Cracks

Going to parties and clubs, (when I found myself out and about anyways, which is a rare thing these days), I began to notice the fragmented state of the social status of the local youth. People gaze in all directions, some cramming their faces into their opened cellphones, their faces glowing ghostlike. Conversations follow jagged paths of semi-reciprocity, the participants only understanding each other in intervals. I know this phenomenon subjectively. Eye contact is sometimes agonizing, especially for me, as I have to calculate all of my social interactions. It doesn't come naturally. And my head is filled with so many conceptions of what is to be accepted social discourse, it seems I grow anxious trying to calculate and integrate at the same time. Judging from others' behavior, it seems this is more widespread, though this could simply be bias on my part, where I project my own experiences on to others.

Nevertheless, I observe fragmentation. Cliques of people comfortable with each other are atomizing, growing smaller, specializing into smaller groups. Curious, this runs parallel with Gene Sharp's characterization of a society oppressed by a dictatorial state.

Of course, calling our country a dictator state is nothing short of hyperbole, but still, the parallel remains.

Some social scientists talk about instances where there is a loss of centralized and coherent values to be provided to the general population by the ruling class. According to their observations, this loss of a group of values results in a society that fractures, and these fractures permeate all the way into the individuals themselves, resulting in split selves. These split individuals in turn have trouble communicating coherent values to their children, thus perpetuating an atomized society.

A split self is then ripe for two main options:

1. The split individuals can proceed to reinvent themselves, manually putting back the pieces. This can result in bold new ideas and the reinvigoration of civilization.

2. The split individuals, upon perceiving an elevated, grandiose self and a depressed pathetic self, proceed to retain the grandiose and reject, eject, and project the pathetic onto symbols they perceive to be the enemy (scapegoating). They do this while cementing relations with other like-minded individuals in an us versus them schema, thus giving sway to fundamentalist, authoritarian movements.

I think this phenomenon happens in cycles throughout the course of history, and I think we are experiencing this as a civilization right now. There are many of us currently trying to reinvent ourselves, and then there are those of us sitting around complaining about Muslims and wishing that everyone was living in the 19th century again. Thus our polarization.

There are some scholars who worry that bona fide fascism could again take hold, and in American soil no less. Though this is a popular buzzword sloppily used to smear opponents on either side of the political spectrum, the actual pathology could very well rise again, just in a uniquely American form. This possibility is real.

I see terrible splitting in my own family, culminating in the frayed ends of rope that are my brother and I, the strange creatures that we are.

I just hope we can all figure something out before the other guys.