"In the real world, we see constant cultural decline. Your handwriting is probably not as ornate as that of your parents, which in turn is inferior to that of your grandparents." This is just perfectly spot on. And once you notice it, you can't stop. Manners of speaking decline with each generation. Dress too -- especially in just the last couple of years. Whenever I go to my family's church I'm still a bit surprised at seeing almost no men wearing ties or jackets. Even few women wearing dresses. Even just a decade ago and certainly 20 years ago, people wore their Sunday best.
The sheer amount of jogger bottoms witnessed since the lockdown. Due to, I'd imagine, weight gain and a shift to living mainly online behind four walls; not being able to afford new trousers, and not caring to buy them anyway.
Wasn’t sure where you were going with this at the start, but I have to give it 10/10 for very creatively weaving this unheard of film, Mangler, with problematic political points of our time
We seem an inherently hierarchical species (but what species isn't?). A management consultant I talked to back in Germany told me that when he was brought in to help with problem companies/departments, 100% of the time it was down to bad leadership. Even with so-called emergent behaviour, the leader must encourage or discourage such things, there's no getting away from top-down responsibility. Thus, in a sufficiently horrific society one might as well hypothesise a "demon" as guiding principle, whether a malign non-human intelligence is literally at work, or if "demon" is just a word we use for certain patterns of human thought & motivation.
Anonymous Conservative noted that we've found evidence of child sacrifice all over the planet, as if totally isolated, disconnected populations spontaneously decide that they can accrue some benefit from killing babies.
I've come to believe these malign intelligences exist and interact with us; that they in some way require our suffering & relish our degradation. There are the isolated cases of influence, e.g. a serial killer; even worse, they occasionally seem able to influence an entire society through conventional material means (propaganda etc). My guess is, those at the very top of society have some ritualistic means of interacting with such an intelligence, and that ritual has become a means of in-group cohesion, like wearing a badge or having a secret handshake. I prefer not to speculate too much but there's so much purposeful evil about us now, that I can't just shrug and say "yeah people are weird, it must be emergent behaviour".
Next time someone asks what happened to my hand I'll whisper, horribly, "Tell me, how do you feel about industrial laundry presses...?"
Truly a fascinating essay. I think it's remarkable that you're able to glean so much insight from a frankly mediocre source. I rented the movie via old school Blockbuster and remember dismissing it as typical Stephen King hatred of traditional America.
I found this bit in particular very interesting:
"In the real world, we see constant cultural decline. Your handwriting is probably not as ornate as that of your parents, which in turn is inferior to that of your grandparents. This decline affects everything from manners to cultural tastes to thought itself - what Humanities professor today can hold a candle to his predecessors from 1890?"
This is true. It is so true and so tragic and so bizarre, and when you mention it to normies you get the sense that they can sense it too and yet have been conditioned to not think about it too much. Pursuing it to it's logical endpoint is embarrassing. References to 1984 have become more than cliche at this point, but I'm reminded of how the regime was able to not only make certain ideas illegal but to even make them shameful.
Still I think that eventually the disparity between what we have NOW vs what we had THEN will be impossible to ignore. The other day my daughters and I were watching an old movie set in the 70s and they asked me what it was like back then. I told them, we had way less people back then (our country's population has doubled via immigration since I was born), and nearly everyone was white. My younger daughter said, "Honestly that sounds really nice."
You touch on something that I deliberately left out of the essay, since it was already long enough. That is "typical Stephen King hatred of traditional America" and more relevantly, Tobe Hooper's hatred of the same. I don't know whether he hated traditional America. As I mentioned in the essay: "Whether he believed the country had always been this way, or started well but became this way, I don’t know."
The issue is complex, and made more so if we express our view of it and also evaluate the film's view of it, so I don't know how much to say.
Something clearly went profoundly wrong in the 20th Century, and we're now seeing its (ever worsening) consequences. A break manifested between the elites and the common people. Were they always separate? Did the elite always despise those below them? That seems unlikely to me; I don't know how you could end up with a functioning society (early 20th Century America) if there was such loathing between the classes. It seems to me that the loathing is a consequence of materialism, brought about by capitalism. But from Hooper's point of view, it is brought about by hierarchy itself. And from King's point of view, it is brought about by "tradition" - eg. bigotry, small-mindedness, dumb obedience to authority and social structure, etc. We see hierarchy as a necessity but one that can become subverted; lefties see it as intrinsically evil and corrupt.
