June 7, 2023

Disney World's Brutalist and primitive futurist origins

Although discussion of Brutalist architecture in America, where it was born, focuses only on its more elevated settings -- civic buildings, libraries, universities, research labs, and so on -- it was just as widespread of a style in suburban office buildings and malls. Before getting there, though, let's take a quick look at another mass-market, working and middle-class, all-American, consumer-driven setting, to establish how popular and populist it was -- not at all an elitist style reserved for ivory tower eggheads.

Disney World itself was founded on Brutalism in 1971, in the form of the Contemporary Resort, which was offered along with the Polynesian Village Resort in order to hit both the primitive and futuristic themes that define American cultural identity. Notice the continuation of the Midcentury tiki / Googie theme of Polynesia in particular to stand in for "New World primitive" as opposed to various Old World primitive environments.

And yet, even the Contemporary has a pyramid-esque shape -- albeit stepped only side-to-side, not also front-to-back like the later Luxor in Vegas -- to evoke New World ancient civilizations like the Maya. This continued another enduring theme in American culture, using the Maya instead of Rome or Athens to represent the RETVRN to ancient times. The gigantic mosaic inside the Contemporary also depicts New World native cultures, to reinforce the combined theme of "ancient and futuristic, entirely within the New World".

These were the only two places to stay, and set the tone for the entire amusement park. For extensive picture galleries, along with verbal histories that you can skip if you just want the overall impression, see here and here for what it was like during its New Deal utopian heyday (and here for how it has evolved since then). Then there's this old promo, which showcases both resorts until the 4-minute mark, and this old home movie from the same time.

There are shots of the exterior, interior atrium, leisure spaces, the Midcentury Modern rooms, and the Top of the World Lounge -- we'd usually associate being on top of the world with an unstable equilibrium, a delicate balance, not a place for a carefree lounge. But this was the Midcentury American utopia, so nothing sounded more natural than lounging around at the summit of existence. Just like the SkyCity restaurant, calmly revolving at 500 feet up the Space Needle tower in Seattle, built less than a decade earlier.

Much of the finer details of the original Contemporary atmosphere have been steadily adulterated during the neoliberal era, but we cannot judge Brutalism for what it was corrupted into later -- only by what it was.

If you never got to experience such a place during the good ol' days, including those that kept going even during the neoliberal era, nothing can prepare you for it. The warm color palette, the plush carpeting, the simple-not-busy geometric lines and arrangements of elements, the dark cozy intimate lighting, the lush vegetation and water elements, not to mention the futuristic atmosphere -- nothing could make us feel so welcomed, integrated, and belonging to a singular utopian American culture.

Notwithstanding the mixture of primitive and futuristic within the Contemporary, and the park as a whole with the Polynesian as well, it was the monorail transportation system, that decisively tilted the balance in favor of the futuristic and Brutalist theme. Its concrete supports, sleek cars with streamline profiles, dark tinted glass windows, with simple bands of warm colors on the shell to make this futuristic mode of transport feel lively and exciting rather than cold and utilitarian.

Integrating the monorail system so that it traveled right into the main concourse / atrium of the resort, only heightened the futuristic feel -- who ever saw a train pull right up to the base of your residence, so you don't have to hike, hop a cab, or drive to the station? It was not merely a matter of convenience and efficiency -- it proclaimed that this is a utopia, where there are no trade-offs from a single rail system having to service a wide network of residential areas. Everybody was staying at the Contemporary compound, so there was no need to build a station between it and dozens of other neighborhoods, towns, and cities. The resort was so removed from competing residential sites that the public transit could almost pull right up to your front door!

Nobody among the blinkered Bauhaus blackpillers could've dreamed up such a visionary utopian thing.

In fact, the Contemporary was designed by prolific architect Welton Becket, who was at the time participating in the Brutalist movement (Xerox Tower and the Gulf Life Tower, just a few years earlier). It was only natural for Disney World's inspiring foundational resort to be built at monumental scale, out of concrete, shaped as though it were a single large sculpture, casting an imposing and sublime presence from the outside, while filling the interior with a warm, lush, sophisticated, and dynamic atmosphere.

This was standard practice for Brutalism, and all complaints about how cold and alienating it is come from people who have never explored the interior of these buildings that are austere fortresses on the outside, but soothing and even sultry social happening-spaces on the inside. Perhaps they are not quite so seductive nowadays, after decades of neglect and outright desecration, but then it's your responsibility to see what it was actually like when it was created.

Haters of Brutalism never show the "before" pictures or the interior pictures, because that would blow up their arguments for why these structures must be demolished and replaced with fishbowl flex-spaces instead (barf-o-rama). That's why I linked to those other sites with extensive galleries -- to set the record incontrovertibly straight.

Steadily over the course of the neoliberal era, Disney World has headed toward making every attraction, resort, etc., a branding opportunity for pop culture figures. But Disneyland and Disney World, when they were under Walt Disney's New Deal vision, hardly included Disney characters or other characters from outside the park at all, only as an afterthought.

These parks were built to celebrate America's past, present, and future as a unique and special civilization and culture, and the rides and resorts reflected that purpose. Be sure to watch the entire promo video linked earlier, "The Magic of Walt Disney World" from the early '70s, to see what all it encompassed -- and what it did not include even remotely.

There is nothing more all-American than Disney World, and the fact that a Brutalist style was chosen for its foundational resort reflects the sense of marvel and wonder that Americans felt in the presence of buildings in that style. It was not an unwanted oppressive style foisted on them by PhD's -- it was a style that resonated with their desire for a monumental expression of the utopian zeitgeist of the Midcentury, as the American Empire had reached its all-time peak, or perhaps plateau.

And they did not have to travel to Ivy League campuses to enjoy it -- it was built for them in their own neighborhoods, and at affordable mass-market tourist destinations. There was nothing stuffy or elitist about it -- it was enshrined at literal Disney World!

51 comments:

  1. Exposed concrete is also typical of Canadian architecture as well. Go take a look at the Millennium Library in Winnipeg, Manitoba, or the Foster-Marks Building down the street, north of the Millennium Library.

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  2. What a massive downgrade the Centennial Library got when it got neoliberalized and rebranded as the Millennial Library! At least this site is honest about including a "before" picture from the utopian heyday in its slideshow:

    https://winnipegarchitecture.ca/251-donald-street/

    Another pic of the original:

    https://winnipegpublibrary.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/centennial70sb.jpg

    As this post mentions, they removed all the old trees that had been growing for 30-some years, and had to replant saplings.

    https://winnipegpublibrary.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/sunny-new-millennium-library-park-open-and-waiting/

    Nobody loves cutting down trees more than eco-nut libtards. And always with the same yuppie striver excuse -- "they're getting old". Such bullshit.

    Fundamentally, they are insecure Euro wannabes who hate all the forested environments that we enjoy in the New World, which Europe has not enjoyed for thousands of years, due to agriculture clearing them out.

    So, when they want to recreate the European look-and-feel, it cannot possibly contain very many trees. Why, that's like living in some Dark Age barbarian shithole. We want Early Modern Rococo lightness and airiness -- and nothing gets in the way of light and air like trees!

    Fuck these agoraphobic libtard tree-deprived spaces. We're New Worlders (yes, even our copycats in Canada), we want to live in Romanesque dark intimate coziness, like a noble Dark Age hobbit-house-dweller.

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  3. Here's the look and feel of the glass-and-steel dystopian desecration of the same space as above:

    http://ckpeng.com/wp-content/themes/crosier/assets/photo-resize.php?width=1200&height=550&cropratio=2.18:1&image=http://ckpeng.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/1535-Medium.jpg

    Totally got rid of the pond -- libtards hate water as much as they hate trees, both of which were the first to go when they started neoliberalizing malls, and then ultimately demolishing them altogether.

