However,
in the end the US might be less threatened by decline than old Europe
The
United States of America are a divided country. This is a truism, as the entire
Western world has long since descended into a culture war. But the assumption
is that the divide in the US is perhaps even deeper and the majorities in this
domestic political cold war are possibly narrower than in Europe. Reasons for
taking a closer look. Last year I visited the heartland of one side,
Trumpistan, the “Bible Belt,” home of the Rednecks, Dixie, the great Old South.
equity & freedom reported (see ‘The Confederacy Lives,’ 1 January 2018).
This
summer we took a look around the “other America,” the epicenter of progressive
renewal and politically correct re-education in and around Hollywood and
Silicon Valley on the West Coast. In California, where all modern left-wing
movements from Haight-Ashbury to Berkeley and Castro Street to Burning Man have
their origins, and of course, since we were there, also the neighboring states
with their places of outstanding natural beauty and often completely different,
more down-to-earth ideas of society.
The
most striking difference compared to last year? The countless homeless people
in the west coast cities. Many of them are completely unkempt, obviously close
to insanity or already far beyond. Gesticulating or screaming wildly and for no
reason, they roam the sidewalks. Others sneak around quietly with an empty,
vacant stare – one can imagine where Hollywood's zombie stories found their
inspiration. But there are also others, at first glance still quite “normal,”
where the fact that they live on the street becomes apparent only when, after a
friendly smile, they suddenly start looking for something usable in the next
garbage can. These must be the people above all who are meant when the fate of
more and more homeless people is explained with exploding property prices in
the centers of the entertainment and communication industries. However, that’s
an explanation that falls short, if no mention is made of central bank dollars
spouting from nowhere, which are precisely not caused by capitalism and the
principle of competition, but by a forcibly monopolised, extremely socialist
monetary system that Karl Marx himself had once thought of.
For the
zombies and crazy people, however, and the hopeless drug wrecks, even this
explanation doesn’t cover everything. In the Old South, as we were able to
observe, the traditional social structures are still largely intact, families
pick up members who look like they are slipping away, and the many church
communities also provide very concrete local help, through direct contact,
supporting and demanding change – and definitely not as an anonymous authority.
Much of that has disappeared in and around Los Angeles and San Francisco. Here
what you see from time to time is just a lost individual without any support.
Family ties, long since damaged by left-wing propaganda, were replaced by the
antisocial welfare state. And just as the Soviet flag once flew over the
Reichstag (the German parliament building in Berlin), huge rainbow flags hang
from some (Lutheran) church towers – as we saw in, of course, Hollywood, for
example – as a sign of surrender and takeover. Bureaucracy is growing rampant.
When I
returned to California from Nevada and the many places of outstanding natural
beauty further east, that was the first time I noticed huge government
billboards – “Rebuilding California,” a cynicism we know from North Korea or
the EU. At least they add – and this message is usually withheld in Germany –
“your tax dollars at work.” Worse still, another Californian speciality that I
did not see anywhere else, are the constant calls for denunciation on road
signs: “Report drunk drivers, call 911...”
In the
end, socialism is the same everywhere, and if there is relatively advanced
socialism anywhere in the US, then in “California über alles.” Socialism always
kills, in the end. What was new for me was this: socialism stinks. The
omnipresent penetrating urine smell on the streets of the metropolises is
almost unbearable. The mere sight of the many homeless was, after all, not the
worst.
But
this account is unfair – because there is also another, positive aspect of
modern progressivism. Namely entrepreneurial progress and creative destruction
as explained by Schumpeter. Silicon Valley and Hollywood are centers of
unbridled capitalism in the areas of entertainment and networking. And this is
where the modern “sharing economy” was, and is, being driven forward. There are
hardly any old licensed cabs left in San Francisco, and those that are, are
dirty and scruffy. For the first time in my life I had a ride in an Uber car –
and behold, the driving experience in the free transport market was more
comfortable, cleaner and, above all, much cheaper because no bureaucrat was
involved. The Uber app alone is an experience – you can see your location on
the city map, and around it the nearby vehicles move around like little bugs.
One of them came shortly after my call in record time - oh miracle of
capitalism.
But
while Uber remains largely banned in the EUSSR, Southern California has long
since moved on. With short trip offers. This summer's hottest thing are
electric scooters standing around everywhere – they look like the scooters of
our childhood, but have an electric drive that propels them as fast as a moped.
Anyone can download the app from billion-dollar start-up companies Bird or Lime
and activate the next scooter standing on the road or, if not in sight, easily
locate it like the Uber bug. Then the first ten minutes cost three dollars –
and off you go, often visibly with a lot of fun. At the end of the ride, the
scooter is left at the side of the road, ready for the next customer or for
charging the batteries at night, organised by the company. In California, too,
there is of course a discussion about road safety concerns – but unlike in
Germany, what is not prohibited is, for the time being, allowed. And by next
year at the latest, this new industry will already be too strong to be banned,
even if one wanted to, which is unlikely when it has millions of satisfied
customers.
