1/ If you want to change the culture, you should study how and why culture changes

THREAD

2/ As I have dug into this subject, I have begun to see a pattern. There are major shifts in culture about once every 80 to 150 years. Each major cultural shift is driven by a crisis

3/ Cultural continuity is the norm. In each period, there is a dominant idea or consensus, which over the course of time works its way down from elites to the mass level

4/ We have names for these periods: Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment, Romantic. Each terminated in a crisis. The Thirty Years War, French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, the World Wars

5/ Toward the end of every age, the cultural consensus begins to grow stale, hardens and society cracks. Fanaticism grows. Society combusts into violence. This always happens when it has sunk down to the mass level and takes on a crude form

6/ Every cultural age is a reaction to the dominant idea of the previous one. The Reformation era was a reaction to the wordliness of the Renaissance. The Enlightenment was a reaction to the heavenly focus of the Reformation. The Romantics exalted emotions and the particular

7/ Every age of cultural decadence is followed by a crisis which is followed by a renewal. The decadent periods are also periods in which a small vanguard of intellectuals and artists pioneer the next idea

8/ We are also living at the end of an age. The Modernist Age. Modernism gestated in the late 1890s, 1900s, 1910s and 1920s. Our dominant mainstream culture was young in the culture wars of the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s

9/ It was created by a network of alienated radicals. At first, it was a very small bohemian counterculture in the 1910s and gained greater traction in the 1920s. It began to develop its own institutions. Modernism triumphed in the late 1930s/early 1940s.

10/ After World War II and during the Cold War when the Modernist vanguard entered into a partnership with the American state, Modernism became hegemonic in American culture. It became the "mainstream"

11/ Modernism only hit a mass level during the Consciousness Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s when the Baby Boomers were in college. It had been slowly developing for 50 years before that

12/ In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Modernists began their "march through the institutions" although it would be more accurate to say they were placed in those institutions due to the practical need to fight the Nazis and Soviets

13/ The Baby Boomers were the first generation in which Modernism hit a mass level. The Millennials were raised in a culture that is purely Modernist. Our culture is now saturated by Modernism

14/ What is Modernism? Modernism is fundamentally about the rejection of the past and the expression of the self and the celebration of the other. It prizes cosmopolitanism, radical egalitarianism, experiment, and the consumption of novelty

15/ Modernism has become so synonymous with the mainstream that is now taken for granted. The goal of modernism is "progress" toward an expressive, egalitarian utopia

16/ Modernist morality makes sense when you realize the values and vision that motivates it. What is the ultimate sin under Modernism? It is "racism" which is White people identifying as a collective group and with the past and the future

17/ The peculiar weirdness of our culture is due to Modernism. Why is White identity uniquely illegitimate? Why are non-Whites celebrated and even encouraged to strengthen their identities to the point of chauvinism?

18/ Remember, Modernists are people who have shaken off the past in favor of self exploration, autonomy and experimentation. The other identities and cultures are there to be consumed by Modernists. This began in the 1920s with taking aesthetic delight in blacks and jazz

19/ Similarly, Modernists are hedonists who believe in experimenting with different lifestyles. This is why every drug imaginable or sexuality is permitted. Immigration is also encouraged. Ethnic cultures are there to be consumed by Modernists for their own stimulation

20/ Modernism began in rebellion against Prohibition in the 1920s. And yet, it has come full circle. It has its own "sin" to stamp out: racism. Again, this is because Modernists are deracinated. They have "shaken off the past" and it is outrageous that there are people who don't

21/ Virtually everything about our culture is best understood as Modernism working itself out toward its logical conclusion: multiculturalism, civil rights, antiracism, feminism, LGBTQ, etc. It is all derived from Modernism

22/ Under Modernism, it is forbidden to forbid and for White people to identify with their own race and ethnic group. You have to be a deracinated guilt ridden individualist while everyone else is expected to be just the opposite

23/ This isn't universally true. Europeans haven't always believed this. It is utterly peculiar to our Modernist age which was an adversary culture in the 1910s, 1920s and 1920s and the mainstream culture since World War II. It is bounded by time and place

24/ As I said earlier though, it is the fate of every culture or age to become decadent. It ceases to be edgy. It leads to countless pressing social problems. Creative people strike out and rebel against the dominant culture. The Modernists rebelled against the Romantics

25/ Inevitably, there will be a rebellion which will challenge the cultural hegemony of Modernism, which will sink in a crisis of its own making. The new adversary culture will be just as acerbic as Sinclair Lewis when he wrote Babbitt or H.L. Mencken in his prime

26/ Cultural change unfolds over generations. Political success is an even longer term project. Right now, we should be focused on creating an adversary culture to ridicule Modernism

This chart illustrates the value shift to Modernism as it became hegemonic in the late 1930s and early 1940s

If you are curious and want to learn more about this, rent Eric Kaufmann's book The Rise and Fall of Anglo-America. It is incredibly hard to buy a copy because it is out of print