One other point I perhaps should have made in the essay is that I am not anti-capitalist. To me capitalism is a tool and an extremely useful one; capitalism works, to a great extent. But it has to be controlled and limited, otherwise it will come to override everything else. Then it becomes a parasitical force upon a human group, sucking up their time and energy to the detriment of civilisation, taste, refinement, manners, community, identity, hierarchy, meaning, etc.
If you are unafraid to do the research and not deterred by the anti-semetic guilt trip- there is a pretty clear plan and agenda by late 19th and early 20th century families and the zionist movement, to take control of virtually everything.
From the first zionist conference to the creation of US Federal Reserve Bank, to the "western" education system, to WW1 & 2 and then the systemic destruction of family, community and country post WW2- with a 1001 details left out- the truth is out there.
Understanding, acknowledging and effectively disseminating this information to European descended peoples is going to be key to rebuilding out of the ashes of the rapidly approaching collapse of the "west".
Agreed that capitalism is a good but imperfect system that must be controlled. I also agree that it is at least partially to blame for our cultural disintegration and devolution. I'm hoping that you're curious enough about what caused the social schism in the last century between our classes, to pursue it in a future essay. I'd love to read your thoughts.
I shall seek this one out now, 30 years after its release. I cannot recall even seeing this on cable at 3 AM on a weekend after coming home from the bar back in the late ‘90s. It must have been a single-weekend flop at the theaters.
"Capitalism equalises people in a much more insidious way than Communism. Under capitalism, moronic mediocrity is celebrated while anything beautiful or refined or rare is despised, and encouraged to mix itself with the common and base."
Very true. This is a great piece. Critiques of capitalism from the right are always very refreshing. The Reform's and Republican's of this world are just as much part of the problem because they operate within the tight confines of neoliberalism.
Sometimes, people hate what is true - especially when they see it in themselves. At least, that was my initial thoughts when reading about the reception of the film by viewers and critics.
I assume it resonated on some level (conscious or not) with many people and that left a bad taste in their mouths.
An excellent example of where the "west" is, how we got here and what is ahead- a lot of gore.
Probably your best article.
Thank you.
"In the real world, we see constant cultural decline. Your handwriting is probably not as ornate as that of your parents, which in turn is inferior to that of your grandparents." This is just perfectly spot on. And once you notice it, you can't stop. Manners of speaking decline with each generation. Dress too -- especially in just the last couple of years. Whenever I go to my family's church I'm still a bit surprised at seeing almost no men wearing ties or jackets. Even few women wearing dresses. Even just a decade ago and certainly 20 years ago, people wore their Sunday best.
The sheer amount of jogger bottoms witnessed since the lockdown. Due to, I'd imagine, weight gain and a shift to living mainly online behind four walls; not being able to afford new trousers, and not caring to buy them anyway.
Wasn’t sure where you were going with this at the start, but I have to give it 10/10 for very creatively weaving this unheard of film, Mangler, with problematic political points of our time
Thank you.
Fight or die.
Either way.
Do it quietly.
Nice photo of Bill Gates ordering at Dick’s in North Seattle. The banality of evil, eh?
Very interesting piece, Woes.
We seem an inherently hierarchical species (but what species isn't?). A management consultant I talked to back in Germany told me that when he was brought in to help with problem companies/departments, 100% of the time it was down to bad leadership. Even with so-called emergent behaviour, the leader must encourage or discourage such things, there's no getting away from top-down responsibility. Thus, in a sufficiently horrific society one might as well hypothesise a "demon" as guiding principle, whether a malign non-human intelligence is literally at work, or if "demon" is just a word we use for certain patterns of human thought & motivation.
Anonymous Conservative noted that we've found evidence of child sacrifice all over the planet, as if totally isolated, disconnected populations spontaneously decide that they can accrue some benefit from killing babies.
I've come to believe these malign intelligences exist and interact with us; that they in some way require our suffering & relish our degradation. There are the isolated cases of influence, e.g. a serial killer; even worse, they occasionally seem able to influence an entire society through conventional material means (propaganda etc). My guess is, those at the very top of society have some ritualistic means of interacting with such an intelligence, and that ritual has become a means of in-group cohesion, like wearing a badge or having a secret handshake. I prefer not to speculate too much but there's so much purposeful evil about us now, that I can't just shrug and say "yeah people are weird, it must be emergent behaviour".
Next time someone asks what happened to my hand I'll whisper, horribly, "Tell me, how do you feel about industrial laundry presses...?"
if "demon" is just a word we use for certain patterns of human thought & motivation
Indeed. Whether evil is a real metaphysical entity or not, it might as well be.