    And they got rid of all the other small-to-medium structures placed around the pond's periphery, which segmented that concrete surrounding into a bunch of cozy component spaces, providing planters for vegetation, blocking the view from a hundred meters away (as you leafs would measure it) and providing some cozy privacy, and giving the eyes several things to move around over -- without being too busy

    New World minimalism does not mean lack of focus, except in the neolib era, like the lack of anything to attend to in the Millennial Library Park after it was razed during the woketard 2010s.

    There's far more a sense of proportion, order, and harmony among the various components in the utopian Centennial park -- take away all those components, and there is only a void left. An absence, a hole. Harmony among elements within a gestalt requires there to be multiple components to begin with!

    Pretty neat trick to pretend you're creating a zen-like balance and soothing order amidst what could otherwise have been chaos, when you simply remove all the components that could potentially be chaotically interacting with each other, but have been structured by the architect to play nicely with each other.

    Centennial Library had the tranquil mood, not the disturbing vacant-ness of the neolib cheat-code replacement!

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  4. The libtards also flattened the space entirely, where there used to be subtle changes in elevation, three steps up here, a few steps going down there, the bank leading into the pond (not a perfectly level infinity pool).

    It's not a hilly hiking trail or anything, but it gave it enough variation in elevation to keep it from feeling totally flat and razed-to-the-ground.

    Speaking of the pond being filled in, it looks like there was a small pool inside one of the seating areas -- the one with a concrete surround, and some kind of square island inside (made of wood at the top?). Between the surround and the island, there appears to be a couple feet of water filled in.

    Nice little touch of water, and the sense that you have to navigate the space -- otherwise you might step right into the water! It's not a punishing obstacle course, just a nice little thing to pay attention to and interact with.

    You can't feel like you're lounging around on your own private island when there is no moat or pond surrounding you in the first place.

    Take away all these components, and there is nothing left to navigate! It's just totally open. Spin yourself around blindfolded, walk however far in any direction, and nothing will happen. Borrrinnngggg...

    There's nothing special about any sub-space within the overall space. No interest piqued. No wandering of your attention. Just a bland, unstimulating void.

    THAT is what the haters of Brutalism got -- and therefore, what they openly or secretly wanted all along. All the bullshit about the monolithic massing, sparse ornamentation, etc., is just rationalization to get neutral people on board with the crusade to destroy American (and Canuckian) culture, throw us into a sensory deprivation chamber, and erase all memories of our Midcentury utopian society, so we just accept our deprivation as though "There Is No Alternative".

    Fuck all this neolib iconoclasm.

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  5. It's crazy how exactly that library park resembles the central court of a typical Brutalist mall from the same '70s decade. Both full of things (including water and vegetation) during the Midcentury utopia, but steadily unbuilt during the neolib era, and entirely removed during the woketard 2010s.

    That was when QE money was flowing freely by the trillions, BTW, which could've been used to maintain or restore the original splendor -- but was instead used to finance its desecration or outright demolition (way more expensive, and for a disastrous outcome).

    The deprivationist crusade targeted everything out there that offended it, whether a High Brutalist library, pop Brutalist mall, suburban office park, you name it.

    And so, there will be no saving or restoring one of those spaces without the others. You can't hate on Brutalist university buildings without hating on the coolest malls ever built. And you can't hate on malls without hating on your beloved Yale Art & Architecture Buildings.

    One struggle, against the neolibtards, to restore the glory of the New Deal!

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    1. Did you say your Greatest Generation grandma was a housewife and mother back then (not a feminist striver)?

      Would you rather females returned to what they were under Petticoat Junction/Lawrence Welk vibes?

      Delete
  6. Here are a lot of videos around the world from the mid-century utopia as you call it:

    https://www.youtube.com/@Footageforprocom/videos

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  7. More pics of the undesecrated state of Centennial Library, for further observations. There was another pond of medium size adjacent to the library, separated from the large main one by a walkway / planters / etc. It doesn't stand out in the panorama pics because of those little privacy structures.

    http://digitalcollections.uwinnipeg.ca/digital/collection/p15931coll2/id/2746

    It's got some planters on one side, some brick / concrete pavers nearby, concrete embankment, and geometric sculpture in the pond itself, perhaps a fountain that trickles the water down its tiers -- exactly like in a Brutalist mall of the same time period.

    Notice where the pond joins the library, there's an alcove within the library projecting outward, with somewhat dark tinted glass (AKA "smoke/d glass" -- not actually smoked, just tinted dark, was big in the late '70s and '80s, not only in architecture but furniture as well). It's not a fishbowl, due to the opacity of the glass.

    Here's the interior view of that alcove area:

    http://digitalcollections.uwinnipeg.ca/digital/collection/p15931coll2/id/2163

    This is like the terminal space in a Brutalist mall -- not the main corridors or their intersection in the central court, but all the way down one end, where there would be seating for relaxation and privacy and decompression. Definitely a conversation pit in the mall, although not here.

    This area is less busy than the main desk / card catalog / other high-traffic areas. The alcove makes you feel tucked away from the crazy main open area. You have a nice wall-o'-windows view of outside (the tranquil scene from the panorama pics), as well as the pond and sculpture / fountain right outside. The windows are only 2 stories high, not the full 3 of the entire building -- prevents it from feeling like that entire wall of the building is exposed and open.

    Brick pavers on the floor, not exposed concrete a la clueless propaganda -- Brutalism never had exposed poured concrete floors, LOL.

    Seating area as a whole is segmented into groups of seats, and each group is obviously segmented into the individual seats plus the shared tables, the planter / plant, and maybe a column in the way. Seats are generally facing outward, to facilitate people-watching, enjoying the view of the utopian environment outside, or just letting your eyes wander away from the page of your book. Each seat has a wraparound form to give you your own private little cozy conversation pit feel.

    The somewhat busier main area:

    http://digitalcollections.uwinnipeg.ca/digital/collection/p15931coll2/id/2109

    Not crazy, not agoraphobic, decent degree of segmentation and sub-segmentation of the space. Coffered-ish effect on the ceiling with a (wooden?) lattice, to provide some dynamic energy without it being too busy (hard to get simpler than a rectilinear grid).

    Still, a bit more open-plan than is suitable for cozy relaxation, so that's what the alcove area is for, with its tinted glass wall to see somewhat outside, without feeling like a fish in a bowl.

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  8. Visual reminder, outward-facing group seating around a circle, with planter and plant in the center. Space Age / Mod design:

    https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a7/96/f0/a796f04b345e402706f3221055ce73d8.jpg

    Typical of Brutalist malls, echo-ing the seating groups of the Centennial Library back in the good ol' days.

    From Central City / Carousel Mall, San Bernardino CA, opened early '70s, recently demolished.

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  9. For contrast, the anti-cozy vibe of the current desecrated state of Millennium Library, along the same wall, which has been torn down and replaced by that giant glass-and-steel fig leaf, as though to conceal its previous warm cozy Brutalist shame:

    https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Zb7YPD66alI/Uan3K38vCaI/AAAAAAAAF3s/0XLcsMicPgE/s1600/5.jpeg

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/elnegro/113627508/

    The glass now goes all the way up to the top (and they built another floor on top of the old building), from one side all the way to the other of the wall (unlike the alcove, which was carved out of the middle section of the wall only). And no more tinting on the glass.

    Now it feels totally open and exposed and agoraphobic and panopticon-like. The view to outside is too direct and unmediated -- but without the charm of a separate outdoor structure like a bunch of separate balconies with fresh air. And remember the new panorama -- nothing to see out there anyway except for an oval of sod.

    The steel skeleton support is too busy, too out in the open, and too utilitarian. We don't need to see rebar in concrete, and we don't need to see all this steel supporting the glass wall. Brutalism concealed the utilitarian support network, this neolib bullshit puts it on full alienating and dizzying display.

    Most of the vertical partitions are see-through glass -- the panes under the handrail of the stairs, and the panes above the outer corner of each terrace. Only the risers on the inner side of the terrace have wood panels -- but those are not needed to obstruct the view, since there's no open space on the other side anyway -- just the solid block of the terrace.

