Tea at Trianon: The Disappointment of the Millennial

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, June 30, 2022

The Disappointment of the Millennial

From El Antiguo:

Imagine the dream of California represented in the Beach Boys and hippies confronted by homeless tent camps, giant corporations, and endless quinoa and acai bowl shops. Imagine loving New York or Paris only to find it overrun with tourists and unhappy people in hoodies. Imagine searching for the hard scrabble life of Appalachia, and finding meth labs and Wal-Marts. Imagine wanting England and finding nothing but kebabs, mosques, and football hooligans.

I’m not talking about a romanticized, idealized version of these places. If you come to Texas expecting nothing but cowboys, oilmen, and Indians, you will be sorely disappointed. But the fault is not in Texas; the vision you have of Texas has no basis in reality. Someone misrepresented Texas to you (in this case, and many others, the culprit is Hollywood). But in the examples above, I’m not talking about misrepresentation. These places really existed, and really were like this not that long ago. The sense of loss doesn’t happen when idealistic expectations meet gritty reality. The sense of loss occurs when gritty reality itself has shifted. And this reality has shifted recently.

This isn’t some fuming debate about authenticity. This is not nostalgia. This is not romanticism. This is not coming from hipsters. This is measurable, tragic change in the last decades of the twentieth century. (Read more.)