A Moment's Reflection

For those of us who have a generalist background, who lack a dogmatic loyalty to any political doctrine and who are paying attention to the large picture, there is present in these troubled times a sense that this is a critical moment in Western Civilization.
It is not a radical intrepretation of the history of Western Civilization that when the complexity of the social norm is raised, as the Greeks with mathematics and philosophy, it essentially raises the bar to meaningful participation in one's own society. When people find that the bar is over their heads, their knee jerk reaction is to do the limbo, to be a player in a game that is negatively referential to the social norm. They do this because they find themselves aggressed against by what is represented as civilization. Being the target of social aggression, they exhibit a counter aggression in a sort of psychological self-defense. This is the problem that all political address with the exercise of powers we have come to call counter-insurgency.
This is all comprehensible. What is not particularly comprehensible is the reaction of what we call liberals in Western Civilization, people who honestly care about the dispossessed. Their knee jerk reaction is to raise the bar further as though people doing the limbo to a higher bar would improve their social performance. The net result is that more people are dispossessed, aggression in social behavior is increased and at some level of significance, society endures but civilization is lost.
We have now empowering technology. We have the essential element in the construction of a society of minimal aggression, Game Theory. It will take twenty years for incremental advances in our knowledge of this paradigm to reach a critical mass sufficient to a General Game Theory. Which means we face twenty years of social aggression and counter-insurgency.
We are at a critical moment in Western Civilization, let us behave temperately, rationally and with compassion. It's for all the marbles.
Do well and be well.
'Chances Basil Brylcreem' on http://www.amazon.com/books