    While these glass panes inhibit the movement of mass through that part of the space, they don't obstruct the view and offer any privacy or pique your curiosity for what's on the other side. Typical neolib interior, contrary to the Mad Men offices where there were wooden, fiberglass, or other opaque partitions between one office and another, or between an office and the open public area. Vertical glass partitions are total bullshit, made worse by being translucent instead of dark and opaque.

    Tinted glass creates the dark cozy intimacy we want as Americans. Translucent glass is tryhard Euro wannabe crap, aiming for light-and-airy panopticon suited to surveillance and gossip for courtiers.

    The chairs are facing each other, not outward, seemingly like traditional library tables. But they aren't arranged at the same elevation, so you can't people-watch around the other tables -- they're too high up for you to comfortably let your attention wander. And forget the next table above the one right above your own -- you'd need a periscope!

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  10. The worst is that fake partition between the stairway and the terraces. People walking up and down would interrupt your attention so badly if you're at the table, and they're just coming and going, changing elevation, no way to actually catch a real glimpse of them, make eye-contact, etc. If they were level, it might feel like outdoor patio seating along a pedestrian sidewalk -- but not when they're moving up or down, and you'd have to crane your neck up or down to follow.

    And God damn is that ceiling high! Gothic, Baroque, Rococo levels of anti-cozy negative space above your head. They could at least put some kind of horizontal plane projecting from the next terrace up, to somewhat shield the table on the next terrace below. But no, light-and-airy. Nothing whatsoever to curve up over your head, to create that comfy secluded alcove feeling.

    The alcove in the old library was two stories high -- not exactly a reading nook in a private home. But you can see the difference between two stories and 3 or 4 stories of empty space above you, in the new pics.

    Americans want that ceiling to come down to comfy cave-like Romanesque heights, where it feels special -- grander than your own private residence -- but not so high that you feel exposed.

    This is what all that slander against Brutalism got you! (And being a neolib with different branding, you probably don't mind or actually prefer this horrendous utilitarian void of a building.)

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  11. I've never even been to Manitoba, or Canada in general. Only went to Quebec City as part of a protest against the planned Free Trade Area of the Americas in 2001 (NAFTA for the whole western hemisphere).

    But you see examples like this case study everywhere -- America, Canada, wherever. Libraries, research labs, gov buildings, malls, office parks, you name it. It's always the same story!

    The desecration of that library alcove, and of the park outside, will be instantly familiar to anyone who has tried to lounge around the hollowed-out central court of a mall that is still left standing today, compared to all the stuff that used to fill the court -- and not just the people and bustling social activity, the built environment itself!

    Even on a slow or downright empty day, the central court of the mall was such a sublime place to be.

    Claiming that if the people stop going there and taking part in the purpose it was built for, the structures themselves must be demolished is just rationalizing our culture's demolition.

    I don't care if no one visits the central court of a mall anymore -- those fountains, bench surrounds, sculptures, and the whole rest of it stays in place!

    Gee, people go to church less often than before, guess we might as well empty out the Notre-Dame of its pews, the altar, the whole thing, and just re-open it as a re-imagined space for some bullshit that might attract new foot traffic. No -- all of that Christian church stuff stays, whether it gets used for its utilitarian purpose or not!

    Tangible objects of our cultural heritage are not just there to facilitate a function of the site. Originally, maybe, maybe not. But after they become part of who we are, they are sacrosanct, and cannot be fucked around with!

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  12. Remember what they took from you! Fountains in court area of Central Mall, Fort Smith, Arkansas (opened early '70s).

    https://i.pinimg.com/originals/27/6d/b9/276db912af2586cf5e9474d8ed22a521.jpg

    Wah, block-like massing of volumes!

    Wah, exposed concrte (exposed aggregate, too)!

    Wah, rigid geometry instead of curlicues!

    Wah, distinctly non-European!

    Wah, only elitist PhD's could foist such a thing on the non-architect public, they would never want or enjoy such things on their own!

    THIS is what was targeted by the back-East country-club Republican lawyers who wrote that Trump exec order on civic architecture. They'd already demolished it in the communal spaces of the private sector, might as well finish the job off with the few remaining examples of gov buildings that are like that too!

    And those risible Neoclassical letters to Santa got instantly cucked by the glass-and-steel fishbowl flex-space, as always, to zero complaints by the Republican professional class. They don't mind the Silicon Valley panopticon -- as long as it demolishes the material culture of the New Deal peak of America's history, that's good enough.

    Whether they get a wacky Postmodern nod / allusion to Roman columns or not, a la Piazza d'Italia, is only icing on the cake for these neolib shit-eating anti-American elitist SCUM.

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  13. It's not a partisan thing, though. Neolibs in Democrat sectors -- universities, libraries, research labs -- demolished Brutalism and Midcentury utopian heritage in general. Neolibs in Republican sectors -- chamber of commerce, retail, labor-intensive private business, including malls -- demolished Brutalism and Midcentury utopian heritage there.

    In an interesting case study of the evolution / degradation of our society, Herb Kohl -- as in Kohl's retail family wealth -- started out financing and owning a decent chunk of two Brutalist everyday-utopia malls in the early '70s, in his home state of Wisconsin, Northridge and Southridge, in the Milwaukee metro.

    Then he became a US Senator, still for Wisconsin, after his '88 election, lasting through early 2013. He was a Democrat back in the '70s, and remained so. At first he voted against both the Gulf War and NAFTA, to his huge credit. But then he voted for the China Trade Bill of 2000 and the Iraq War of the early 2000s onward -- to his huge shame.

    He was born in 1935, a typical Silent. Not from the Greatest Gen, who would've been opposed to all that crap, and who also would've built wonderful Midcentury architecture for the people. He may not have been as egocentric and parasitic as the Boomer revolutionaries of his party (like Clinton and Gore, who were gung-ho for every bit of neolib / neocon bullshit). But he capitulated after a decade, and by the 21st century, it was over.

    The Greatest Gen held out during the neolib era, including senators Robert Byrd (WV) and Fritz Hollings (SC). Silents were only halfway reliable -- at first yes, but ultimately not.

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    1. Here is a book on the Silent Generation:

      https://books.google.ca/books/about/The_Lucky_Few.html?id=zUJgaHde6YUC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&gboemv=1&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

      Delete
  14. Today Northridge Mall has been closed for years, and is facing demolition. Southridge is still open, though.

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  15. Back to Disney World, it got neoliberalized like crazy by '88, when the Grand Floridian was built as the new flagship resort. Its theme is neither primitive / ancient nor futuristic -- it's a Victorian Euro-LARP.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney%27s_Grand_Floridian_Resort_%26_Spa

    Visiting the cultures of Late Medieval and Early Modern Euro empires is fine, as long as it's not the main focus of an American institution like Disney World. Making a Euro-LARP from a time before America had its own distinctive cultural identity, is just trying to undo American ethnogenesis and make-believe we're actually European when we've been irrevocably changed (ask any European, "Are Americans European?" lol).

    None of this turning-back-the-clock bullshit ever lands on a distinctive American outcome. They don't turn back the clock to Art Deco or Prairie School or Mission or Midcentury (which is as far back from now, as the turn-of-the-century "Main Street USA" of Disney World was from its opening days). Somehow it only ever ends up on pre-American, non-American cultures that the status-insecure East Coast faggots desperately wish they belonged to, but never will.

    And forget anything futuristic -- nothing could offend neolibs more than dreaming about the future. Correction: the *material* future, not some informational technology simulation or video game.

    EPCOT, opened in '82, really was the beginning of the neolib transition, before the Grand Floridian finalized the deal. It was way more about information technology, video games, virtual reality, etc. -- not about monorails or rollercoasters or spaceships, space stations, one-push-button homes (a la the House of the Future in Disneyland's Tomorrowland, of the '50s and '60s).

