That feeling that society is falling apart and there’s no hope is an adjustment. It’s the developed world…

That feeling that society is falling apart and there’s no hope is an adjustment. It’s the developed world coming back to the pack. It’s how the developing world has lived for generations. Privilege is when your individual needs are met with collective action. They’re aligned. /1

In much of the world that link has never been much there. People make the best of a bad situation, forced to try to do everything for themselves. And that’s now how we’re increasingly having to live. We can ask every day why ‘we’ aren’t doing anything. There is no more we. /2

‘We’ was a response to catastrophes in the 20th century, mostly the two world wars. Where existing social hierarchies had to make way for a collective war effort. Our last 70-odd years are us living off the fat of that disruption. It’s why times seemed so good. /3

Women made inroads into patriarchies, because men were either dead from the wars or had to surrender much of their pre-existing status to allow societies to function with women in the workforce. We got used to the idea of a benevolent ‘we’, looking out for us. /4

History shows time and again that it’s a fiction. It only arises in response to catastrophe, to save society’s bacon. Once the threat has gone or is perceived as gone, the old hierarchical status games re-start. Thus our shock now at total lack of regard for public anything. /5

That’s how most of the world has lived for generations. The only solace to rich Westerners may be that the collapse we’re living is what’s also driving an eventual reunification. When things are catastrophically bad, ‘we’ may come back. /end