Can It Really Happen

Could we have an actual split in society, the phenomena social mitosis, which erupts in open warfare of insurrection? Most people will say it could never happen. And you know what? They’re right! But it’s not a question if it can or cannot really happen. Those are two end points on a spectrum of what can happen. The spectrum is represented by the traditional probability distribution from statistics, where the type of conflict is the horizontal axis and the vertical axis is the probability of it happening. On the extreme right is the probability of repeat of what happened to the Indians or Native Americans, and as shown by its position near the horizontal axis, the probability of that occurring is very low. Opposite, on the extreme left is the probability of ‘nothing happening’, and since we have already had domestic terrorist attacks such as Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City, we know the probability of nothing happening again . . . is very, very low.

So what is in between these two extremes? What is more likely to happen than the two end points? The most likely scenario is years and years of bombings and attacks, of internal war such as we see now in Sumatra. Various groups and factions, with nothing to lose, attacking each other and different levels of governments, vying for power, influence and position . . . much as we now see in in the Middle East. Years and years of low grade internal warfare, whose real effect will be to further drag society and the economy down.

Just with other nations who experience years of internal strife, there would be continual deterioration of the country, with fewer opportunities for the average citizen. And what about the technologically advanced people? Most likely, continual internal war would force a ‘brain drain’ such as Britain experienced in the sixties and seventies when her socialist economy left few opportunities. Being technically advanced makes you portable in the world economy, and the resulting brain drain would further weaken America’s ability to recover past glories.

More important, prolong conflict would, in all probability, wash away the liberties and freedom that all of us now enjoy. Any organization, which includes all governments, have a hierarchy of needs just like an organism. And like an organism, the paramount need for any organization, government or otherwise, is self preservation. All governments will do anything to preserve themself, so that means democracy will dissolve so a government to ensure its survival.

And the students? Students are always a tinder box in times of social change, and diminish supplies of oil promise profound changes. Just as in the past world wide, the Students are always the ‘wild cards’ in the deck, making it impossible to ever predict with certainty where events will go.

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