Friday Haymaker
More from Fin de Siecle: Roger Mitchell on "the undeniable regression of the West"
Hello and happy Friday, Subscribers!
One of the topics we’ve frequently covered over these past three years is that of a monetary illusion. We often referred to this as “pseudo-prosperity” based on trillions of fiat money creation that supports nominal asset prices, especially stocks, while simultaneously debasing the U.S. dollar’s purchasing power. This can be seen in the fact that based on the ultimate hard currency, gold, the S&P 500 is lower than it was 25 years ago.
Combined with this deceptive image of affluence is a collective vacuousness, a void which millions attempt to fill with elusive crypto or meme-stock profits, not to mention mind-altering substances. (Are China and Mexico solely to blame for the fentanyl crisis?) Wherever we look, unfettered greed seems to be in ascendance as does a disregard for ethical behavior and, even, legality. This extreme and unabashed avarice cuts across the spectrum of our political, business and cultural elite (e.g., Nancy Pelosi’s stock trading history, which Mitchell alludes to below, and Donald Trump’s heavily promoted meme coin).
Additionally, narcissism, an absence of curiosity, a culture of entitlement, an assault on the work ethic, and a disdain for meritocracy are the calling cards of a superficially thriving but productively languishing society. They are also what Neil Howe and William Strauss would surely define as “Turning” ingredients, per their best selling book, The Fourth Turning, and, lately, Mr. Howe’s follow-up bestseller, The Fourth Turning Is Here.
Assessing the West’s plight from a decidedly spiritual and frankly prescriptive standpoint is mutual friend of Grant Williams, Roger Mitchell, whose work we are reprinting from Grant’s February 2025 Fin de Siècle edition of his Things That Make You Go Hmmm… newsletter. His piece provided below summarizes the Fourth Turning phenomenon in sociocultural terms before calling on a body of literature 20 centuries old.
At various points in history, this book was either utterly ubiquitous and quotable by many, or blithely dismissed and only vaguely recognizable to most. Guess which of those two describes our current situation. On the encouraging side, there is clearly a spiritual renaissance under way in the West. This is the case even in Europe, where houses of worship were frequently converted into museums or condo projects.
Grant himself, in a formal coda to Mitchell’s piece, condensed the latter’s argument as such:
Today, as Roger so starkly illustrates, much of these lessons have been forgotten. The worship of the divine has been supplanted by the worship of Mammon—the excessive devotion to material wealth, possessions, and worldly gain, often at the expense of spiritual values and ethical principles. The term Mammon originates from the Aramaic word for riches or wealth and is prominently mentioned in the New Testament, where Jesus warns, “You cannot serve both God and Mammon” (Matthew 6:24).
Apes and Bulls alike have been lured by the siren song of easy, but inexplicable (and ultimately unsustainable) gains, and the proliferation of leverage in the system has been actively promoted to those singularly ill-equipped to manage the attendant risk in the new paradigm described by Simon.[*]
Just as the financial system will eventually be forced to return to its anchor—gold—to staunch the bloodletting, society will find itself in a similar position and a return to a spiritual/faith-based order feels inevitable to me. These twin reversions will form the basis of the First Turning. We can but hope they arrive sooner rather than later.
At Haymaker, we are unabashedly pro-diversity in a sense of the term that matters most. We value takes of all sorts, of all philosophical precepts. Perhaps you will explore Roger’s cultural diagram and literary recommendations in that very spirit.
The Haymaker Team
*Mikhailovich, whose installment in this anthology we will run next week.
(Originally published in Grant Williams’ Fin de Siècle, February 2025)
Middle-age has always been problematic.
“Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva oscura ché la diritta via era smarrita.”
“Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.”
This opening line of Dante’s Inferno, before he descends though the gates and rings of Hell, is the poet’s articulation of a life moment which has neither the carefree arrogance of youth, nor the cynical inevitability of old age. The straight-forward path has indeed been lost.
Poets and artists always see the truth earlier, in better focus, and their work has often dominated my own writing. They will again today as, of course, we are all just plagiarists.
To matters at hand.