Our Culture Is Sabotaging the Stupid and the Easily Led

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I really didn’t wake up health-wise and money-wise until I was almost 40. Prior to that, I practiced the standard American diet and the standard American approach to money management.

But even though my culture was pushing me toward physical and fiscal trouble in old age, there were parts of my culture that had my back. I distinctly remember four “rules” growing up that were unflinchingly promoted by my family and community, and largely promoted by America’s cultural overlords (i.e., Big Education, Big Journalism, Big Entertainment, Big Business, and Big Government):

• Don’t have kids out of wedlock. Having kids out of wedlock is the epitome of a trash lifestyle. It will screw up your life, and, more importantly, it will screw up the life of some innocent child.
• Don’t take drugs or abuse alcohol. Only losers take illicit drugs, and only losers abuse alcohol. Moreover, only losers “party” on a school night or a work night.
• Don’t be a bum. There’s no excuse for not working at least 40 hours a week. I don’t recall my parents ever missing a day of work. And there’s no excuse for not being competent at your job. “I don’t care what you do for a living,” my parents would always counsel me, “as long as you’re the best in the world at it.”
• Don’t be a scumbag. There is no virtue in being a thug who preys on the weak and defenseless. Engage in criminal activity and you won’t just disgrace yourself, you’ll disgrace your community, your race, and your family name.

Now let’s return to a 40-year-old Mr. Groovy. At this point in my life, I was finally ready to start using my brain and stop following the herd on diet and money management. No, sugar and fast food shouldn’t represent the bulk of one’s diet. No, debt-fueled consumerism and paycheck-to-paycheck living aren’t the building blocks of wealth. And because I wasn’t completely hobbled by my culture—I wasn’t afraid to work, and I wasn’t saddled with a child-support payment, a debilitating addiction, or a criminal record—I was in a good position to take advantage of my dietary and financial revelations. In other words, my culture, for all its faults, still left me equipped to do something worthwhile with my life. It didn’t place me in an insurmountable hole. And that’s why I was able to achieve financial independence a mere 14 years after waking up financially, and that’s why I’m on the cusp of 62, but only weigh two pounds above my high school graduation weight (177 vs. 175).

The main purpose of culture is to protect the stupid and easily led from hurting themselves. Not everyone is able or willing to analyze or challenge the “rules” that he or she is marinated in since birth. I certainly wasn’t. I was a classic NPC for most of my life. That’s why I followed the standard American diet and the standard American approach to money management until I was nearly 40. But, fortunately, I figured out before it was too late that those who do the most to shape our culture don’t have a monopoly on wisdom and virtue. Our culture makers and enforcers—whether they’re in the role of a parent, teacher, rap artist, business mogul, or US Senator—sometimes get it wrong. They sometimes champion a “rule” or philosophy that will screw you up if you embrace it.

Now a question: Is our culture today doing right by the stupid and easily led?

Well, for starters, our culture is still pushing the standard American diet and the standard American approach to money management. That’s not good, of course. But what’s even worse is that our cultural overlords are doing everything in their power to subvert the four rules that I grew up with and did so much to assure my eventual success on the diet and personal finance fronts. In no particular order, here are some of the “rules” currently being pushed by our cultural overlords:

• Big is beautiful. Obese people are just as healthy as thin people. And if you believe otherwise, you’re fat-phobic.
• Women are just as strong as men.
• A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.
• The surest way a woman can empower herself is to dress and fornicate like a hooker.
• Unwed mothers are heroes.
• A man who exhibits traditionally masculine traits is toxic; a woman who exhibits traditionally masculine traits is stunning and brave.
• Racism only means one thing: anti-people-of-color in general and anti-black in particular. Tipping is racist, school discipline is racist, the SAT is racist, punishing criminals is racist, enforcing our immigration laws is racist, denouncing anti-white Jim Crow is racist—heck, everything in America is racist.
• The traits you were born with and have no control over (i.e., your skin color, ethnicity, sex, etc.) are the most important things about you.
• Discrimination against whites and men in defense of diversity, equity, and inclusion is no vice.
• There aren’t just two genders; there are 105 genders. And if you believe there are only two genders—male and female—you’re a bigot who needs to be destroyed socially, professionally, and financially.
• Words are violence. But only when directed at people our cultural overlords like. Therefore, calling a foreigner who entered our country illegally an illegal alien is very “dehumanizing.” Calling a white person who hasn’t mistreated anyone a “colonizer” or an “oppressor,” however, is peachy-keen.
• Housing is a human right; and so is college, healthcare, and a job with a living wage.
• Socialism is great; unelected bureaucrats with little or no accountability will always do what’s right.
• Any degree is a good degree; college debt—be it five-figure or six-figure—is good debt.
• The trades are for losers.
• Cops are the biggest criminals out there.
• Globalism is our friend. We’re much better off having most of what we consume made in China.
• You can trust mainstream news; they’re the only thing standing between you and “misinformation.”
• Finally, there is only one true narrative—the one created by our cultural overlords. And anyone who questions or challenges the one true narrative is the devil incarnate.

If we were in Lake Wobegon, everything would be fine. The smart know the culture handed down to us from our cultural overlords is a joke. No one with an IQ one standard deviation or greater above the norm really believes, for instance, that humans can change their sex, that the SAT is racist, or that defunding the cops is a good idea. The smart know you thrive in America by being countercultural, by ignoring with extreme prejudice what our cultural overlords are pushing.

But, sadly, America isn’t Lake Wobegon. A sobering number of Americas are stupid, of course, and a very large number of Americans are easily led. This means a solid majority of Americans have neither the brains nor the will to tell our cultural overlords to shove it. So they embrace a culture that is doing them no favors—unless they consider finding themselves in middle-age fat, sick, broke, lonely, and miserable to be a blessing—and then they blame whomever our cultural overlords tell them to blame (“Screw patriarchy, white nationalism, and those evil Republicans!!!”).

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: We have the worst elites in the history of mankind. Never have so few destroyed so much and thought so highly of themselves. And nowhere is this more true than when it comes to formulating and promoting a culture. Our elites—that is, our cultural overlords—are screwing the stupid and easily led. Instead of championing a culture that everyone can embrace without regret, they’re championing a culture that is so laden with landmines, only the smart and rebellious can avoid getting blown up.