The Collapse

Studying world history - especially ancient world history, and philosophy can often lead one to the most nihilistic conclusions, as evident in my post "Shadows, Savagery, and History". My most recent studies have led me to another conclusion I find disturbing. Within the next 100-150 years, there will be a total collapse of the world's major political, economic, and social systems. Of course, such a claim required much evidence, and this will primarily come from the works of Dostoevsky, Tytler (though it could also be attributed to de Toqueville), and Peterson, as well as some my own observations on recent events.

The essence of this statement stems from the manifestation of increasingly complex political and social systems in our world, which decrease the effectiveness of our governments. For example, the utility in the American political system, and in fact any democratic political system, stems from the shared belief of the common person that their voice can be heard on a national level, usually through the voting process. In fact, the American system bears remarkable strength because it has so many layers to its governance. Everyone can vote, and through town elections can directly influence their community, through state elections can pick who represents their ideals on the national level, and in national elections can pick who should lead the country. As long as there remains a strong belief by the majority of Americans that their vote directly influences the course of the nation, the system will be strong.

However, this belief fades as corruption blossoms within every facet of the American system, and as the world becomes more and more globalized. Identity politics and corporate money on Capitol Hill have destroyed the purity of the American vote, and have left the nation in the hands of people who are decreasingly genuine and more often than not unscrupulous. Of course, the system still stands, so there must still be a belief that the common person's vote matters nationally, but from my own observation that majority diminishes each year.

The European Union also portrays the dangers of large political systems, and while I cannot speak of their corruption, I know that it must be manifest in some manner; as I have discussed previously, it is inexorable from the human condition. The idea of the EU was brilliant, and in some ways it remains so - to unite the nations of Europe in such a way as to exponentially increase their strength and wealth. However, in creating such a large system so quickly, and especially from nations so unique in their own right, the people lost faith that their representatives were making decisions which favored their personal beliefs. Hence, Brexit. The British people saw an influx of choices coming from the EU which did not in any way reflect their own interests and internalized it as a loss of national identity. Now, the decision to leave was still hasty and poorly thought out, but its essence was deeply rooted mistrust of the system, and Britain won't be the last country to feel they are not being heard. 

Alexander Fraser Tytler, an 18th and 19th century Scotsman and harsh critic of democracy, created a circle to define the life cycle of any powerful civilization, which he built based on studying the histories of the most powerful civilizations in the world. The Tytler Circle, pictured above, shows the phases which any democracy must go through, ending in monarchy, and while I disagree with Tytler on his notion of democracy being an impermanent form of government (what is "permanent"?), the circle represents the rise and fall of many of their world's past greatest nations with disturbing accuracy, and as Tytler pointed out, this cycle usually takes around 200 years to complete itself. Of course, as technology advances and petty inter-country wars are replaced with global conflicts of ideologies, this length of time will be drawn out, and therefore Tytler's notions are somewhat incorrect. Yet I feel they accurately represent the future of the world's large political and social systems. This circle requires a post in and of itself to fully dissect, but I observe a great loss of personal responsibility around the world, especially in America, which has always led to totalitarianism in history. If the pattern holds true, this future is only a few decades away, however the aforementioned technological developments stunt its progress somewhat, so I predict the collapse with the next one to one and a half centuries.

Up to now, we've only spoken of the political disintegration as a result of a growing mess of corruption in the people we select to represent us (who really selects them?), but now let's shift to social collapse, which ties in closely with the fundamental problem, as most things tend to do. The beginnings of social collapse occur in the very technology which saves us from immediate political breakdown. For while social media allows the common person to speak their minds and make their voices heard nationally, even if nothing comes of it, they also also provide an outlet for the ideologically possessed to spew their narrow minded dribble, and worse, they often give those people the largest audiences, since they etch controversy into every keystroke.

So how does this promote a collapse of the social structures which govern our society? Well, in a way it does not - the social structures are biologically rooted and deeper than simple deconstruction can reach. However, the philosophical instability of our society, and I might say inadequacy, creates a culture in which harasses intellectual diversity. I'm well aware that 90% of people are still reasonable, but I can still observe the proliferation of authoritarian assaults on freedom of speech stemming from both ends of the American political spectrum, and I fear the polarization will only get worse, as less and less people read difficult books and are decreasingly open to intellectual debate, preferring instead to sink into the fens of confirmation bias, as I mentioned in my posts on the fundamental problem.

The economic collapse occurs mostly as a byproduct of the two aforementioned systems failing, however; I would also posit that our society's philosophical weakness leads to a lack of surety on basic economic theory, which itself can cause instability. The modern stock market has grown to such a level that the average person, including myself, struggles to comprehend the magnitude of it; a system which in essence compares the value of every company's products to every other company's products, and factors in variables like political instability, consumer faith, projected earnings, and even natural disasters, and those variables, aside from the last one, are just conglomerates of smaller variables. Such a system must fall at some point, though I would mark its doom in accordance with the political and social destruction.

So could I be wrong about all of this? Of course I could be incorrect in my suppositions - they're based on conjecture and not empirical evidence, and though some would argue against the necessity of empirical evidence, I deem it necessary to have proof of anything. In fact, I hope I'm wrong about all of this. Actively wishing for the failure of a society which shelters you would be like shooting yourself in the foot before a marathon. I only wish to draw some attention to this issue, because if left unaddressed, the world can only brace itself for the rubber band of history to snap. All large systems fail due to human's proclivity for corrupt acts, and as people fall victim to the fundamental problem in the realms of politics, economics, and social games, the collapse of our civilization becomes inevitable.