One Billion Americans – Gene Expression

As readers know I think Matthew Yglesias’ One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger is a decent read. Unlike a reviewer at the new TNR, I didn’t expect a Ph.D. dissertation. Though a few years ago I would be very skeptical of one billion diverse Americans, today I am far less so, mostly because I think our elites are perverts. I see no conventional way to get out of the perversion spiral, so I’m quite open to some sort of “exogenous shock”. I am aware of the arguments of people such as Mark Krikorian. We are actually quite friendly and I have appraised Mark of my change of views privately and am open to revising my perspectives in light of new data (he makes the fair point that our elites are so powerful they’ll turn new immigrants into perverts as well!).

But setting that aside, I think Yglesias’ candor in his interviews has been refreshing (he’ll be on the Brown Pundits podcast on the 15th, though I’ve posted it for Patrons). For example, on Tyler Cowen’s podcast, he admits he thinks if more Americans went to church, that that would be a good thing. He also admits openness to immigration that takes into account parameters such as cultural or national background. Like most normal Americans he is not beholden to the redlines of woke Twitter.

But these are details. What I am interested in seeing are ideas that are new for this century. Ideas that shake things up. We have not reached the ennui of the last bourgeois man. On the contrary, we again live in interesting times. But our cultural elites do not have the mental furniture to grapple with the beginning of the new century and the new age. They are stuck in a “Boomer Mindset.”

For conservatives, the 1950s will not return. For liberals, the 1960s will not return. They can pretend and will it, but the recycling of old motifs and paradigms reflect intellectual and cultural exhaustion, not renewed vigor.

That is one reason I read The American Mind. I am, fundamentally, a fusionist of the old school (I do write for NR). But the future does not belong to fusionism. For someone of my age, the future is going to seem crazy. Perhaps Matthew Yglesias crazy. Or Michael Anton crazy. Or a thousand other permutations. The only thing I’m certain of is the exhaustion of old paradigms. I believe “Black Lives Matter” is attempting to recapture the old 1960s radicalism in a bottle. It will not last. When the Republicans last had control of the legislature, the thing they managed to do was pass a tax cut. The last gasp of an old ideology.

What is America in the 21st century? I don’t know. None of us do.

I will probably pitch a review of One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger, but since Matt Yglesias is pushing for preorders, I will note a few things about the book that might induce some people to buy it.

Firstly, it’s not a case for “open borders”. The title is kind of a gimmick or hook. Yglesias spends a bit of time laying out why one billion Americans isn’t crazy (our density would be like France, not Singapore), but he’s not that focused on the number and getting to it. Rather, from the perspective of someone on the Right, the takeaways from this book that were positive are that he actually makes an argument for “national greatness”, for families and children, and the conviction that America is not totally corrupt and unsalvageable. This is all clearly aimed at a college-educated liberal audience, so Yglesias has to be careful about how he makes some of them, but I’m glad someone is making the case. It takes some courage, for example, to accede to liberal concerns about climate change, but rebut catastrophism and suggest that the future could actually be better than the present.

For me, the less compelling sections of the book are those where he’s making points that agree with the priors of those of his liberal audience. Yglesias could say anything about how great mass transit is, and his audience would go along with it. So I don’t feel that those portions were given as much thought as the “Slate-pitch” aspects. Anticipating criticism sharpens the mind! Expecting adulation does not.

Finally, for those on the Right, the idea of mass immigration is terrifying. If you aren’t a libertarian, I don’t think Yglesias will convince you. But, to be frank I’m a lot more open to the idea because I’m not sure what sort of culture we’re trying to save at this point. Our cultural elites are pretty rancid in my opinion. The ultimate question is whether they are capable of making immigrants “turn” faster than their utility would be for the type of people that think nuclear families are great and should be promoted. If the number of immigrants is small obviously they will fall in line. But what if it is so large that they can insulate themselves more?* I know it sounds crazy. But 2020 is crazy already…

* From what I have heard from friends, the “woke” activism at places like Google did not come from the Chinese and Indian foreign nationalists, who are insulated from that sort of thing.

Tag: One Billion Americans

The beginning of history and the first men

One billion Americans is about families