Great article. I appreciate that its not the typical article I would expect from a left leaning substack. I appreciate that it stretches our thinking beyond the usual pro immigration or anti immigration tropes. It's funny that everyone loves "community" - and especially progressives. But they often dismiss the aspects of community that are derived from shared culture and shared history.
I'd suggest that progressives don't "dismiss the aspects of community that are derived from shared culture". Instead I'd say they base community around shared values that, for me at least, override a shared history.
Fear of "the other" has always been present in every society. In some cases the other was quite local: Athens vs Sparta; Hatfields and McCoys; etc. With each rise in the speed of transportation and communication, the contact between any given group of people with any other group of people grows, and that naturally creates new fears. Overcoming those fears proceeds two steps forward and one step backward. We are in the one step backward phase at the moment. But the speed of communication, transport and increasing contact will not abate. The arc of history is toward accommodation and cooperation, despite history, as it is taught, focusing on wars and economic catastrophes. Cowan and Gordon are correct, the low hanging fruit was gathered roughly between 1900 and 1973. But don't sell short the progress since 1973. It continues. Having been born in 1939, I can see in my lifetime how progress continues. And we need that progress because there still are too many people who do have such abundance--especially in their own minds. The glass is half full; not half empty.
I enjoyed reading your post. I knew about the slowdown in the Total Factor productivity growth in Australia from 1990s and its impact on the liberal democratic ideals such as "next generation will be better off than the current generation. But I didn't see the link between slow productivity growth and nativism.
The self-described elites, who are often little more than thugs, always despise the provincials. The Epstein brouhaha is only the latest proof. The grooming scandal in Britain is another. Where is it written in our history, theology, or philosophy that more cheap stuff will make us happy? Nobody really believes it, but the articles in major publications continuously explain why ordinary people are wrong about their own lives.
Of course, nowhere is this more prevalent than in major corporations, where employees recite pathetic slogans, compete for meaningless titles, and display equally meaningless « awards. » We are leaving the decision of whom to bring into the country to those who understand their countrymen the least, even if they despise them the most, and have the greatest financial interest. Few among those that I read realize how much their arguments replicate those made by the most committed slaveholders and segregationists. Zephaniah Kingsley could be pasted into many modern columns with little editing.
Sarah, your abundance-stagnation-nativism thesis is compelling, but I think there's a deeper pattern at work that might strengthen your analysis.
You're right that abundance creates psychological challenges. But I'd argue the issue isn't that abundance produces stagnation which then triggers nativism. Rather, abundance reveals identity by creating a tension void that must be filled.
Opposition is constant—an eternal verity. When we've largely solved survival-level tensions (calories, shelter, basic health), we don't rest. We fill the newly available space with new tensions, because humans require opposition to generate meaning and purpose. The question becomes: what kind of tensions do we select for when survival pressures ease?
This explains what you're observing better than the stagnation framework:
Victim identity fills the abundance-created slack with manufactured tensions—tribal boundary-policing (nativism), apocalyptic narratives (climate doom), endless identity categorization disputes. These generate moral drama without productive development. They're pseudo-tensions that provide the psychological friction people need but without actual generative capacity.
Architect identity fills the same slack with frontier tensions—family formation despite difficulty, entrepreneurship despite risk, moon shots despite uncertainty. Real constraints, real agency development, real transformation.
Your Dourado charts showing we "should" be traveling at Mach 4 if trends continued actually reveal something important: those exponential curves hit physical and coordination constraints that can't be overcome by simply wanting more growth. The real question isn't "why did we stagnate?" but "what tensions do we pursue when easy gains are exhausted?"
This is why I think your nativism analysis is close but incomplete. Nativism isn't primarily a response to stagnation or a longing for cultural permanence. It's Victim identity's Maladaptive response to abundance—filling the tension void with in-group/out-group sorting rather than generative challenges.
Consider the contrast: Coastal progressive elites fill their abundance-created slack with climate apocalypticism, DEI bureaucracy, and gender ideology wars—manufactured tensions providing drama without development. Meanwhile, places like Utah County fill the same slack with the actual hard work of building families, businesses, and communities—real tensions with skin-in-the-game consequences.
The problem isn't too much abundance or too many immigrants. It's insufficient generative tensions that would activate identity oriented toward building rather than boundary-policing.
The policy implication isn't restriction (Maladaptive control-seeking) or ignoring cultural concerns (mere accommodation). It's creating compelling mega-tensions—Mars colonization, energy abundance, educational transformation, family formation infrastructure—that provide real challenges with real stakes, leaving less cognitive and emotional surplus for manufactured culture wars.
Your "culture eats ideas for breakfast" observation is sharp. But I'd add: identity determines which culture you build. Abundance doesn't doom us to nativism. It reveals whether our dominant identity fills the tension void with tribal sorting or frontier building.