    See this old promo video of the original EPCOT:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBo0EDhjX14

    Fittingly, it started to depart from American architecture -- Spaceship Earth being a sphere (geodeisic dome) clad entirely in aluminum. American design is blocky, not curvy -- if it's going to be circular, it should only be in one or maybe two dimensions, while linear in the others. Like Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum (unusually curvy for him, but not a friggin' sphere).

    And where's the concrete, perhaps with exposed aggregate to hit on the primitive theme in our design culture? Having only sleek shiny aluminum makes it too futuristic, not grounded in the past, and unsettling / unfamiliar to Americans.

    The Contemporary Resort was also billed as "dramatically different" and "ultra-modern" with themes of "today" "now" and the future, according to the promo video linked in the main post. It was just as futuristic as Spaceship Earth, but it looked and felt more American -- blocky / rectilinear, made from concrete.

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    1. The complete failure of Disney’s America to even get built probably ties into a lot of these themes. It was back east, and stressed American history that was largely unimportant to the American cultural ethnogenesis. Its focus was on eastern colonial, early American (also mostly eastern) and rust belt industry along with a bit of WW2 and Ellis island mixed in. Basically no futurism, no westernism, nothing contemporary either. See Knotts Berry Farm as an alternative super western American “history” park that capitalized successfully on that for decades.

      Delete
  16. Nice Brutalist details from the Contemporary's Convention Center, as seen in this pic from the first gallery linked in the main post. Specifically, where the writing is on the wall:

    http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xT7YTo1lSNg/VfiEHbmorZI/AAAAAAAAGyA/XZmvbP96lVY/s1600/Second%2BFloor%2BNov78.jpg

    First, the individual metallic letters are fixed directly to the wall, not as part of a sign, plaque, etc. Maybe part of Midcentury Modern in general, but definitely part of Brutalism in particular. See the Rockefeller Library at Brown University, from the mid-'60s (don't look at what it's been desecrated into during the woketard 2010s, though... maybe in a future post).

    https://library.brown.edu/create/rock50/wp-content/uploads/sites/41/2014/01/121113credoOnline.jpg

    And the wall itself looks like it bears strong formwork impressions -- those vertical lines separating the wall into upright bands, probably left by plywood planks held upright during the concrete pour, and not ground down or filled in afterward.

    The thin dark vertical lines are from the gaps in between planks. Maybe those randomly placed dark holes are so-called "bugholes"? (Surface voids where an air bubble from within the concrete has migrated to the outer edge during curing.) Or fastener holes? Or little recesses from where the board had a protruding bump? IDK, something like that.

    https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-texture-of-board-formed-concrete-wall-showing-wood-grain-and-fastener-43381273.html

    I don't think it's wood paneling with a knotty species. The same spots are along the back wall surrounding that abstract painting, too. I'm pretty sure it's concrete -- but with lots of detail left of how it was constructed and poured, in true Brutalist fashion.

    Not everywhere had these raw impressions revealed, but it was part of the style to include at least some warts-and-all concrete surfaces, especially if playing off of sleek and sophisticated things like the Midcentury Modern furniture in that alcove, or the metallic letters of the "sign".

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  17. I wonder how much of the Bernie Sanders/AOC democratic socialist political movement back in the late 2010s was a bunch of neoliberal strivers larping politically as Europeans. America never really had a social democratic or democratic socialist movement - that was all mostly a European political movement.

    The actual historical socialists in America were people like the silver miners and mill workers out west in Utah and Wyoming who fought against the mine and factory owners in i.e. the Colorado Labor Wars. If such labor unrest occurred today the Bernie Sanders/AOC types these days will probably turn against the workers and call them far right white nationalists, just as they did when the truckers protested against the covid-19 vaccine mandates last year.

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  18. Another element in Centennial Library's park, where you have to navigate the terrain, is the stepping-stone blocks placed in the main pond, running side to side along both the front and back edges.

    Sure, you could walk around them if you don't want to risk getting wet at all -- but why not include a way to walk over / through the water body, for some risky fun?

    It's not like you're actually going to fall in, it's just to make your walk more engaging, because you have to pay some attention to navigating the space. It makes you feel like you're in a more natural area, like crossing a stream, when you were a little kid exploring the woods.

    At the very least, the visual of those blocks evokes that other non-urban environment, whether you decide to walk along them or not. Similar to having both stepping-stones and a pedestrian bridge running across a stream.

    No such element in the desecrated downgrade into Millennium Library. No body of water, and therefore no little structures to navigate over it. So damn boring!

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  19. I'd never heard of the proposed Disney's America theme park. I thought you were being figurative, "the America that Disney envisioned" or something. But you meant this:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney%27s_America

    I was living in the DC metro at the time, and I never heard of it. Why do that when Colonial Williamsburg was already there? That's all you can do with the East Coast -- what the country was like before it was American, therefore frozen in ye olden times, no cowboys and Indians or wagon trails or whatever else, let alone rockets and spaceships.

    Disney World took off as a project because it was in the meta-ethnic frontier against the Indians, dating to the Seminole Wars (long after the War for Independence), similar to the effect of Indian wars in the Old Northwest (AKA the Great Lakes) to make that region super-American.

    There's no way Disney World would've worked if it were in the northern panhandle of Florida, which is part of the Deep South, just another back-East cultural black hole.

    It could've worked in southern Florida, too, but it might've felt too futuristic, and feel like its past was influenced more by the bygone Spanish Empire. And central Florida is a shorter trip to drive to...

    Did Millennials ever get to experience the family road trip, which they at least have seen in the movie Vacation? I remember our family *driving* down to Disney World and/or Universal Studios Florida, from Ohio. At least once, maybe twice. Some other time we might've flown. Thank God we didn't have to drive all the way down to Miami!

    Back in the days of light packing -- if you didn't experience that, you may have at least seen how small vintage suitcases were, at a thrift store. It was like camping -- roughing it, not being weighed down by all your possessions and the ordinary grind of daily routines. More freed-up and liberated -- for a week, anyway.

    Sometimes we didn't even bring certain things -- "I'm sure they'll have some there at the hotel". Or little travel size articles -- no one brings those anymore. They bring their ordinary long-term-sized articles.

    There's something freeing about all of your toiletries fitting into a fanny-pack at most.

    Now everyone brings a zillion things to occupy their free time -- instead of enjoying that free time in the vacation environment itself.

    Vacations in the old days were like going commando...

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  20. Maybe it's also about the general societal breakdown since then, as well as the separate trend of cocooning between 1990 and 2020. People began treating everywhere outside the home as a hostile foreign environment, so they packed as though preparing for nuclear war and having to insulate themselves in a traveling bunker.

    Nobody felt that way in the '80s or '70s or '60s or '50s. You were just exploring a part of the Midcentury Utopia that you had never been to before -- but it was not the Wild West days. We had consolidated our conquests, made the whole country safe and prosperous. No place, outside of some ghetto, was going to pose a threat to your safety. No need to act like preppers just cuz you're leaving your home state.

    Same with visiting Washington DC (since rebranded into merely "DC"). It was just another part of America back then. No need to prep. Now it's a hostile foreign environment if you aren't a slave to the Democrat party. Everything there is designed to drive you away if you aren't a libtard. Not welcoming and All-American.

    Just one aspect of the national govt shredding its credibility and legitimacy. It's supposed to be the most neutral and All-American place in the nation, right? When you visit, it'll make you proud to be an American, right? Not anymore, it's polarizing beyond almost any other city.

    When visitors from flyover country (who aren't hicklibs) feel mistreated like that, they withdraw their trust and faith in the fedgov when they get back home. Visiting Washington was not like that at all in the good ol' days.

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  21. If you've seen older movies or even pictures where people seem so much more carefree -- they were. They felt like they would be taken care of and provided for, no matter where they went.

