Out of all my posts on this blog, these four are the most
connected to the long term political future of the Country.
The Dawn of The Era of Dictatorships;
Explained by The
Systems Theory.
A system
is a set of connected, interconnected, interacting, influencing each other,
influencing each other's behavior, influencing each other's evolution elements
called parts of a system.
Every
system has a mission, but often it is not easy to figure that mission out and
to formulate it in a clear unambiguous statement. The goal of every system is
to survive and to exists as long as possible to fulfill its mission.
If a
system dies that means it was not healthy enough to survive. Healthy means
stable, effectively functioning, productive, reproductive.
Every
system has at least one parameter which describes the health of the system.
This parameter is measured as the average value of the values of this parameter
measured for individual parts of the system. When many parts of a system have a
low value for the health parameter the overall health of a system has a low
value and the system becomes ill, sick. This is a sign of a crisis or of an
upcoming crisis; this is the sign that soon a system may lose its stability.
A system
cannot be healthy if there is a large number of unhealthy parts in it. This is
why the ultimate goal of any "smart" system is to keep as many as
possible parts in a healthy condition.
Unhealthy
elements of a system do not "want" to die; they want to return to
health stability, and they want that to happen as soon as possible.
There
might be many possible reasons, negative influences, for declining health of a
system or its parts. One of the strongest negative influences is the disconnect
and/or the dissonance between a system and its environment.
Every
system is a sub-system of a larger system. The surrounding of a system is
called an environment. There is always an interaction between the system and
the environment.
A system
may change the environment. An environment may change the system.
In order
to survive a system uses some resources coming from an environment and then
releases some residues back to an environment. When an environment changes, the
system has to evolve accordingly to those changes, or the system eventually
breaks apart or dies.
Prolong
existence of a system means that the processes happening inside it are stable and
the changes happen evolutionary, in a slow manner, fluctuations are small and
do not tear the system apart.
When the
changes in an environment are large and/or fast, or both, the system has to
adapt quickly, and that leads to large fluctuations inside the system. If some
of those fluctuations are too large, and if different parts of a system
fluctuate in opposite/competing directions, the system might fall apart; it
might be divided in smaller parts which individually may adapt faster to the
changes in the environment.
When a
system has to adapt to some slow changes in the environment, it can be done
evolutionary via multiple communication between different parts of a system.
This process allows to take into an account interest of all active parts of the
system (those which choose to participate). This process takes a long time, but
when there is no need for fast decision making this process is sufficient.
When a
system has to adapt to drastic changes in the environment, some parts of a system
resist any changes because they desire stability, they perceive instability as
the threat to their existence. There are forces within a system, there are some
elements of that system which always try to bring the system back to
equilibrium, back to stability, and tend to do it as soon as possible. But
there are also parts of a system which embrace the change. The result depends
on the interplay between forces of change and forces trying to restore
stability. When fluctuations in different parts of a system are large and
threaten to break it apart, the negotiations between different parts begin. But
if those negotiations/communications are too slow, the changes needed to be
done in the system to address the changes in an environment constantly lag, remain
behind and inadequate, do not solve health problems, and the fluctuations only
keep growing. There are two common outcomes from this situation: (a) the system
eventually falls apart; or (b) one of the parts of the system becomes dominant,
suppresses the processes in other parts of the system, and forces all parts of
the system move in the same direction. Those parts of the system which resist
the enforcement are getting weakened, or damaged, or even cut from the system.
If two or more parts of the system fight for domination, and no one wins, the
system eventually falls apart, or dies, or getting weakened and becomes
absorbed by another system from the environment, i.e. becomes a part of another
system.
If the
system survives as such, it means one dominant part (or a series of dominant
parts replacing each other) was able to navigate/govern the transition of the
system from the initial state (the one that was in disbalance with a new
environment) to the new stable state (the one that becomes in balance with a
new environment). When that happens, eventually the evolution of the system
becomes governed again via a long process of multiple communications between
may parts of the system.
Every
system is inertial, every system has such a property as inertia. Inertia means
that every process takes time, no change can happen instantly. The larger a
system is the more inertial it is, the more time is needed for a system to
change. In a case of a drastic changes in an environment, inertia will not
allow a system to quickly initiate required changes. When parts of a system
begin communicate on what changes needed to be made, inertia leads to the
situation when all individual/partial changes are based on the previous states,
previous experience and do not represent adequate solutions.
A society
is a system. People and groups of people are the parts of that system. Lately
(for the last 20 to 30 years, which is a blink of an eye, history-wise)
millions of people all around the word have been feeling the decline/decrease/degradation
in their economic status, or the threat of that decline/decrease/degradation.
There are
four major reason for that:
1. Climate
change.
2.
Financial globalization.
3. Rise of
human-replacing technologies.
4. Mass
migration.
The
democratic approach to finding the political solutions to the challenges posed
by the four reasons require long negotiations between different parties,
participants, political and financial players. That makes the democratic
approach to be too slow and inadequate. While negotiations attack one specific
issue, the state of that issue worsens and more other issues arise. That leads
to more and more people struggling socially and financially. More and more
people want their social and economic status be improved and improved quickly.
As the result, they turn to an opportunist who offers quick solutions. That
leads to the rise of authoritarian politicians.
Of course,
quick solutions to difficult problems do not exist, but people demanding a
quick solution to their problems do not rely on reason or logic.
This is
when we need to state how public education affects politics.