Truly a fascinating essay. I think it's remarkable that you're able to glean so much insight from a frankly mediocre source. I rented the movie via old school Blockbuster and remember dismissing it as typical Stephen King hatred of traditional America.
I found this bit in particular very interesting:
"In the real world, we see constant cultural decline. Your handwriting is probably not as ornate as that of your parents, which in turn is inferior to that of your grandparents. This decline affects everything from manners to cultural tastes to thought itself - what Humanities professor today can hold a candle to his predecessors from 1890?"
This is true. It is so true and so tragic and so bizarre, and when you mention it to normies you get the sense that they can sense it too and yet have been conditioned to not think about it too much. Pursuing it to it's logical endpoint is embarrassing. References to 1984 have become more than cliche at this point, but I'm reminded of how the regime was able to not only make certain ideas illegal but to even make them shameful.
Still I think that eventually the disparity between what we have NOW vs what we had THEN will be impossible to ignore. The other day my daughters and I were watching an old movie set in the 70s and they asked me what it was like back then. I told them, we had way less people back then (our country's population has doubled via immigration since I was born), and nearly everyone was white. My younger daughter said, "Honestly that sounds really nice."
You touch on something that I deliberately left out of the essay, since it was already long enough. That is "typical Stephen King hatred of traditional America" and more relevantly, Tobe Hooper's hatred of the same. I don't know whether he hated traditional America. As I mentioned in the essay: "Whether he believed the country had always been this way, or started well but became this way, I don’t know."
The issue is complex, and made more so if we express our view of it and also evaluate the film's view of it, so I don't know how much to say.
Something clearly went profoundly wrong in the 20th Century, and we're now seeing its (ever worsening) consequences. A break manifested between the elites and the common people. Were they always separate? Did the elite always despise those below them? That seems unlikely to me; I don't know how you could end up with a functioning society (early 20th Century America) if there was such loathing between the classes. It seems to me that the loathing is a consequence of materialism, brought about by capitalism. But from Hooper's point of view, it is brought about by hierarchy itself. And from King's point of view, it is brought about by "tradition" - eg. bigotry, small-mindedness, dumb obedience to authority and social structure, etc. We see hierarchy as a necessity but one that can become subverted; lefties see it as intrinsically evil and corrupt.
One other point I perhaps should have made in the essay is that I am not anti-capitalist. To me capitalism is a tool and an extremely useful one; capitalism works, to a great extent. But it has to be controlled and limited, otherwise it will come to override everything else. Then it becomes a parasitical force upon a human group, sucking up their time and energy to the detriment of civilisation, taste, refinement, manners, community, identity, hierarchy, meaning, etc.
If you are unafraid to do the research and not deterred by the anti-semetic guilt trip- there is a pretty clear plan and agenda by late 19th and early 20th century families and the zionist movement, to take control of virtually everything.
From the first zionist conference to the creation of US Federal Reserve Bank, to the "western" education system, to WW1 & 2 and then the systemic destruction of family, community and country post WW2- with a 1001 details left out- the truth is out there.
Understanding, acknowledging and effectively disseminating this information to European descended peoples is going to be key to rebuilding out of the ashes of the rapidly approaching collapse of the "west".
Capitalism can be distinguished from commerce by the removal of usury.
Agreed that capitalism is a good but imperfect system that must be controlled. I also agree that it is at least partially to blame for our cultural disintegration and devolution. I'm hoping that you're curious enough about what caused the social schism in the last century between our classes, to pursue it in a future essay. I'd love to read your thoughts.
What power did the demon give to its subservients?
Social power - prestige, status.
Mainstream Mangler!
I shall seek this one out now, 30 years after its release. I cannot recall even seeing this on cable at 3 AM on a weekend after coming home from the bar back in the late ‘90s. It must have been a single-weekend flop at the theaters.
"Capitalism equalises people in a much more insidious way than Communism. Under capitalism, moronic mediocrity is celebrated while anything beautiful or refined or rare is despised, and encouraged to mix itself with the common and base."
Very true. This is a great piece. Critiques of capitalism from the right are always very refreshing. The Reform's and Republican's of this world are just as much part of the problem because they operate within the tight confines of neoliberalism.
Sometimes, people hate what is true - especially when they see it in themselves. At least, that was my initial thoughts when reading about the reception of the film by viewers and critics.
I assume it resonated on some level (conscious or not) with many people and that left a bad taste in their mouths.
The Matriarchy is the The Mangler that regularly sacrifices females to feminism. Their sacrifice is husbandlessness and childlessness.
How would you define the Puritan ethic?