Kansas City has been in the news recently, and not because of barbecue or our football team’s achievements, but due to a horrific act of violence. Many people are outraged by the shooting of a man who was mistakenly knocking on the wrong door, in the “Northland,” which is a more conservative, whiter suburb, north of the city. The shooter is white and older, while the victim is black and young. This combination can cause social unrest.
We should all be alarmed by a shoot-first-question-later attitude that seems to be arising in American culture. In a civilized, less atomized society, a citizen’s initial reaction to a door knock would not be to arm themselves. It is not only a helpful heuristic, but it may also be a way to avoid these tragedies.
The progressive class has been wringing their hands over “root causes” as well as “systemic violence”. The elite’s reaction is usually anti-Hayekian, in which the actions of an individual are always and everywhere attributed to systems that seem beyond our control. This alleged lack in individual agency does not extend to concepts such as transgenderism where the sovereign individual is able to defeat biology by will and declaration. The reaction also reveals the NIMBYism that is at the core of progressive thinking.
We all have the desire to keep changes out of our backyards, or those who are honest with themselves. I’m not opposed to cheaper housing, but I do not want Section 8 housing in my backyard. Some of us are aware of this; others use zoning laws to keep out “those people”. NIMBYism is no longer confined to traditional venues, such as housing developments and energy projects. It has spread into nearly all areas of American progressivism. The modern left is not a socially-minded movement, as it should be. It’s vacuous, vapid, and always promoting virtue signals.
In a pluralistic society, social solidarity cannot be achieved if you are never exposed to people from outside your own cultural circle. The progressive elite of today is also almost completely walled-off. Associating only with those who share your views is to assume that everyone else shares the same beliefs. Worse, it is to move into the abstract realm where the cause of a problem is never directly related to the actions of the individual. For today’s progressive, there is no nuance in their view of right and wrong beliefs.
Prairie Village is a Kansas City suburb on the Kansas side. It’s a part of our strangely bifurcated metropolitan area. The pastoral name of our municipality hides the fact that it is a wealthy and exclusive community where the Porsche Cayenne has replaced the Toyota Sienna as the car of choice for families. Our inner-ring suburb was developed with Cape Cods decades ago and designed to be walkable. It is therefore attractive to the elite who are parachuting into the area with their Lucid sedans and remote jobs to grab what they must consider to be bargains. They have also brought with them cultural NIMBYism.
Prairie Village, once a suburban area of starter homes that were priced at around $200,000 or less for many years, is now a hotbed of staggering price tags and woke lawn signage. Developers are outbidding buyers for small homes. These are then demolished and replaced by 4,000-square-foot monsters that sell in the seven-figure range. Just one of the roughly 30 homes currently for sale in Prairie Village, a place where many young families started with a 1,500-square-foot ranch, is priced below $350,000. More than half of them are above $1 million.
Ah, but it’s a problem for the elite! It’s not . Evidently, those annoying systemic forces again are at work, driving prices up and keeping all but the wealthiest white buyers out! What else could be the case? There is a new movement called “Prairie Village For All” that has yard signs to support “fair and inclusive housing”, including multifamily development and accessory dwelling units. It’s clear that must be changed!
The progressive elite does not want such a change. In fact, there is no change. They only want to see an Uber Eats driver dropping off food through a Ring doorbell. They are the only nonwhite Americans these progressives may see this week. These drivers pull up in non-electric cars, shuffle to the door and pass right by the sign advertising a more affordable Prairie Village.
It is tempting to tell these arrivistes, that if they want more affordable housing, it would be better to not participate in the destruction and construction of affordable housing. Cultural NIMBYism doesn’t have a problem with it; progressives want change, as long as someone else is doing it.
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The suburban progressive is heard wailing at dinner parties, and other social gatherings about the wealth of his suburb and its whiteness. If only the city sold at below market rates to “folks”, never “people” of color. The conservative asks, “What’s keeping you from selling your home to a family like that?” You could give them a discount and diversify their neighborhood. Then you can move to the “vibrant” urban core that you always praise. They don’t want that. They just want to visit this vibrant area and maybe drop by an art gallery before returning to the safe, exclusive suburb. The conservatives live in this area for the same reasons as they do. But only one will admit that.
These questions are met with a dismissive look and the inevitable reply: the person cannot do anything, because it’s the the system which needs to be dismantled. Income inequality? It doesn’t matter that the remote brand advisor makes $20,000 per month, and his Uber Eats drivers makes $2,000 — it’s all about the system! Broken schools? It’s not the people who move to Prairie Village for its well-funded and lauded public schools, it’s the system. Pervasive racism? It’s not just the high prices of housing that disproportionately affect non-white buyers, but also the system.
The progressive will ensure that nothing changes in his own cultural environment by keeping the real injustice out of the realm of abstraction where a system of discrimination and self-perpetuation is beyond any individual’s control. It’s always someone else who is at fault. The progressive thinks it might be the corporations as he uses the Amazon app to make his purchases. The progressive claims that it could be the education system as he hires tutors for his children to get them into Ivy League schools. He’s sure it’s not his fault. Have you seen his yard signs?
