied he was spewing racism. I’d had enough by then. It showed me how closely aligned Big Media had become. Was ABC or NBC saying anything different?

 The similarity at least suggested the same playbook across media companies. White patriot who hates unchecked immigration, “racist”. Minority progressive who hates our Christian heritage, “patriot”.

Magazines can have their working biases and points of view, but why do they all take the same antagonist view of Trump? No one at the Economist could make a fiscal case for a secure border?

Conclusion

It's just one example where I started seeing collusion, or at the very least a lack of differentiation in media. Conformity forces everyone to think alike. Like so many institutions that represented the best of us, they’re stacked with loyalists and dying from the inside. A wholesale cleansing is needed. It’s already begun. Industry players like Musk and Zuckerberg have given tacit support to Trump, an unheard of development. Zuckerberg was largely responsible for the cheat during the 2020 election. Even if Trump isn’t elected in November. His example of offensive juggernaut will have a lasting impact on the way we approach these issues in the future.

Conformity must be defeated if we want a meritocratic society once again. Sometimes it takes a determined, offensive man to remind us of it. Otherwise we’ll start seeing those ghastly communist unity posters everywhere.

Poland: From Socialism to Prosperity: Review

 

Poland’s Economic Turnaround and the Importance of Being Rich

I watched an interesting documentary on the growth of Poland from the 70s to the 2020’s. Based on the research of Dr. Rainer Zitelmann “Poland: From Socialism to Prosperity” is a short encapsulation of the country’s economic growth over the last 70 plus years.

A decimated place after World War II, Poland fell under the sway of the USSR. Poland’s Soviet style planned economy crushed all dissent from citizens during the 1970’s. Workers, fed up with price increases on basic foods (eggs, bread) rioted against the ruling parties. After years of long lines for consumer goods, and starvation wages they tried a different approach.

In the 1970s they borrowed from the West to get their industries going again. This worked for a while, an influx of money provides citizens with a chance to purchase goods and services not available before. Now you could actually buy shoes in the size and color you prefer, instead of grabbing whatever remains. Trade opened up access that wasn’t there before.

Hyperinflation and Unemployment

But loaned money needs to be repaid and Poland struggled to keep up at first. Borrowing isn’t actually a reform anyway. Underlying restrictions on business, price controls and fake unemployment numbers remain. Everyone in a socialist country is “employed” after all. Only after 1988 did the real reforms begin. But even here, only after union workers used strikes to protest wages and living conditions. The ration card system was finally done and trade flourished for the first time. But the hyperinflation made everything very expensive. Since 1970 the foreign debt grew from 1 billion dollars to 40 billion in 20 years. First they agreed on a debt reduction deal with Western creditors. Then the fake 0% unemployment numbers became the real 15% to 20% unemployment numbers.

By the early 2000s, ownership in consumer goods like TV’s and cars went up exponentially. The turnaround was dramatic. The poorest country in Europe had experienced the fasted growth. Inflation went from over 500% to around 7% by the end of the 1990s.

Attitudes on Money

Zitelmann ends his documentary with a survey on attitudes within the country toward wealth. In Poland 49% of respondents believe it’s “really important” to become rich. This puts it in the same league as Asian countries where nearly 60% answered the same way. In the US, and the rest of Europe, only 28% agreed. This might be a little misleading, however. The word “rich” can mean a lot of things. For all of my life, America has been a prosperous and free country. Certainly we have crime, poverty and unemployment. But relative to Poland in the 70’s, and much of the developing world, it’s a paradise. The fact is we’ve always been “rich”. 

The rest of the world has caught up, mostly, since the 1990s in economic freedom and wealth creation. 

Left Populism

Populism is on the rise in America because of the meaning of the word rich. It looks different on the right and left however. The left-wing Marxists will always hate capitalism because they can’t control who becomes rich. When consumers make their own decisions about spending it deprives Marxists of their power. The Marxist wants to squeeze the economy like an orange and drink the juice but has no concern with growing more oranges. They’re fine with rich people who do their bidding. Do you own an airline, set your prices according to their arbitrary fees. Do you own a professional football team, make sure your hiring and advertising reflects DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) check boxes. Central planning looks a little different in America because the cultural Marxists demand institutional compliance at every level.

Right Populism

On the right, any sort of anti-rich sentiment is a reaction to the elites destroying the middle class. I don’t mean rich people that make a money and grow business. Nor do I mean super wealthy playboys with yachts and pricey real estate. The resentment is for the titans like Bill Gates who push untested vaccines and make money from the stock price. Or, those who use lawfare against regular people who can’t afford to defend themselves in court. It’s a matter of power and control. When a country is managed by oligarchs (essentially) the way America is, it destroys the middle class and puts growth out of reach for too many. I’ve always been a free market guy, but we’ve been sold a lie about what that is.

Look behind the scenes and you’ll see the government manipulating outcomes everywhere. Twitter was full of FBI plants that shut down accounts, critical of official policies on Covid to the Russia collusion hoax. Twitter was supposedly a private company.   

Politics and Corruption

On a political level, the wealthy business class used to vote with Republicans and defend their own interests. Today, they bend the knee to the woke crowd. A few years ago Senator Tom Cotton had an exchange with the CEO of Kroger, Rodney McMullen at a Senate hearing. McMullen wanted help for a merger with Albertsons. Cotton’s instruction is brilliant, you fired Christians who worked for you because they didn’t want to wear the gay rainbow? Republicans traditionally help businesses remove red tape. But their voters, the traditional values crowd, aren’t getting equal treatment from the ownership class. We’re told to comply or be fired, call people by their pronouns.  Senator Cotton was appropriately dismissive “I’m sorry this is happening to you, best of luck”.

Another view of rich is the spiritually corrupting side. Too many people put “getting rich” at the top of their importance list, without understanding the trade-offs. They pursue wealth at the expense of family, friends and moral conviction. A country full of people that worship money will squeeze out morality and devalue life. Why does this sound familiar? It’s the America of today.

Conclusion

So yes, wealth is good and prosperity is beneficial for all. But we have to get the order right. Put God first, free up the economy and watch Him bless it. Over 70% of citizens in Poland consider themselves Catholic. That puts it among the most Christian countries in the world. It’s at least an indicator that they place high importance on traditional values. Religious participation has slipped in recent years. Catholics made up over 87% of the population in 2011. Hopefully their idea of rich won’t push out morality like it has in the US. God bless the Poles, may they keep Him at the center of daily life. And God bless the USA, may we regain an ordered vision of money and return to our heritage of true economic freedom.