David Goldman on Vice & Decadence

There is a severe beauty in the writing of my friend David Goldman, unmatched in America now. It is the seriousness of the serious man, it involves contempt for the unseriousness of the world of entertainment. It is the privilege of the educated to not entertain the fantasies of the ignorant or the vicious; in our decadent times, that entails criticism of our elites, or what it means to pay for our vices. Here is his very educational comparison of America to the European colonial empires:

Does the Internet shrink the world? How can we compare it to an earlier technological revolution, namely ocean navigation—including breakthroughs in astronomy, shipbuilding, time measurement, map-making? At the end of the day, silks, cottons, coffee, tea, spices, sugar, rum, & tobacco ruined four continents as the world’s capital flowed to Western Europe.

Read his latest essay & you may initially be stunned, but altogether, the effect is inspiriting, invigorating, because it’s a matter of justice, it’s something that concerns us all, & any man who can face up to things can respect himself. David does more than most to help Americans who still have their pride to learn what it’s for & what it demands. The patriotism of an intelligent man is a service beyond the elementary duty of humanity, itself much neglected in our times, a service for which I am not sure how we can reward him, beyond our admiration. At any rate, our elites do not respect David, & if you want America to change for the better, you should disobey the elites.