    Not just a "safety net" in case of disastrous emergencies. I mean everyday situations. People today are afraid if they don't pack their phone or charger, they won't be able to send or receive calls. You can just ask any business if you can use their phone, but that scares the shit out of people today.

    It's not that the business will reject your request, they will absolutely accommodate you, but everyone is so paranoid about society in general, they assume their requests for simple help will be rejected by cold harsh skinflints.

    Hitchhiking has been dead for decades -- any form of the social safety net, sometimes used for more ordinary occasions, like if it was raining really hard and someone didn't want to get caught out in the heavy rain while walking home. That's not a major imposition, like driving across several states.

    In the neolib atmosphere of Social Darwinism, though, people have to expect that any of these requests will be rejected by self-utility-maximizers.

    In the good ol' days you would be taken care of, no matter where you went or what you got into.

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  22. Just the Moom with us
    Never felt so real online
    Just the Moom with us
    (Just the Moom with us)

    Just the Moom with us
    Whispering random facts all night
    Just the Moom with us
    Moomin' live

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  23. Scored a made-in-Denmark teak filing cabinet, to go with my nesting desks and tall bookcase. :) Like the other pieces, from the '90s Scandi Mod revival, not the Midcentury.

    The desks don't have drawers, so this will handle storage. In fact, I might use it for storing my records in one drawer, random crap in the other, and still have space for files / docs that are currently in a single metal filing box.

    Treasure is still out there, just not as abundant as before.

    I also saw an Ikea Poang chair (cantilever lounge chair), noticed it had the older style headrest, and checked it out -- nope, even in the '90s, Ikea made them in Mexico. NAFTA chair. I saw another one a few weeks ago, with the recent style headrest, made in China.

    To get a real Ikea chair, you probably have to get one from the '80s or '70s or something. It's really shameful for Sweden, since Denmark made all of their furniture in Denmark during the '90s Scandi Mod revival.

    Kind of like how Sweden is just now playing catch-up by closing their borders, after the realigning lefties in Denmark closed their borders last year (or the year before?). Better late than never, though.

    But just like with Silents and Boomers, Denmark may have held out for awhile, but they cucked and now make their stuff in slave-labor colonies. All of the teak cutting boards with heavy branding and names about Denmark and Teakhaus or whatever, that are in TJ Maxx / Home Goods -- made in Thailand.

    It's just a little cutting board -- make it in Denmark! And put the orange-y stain back on it. The ones today are totally bare, and don't look exotic at all.

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  24. Peter Turchin's "End Times" is out today.

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  25. That painful moment when you discover a Lane Midcentury Modern credenza / dresser with a huge mirror and matching nightstand, in walnut and chrome and black, at a thrift store in the unglamorous part of town... but it can't be disassembled at all (not even one drawer removable), and it's bulky and weighs hundreds of pounds, so taking it home yourself -- and moving it into its final place by yourself -- is out of the question, and your no-good brothers refuse to live near any family members, so there's no free labor to help you out...

    >feels bad man

    It wasn't at a give-away price, though under $200 for everything. Having to pay someone to help transport it and move it into place would make it too much to be worth it. Still cheaper than the crazy consignment places that specialize in this stuff, but not by that much. I'll just have to wait until I find one that can be disassembled...

    "Damn, this is all solid wood, it weighs a ton! Well, no biggie, I'll just take the drawers out, maybe unscrew the doors, and take it home in two trips. I'm gonna need that many anyways, for the big mirror and nightstand. Now let's just pull out this... this drawer doesn't pull straight out. Ah, one of those where you angle it and lift it out -- nope, it doesn't do that either. Well, whatever obstruction is in the way, I'll just unscrew that -- goddamnit, there's no way to do that either!"

    To the Millennials and Zoomers who have only experienced assemble-yourself / flat-pack / Ikea crap, you may be surprised to learn that once upon a time, assembly was done on an... assembly line. It was delivered to your door, and even moved into its final place, by whoever you bought it from.

    Well, some of the upper-market companies took that a little too far, it seems, and made it so you'd never be able to even take out the damn drawers!

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  26. Also saw a nice desk in quarter-sawn oak with an orange-y stain, though not the dark Mission type, and a bit on the curvy-legged side (Euro) rather than rectilinear. So I passed. But it was well under $100 -- contrary to the deluded retards on Craigslist and elsewhere.

    At a different place, one of the coolest '70s / '80s couches I've ever seen (by International Furniture, from somewhere Virginia). Semi-dark oak wraparound frame, blocky look, with highly textured / open-weave cushions in those earthy neutrals of the time (taupe, peach, etc.). It's that transition time when people had overdosed on sleek Mod, and wanted more of a return to nature (while still preserving those clean Mod lines, blocky volumes, etc. -- and Mod also had its back-to-nature side, in those heavily figured woodgrain elements).

    So comfy, and so cool, but another thing that would've cost too much to move and fit into place. Only $65... also not sure my cat would be able to resist tearing into that highly textured upholstery.

    But, it's not so much of a downer. I got to see these cool things I've never seen before, albeit in styles I'm familiar with, and it's IRL where you can touch and feel it, in natural light. Like a museum of everyday awesome American culture.

    Somebody is going to get an absolute steal on these, and really enjoy them, and keep them in circulation. It's nice to know they didn't end up in a dump somewhere.

    And the prices being slightly higher than thrift store giveaway prices discourages the parasitic and deluded flippers. "But I can't list these at my letter-to-Santa price of 10x what I paid!" That's right bitch, move aside for someone who will actually value it and enjoy it. Also being in the unglamorous part of town means flippers won't venture there anyway.

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  27. And now, for the evening honey bunny trend report. Are cute piercings back? There was another flirtatious girl in a thrift store today, had just come from the gym / still in her workout leggings and crop top / sports bra thingy, making sure to expose her tummy when I got behind her in line (we'd been circling around each other throughout the store earlier). And that's when I noticed it -- a belly piercing!

    No other piercings I could see (maybe ears, but not currently wearing earrings), no visible tattoos, no crazy hair color, no alt-coded clothing or shoes. Just some fit thicc gym babe -- with a belly piercing, and displaying it proudly.

    Reminded me of this girl from about a month ago, who had a septum piercing:

    https://akinokure.blogspot.com/2023/05/prelude-to-americanist-defense-of.html?showComment=1684547354523#c3247204773502793573

    I love Zoomers reviving the whole '90s / y2k atmosphere of cute fun normie girls who take a little -- just a little -- walk on the wild side. See also: normie girls getting a tramp stamp, but no other tattoos, and not always visible (although usually, given the low-rise jeans and crop top combo).

    Or maybe they're the wild child type, but are restraining themselves, unlike Millennials who really let their freak flags fly during the woketard 2010s.

    I didn't really get the wild-child vibe from either of them, though.

    The over-the-top era of the late 2000s and 2010s is over. If you have a zillion tattoos, you've dated yourself as a Millennial geezer.

    I only have two, but then I'm a late Gen X-er who got them in the y2k era -- and from a local tattoo parlor, from fairly stock images (with my own message / text), from some random tattoo artist, not the "I'm going to express my uniquely awesome personality by wasting $10,000 on custom-curated whole-body-part tattoo canvasses from a top-0.01% artist!" Tryhard Millennials... just get yer fuckin' tribal tattoo and shut the fuck up.

    Also hope this eliminates the Millennial trend of tattoos to advertise what kind of sad pop culture junkie you are. That's for a jacket patch or a bumper sticker, if that -- not a tattoo. No, I would never get a Hololive tattoo, as much as I love the Holo honies. Hehe.

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  28. Also, TAN is the PLAN, MAN. DAMN. I've never seen so many bronzed babes since the '80s. Tanning limped into the '90s, and there was already a stigma against spray-on tanning in the 2000s, though it didn't stop a decent chunk from doing it.

    Hell, I even did it once! I don't get very tan naturally, so decided to try it out. Looked cool for about a week or two, but it fades unevenly without repeated visits, so I just wore long-sleeve shirts for the next week or so, and didn't do it again. Didn't want to have to blow so much on just tanning, LOL.

