On June 25, 2024, I wrote about tweets I saw from Gad Saad, “The West has committed the greatest self-immolation in human history”:
“When the leaders hate their civilization more than their enemies do, the civilization is doomed. Never before has history witnessed such a gargantuan self-inflicted death of a civilization that was an existential light in an otherwise world of historical darkness.”Remember: War is coming to every corner in the West. It might take 5 days, 5 years, or 50 years but it’s coming. The West has committed the greatest self-immolation in human history. Save this post.
I just saw another series of tweets from an account Peachy Keenan along the same lines, but to me more personal:
You guys have no idea how painful it is to have been young during the absolute peak era of the greatest empire in human history and now be forced to watch it all unravel.The saddest part is that we are doing it to ourselves.Absolutely agonizing experience. Like watching the most beautiful person you know slowly mutilate themselves.The reason everyone on Earth wants to move here is because if you squint your eyes, this country still basically “looks” the same, is still powerful, etc.But we are running on the fumes of the past.Paradise is no longer paradise after the barbarians rape, burn, and pillage everything not nailed down. And I’m talking about the barbarians in DC, not the ones galloping over the border.
I feel that sadness frequently.
To have grown up in the late 60s and 70s in hindsight was the best fortune I ever had. I wrote about it when I attended my high school reunion a few years ago, My ’70s Show Revisited – 40th High School Reunion [warning, image of me in a leisure suit, NSFW]:
No high school experience is perfect, but Roslyn and Roslyn High School in the 1970s were great places to grow up….The Vietnam war wound down just as I was entering high school, and the draft would be abolished just before I would have to enter. Selective service registration was not yet in place, so we were in that gap.What I most remember was the freedom of movement. “Be home for dinner” was about all the parental monitoring we had. We hitchhiked, hung out at Jones Beach and the Roslyn Duck Pond, and once we got wheels, pretty much roamed around unencumbered.We didn’t have personal computers (those were just a few years away) though some of my classmates were early tinkerers who went on to great success in computer science. We also didn’t have cell phones — those were more than a few years away, so we weren’t constantly monitored. Thankfully, we also didn’t have social media. Whatever normal cliquish and catty behavior took place wasn’t amplified as it is now.That’s not to say we didn’t have the usual growing pains, including in high school. But all in all it was a great time and place.
I wish I had the answer to stop the unraveling.
Some replies to the Peachy Keenan tweet, a lot of them seem to be from Gen X-ers, not late stage Boomers like me:
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