Great article. I appreciate that its not the typical article I would expect from a left leaning substack. I appreciate that it stretches our thinking beyond the usual pro immigration or anti immigration tropes. It's funny that everyone loves "community" - and especially progressives. But they often dismiss the aspects of community that are derived from shared culture and shared history.
I'd suggest that progressives don't "dismiss the aspects of community that are derived from shared culture". Instead I'd say they base community around shared values that, for me at least, override a shared history.
Fear of "the other" has always been present in every society. In some cases the other was quite local: Athens vs Sparta; Hatfields and McCoys; etc. With each rise in the speed of transportation and communication, the contact between any given group of people with any other group of people grows, and that naturally creates new fears. Overcoming those fears proceeds two steps forward and one step backward. We are in the one step backward phase at the moment. But the speed of communication, transport and increasing contact will not abate. The arc of history is toward accommodation and cooperation, despite history, as it is taught, focusing on wars and economic catastrophes. Cowan and Gordon are correct, the low hanging fruit was gathered roughly between 1900 and 1973. But don't sell short the progress since 1973. It continues. Having been born in 1939, I can see in my lifetime how progress continues. And we need that progress because there still are too many people who do have such abundance--especially in their own minds. The glass is half full; not half empty.
I enjoyed reading your post. I knew about the slowdown in the Total Factor productivity growth in Australia from 1990s and its impact on the liberal democratic ideals such as "next generation will be better off than the current generation. But I didn't see the link between slow productivity growth and nativism.
The self-described elites, who are often little more than thugs, always despise the provincials. The Epstein brouhaha is only the latest proof. The grooming scandal in Britain is another. Where is it written in our history, theology, or philosophy that more cheap stuff will make us happy? Nobody really believes it, but the articles in major publications continuously explain why ordinary people are wrong about their own lives.
Of course, nowhere is this more prevalent than in major corporations, where employees recite pathetic slogans, compete for meaningless titles, and display equally meaningless « awards. » We are leaving the decision of whom to bring into the country to those who understand their countrymen the least, even if they despise them the most, and have the greatest financial interest. Few among those that I read realize how much their arguments replicate those made by the most committed slaveholders and segregationists. Zephaniah Kingsley could be pasted into many modern columns with little editing.
It is good that Sarah woke up in time.
Sarah, your abundance-stagnation-nativism thesis is compelling, but I think there's a deeper pattern at work that might strengthen your analysis.
You're right that abundance creates psychological challenges. But I'd argue the issue isn't that abundance produces stagnation which then triggers nativism. Rather, abundance reveals identity by creating a tension void that must be filled.
Opposition is constant—an eternal verity. When we've largely solved survival-level tensions (calories, shelter, basic health), we don't rest. We fill the newly available space with new tensions, because humans require opposition to generate meaning and purpose. The question becomes: what kind of tensions do we select for when survival pressures ease?
This explains what you're observing better than the stagnation framework:
Victim identity fills the abundance-created slack with manufactured tensions—tribal boundary-policing (nativism), apocalyptic narratives (climate doom), endless identity categorization disputes. These generate moral drama without productive development. They're pseudo-tensions that provide the psychological friction people need but without actual generative capacity.
Architect identity fills the same slack with frontier tensions—family formation despite difficulty, entrepreneurship despite risk, moon shots despite uncertainty. Real constraints, real agency development, real transformation.
Your Dourado charts showing we "should" be traveling at Mach 4 if trends continued actually reveal something important: those exponential curves hit physical and coordination constraints that can't be overcome by simply wanting more growth. The real question isn't "why did we stagnate?" but "what tensions do we pursue when easy gains are exhausted?"
This is why I think your nativism analysis is close but incomplete. Nativism isn't primarily a response to stagnation or a longing for cultural permanence. It's Victim identity's Maladaptive response to abundance—filling the tension void with in-group/out-group sorting rather than generative challenges.
Consider the contrast: Coastal progressive elites fill their abundance-created slack with climate apocalypticism, DEI bureaucracy, and gender ideology wars—manufactured tensions providing drama without development. Meanwhile, places like Utah County fill the same slack with the actual hard work of building families, businesses, and communities—real tensions with skin-in-the-game consequences.
The problem isn't too much abundance or too many immigrants. It's insufficient generative tensions that would activate identity oriented toward building rather than boundary-policing.
The policy implication isn't restriction (Maladaptive control-seeking) or ignoring cultural concerns (mere accommodation). It's creating compelling mega-tensions—Mars colonization, energy abundance, educational transformation, family formation infrastructure—that provide real challenges with real stakes, leaving less cognitive and emotional surplus for manufactured culture wars.
Your "culture eats ideas for breakfast" observation is sharp. But I'd add: identity determines which culture you build. Abundance doesn't doom us to nativism. It reveals whether our dominant identity fills the tension void with tribal sorting or frontier building.
—Chris Wasden, EdD
As I mentioned on your profile - Agree. I think this is a genuinely helpful extension.