Harmony versus change Dash our predicament

# 3040

People seek harmony and resolution, and albeit, while on favorable terms to themselves, still equilibrium is the goal. But what is necessary for a major change is a breakdown of the local harmonies, but very few want to do that. The way to a new harmony is not harmonious, but clashing and conflicts.

Aristotle was clear that while families are harmonious and share interests, multiple families have emerging properties that conflict. That new level of organization he called the polis, and the interplay of the forces between families  he called politics. History is largely about politics, and we have not studied it well enough.

Democracy is an equilibrium seeking activity and is not strong enough to contain and resolve the conflict of more intense interests. Democracy tends to stabilize the existing society but if what we need is more radical change on the order of feudalism to industrialization then we will need stronger actions. While strong, verbal conflict is the desirable method,  more violence might be necessary to get the attention of the key actors. If we are at the point where the caterpillar is turning onto the butterfly, we need to expect and understand that all existing relationships will churn.

This civilization of which we are a part does not seem to have the capacity to deal with its central problems of climate governance and income. It is a culture, but that culture is one of economics having replaced politics and it is killing us, with more violence on the horizon.

The trillions we should have spent on education and health and quality of life, wealth, through the machinations of the industrial community into the military industrial complex. If you compare the world we have with the world that we could have had we should be ashamed. But better is to try to understand why and how it happened. If human and animal nature is to eat and reproduce and to run around, looking for food and mates on a spherical surface, maybe it would’ve been unreasonable to hope for better.