Chaos in America

The USA is acting weird. Do I have to list all the signals? Certainly, the worst is the criminal nature of the Executive Branch in pardons and fraternizing with people who have been indicted, convicted, or pardoned.

Thomas Kuhn*, Peter Turchin**, Kimberly Parker, and Paulo Freire are four thought leaders for me.

1.??????? Kuhn studied the sciences with the theory of paradigms. In normal eras, science is controlled by an established, stable paradigm, which is a set of universally recognized principles, methods, and cultural concepts shared by the scientific community. The paradigm is tightly guarded by professional societies, leading universities, and journals. In grad school, we joked that academic freedom is only found at community colleges. No one watches what those faculty publish.

2.?????? Kuhn looked at crisis moments when the paradigm was breaking. One example was Newtonian physics converting to Einstein theory. It was not a smooth transition. Many repairs were tried on the old paradigm. Finally, it collapsed. Some careers were ruined and the new paradigm raced to expand.

3.?????? Peter Turchin looks at violence and peace in societies with the theory of Cliodynamics. He sees stable societies with similar paradigms to Kuhn until 3 indicators appear

a.?????? Spread between rich and poor becomes intolerable

b.????? Society polarizes

c.?????? Elite overproduction – the number of professional class families who educate their children is greater than needed and unexpected unemployment of professionals occurs. This is the trigger when aggrieved leaders of the professional unemployed call for overthrow.

????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? i.????? Like Kuhn’s old paradigms, they played by the rules and it didn’t work

What is different in our USA situation?

·?????? Communication has 10x the speed of response. Newtonian scholars wrote letters to each other. All interest groups now simply meet on social media.

·?????? More vocabulary. I was probably 20 years old before I heard the word ‘gay’. Now I am one! The discussion and debates on Trans identity couldn’t happen before there was vocabulary to help people think about their identity. Freire says that we have feelings before words and feelings alone can lead to self-blame. When we get vocabulary, we understand that the oppressor was the major part of the slings and arrows of our outrageous fortune.

·?????? Education is better. That’s why Florida and the major universities are trying to kill academic freedom. They know intuitively that time is not on their side.

What are indicators of stress?

·?????? Traditional institutions are failing such as Christianity. The number of Dones and Nones with no religious affiliation has increased from 8% of the population in 2000 to 21% of the USA population in 2023. Christianity has had 200 years to produce a just society in the USA and mostly we got speculative beliefs about the Trinity and Virgin Birth. Europe discarded Christianity after the Hundred Years War and we will do the same

·?????? Novel actors will promise new results. In the Civil War Era 1830 – 1870, we got Christian Science, Jehovah’s Witness, and Mormons. Novelty replaces religions that fail. Look at the Christian Nationalism springing up. It’s a brief spurt of desperation whose God will not reduce health care bills or grocery prices.

·?????? Old time actors such as the Democratic Party will double down on proven remedies and blame victims (trans, woke, etc) when voters abandon them. James Skoufis is running for DNC Chair nationally and he doesn’t think that the paradigm is broken! James thinks that if the Democrats would ‘stop engaging in woke politics’, they would beat Trump. He would have been great at defending Newtonian physics!

·?????? Identities are not closed circles. I view identities as atoms with a complex of electrons creating the end result. As institutions and societies lose their power to control, some people will understand themselves better and feel guilt or freedom. In the current moment, we see everything from Trans identity to unemployed semi-skilled white labor emerging in the news.

·?????? Trump and others will create victims periodically to explain why the situation is bad and they need more time to fix things. When the anti-immigrant campaign doesn’t work, he will have anti-trans, and many other campaigns to show that he’s a hero, destroying enemies? - not a failure.

What can prevent violence?

Paulo Freire*** participated in social change and trained others. He states that real liberation can’t come from the DNC or any other influencer of privilege. Liberation comes when people under oppression gather and have vocabulary. They discuss what’s really happening and what they can do. And the blessed revolution, according to Freire, only comes through the motivation of love. He explains that liberation from revenge simply turns the liberators into new oppressors with many of the tools that were formerly used against them. Israel uses the tools now that it experienced in Nazi Germany. They were liberated for revenge instead of love.

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Brian Thompson, UHI CEO, was murdered in Manhattan this month. I left UHI because of their tactics. The killer appears to be a white guy who had the ability to write on shell casings in advance. Unemployed professional? ?Since UHI is predatory, my own first improper temptation is quiet pleasure. But I firmly believe that Freire is right – if we try liberation through violence, it sets off a new cycle that our grandchildren will live to suffer.

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·?????? We need a leader who preaches a future. I don’t see that person at the moment. Nelson Mandela averted South Africa violence after 27 years in Robben Island prison. He was not a well-paid politician who imagined the plight of South Africa racism. We have hopeful voices such as Cyndi Suarez, William Barber with the Poor People’s Campaign, and many others. The kindling is being laid. Something will provide a match.

·?????? Connection in communities. We can protect each other more in communities. We can build on each other’s efforts. We can understand more in what Kimberly Parker**** calls ‘Culturally Relevant Intentional Learning Communities.’ Like Freire, Parker sees the road to liberation coming from below, not by waving a wand from above. ?

·?????? And we can project hope and absorb fear. There are many levels of leadership and we need the conviction that the wrong will fail and right prevail at all levels.

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This is a comment on where we are. I’d appreciate any comments which challenge my understanding or build on where we can go. If you work with immigration or refugee issues, I may be able to help with creating a strategic plan.

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Paulo Freire. Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Thomas Kuhn. Structures of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press: 2012

Kimberly Parker. Literacy is Liberation. ASCD:2022.

Peter Turchin. End Times. New York:2023