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Through fruitful conversations with other writers, Substack has inspired many of my posts. Usually, this comes about because I read something I generally agree with, and it triggers some thought or memory I’ve been wanting to write about. However, one thing I’ve been more disciplined about over the last couple of years is listening to voices I don’t agree with. Boy, did I get that when I read a post by Steve Charles.
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I’d like to say that if one of us was the more calm, level-headed, and open-minded person willing to speak, it was Steve. I’m writing about this interaction to illustrate a point, not to question Steve’s principles, morals, or ideologies. I don’t know Steve; I have no idea what he thinks, and if we do disagree about every single aspect of life and our existence, who cares?
Although most of my posts come from personal and intimate experiences, I try to avoid going into detail about myself. I prefer these articles to be about an idea rather than an individual. Nevertheless, some of you may have realized that my family roots are in Argentina and that I’ve lived there for many years. It’s the place I call home.
For better or worse, every once in a while Argentina makes its way into the 24-hour news cycle. Like everything else that makes it into the centripetal force of news media, the reporting is often simplistic, biased, ill-informed, and dramatically represented. Since holding back my narcissistic tendencies isn’t something I’ve worked on in therapy, whenever Argentina is in the news, it feels like it’s about me, and no matter how sensationalist the coverage may be, I can’t help but watch.
When I read the title of Mr. Charles’s post, Lessons from Argentina’s Collapse, it immediately sparked some questions: Argentina collapsed? Which of the many collapses is he on about? Who does this guy with a cowboy hat think he is to talk about Argentina? Like every other country in the world, Argentina is navigating the troubled waters of polarization. Everything I read, hear, or see about the country tends to widen the divide and increase the friction. I almost scrolled past at first, but no matter how apprehensive I felt, I succumbed and clicked.
Steve doesn’t describe himself in his bio, but the name of his publication, The Revolver Dispatch, was a conspicuous spoiler alert to what I was in for. Steve likes his guns. I don’t understand why Americans like guns so much, but to each its own—a lot of Americans probably don’t understand why Argentines like sweetbread so much that, given the chance, we infallibly eat more of them than we can digest.
The post starts with an apocalyptic description of Argentina’s 2001 financial, political, and social crisis. Don’t get me wrong, things were bad. Unemployment, poverty, and crime were all up. Instability was the only certainty, and lots of people were victims of violence inflicted by their fellow citizens and by the state that was supposed to protect them. The piece used Argentina to illustrate a point: survivalists in America are getting it all wrong.
What the real-world Argentine example demonstrated was that a stockpile of weapons is worthless for fending off the apocalypse. It’s a sensible reflection. After all, what use are the rifle and night vision goggles doomsday preppers have stashed in their backyard bunker if they’re getting attacked while waiting in the express lane at the supermarket on a random Saturday afternoon? Steve’s recipe is simple: if you want to be ready for a society-wide collapse, get yourself a pistol—something portable and concealable you can quickly reach for when you’re in a pinch.
I’m rarely upset by a Substack article. What’s the point in getting riled up because of schmucks like me voicing their opinions? I’m certain that future archaeologists will only be able to devise theories of cat lords and feline worship when they sift through the crumbling servers we’ll leave behind. What I’m trying to say is that nothing here matters that much.
But this time it was different. I lived through the decade that led up to the crisis, and I saw it erupt as protesters marched just a few blocks from my house. I walked through the streets in the city center as you could hear shopkeepers closing their curtains one by one to avoid the looters taking their wares. The couple of years that followed the collapse were difficult, stressful, and painful for the majority of Argentines. Yet it was one of the moments I felt most proud of being Argentine. The resulting collective organization, political action, and economic industriousness of those years eventually pulled the country out of chaos and led to a decade of growth and improved living standards for most people.
It wasn’t perfect; necessary structural changes weren’t made, and the corruption inherent to any government also didn’t help. However, it felt as though the hard work of the Argentine people to better their situation was nothing but a footnote in the post that offered a quick and easy solution to survive collapse: get yourself a gun and shoot your way out. The article used the real problems that my friends, family, and I had to live through to push the American gun lobby’s agenda. The 524 likes the post had—and counting—was proof of the success of this approach.
It makes sense. Getting a gun is a quick and easy fix, and quick and easy fixes are popular. Assessing economic policies throughout many years, and changing people’s mindset toward cooperation and social cohesion through slow moving political processes, on the other hand, is difficult and complex and doesn’t get many likes. This was the entire premise of an early WBT post, Good ideas don’t win the popularity contest. Now it’s time to move from diagnosis to treatment.
In Stories of a world to come, we explored the idea of narratives to help us create a world we want to live in. By tapping into our storytelling capabilities, we can make complex ideas more palatable. There’s one kind of story that appeals just as much to a gun-wielding conservative as to a Molotov-throwing anarchist: the conspiracy theory. Instead of creating conspiracy theories that end in government-sanctioned pedophile rings or the enslavement and elimination of the working class, we can start to come up with conspiracy theories that have a happy ending. Conspiracy theories we’d like to be true.
Theories where civil servants, rather than being seen as a burden to taxpayers, are the secret gatekeepers who prevent nuclear holocaust by creating an impenetrable web of bureaucratic procedures to drop a bomb. Or maybe a story about an army of hackers who infiltrated the major financial institutions, secretly and imperceptibly redistributing wealth by altering code that moves it a penny at a time, creating a more egalitarian society over the decades. Any worthy left-minded person would fork over a tenner for a bucket of popcorn and watch that movie, right?
Or perhaps a network of conservative clergy, educators, veterans, and business owners who secretly preserve useful knowledge and traditional practices in the form of bogus ceremonial holidays. Think conspiratorial holidays like Elder Day, where we all visit our senior family members and keep them company. A seasonal Unity Supper, where we prepare meals and share them and their recipes with our neighbors. Better yet, Tool Box Day, a celebration where we help each other fix whatever needs fixing. All with their liturgy, rituals, and ceremonies, slowly searing traditional values of family and neighborly support into our culture as the years go by. What kind of conservative would say no to that conspiracy theory?
Next time you find yourself struggling to make a point, if what you’re trying to say is a bit too complex, or if you’re losing someone to simplistic demagogic solutions, think about our love for a good story. Wrap your truth up in a benevolent conspiracy theory. If it catches on, there’s a chance it might come true.
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Yes. That's why I wrote my fantasies about a presidential succession that led to the MAGA leadership being disposed of and the installation of a "benevolent" president who would introduce policies and legislation that righted many wrongs.
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It was my way of producing a Project 2026. Lots of solid changes that SHOULD be laid out in the nascent rudderless Project 2029 gurgling around the internet.
There IS a revolution brewing. Too much dissatisfaction, pain and suffering around the globe. I don't know what form it will ultimately take. But here in the USA, we are seeing too many things broken. Healthcare withheld in the richest nation to have ever existed.
And other tensions that are certainly not life threatening - but unacceptable. My stepson, partner and 5 year old daughter are searching for a home to buy. Their landlord has told them they have a limited time to rent. They both have college degrees. They both have good jobs. Every home they put an offer for is lost to cash buyers who offer hundreds of thousands over the asking price. Somethin' ain't right. How can the richest country in the world not have enough housing?
"My country is the world and my religion is to do good."
Thomas Paine