It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like the 1850s, or 1920s

Once every 70 or 80 years, there comes a time such as today is. The mood of crisis is everywhere--as everything portends evil. There are demonstrates over immigration (as there were today all over the US), there is a growing sense of polorization between two antithetical views about society that degenerates into culture war, or occasionally a real civil conflict (see the American Revolution or the Civil War). In America, those Presidents who are interventionists find themselves losing popularity as the general mood of the US becomes more insular and more isolationist.

At this stage economic progress continues until it is stopped by a serious downturn (the Panic of 1857, the crash of 1929), which causes whichever political party is in power to lose respect in the eyes of an impovershed and upset populace. Worsening economic conditions, a political climate poisoned by irrepresible conflict between two warring groups of the most self-righteous generation type, as well as the general discontent among the younger generation for either side (as that younger generation has been declared war on since before birth--see Roe vs. Wade). When the sense of malaise has deepened and the crisis become intolerable, then a cleansing conflict (like WWII) serves to unify people and harden people into serious and very dangerous conflict with an opposite enemy.

Of course, a lot of suffering happens when the crisis finally comes to fruition. In America's history, the crisis has been the crisis of tyranny with regards to a colonial power (the American Revolution), a crisis over tyranny with regards to slavery (the Civil War), and the crisis of totalitarian dictators (World War II). Who knows what the next crisis will be, but it will be what in other circumstances would be a small event (an attack on a small fortress, a couple of minor skirmishes) that becomes a huge conflict. Timing is everything.

It is at that point that the true moral fiber of a society is revealed. Is the society able to endure the tremendous suffering and create a new, and more just, social order? Does the society implode because of its moral corruption and its basic and fundamental disagreements? Is the conflict against an external foe or against an internal one? Or both? These things cannot be known ahead of time, though the conflict itself that is brewing often gives hints. For example, in the time before the American Revolution, the conflict between conservatives (who were pro-English) and radicals (who were pro-Indepdence) as well as the conflicts between settlers and American Indian tribes, set up the conflict that resulted. Also, the prelude to the Civil War was marked by increasing sectionalism between North and South that spilled into war when the Southerners behaved foolishly after the 1860 election. Likewise, the left-leaning FDR and the anti-fascist Churchill proved to be key figures in the world conflict that eventually followed, as the US was able to, temporarily, ally with the USSR in an alliance of convenience against the fascist Axis powers. In hindsight, the evidence is there, but it is difficult to see ahead of time how it will turn out.

So, what are the irrepressible conflicts of our time? That is a hard one, because there are a few to choose from, and it is difficult to see which ones are important. For one, the US is becoming rapidly more unpopular in its own backyard, always a bad sign, as nations are defecting from the US hegenomy (particularly Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia, at the present time). Also, the US is heavily involved in foreign wars with an increasingly stern Muslim fundamentalism (witness also the growing regional domination of Iran in southern Iraq and western Afghanistan). The clash between Western and Muslim standards appears rather important. There are other important global considerations, such as a growing isolation between the US and other nations about such issues as the environment and the military. Exactly what series of events, and what confluence of factors, leads to the deciding crisis, is as of yet unclear. Nonetheless, the mood of people is on edge, and there is a weariness and a dissatisfaction all around. Who will be able to take advantageo f that? The answer to that question is the difference between noble history and terrible tragedy. And that answer is not yet clear, and may not be for some time. But when it is clear, the dominoes will fall into place and fall on their appointed schedule.