THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN. I'm reading the diaries of the US diplomat George Kennan, and this 1942 entry sounds like much of the discourse the online right has had over the past few years. A black-pilled Kennan, discusses Caesarism, homesteading, and the looming threat of cancellation:

Context: It is 20 April, 1942. Kennan and the American diplomatic corp in Germany are being detained in a hotel after Germany and the US declared war on each other. He is unhappy with work, and doesn't look the State Department types trapped with him.

"Can one continue to drift like this? [...] What do I actually want from life? For myself I wish: 1. A happy, balanced personal life 2. Work which I consider positive.

The first is out of the question because of the tragedy that has occurred. [War, being held hostage]

The second is out of the question largely because I am an American. If a people were only deluded, you might do something with it.

But when it is biologically undermined and demoralized, there is no future for it, regardless of the outcome of the war, but to suffer the consequences of its deficiencies.

Someone with power might be able to do something about this.

But no one has power in America. The system makes no provision for it.

And it is probably that anyone who set about to overthrow the system in order to attain power would, if successful, merely open the floodgates to evils worse than anything he though to combat and end up making himself the tool of the forces of disintegration.

The only solution then is gardening, or the sort of glorious gardening called gentleman farming. That is perhaps the only form of playing with toys which is not ridiculous in elderly men.

It gives us a chance to acquit our responsibilities toward at least a small section of that earth which we men so abominably misused and disfigured.

Stronger than this wish for myself is the wish for my family; that they may be saved from the cruelty of others and from this catastrophe and that the children will be able to grow up in peace and health.

What offers these assurances? That is a real problem. Neither the Foreign Service nor farming offers any complete protection along these lines.

The Foreign Service is pure drudgery. Its sole merit is that it pays cash income. Otherwise it has so significance. If it weren't for family, I wouldn't remain a day longer than I needed to. On the other hand, having a family, I can't see a way to leave it.

I can't ask my wife and children to follow me into a sort of early-Christian renunciation of the world, such as farming would be, to renounce all the advantages of education and all social amenities.

Why am I behaving this way, and not some other way?

Because I cannot face these people [state department] now. I am burning inside with rage and humiliation. To think that I, George Kennan, should be in the position of having to conceal anything. If I go among them and lead a normal life, and the thing later comes out, I have made myself a double-hypocrite. I should have to withdraw from them anyway, then. I should do it now and anticipate them.

Furthermore what, to me, is life among them? I have done my duty towards them. I cannot, in the circumstances, do anymore nor they do anything for me.

I have been thwarted, as I was when I was a boy, and my pride has been hurt. As then, I react by breaking things, figuratively. I say if I cant have real things, I shall not allow myself to be put off and satisfied with little things.

But is that logical? What are the "real things" you cant have?

Women, that's one thing. Liberty is another. Peace of mind's a third. Isn't that enough? Yes. I suppose it is."

After being released by the Germans a few months later, Kennan did buy a 238 acre farm in rural PA, so he could go there from DC on the weekends. It seemed to have a revitalizing effect on him.

He didn't give up his job and four years later would go on to write the Long Telegram, changing the US posture against communism.

Things may seem bleak now. They did back then. But Kennan didn't give up no matter how bleak things looked. He persevered, found a way to cope, spoke truth when it counted, and helped save the world from communism. You can do the same.