    Tanning began surging in the '60s, through the '70s, and peaking in the '80s. Seems to be a rising-crime / outgoing trend -- was also like that in the early 20th C., before fair skin became the thing in the Midcentury, and again gradually since the '90s. Outgoing, not cocooning, therefore getting tanned? Something like that.

    But now that crime rates are surging again, so is the tan trend. I don't mean, "it must be summer" -- like, they're sunbathing outside for hours, or in a tanning bed, or spray-on, or the rub-on stuff from the tube, or something. They're VERY tan, and it's not a minority trend, it's totally mainstream.

    I have no idea if guys are getting in on this, or if it's only girls. But at least among the not-so-fairer sex, it's game on!

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  29. Forget bare midriffs and bra-less booba, it's the cheeky shorts trend that I love most. They're still pretty high-waisted, so they look wholesome, having lots of fabric covering lots of skin -- it's just the lower belly or lower back area, not the buns themselves, which are quite often on display these days... just begging to get squeezed! ^_^

    I think this is why Millennials are such doomers about the generational change -- we're at the 60-year cycle changing, i.e. shifting gears from cocooning / falling-crime to outgoing / rising-crime.

    The shifts throughout the 15-year cultural excitement cycle are not too much to handle. It's been the restless warm-up phase since 2020, and that's a repeat of the late 2000s. Just coming out of your emo touch-me-not shell of the previous vulnerable phase. They can handle that.

    They may even be able to handle the 30-year shift we're in, going from a high-energy cycle (2005-2019) back to a low-energy cycle (like 1990-2004). They lived through that, it's a larger gear-shift but not unfamiliar.

    But the 60-year gear-shift takes it too far into unfamiliar territory for Millennials, who don't remember the '60s, '70s, or '80s. They're being asked to keep up with too many changing trends, some of which they don't have any previous experience with, especially anything au naturel. Millennials were raised on completely shaven body hair, and suddenly things are heading toward naturalness??? DOES NOT COMPUTE!!!

    I forgot to mention, even the Asians are getting tanned! Usually they hide from the sunlight, but not among Zoomers, at least in America. They're not going to be out-tanned by girls who have lighter skin to begin with! Hehe.

    Anyways, for the Millennials who want to take the plunge, it's that simple -- stop wearing a structured bra (no wire, no padding), or go no-bra entirely, stop shaving your pussy so much, and get a tan of from any source whatsoever! Dress and groom mostly normie, but with one interesting daring choice like a belly piercing! And show a little skin -- belly, buns, booba, whatever.

    Lighten the hell up already!

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  30. So really, the closest period to where we are right now is 1960-'64 -- restless phase of the 15-year cycle, within a broader low-energy cycle ('60-'74), and during an outgiong / rising-crime phase of the 60-year cycle ('60-'90).

    I certainly don't remember the early '60s either, but I can piece it together from other times I do -- crucially, the '80s, to cover the rising-crime / outgoing aspect.

    All of the shocking things that heralded the end of the cocooning Midcentury, and the more free-wheeling and carefree times of the '60s '70s and '80s, are just as shocking to Millennials this time around. Similar to Silents getting shocked during the '60s -- they'd grown up during cocooning / falling-crime times starting in the '30s.

    But the Greatest Gen could see a little bit of the Roaring Twenties / Jazz Age atmosphere in the outgoing and rising-crime zeitgeist of the '60s, and then the '70s and '80s even more so.

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  31. On the '60s tip, I picked up Sounds of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel, and Deliver by the Mamas and the Papas, both on LP, at the thrift store today -- $4 apiece! Picked up If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears by M&P a few weeks ago, also for a few bucks.

    Also saw the record for Business As Usual by Men at Work, but I already have it.

    Usually I don't find many good records, but they're starting to come back into circulation now.

    On that note, I've never seen any cool jazz records, tapes, or CDs -- not even at the 2nd-hand stores that specialize in music. I wanna play Paul Desmond some other way than streaming it over YouTube, dammit.

    Final oddity: I've never seen Celine Dion's greatest hits CD. Every other imaginable CD, including some of the French-only ones, yes. Often someone's entire collection of them in one place. But it seems like no one bought the greatest hits album in the late 2000s or 2010s. Is she really that good that no one ever felt like getting the distilled version of her oeuvre, and kept all the original full albums? Maybe I'll have to buy one and find out -- there's so many copies of them, anyway!

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  32. Soccer hooliganism is up in Europe (especially in the Netherlands) which indicates a switch to rising crime atmosphere in Europe as well.

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  33. You'll never see right-wing crime-stats junkies discussing the history of Europe, because it contradicts all of their dumbo Reaganite / Social Darwinist "explanations" for crime (really, just a rationalization for the swith to punitive and pointless incarceration surges, as of 1980 or so).

    There were no non-white races in Europe during the '60s through the '80s, but like America, Europe was hit by a society-wide surge in violent crime rates. There weren't even any immigrants back then -- Britain for the British, with British-made things; Spain for the Spanish, with Spanish-made things; etc.

    And that's not the only time Europe has seen a surge in homicide rates lasting decades. There was another circa 1890 or 1900 to 1930, another circa 1780-1830, another circa 1580-1630, and another circa 1380-1430, with declines in between. It's dynamic, fluctuates over decades and centuries.

    I wrote about this in 2010 and a few years after, going off of Manuel Eisner's work for the chronology, but developing my own theories as to why it's cyclical, what other key variables are there (like cocooning vs. outgoing social behavior), and what other correlates there are in the culture (like intense vs. placid emotional level, high vs. low contrast, etc.).

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  34. They will never move away from the easily disproven racial / ethnic angle, but rather than try to buttress it, they'll move to some other Social Darwinist rationalization -- namely, that the state being soft on crime causes crime to surge, while the state going hard on crime causes crime to decline. Simple rationalization for always being as hard on crime as possible.

    But that doesn't pan out either. During the neoliberal revolution that was in seed form in the mid-late '70s, and throughout the Reagan revolution of the '80s and early '90s, incarceration rates took off like a rocket in America -- producing no decline in crime.

    "Um, ackshually, there's a lag between hard-on-crime policies and falling-crime. That's only to be expected."

    No it's not -- you said removing existing criminals from the street will prevent them from carrying out further crimes, so it must decline immediately, not after 15 further consecutive years of increases.

    Also, there is no expectation that a purported lag will be exactly the number of years that the data show between the two variables -- that's dum-dum ex post facto reasoning. Why not a 5-year lag? Or 10 years? Or 20 years? Or 2 years? No independent, pre-existing motivation for the length of the lag that is observed. Ex post facto only.

    Then you point out Canada and Europe, who did not send incarceration rates through the roof since the '80s. According to Social Darwinists, that means crime could not have declined since the '90s as it did in tough-on-crime America. Only it did! And by the same magnitude.

    More cops on the street? Canada actually had somewhat *fewer* cops on the street per capita by the end of the '90s, compared to the start of the decade. And their crime rates fell, and by the same degree as they did in America. There was no nationwide Giuliani in Canada back then. Nor anywhere in Europe.

    More cop cars patrolling the street? Empirically in a randomized experiment, shown not to cause crime to decline, although it did make people *feel* safer. (Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment.) And again, no such policies in Canada or Europe. Not necessary, not sufficient.

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  35. Crime declined during the '30s, '40s, and '50s in America, yet we had a very soft-on-crime state, especially by the '50s. That's not possible according to the tough-on-crime cheerleaders. But facts don't care about their feelings.

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  36. Not that there's a negative correlation either, as though being tough on crime caused crime to surge, while going soft on crime caused it to decline. That's the bleeding-heart libtard model, but very few people hold that view, as opposed to huge numbers holding the punitive / tough-on-crime model.