It was
a pity that you absolutely still need a US driver's license to activate the
scooter the first time to prove your identity, but by next year at the latest
hundreds of thousands of tourists willing to pay will certainly not be turned
away again – it’s all a question of optimization and ever better programming.
The
densely populated southern part of California is a world in itself, an urban
sprawl – to the east and north of it one encounters fewer people. More
agreeable. And more conservative. Other parallel societies are the huge Native
American reservations in Arizona or the Mormons in their state of Utah. Native
Americans can't drink alcohol, we joked before we could watch four of them at
the bar in the evening, three men and a woman. The woman drank and never
uttered a word, while the male Native American trio spoke, babbled, laughed,
screamed out loud for two hours as if from one throat, just one word. F…! F…!
F…! Compared with these four indigenous artists in the small town of Page,
every hearty Oktoberfest visitor will be remembered as a meek choirboy.
A few
miles further, we cross the border to Utah. Of all places. Maybe the Mormons
could tolerate alcohol better. But that’s not the only thing they don’t drink ,
they also shun coffee and tea, I don’t know how they manage it – and of course
it’s not only marijuana they don’t smoke. But the center of its capital Salt
Lake City, Temple Square, is impressive. Non-Mormons are not allowed to enter
the sacred building itself. We looked at the scaled-down model in the information
centre. There is no mistaking the relationship to Freemasonry. Then I smiled a
little about their faith in a Jesus who appeared in America immediately after
his resurrection – and heard the wise question: What is less likely about that
per se than the beliefs of any other religion? Well, I didn't see any homeless
people in Salt Lake City, and I didn't smell tons of urine or clouds of
narcotics on the street. But Uber exists here too. Unrestricted. And once again
we are reminded of the social value per se of every religion that creates
civilization, as long as the religious freedom of the individual is guaranteed
– which is in essence, by the way, a Christian dogma.
A word
about Las Vegas. As in the centers of Southern California, marijuana can be
smelled at every second corner. In an intensity, by the way, against which
every coffee shop in Amsterdam still passes as staid Café Kranzler in Berlin.
But this is rather a pleasant change for the afflicted noses. No, Las Vegas is
much more than a new or mega-Amsterdam, a tasteless mixture of Ballermann on
Mallorca, Disneyland and Reeperbahn in Hamburg in the middle of the blistering
heat of the Nevada desert, a very special cultural mystery whose puzzling
success must be explained by the many Americans who go there one to four times
a year to play, drink and eat very badly - from glittery plastic dishes.
But,
even in the west, the small and medium-sized towns are really beautiful. While
last year we had come to appreciate and love Natchez in Mississippi, Savannah
in Georgia and the entire state of South Carolina with pearls like Beaufort and
Charleston, in the north of San Francisco we recommend wine-loving Napa and the
picturesque coastal town of Mendocino, extolled by Michael Holm, south of the
bay the Monterey peninsula and the student and artist town of San Luis Obispo
(connoisseurs may say “Slo”) and two insider tips, small and large: first Black
Barts Steakhouse in Flagstaff (the town near the Grand Canyon) – an
inconspicuous saloon with guests from the nearby camp site, in which all
waiters (film and music students on part-time jobs) suddenly start singing one
after the other and sometimes simultaneously, accompanied only by a bar
pianist. Unique. And second, the state of Idaho, where you quickly feel just as
comfortable as in Bavaria. Because it looks like Bavaria.
Oh yes,
even the house breweries on the Pacific coast (that brew craft beer with the
courage to include hops) are better than in good old Germany with its bad old
industrial beers. In addition, there is the wine from Napa and Co, mostly pure
grape varieties, which in many locations has also qualitatively left behind the
old European masters. Thanks not least to omnipresent automatic irrigation
systems, of course – when it comes to profit thanks to product optimization,
even Californian “Eco-Stalinists” don’t mind turning a blind eye.
What
impressions remain after two exploratory trips through the US? America is
divided in a different way from Europe. More. And, at the same time, less so.
For the United States are marked by further, older, perhaps even deeper
divisions than just those between right and left, or countryside and city; just
look at the largely autonomous parallel societies such as those of the Native
American tribes or the Mormons. The ethnic groups, this first impression from
the South was confirmed, also largely keep themselves to themselves. Black
people keep company mainly with blacks, Asians – of whom there are more in the
West – with Asians, Mexicans with Mexicans, and so on. Their strengths – such
as the proverbial warmth and helpfulness, apparent again in the West, albeit
not quite as often and deep as in the great Old South – and weaknesses, see
“cultured” Las Vegas, to which progressives and conservatives pilgrimage, unite
all Americans, with or without Trump. Just like their pleasant, unideological
pragmatism in everyday life and, as a little eccentricity, their love of
extraordinary sports. In the end, the culture war fronts run only partially
parallel to those in old Europe: very few progressives in Germany defend the
freedom of Uber or Bird. Our conservatives even less so. So we have very
different cognitive-intellectual problems. No one is forced to consume and
finance the politically correct teachings from Hollywood or Silicon Valley. Our
licence TV broadcasters ARD and ZDF operate on the basis of other principles.
America is better at some things. Even on the west coast.
Translated from eigentümlich frei, where the original article was published on 28th July 2018.