The vast
majority of the people whose status is in decline are also people who have no
advanced education. While growing up they have not been exposed to scientific
facts as well to a scientific way of thinking. They have very narrow knowledge
and underdeveloped reasoning abilities. Hence, they do not respond to logical
arguments and react based on emotions and the culture of their “tribe”.
When
someone has a poor education, it is not his or her fault – at least in a
developed country. It is the fault of people who don’t care about the state of
public education, or of people who sabotage the quality of public education
(e.g. politicians whose power is based on brainwashing and mind manipulation).
When
children misbehave, in order to force them into the right behavior, parents
told them that if they will not do the right thing a troll will take them in
the woods, or if they do the right thing, Santa Claus will bring them a gift.
In order
to excite his base Donald Trump tells his followers, that if they will not have
a border wall, bad illegal immigrants will take their jobs, rape their women,
and kill their children.
In both
cases trying to use fact based rational argument is useless and one influences
behavior of other people using exactly same psychological tools - exciting
strong emotions of fear or reward.
Children
do not know enough facts and do not have developed reasoning abilities.
But adults
who grow up without adequate education also do not know enough facts and do not
have developed reasoning abilities; they are basically children in grownup
bodies.
When the
number of “adult children” who become active participants of a political
process due to worsening of their life is significant, opportunistic
politicians have a good chance to brainwash and manipulate the minds of
millions of people. The difference between all previous eras of humanity and
the current one is that nowadays technologies allow people of all sort to find
quickly and connect with people who have similar views (for example, newly
reborn Earth-flatters). The same technologies greatly
amplify brainwashing and social agitation/activation abilities.
When the
changes in the environment are significant, the state of the society is in
disbalance with an environment; the state of the society keeps declining, and
there are many people who are not susceptible to reason and react based purely
on emotions and the culture of their “tribe” and who become politically active
(due to internal motives, local influence from family of friends, or due to
media influence), the general systems theory demands the inevitability
of the rise of the authoritarian politicians all around the world, because democratic
institutions are simply too slow to provide adequate solutions.
In the
time of a war, people are looking for a general.
In the
time that some people perceive as a war, those people are looking of a strong
leader.
When the
number of those people is large, they begin dominate politics, especially when
they have a freedom of expressing their views. The opposition, i.e. people and
groups of people who oppose the authoritarian tendency, act based on inertia,
i.e. based on the ideas which worked in the past but inadequate to address the
changing environment (a new generation of opposition is need to realize that
old solutions will not work to solve new problems).
Hence, the
transition from a democratic policies to authoritarian policies is inevitable
and unavoidable.
The only
question remains – will the "general"/"dictator"/"ruler"
be a good decent person, or it will be a liar, a bigot, a misogynist, a
narcissists, a racist, and a tyrant?
Appendix
I
A system
where the parts almost don't interact with each other, does not evolve.
Evolution happens because interactions lead to the fact that the properties of
a system are large, or bigger, or wider, or broader, or richer than the sum of
the properties of its parts. It means that the most important parts of a system
are those which establish, provide, govern interactions between its parts. In a
society, the most important people are not the strongest ones, or the
richest ones, or the smartest ones but those who can effectively communicate,
who have an ability to convince other people what is right or wrong thing to
do, the most convincing ones (including con men).
Appendix
II
Imagine,
that for decades someone was storing every year a shed of firewood to use in
the winter time. And this year the temperature was unusually cold from the very
beginning. Soon one noticed that three quarters of the stored wood has been
already used in just one quarter of the winter time. What to do? Where would he
get more firewood? And how would he get it if he has no money left to buy any
more wood?
This
"story" is a simple model of what has happened all around the world
when the four major changes in environment of the human society made old and
well established ways of governing obsolete, outdated, not working for majority
but only for a few. As described in the main part of this piece, the rise of
the authoritarian leaders is an inevitable consequence of the large disbalance
between the system and the environment. What we see very clearly is how the
property of inertia manifests itself in the solutions proposed by major
political forces. The Republicans bet on the trickle-down economics, when large
tax cuts to big corporations will boos the economy. It may work in a short term
but will never work in a long run. Just a year after the large tax cut of 2016
numbers show that there is only one major improvement for the middle class
Americans, namely, a very low unemployment rate. It means that people who had
been out of work now have a stable income. But that income for them, as well as
for the majority of the working Americans, practically does not grow. The gains
in productivity and profitability go to a very narrow layer of rich Americans.
However, the trickle-down economics will not solve the problems of the growing
deficit, the upcoming cuts in social security and even pensions. This will lead
to a social explosion, which may lead to an actual dictatorship as the reaction
to another false promise from the politicians and the government.
The
Democrats promote the solution based on tax increase for the rich. But for too
many Americans phrase "let's raise taxes" is a no go, it goes against
their culture, and too many people simply believe that raising taxes will
inevitably hurt the economy. And it is not entirely wrong, because a mere governmental
redistribution of money will force business into hiding their funds, moving to
tax havens, corruption, and also will lead to the economic slowdown. Which
again will lead to a social explosion, which may lead to an actual dictatorship
as the reaction to another false promise from the politicians and the
government. But the Democrats have no other ideas.
Until the
new generation of politicians, people who can think beyond
old economic theories, grows up, the attraction of the populous to a
strong leader will only grow. Hopefully, eventually a strong leader with the
new economic views, and also with the deep belief in a democracy, will rise
from the "political mob" and will lead the transformation of the
society to the new stable economic and political state.
But that
will require decades of time.
Appendix
III
Well, dear
Reader, if you have read everything above, I would strongly recommend to read
this piece, as well: "The Degradation of White Male American Elite".