    Instead, crime rates and incarceration rates -- or other measures of how soft vs. hard on crime the state is -- are uncorrelated with each other. Crime can fall for decades, and then reverse to rising for decades, under a soft-on-crime state -- as was the case from the '30s through the '70s. Conversely, crime can rise for over a decade, then reverse to falling, while the state gets monotonically more tough on crime, as it was from the mid-'70s through the 2010s.

    What *is* correlated with crime surges and declines? Number one: the shape of the age pyramid, where a more youth-heavy pyramid goes with rising crime, and a less youth-heavy one goes with falling crime. The '60s through the '80s were when the output of the Baby Boom were in their most crime-prone years (15-24). That also explains why crime surged in Canada, Europe, etc. -- they also saw a baby boom at the same time and for the same duration as we did.

    When the Boomers aged out of those most-criminal years, there weren't enough Gen X-ers or Millennials to take their place as 15-24 year-old criminals. So crime rates fell. Ditto for Canada and Europe.

    Also explains the decline in crime during the '30s '40s and '50s -- falling fertility rates. Also the longer-term, centuries-long decline in violence rates in "the West" -- our age pyramids are qualitatively different than they were in Ancient or Medieval times. The Roman census shows an age pyramid that looks like any third-world country today, heavily young and not many old folks to keep them in check. No bulge in the middle-aged range either.

    No wonder the Ancients were more hotheaded and horny than Moderns are -- they were mostly hormonally crazed youngsters!

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  37. The variation among American states also disproves the tough-on-crime theory. Although there are some national guidelines, much of crime policies are made at the state level -- or even the city level, as the right-wing focus on "Soros-funded DA's" has shown.

    Crime surged everywhere in America during the '60s, '70s, and '80s. But some states were tough-on-crime, like in the South, while libs in the Northeast were softer. Atlanta was not as soft as San Francisco. And yet everyone was struck by the crime wave, by similar magnitudes -- because all of them suddenly became flooded with Boomers.

    Same with the cocooning vs. outgoing social behavior. That was all across America, red states and blue states, North and South, cities and suburbs and rural areas. All more outgoing and carefree during the crime wave, all more cocooning during the crime decline.

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  38. What *is* correlated with incarceration rates? The status-striving trend, hyper-competitiveness, widening inequality, and norms of Social Darwinism.

    The sprawling prison-industrial complex since roughly the 1980s in America is not an isolated historical case. Europe was like that during the Victorian era (our Gilded Age). They even threw you in debtor's prison for not paying your creditors! Or the workhouse, where you did slave labor to repay a debt or compensate for a petty crime you committed. Or got sent to the gallows rather than housed in prison. All very tough-on-crime policies.

    "But you just said crime fell during the Victorian era! That proves tough-on-crime worked!"

    No, it was one of those historical coincidences. Crime fell in Europe during the Midcentury, but they didn't have Dickensian prison policies. And crime had already begun to fall in the early part of the Victorian era, the 1830s, when the prison-industrial complex was a non-factor compared to the 1860s and later.

    There may also be a link to what stage of life an empire is in. A small state cannot run a prison-industrial complex. Nor can a fragmenting one -- why the debtor's prisons, workhouses, etc. collapsed in Europe in the early 20th C., as their states / empires were in freefall collapse.

    But when they're at saturation level / plateau / stagnation, as in the mid-late 19th C in Europe, they were big and strong enough internally to operate them. And their norms were punitive and Social Darwinist, so the state put them into practice.

    However, during the neoliberal revolution in Europe, they have not returned to those Victorian / Dickensian policies, despite other aspects of the original age of libertarianism coming back to life (free trade, deregulation, laissez-faire, etc.). European empires collapsed in the early 20th C., so although the norms have become Social Darwinist once more, they lack the central state power to implement a prison-industrial complex this time around.

    But America did not collapse 100 years ago, and we just entered our plateau phase in the imperial lifespan during the '80s, so our revived Social Darwinist norms were capable of being implemented by our still strong central state. And they did get implemented, unlike in Europe.

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  39. I've rehearsed these arguments since 2010, but it's nice to have periodic reminders for new readers, and to "play the hits" for old readers.

    The only new angle I have now is the imperial lifespan angle, where tough-on-crime hysterias -- and state policies to embody that -- explode mostly during the twilight years of an empire, while it's still strong and somewhat cohesive.

    Too early in the lifespan, the state is small and weak in absolute terms, although expanding and forming together over time.

    Too late in the lifespan, the central state has lost legitimacy, and therefore the power to implement its policies. Most public behavior toward the state comes from acquiescence, and once central legitimacy is eroded, the public doesn't cooperate anymore, and there aren't enough central-level enforcers to police the entire massive population of an empire. So power devolves and/or the society descends into anarchy -- at least vis-a-vis the central state, perhaps not regarding local authority figures, who may still have legitimacy.

    So in Florida, crime policies will be tough, due to DeSantis being governor, while in California they'll be soft, with Newsom as governor. Neither side will reduce crime during the current wave.

    I just mean that at a national level, the days of a uniform tough-on-crime mindset -- or soft-on-crime mindset -- are gone. Both libs and cons were bitterly tough-on-crime during the '80s and '90s, during our empire's twilight years. And libs and cons were equally soft-on-crime during the Eisenhower years, when our empire was at peak unity.

    But now that the empire is fragmenting, there will be no more uniform mood regarding crime. Libs will go with soft, cons with go with hard, neither making a difference for crime rates, just expressing their political ideologies, and reflecting their polarization against their political rivals. "In this house, we..."

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  40. Why do right-wingers promote tough-on-crime policies that don't reduce crime? They could move the goalposts yet again and say, "OK, they don't reduce crime, but bad deeds require punishment for moral reasons, not utilitarian reasons."

    At bottom, it's simple patronage. Right-wingers belong to a coalition whose central sector of elites is the armed forces, including the military but also the police forces, security guards, etc. Therefore, they will promote policies that divert society's finite resources to their fellow coalition members, like tough-on-crime policies to fatten the coffers of the police (not just those on the beat, but staffing the sprawling prison industry).

    Left-wingers do not belong to such a coalition, so they promote the opposite policies -- defund the police, who belong to the rival coalition. Give that money to Democrat coalition members instead -- social workers, teachers, whoever. Rationalize it as being a better solution to the problem of managing crime, even though it doesn't work -- cuz the GOP solution doesn't work either. They're just naked cash grabs dressed up as save-the-world crusades.

    I easily see this because I pioneered the return to focusing on patronage in political discourse, as opposed to the retarded ethnic / gender / other demographic angles that had been pushed for decades, by both the right and left for their own separate reasons. E.g., that the partisan divide is about race, male vs. female, etc. -- when it's about who pays your bills, protects you, calls in favors on your behalf, etc.

    NOT as an entire party, but as the distinct sectors that use the party as their vehicle -- finance, military, agriculture, media, etc.

    See these two seminal posts from very early in the Trump years, when everyone else was still focused on "politics reduces to demographics" or "politics is downstream of culture".

    https://akinokure.blogspot.com/2017/05/dems-wall-st-party-gop-pentagon-party.html

    https://akinokure.blogspot.com/2018/01/electoral-map-reflects-patronage-not.html

    Timely because it reminded everyone why Trump flipped all those blue states -- not cuz those states suddenly became more white demographically, or underwent a cultural revolution toward evangelical Christianity or whatever else. Trump simply promised that the new GOP under his leadership would benefit the working class who used to have the manufacturing sector as their employers. Even if they didn't work at a factory themselves, lots of people in their community and state did, and having factories meant the manufacturing elites were being benefactors to the local community.

    That's why he flipped the Rust Belt -- and also why California went so blue, from being moderately red before. The Pentagon shut down all their military bases except for the San Diego naval base, and the manufacturers off-shored all their factories. Dems promised to provide those fired individuals, and potentially doomed communities, with jobs and other goodies. Namely through the new bubble sector of info-tech.

