This article is indeed pretty negative. My articles hang together, though, and while most are critical of this or of that, there is a constructive side of my philosophy (if I can call it that). It has to do with existentialism, tragic heroism, rational enlightenment, and an aesthetic reconstruction of morality based in part on a detached appreciation of the comedic aspect of the universe's absurdity.

If you're asking for the way out of the American mess in particular, I don't have easy answers, of course. We might take comfort, though, in the likelihood that the mess of the culture war is a sideshow. The leaders who run societies have always been more or less nihilistic (amoral, realistic, and cut-throat). That's what power over others does to you.

The only difference in the US is that Americans have this song and dance in which extremist know-it-alls get to whine and yell at each other in public. True power lies elsewhere: on Wall Street, in the tech monopolies, in the deep state bureaucracy, and in the silent majority of voters and nonvoters. The politicians have largely been captured by lobbyists, campaign donors, and by the other end of the revolving door to the private sector.