(no subject)

[pecunium]

In other places there has been discussion of civil war, of what happens if the center cannot hold.

I have some ideas on this (I'm against it. I've made several speeches against it at Making Light One (buried in a long thread, and lots of the pieces worth reading; in this context for more of my thinking on the subject. It's in the interplay between myself and Lance) and Two which is a specific comment on lots of things, some of which are going on; still).

So, in the event that peaceful means can't correct the course of state, and some more drastic means is employed... how do you see the situation resolving itself?

What happens should the body politic reache the breaking point and chooses to excercise its right to "alter or abolish," the Nation as it is presently configured?

I'll give my ideas later, when the rest of you have chimed in.

Comments

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

I can't bring myself to read the entirity of Lance's comments, the conceptual lumping and rhetorical imprecision pile on too thick. Your commentary in Two is quite well written, and makes a lot more sense than the vast majority of what I've read on the topic.

how do you see the situation resolving itself?

Messily. But that was the obvious answer.

First, this depends greatly on an (at least for me, with my background) unknowable: How far people will be willing to let matters slide, assuming matters do continue to slide, before resorting to reconfiguration on that scale.

There are two curves being simultaneously followed at the moment. One is at the steepening portion of a degredation slope, the other is just kicking up steam on an improvement slope. At this point, the degredation slope holds sway over many of the most important sectors, upon which its cummulative effects can continue to act for about a century after their occurrance. So, despite the second slope, we're in for it. We're really in for it. Unless, of course, the other slope can hit the essential points fast enough. Big bet, that.

Essential points are those most immediate for human welfare. Food, water, sanitation, education, sanity. The breaking point's location is altered by the assault on basic rationality: What isn't thought through by reason can be accepted by indoctrination even if it contradicts everyday experience. Marketting by psychological assault, promoting the view that everything is just fine. Or, at least, focusing against external enemies. The grand wars of an age distracting from its local decay.

I do not believe that the breaking point will activate fully at the point indicated by historical precident. Too much effort, both chemical and behavioral, is devoted to seperating people from the realities of their lives. If more drastic means are employed, it will most likely come long after this has devolved into a truly third world country. But I do not believe it will come to that.

I suspect that there will be a very irritatingly painful century with a few bright lights of hope in it, during which the current education and medical systems are almost completely refactored, leading to either vast improvement (for a century or two) or a reinvention of the status quo. I also suspect that, during this, politics will wave back and forth causing much dismay and argument without actually being the forum from which changes stem.

Or, alternatively, it could all blow up in 2012. =)