Conservatives today bemoan the fact that men no longer behave as gentlemen. Yet their exhortations on the topic are without effect.

E. Digby Baltzell's writings on the American upper class shed light on this decline of the gentleman. He notes that an upper class establishment, as American had until the 1960s, made the social, moral, and behavioral codes of the upper class normative, or at least aspirational for society at large. The end of the establishment meant that those standards also went out the window.

It's also the case that the gentleman's code as we understand it was a product of the Anglo-American upper class and especially the Victorian era. It was not universal. This period had organic social hierarchy, patriarchal families, and significant restrictions on female behavior, all of which those who argue men should behave like the gentlemen of that era reject.

The largely Boomer social conservatives bleating about being a gentleman should be ignored. Instead, we as men should start thinking about the social norms that we want to have in our groups in the 21st century.

Rediscovering E. Digby Baltzell's Sociology of Elites: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/02/rediscovering-e-digby-baltzells-sociology-of-elites/

Trad Cons Are the Enemy of the American Man: https://www.aaronrenn.com/p/tradcons-are-the-enemy-of-the-american

The End of the Gentleman: https://www.aaronrenn.com/p/the-end-of-the-gentleman

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This episode in my series on the historic Protestant Establishment in the United States looks at the role the collapse of that establishment played in many of the dysfunctions of our age. These include the erosion of political norms, the decline of the gentleman, the fading away of the ethos of "fair play," the rise of charismatic politicians like Trump, and the decline of trust in institutions.

Rediscovering E. Digby Baltzell's Sociology of Elites: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/02/rediscovering-e-digby-baltzells-sociology-of-elites/

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This episode discusses the evolution of the American upper class from a local and familial to a national and associational community. It describes the nationalization and industrialization of the US in the post-Civil War era.  And it explains the challenges faced by the old WASP establishment leading up to its demise in the 1960s: managerialism, ethno-religious exclusion, and the failure to take up leadership positions in society.

Rediscovering E. Digby Baltzell's Sociology of Elites: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/02/rediscovering-e-digby-baltzells-sociology-of-elites/

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Henry Kissinger quipped, "No one will ever win the battle of the sexes. There's too much fraternizing with the enemy."  This encapsulates the broader truth about the relationship between the sexes. We are in this boat together. When men struggle, it affects men's relational prospects. But that's also true the other way around. We should want to see women flourish. So in working to build up men, we should not look to tear down women.

Also, in this issue I provide an extended excerpt from my major retrospective on the old White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) establishment, and the implications of its collapse. As a product of Catholic peasant stock on both sides of my family, this was an interesting one to research. It is also a critical topic to understand the dynamics of our contemporary world.

Social class has fallen off the radar in America, but remains key to understanding many of the problems we face today in society. This includes everything from the erosion of political norms to men no longer behaving as gentlemen.

These problems are traceable in part to the fall of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) establishment. Sociologist E. Digby Baltzell, who popularized the term WASP, predicted many of these problems years ago. In a new podcast series starting today, we will examine his work and what it tells us about America.

In this episode we will define and distinguish between the elite, the wealthy and the upper class. We well also talk about what it means to be a well-functioning (aristocratic) vs. poorly-functioning (caste) upper class. And we'll define authority and establishment, looking at what makes for a well-structured (establishment) and poorly-structured (caste) elite. Finally, we'll talk about the very specific meaning that the term WASP itself has.

These categories are fundamental to understanding what has happened to America since the decline of the establishment. In future episodes we'll trace some of the consequences of this.

Rediscovering E. Digby Baltzell's Sociology of Elites: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/02/rediscovering-e-digby-baltzells-sociology-of-elites/

The Rise of the “Establishment,” and Its Impact Today: https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-rise-of-the-establishment-and-its-impact-today-with-aaron-m-renn/

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The decline of Mainline Protestantism, that is the historically prominent American Protestant denominations, had profound consequences for America and American Christianity.  Mainline Protestantism was how Christianity was integrated with and represented in society as a whole. With the decline of the mainline denominations, America ceased to be a Protestant, and ultimately Christian nation.

This podcasts describes what Mainline Protestantism is, the origins of the term "mainline", the nature of their decline, their role in the sacred order of society, what may have led to their decline, and the consequences for the church and society.

David A. Hollinger, "After Cloven Tongues of Fire: Ecumenical Protestantism and the Modern American Encounter with Diversity": https://academic.oup.com/jah/article-abstract/98/1/21/873365

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Everybody likes to beat up on fundamentalists. I grew up in a rural, fundamentalist, pentecostal church. And while I am not a fundamentalist today and think they get a lot of things wrong, they also have some virtues we should appreciate. In this episode is discuss the power of a simple, naive faith, and the willingness to embrace and teach unpopular doctrines.

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Rational, logical argument is often  a recipe for losing debates today.  Rather, winning battled depends heavily on emotional appeals and above all seizing the cultural high ground. James Davison Hunter showed the importance of networks and institutions at the cultural center in determining society outcomes. 

The New Calvinism movement is an example of an instantiation of Hunter's idea, with celebrity preachers and other key figures creating networks and institutions to achieve power over their subdomain of Evangelicalism. The debates over the Statement on Social Justice show the futility of logical argumentation in the face of superior cultural power.

Those engaged in debates and disputes within the church and society must understand the full spectrum of considerations around power and persuasion, not just make logical arguments.

The Gospel Coalition is the flagship organization of the New Calvinism movement. They hold their major conference every two years in Indianapolis. Since I'm now back in Indy and they were meeting in person here despite Covid-19, I decided to attend and check it out.

This podcast was recorded in the middle of the conference to share a few observations about it, and the New Calvinism movement generally. The conference showcases two of the great strengths of the movement: its intellectual orientation (serious people talking seriously about serious things) and their excellence in public speaking. 

For further reference:

Noah Smith on experts who lie: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/yes-experts-will-lie-to-you-sometimes

My interview with sociologist Brad Vermurlen on New Calvinism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNA0ic1asbw

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In their book Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson noted how our language, and very way of perceiving the world, is saturated with metaphor. We use the metaphor "Love is war," for example, when describing someone as a relational "conquest."

Metaphors, analogies, etc. are a helpful and essential way of making sense of the world.  But the metaphors we live by can, as with "love is war," import ways of thinking about issues that may not be entirely healthy.

In this podcast we examine metaphors used for understanding race relations in America, and how we might be able to positively reframe our challenges using a different metaphor for thinking about them.

Buy Metaphors We Live By: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226468011/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theurban-20

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