Victor Davis Hanson argued that American society is experiencing a striking contradiction in which technological progress is accelerating while basic social conditions in some cities are moving backward.

"The more you look around us today, I think a good description of 2026, culturally, economically, socially, politically, is that we are in a modern medieval world," Hanson said.

"Maybe we're progressive regressives, and I don't mean that just in the sense that progressives are regressive, and they are, but that one part of our society is advancing at lightning speed to the future and progressing, but the other part is regressing, and regressing at a phenomenal pace back to what I would call the medieval period."

Hanson compared present conditions with the medieval period, roughly spanning the centuries between the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the beginning of the Italian Renaissance.

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He pointed to epidemics, poor sanitation, crime and political instability as characteristics of that period.

At the same time, Hanson noted that the medieval era produced significant achievements in literature, architecture and technology, citing Chaucer, Dante, Saint Thomas Aquinas and major European cathedrals.

He said a similar contradiction exists today.

"All of us now can call anywhere in the world in seconds on our iPhones," Hanson said.

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"Anything you want to know—past, present, future—you can just get on a cheap computer and ask an artificial intelligence from the many free platforms."

Hanson also pointed to advances in space exploration, medicine, computers and artificial intelligence. Yet he contrasted those developments with conditions he cited in California cities.

"We're seeing outbreaks of medieval diseases that we thought had been conquered years ago, given our sophisticated knowledge of sewage and water treatment," Hanson said.

"We had typhus break out in Los Angeles, we had leptospirosis, a rat disease, in Berkeley."

Hanson also pointed to homeless encampments and public drug use as examples of social deterioration occurring alongside technological advancement.

"It's so strange in this modern medievalism," Hanson said.

"We have sophisticated researchers that go into a hospital in Chicago or go to a cancer center in San Francisco and have to check the bottom of their soles to make sure they don't have feces as they go into their Space Age laboratories."

Hanson then compared public attitudes toward violent criminals with public executions during medieval times.

He cited Luigi Mangione and Lindsay Clancy as examples while arguing that parts of modern culture have elevated people accused or convicted of horrific acts rather than condemning their behavior.

"At least in the medieval period, they knew that the murderer had done something wrong and was being punished," Hanson said.

"In the post-medieval period, we are glorifying that murder. And that's really striking to do that."

Hanson argued that modern society possesses the scientific knowledge and resources necessary to address sanitation, disease, homelessness and crime but often fails to use them effectively.

"We are at the most regulated, the most advanced, the most modern, the most scientific society in history, even as we can't solve problems that were solvable," Hanson said.

He attributed that contradiction to an ideology among political and cultural elites centered on what he called government-mandated equality of outcomes.

According to Hanson, that worldview divides people into categories of victims and victimizers and can result in different standards of accountability.

"We have an elite that has embraced a very toxic ideology throughout history, and that is mandated, government-sanctioned equality of result," Hanson said.

He argued that once someone is classified as a victim, antisocial behavior can be excused as the product of broader societal forces.

"If you have a lot of teenagers who want to loot a jewelry store, then you say, Well, they were hungry and they needed food," Hanson said.

"If you see homeless people living on the street, then it was because something the majority culture did to them."

Hanson also accused prominent supporters of those policies of insulating themselves from their consequences. He specifically cited former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Jane Fonda and Hollywood celebrities living in Malibu.

"Nancy Pelosi's home is not surrounded by homeless people," Hanson said.

"Jane Fonda doesn't have to trip over people injecting when she walks outside her door, the Hollywood stars in Malibu who champion the homeless have very clear security. You can't get near their homes."

Hanson described ordinary Americans as the people forced to live with the results.

"In other words, we, the lab rats, is upon whom they experiment," Hanson said.

Hanson concluded that the policies persist partly because their supporters view their positions as evidence of moral virtue.

He argued that this creates a system in which deteriorating conditions can continue even though society possesses the resources and knowledge necessary to address them.

"They feel morally superior, and it gives them meaning in their life in a way that we, the majority, find not just not morally superior, but morally repugnant," Hanson said.

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