For those wondering, Timmy is a humpback whale stuck in the Baltic Sea that continually beaches itself and requires constant attention to keep it alive. In many ways, he is the opposite of Melville’s cruel and intelligent whale Moby Dick: Timmy is relatively unintelligent (even by whale standards), incapable of managing himself, and far more interested in dying than killing crazed whalers from Nantucket. Just the other week, Timmy required the services of a large team of specialists to float him back to the water while activists nearby have clamored for German authorities to transport the more than 30-ton whale back to its natural habitat in the Atlantic Ocean.
In itself, there is nothing wrong with the nationwide sympathy for a large helpless mammal (rest in peace, Harambe), but in the context of today’s Germany, the concern is nothing less than heedless escapism.
By every metric, Germany is collapsing: economically, politically, culturally, and even demographically. The economy has stagnated, suffering from a severe energy shortage and brought low by high taxes. While the government is attempting to stop some of the bleeding, it is still imposing more renewable energy policies, and welcoming ever more migrants from the third world to enjoy what’s left of its crumbling welfare system.
Altogether, these challenges have created a serious livability crisis in Germany that will result in rapid depopulation in the coming decades. At least a fifth of young Germans are contemplating moving out of the country, and the German birthrate is among the lowest in the world. For anyone wondering how this could happen, they should watch the German influencer comedian Radical Living explain his reasons for emigrating. In his opinion, Germany has generally become unaffordable, unsafe, unclean, unjust, and unfriendly — even cute babies are now looked upon with disdain.
And yet, rather than confront these problems or even debate them (the right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland is routinely marginalized and silenced), Germans are exhausting their goodwill on a sick whale. Somehow, even Timmy’s greatest admirers fail to appreciate the ironic symbolism of a once great creature slowly dying and unable to recover. They reside in a country that has the third-largest economy in the world, leads the European Union, and boasts a rich culture and history, but do not see how all of this is threatened by terminal national decline.
This fixation on Timmy and commitment to his well-being while the rest of the country burns is the epitome of a “luxury belief.” As the coiner of the term Rob Henderson remarks in his memoir Troubled (which I reviewed here), luxury beliefs are those that “confer status on the upper class at very little cost, while often inflicting costs on the lower classes.” He saw this among his peers at Yale, who flaunted their superiority by embracing socialism and calling for the dissolution of the nuclear family and national borders. They could do this because they were completely insulated from the negative effects of these positions.
One can see luxury beliefs manifest themselves in the current leftist governments all over Europe along with blue state governments in the U.S. The ruling class in all these places experiences an entirely different type of life than the rest of the population. They live in safe, expensive neighborhoods and attend exclusive, high-performing schools and stand to work at lucrative, prestigious jobs. At no point do they have any real contact with homeless vagrants, low-skilled migrants, domestic breakdown, or instances of destitution, decay, or even diverging viewpoints. From their limited perspective, life seems amazing, and they can maintain their lifestyle so long as they shut out everyone and everything outside this bubble.
I witnessed this phenomenon firsthand on a recent visit to Southern California during spring break. I originally expected endless homeless encampments, hordes of junkies leaving their excrement and needles everywhere, and ubiquitous urban blight. Instead, I walked into one of the most pristine and orderly areas imaginable. Every coastal town north of San Diego (La Jolla, Del Mar, Encinitas, Carlsbad) is hyper-gentrified, teeming with wealthy white families and retirees enjoying the perfect weather in undisturbed peace. Coming from a diverse, hectic, and sometimes rough North Texan suburb, I was dumbfounded by all of this.
I discovered that for many Californians (the rich ones, anyway), life is simply too good to worry about the consequences of their leftist politics. Sure, their taxes may go up and their economic opportunities may go down, but this seems acceptable if it means continuing to live in their imperturbable bubble and regularly virtue signal to their friends. What does it matter if San Francisco or Los Angeles are overrun by junkies, bums, and illegal immigrant felons when they can continue to enjoy cocktails in their well-manicured spot on the beach with people who are cool, rich, and progressive just like them?
In all likelihood, this is the attitude that predominates among the ruling class in Germany. Privilege has set them so far apart from the grim reality facing most Germans that they can indulge in luxury beliefs that end up devastating their country. They can oppose nuclear power and fossil fuels, advocate for open borders, demand free health care, schooling, housing, and assume the right to kill their unborn children and euthanize their sick and elderly family members.
And most of all, they can protest on behalf of their favorite whale Timmy. Perhaps they think that by saving Timmy, they can unload some of their collective German guilt that gnaws at their conscience. Sure, they are privileged and affluent, but at least they helped to keep a pitiful disabled humpback whale alive a little longer. This makes them good people.
Except that it doesn’t. It actually makes them very irresponsible people. Rather than save their country through competent leadership, hard work, and moral prudence, they are literally dumping public money into the sea. They are convinced that their comfort and wealth will remain no matter what they say or do. But this is impossible. History has proven time and again that such unsustainable complacency will inevitably bring about civilizational collapse.
This bizarre episode of Timmy the Whale strongly suggests that many Germans have decided to let go of reality altogether. Right now, they can muster the energy to take up useless causes, but nothing more. It is a recipe for disaster, yet no one seems to be bothered about it, except those who are jumping ship while they still can.
