Dear Friends,
It seems to me, historically, whenever government wins a new power over the people, government lords that new power over the people. As government gets more and more power it eventually must be reigned in. Importantly, it takes revolution and the spilling of blood to bring government back under control. Even then, more often than not, government has so polluted society, that the endemic corruption, (created by irresponsible government), leads the people to call for tyranny, to be protected from their very own vice. Like Weimar Germany.
People look to their leaders for what is good. We all do it. We look to the cultural Elite to set the dress styles, the educational Elite set the curriculum of the schools, the entertainment Elite decide what the people will watch, and so, the Elite in the aggregate, set societal norms. When the Elite lower the norm to the point of corruption, showing, teaching and styling, that moral, consideration, thought and action is obsolete, society flounders. Then the political Elite can step in, save the day, and impose tyranny, establishing order. Order that was destroyed by the Elite themselves, perhaps, to establish the environment where they can become tyrants and perpetuate their status as the Elite.
From this, we can see that, if there is evil in society, we only have to look at those that set the trends. If the trend is evil; society will take that path. If the trend is good; society will take that path. Culture is what the Elite make it. They set it. For good or ill, the Elite in our society set the standard, and have been ratcheting it down… year after year.
But we have a say too. The Elite set the standard, but we, in part, decide who the Elite are. We have the power of our collective wallets. If we choose to attend a movie that we know undermines societal values we are culpable in the undermining of those values. When we vote without due diligence and vote for those who we know in our heart, will not do as they say, and we “go along,” we decide who will be the Elite. Our own actions have an effect on who is the ten percent of humanity that will be the Elite.
We also have an effect on how corrosive the Elite’s actions are to civilization. When we lament what our lawmakers do, but vote for them anyway, we are duplicit in their chicanery. Marion Barry comes to mind. The man was so corrupt he makes a cesspool seem a spring of fresh clean drinking water. Not only was he corrupt but he was caught, over and over, yet he was still reelected. Unless the voting system in Washington DC was, and perhaps is, fixed, then the people who voted him in, year after year, are as guilty of the misdeeds, that lowered the standard of living in Washington DC, as much, or more than Mayor Barry. To complain about the poor state of the schools in DC, after having voted in such a corrupt man, is like shooting your own foot and complaining how hard it is to walk to the store, or smashing every window in your house then complaining how cold your house is. An unbiased observer would have to conclude a person who did these things must be unhinged.
Olson’s “The Logic Of Collective Action” give us some insight why… we vote in dirt bags, that we know are dirt bags, and then are amazed when they act like dirt bags. He says that if a bad thing hurts a person a little, it may not be worth the effort to follow up and take the actions necessary to rectify the situation. But when a bad, or good, thing effects us profoundly then we act. He used the example of the US sugar subsidy. The subsidy drives up the price of sugar for everyone in the US. A large bad thing, widely distributed, is individually very small. But for the sugar farmers who get the benefit of the subsidy, and are a much smaller group, it is of great concern. So the sugar farmers take the action necessary to insure the subsidy remains, but the people, who in the aggregate are harmed far more than the sugar producers are helped, take no action, because individually the harm is too small to warrant the cost, in time, energy and money to affect change.
This same logic works in other aspects of human existence as well. We all do a cost benefit analysis in our heads before we take any action. Maybe that is why we continue to promote the Elite that effect our civilization so negatively. We make the calculation that our promoting, by attending, buying or voting, has a small effect and so is ok. We feel we have only a limited effect on the Elite. But that is not true. Cumulatively, we have tremendous power, if we only wield it.
It is in the Elite’s interests to lower societal standards… to make the people more dependant on the Elite. But for an individual, it looks as if like we have no ability, or our individual ability is so small, it is worthless to use. So we just go along. The Elite do what is in their self interest but the people do what is patently not in theirs. Not out of ignorance or stupidity, but because, collective action is necessarily expensive, in time, energy and money.
Recognizing a problem is always the first step in fixing a problem… Ironically, I am as lazy as anyone…