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  41. Media types cannot see this at all, because their role is to cheerlead for their party and its coalition members. They can't say, "We support tough-on-crime because it rewards our coalition members and deprives the members of our rivals. Whether or not it reduces crime rates is immaterial to us. We got ours, lotsa luck getting yours."

    Or likewise for Dem media-ites saying we support *de*-funding the police because they belong to the coalition of our rivals, and funding social workers who do belong to our coalition, and the utilitarian calculus about crime is immaterial.

    Right-wing media can also never say why so many started voting blue since roughly 1990 -- namely, that the main coalition members of the Republican party fired their entire American clientele base, replacing them with foreigners or leaving a void.

    The Pentagon shut down an insane number of bases, rationalized as reflecting the end of the Cold War -- but those bases were not built for Russia in the first place. Our expansion and militarization has always been about the Indians and later the Mexicans -- not Russia, who never posed any threat to us.

    But the military had subdued the Indians and Mexicans by that point, and wanted to expand further on the periphery -- especially in the anti-traditional Eastern direction (the Middle Eastern direction, to be exact). So expansion in the Middle East, Africa, etc., meant contraction within the core nation. The Pentagon fired shitloads of Americans, plunged entire communities into collapsed shitholes from lack of a gravy train, and they wonder why Pennsylvanians and Californians stopped voting Republican?

    Ditto for off-shoring of factories, always led by Republicans (NAFTA was drafted by Bush Sr., and Dems voted against it more than Republicans, by a longshot). Because manufacturing is a GOP sector, not a Dem sector. And Republicans wonder why Rust Belters stopped voting red, when all their factories got sent to Mexico or China? Only Mexicans and Chinese can't vote in American elections, so there goes your voting base, you fucking retards.

    Until the central sectors of the GOP begin showering Americans with goodies again, all the right-wing media whining about why America votes so blue nowadays is just ideological bullshit. They can't say that it's because their glorious party's sectors have deprived Americans of their livelihoods, and they are being justly punished at the ballot box in retaliation.

    The military shrank here, expanded abroad. The factories got sent out of the country. Farms only hire immigrants. The only GOP sector that has not betrayed Americans over this period is the energy sector -- most coal miners and oil rig workers are not foreigners. You can't off-shore resources that are in our land, and for some reason I don't understand, you can't hire immigrants to come here and do the work cheaply (a la produce-pickers in the agriculture sector).

    Actually, the prison-industrial complex hasn't replaced Americans with foreigners either. Cops are still American, and they're not international, so there's no shift in scope from the core to the periphery of the empire. So far, they haven't exported our prison population to a foreign prison where the labor costs are cheaper, or brought immigrants in to police our domestic criminals. Language barrier, I dunno.

    So there's another reason why the right-wing media is so pro-cop -- one of the few sectors that hasn't shamed America through mass-scale betrayal. "At least they still provide decent-paying jobs for American workers" -- but media-ites have to rationalize and glorify it, so that turns into "cops save innocent victims from evil criminals". LOL.

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  42. The funniest bit of right-wing media whining, though, is "Why doesn't the GOP fund more right-wing media types, like oh I dunno, myself??!! They're going to lose the information war!"

    The media is not a Republican sector, that's why the party and its sector's elites don't care about it. Also why they don't fund GOP universities, GOP websites / online platforms, GOP movie studios / video game developers, or GOP banks. Those sectors all use the Dems as their vehicle, so Republicans could never make a dent in the informational warfare, media battle, school curriculum, or debanking warfare, to harm their rivals.

    Likewise, why the Democrats do not fund a shadow military and police force -- and no, Antifa is not such a thing, LOL. They're minuscule in number compared to just the NYPD, let alone US Army. They don't have sophisticated weapons, ammo, supply lines, bases, vehicles, or any of the real military stuff.

    Why don't Democrats produce an alternative source of energy??? Cuz energy is Republican, whatever non-fossil-fuel source that actually worked would immediately join the Republicans and funnel their newfound wealth into the GOP.

    Why don't Democrats produce an alternate food supply chain to benefit vegans??? Cuz agriculture is Republican, such a group of farms would become Republican and benefit the rival coalition.

    Why don't Democrats start their own industrial-scale manufacturing sector??? Cuz it would join the existing one, off-shore the factories, and become Republican instead of remaining Democrat.

    "Why don't Dems raise and fund a shadow-imperial-army?" is just as retarded as "Why don't Republicans hire and fund a shadow-media-network?"

    But being trapped in the system blinds you to such obvious things. I'm not part of it, so I can plainly see it. :)

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  43. Upcoming post about the role of dinosaurs, cavemen, and monkey-men / missing links, in America's genesis / creation myth, BTW. But some non-cultural topics deserve the occasional post-within-the-comments-section treatment.

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  44. To fill in the argument for why any GOP shadow-org within the Dem sectors would become Dem, and likewise for Dem shadow-orgs within GOP sectors, it's cuz political coalitions are held together by shared material concerns -- NOT ideas, values, morality, or any other airy-fairy bullshit like that.

    I thought people had started to understand that as a result of Trump's 2016 campaign / victory, but no, it's right back to "Democrats are held together by shared hatred of white people" or "Republicans just want to harm innocent victims" or whatever.

    One of the most central material concerns is the unit cost of labor -- some sectors are labor-intensive, others are not -- and some are labor-intensive while still being insensitive to its price b/c it's being paid by others (like tax-payers or central bank money-printers, not by the institution with the labor-intensive workforce itself, e.g. gov bureaucracies, schools, hospitals, etc.).

    GOP sectors are sensitive to the cost of labor, so they will all push to lower the minimum wage, lower other compensation, wipe out unions, etc. If a group of Democrats tried to start up their own farm, it would be subject to the same material concerns -- they'd want to keep their costs low in order to not get wiped out by their competitors in the market, meaning drive down labor costs in a labor-intensive activity, meaning hire only poor foreigners who you pay peanuts and eliminate minimum wage laws.

    "But then they'd end up like the very heartless, skinflint Republicans they sought to topple!"

    Exactly, the material concerns don't care if you're a lib or a con, vote Dem or vote GOP, male or female, black or white, whatever.

    Any group of Republicans who tried to start up a GOP university would immediately push for legislation that expanded the size of the student loan bubble, that deregulated how much real estate universities can own, that funneled more central bank money-printed dollars into university endowments as though they were Democrat-voting hedge funds, and so on and so forth. Vastly empowering the university sector, which is uber liberal and Democrat.

    Because what's good for one university is good for another, and what's good for one farm is good for another. That's why all the farms link up into a single societal actor pressing for their common interests, why all universities link up into another one, and so on.

    Whether a university's branding leans conservative, makes no difference whatsoever. Likewise for a lib-branded latifundium.

    Media type phonies on both sides will never say this -- they cannot even conceive of it long enough to internalize it. They could see it for a second, realize its implications for their role as rationalizers for their party, and then shut it out of view afterward.

    But that's what you come to the ruins of the blogosphere for!

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  45. A decade ago the Democrats and allied media tried promoting renewable energy like solar and wind as an alternative to fossil fuels (fossil fuels being part of the Republican coalition). However, if one looks at a map today of where all the wind farms and solar plants in the United States, the vast majority of them are installed in Republican leaning areas: Texas/Oklahoma and the Great Plains states for wind power, Texas and the coastal Southeast states (along with California) for solar power. Nowadays, the Democrats and their media don't promote renewable energy anymore, because renewable energy is part of the Republican coalition now, and instead have gone all in on the "climate crisis".

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  46. In your posts and comments you talk about how Denmark has already realigned its political coalitions a few years ago. What are Denmark's current political coalitions and how does it differ from Denmark's political coalitions during the neoliberal era?

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  47. We see your Moom colors
    Cursed and cute
    We see your Moom colors
    And that's why we sub'd you

    So don't be afraid
    To sappypost

    Your Moom colors
    Moom colors
    Are lovable
    Like an idol

    ReplyDelete

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