The thing is, the inmates and the staff all share a common structural and organizational existence–the institution and the building. The main distinction is, some participants get to carry the keys.
There are many ways to frame and reframe the situation of concern. Here is one I stumbled on for other reasons that seems to apply: “Moral disengagement” (1). Another related term for the same in economic lingo is “moral hazard” (2).
So, first the right language terms are required to name and shame the target–the disease. Using a medical model on (an assumed) pathology, once a diagnosis is completed then a prognosis is set out to mitigate the issue (risk).
Everything about the late stage of American empire points toward moral decline. The images of the future that Fred Polak (1973, and earlier) suggests ‘pull’ civilizations towards desired (or away from undesirable) outcomes are largely toxic. The scientific method seeks to refute hypothesis. The religious belief systems seek to confirm and control (re-legion). Neither necessarily aim to emancipate.
800 military bases around the world. Spy satellites carpeting the sky. A money system that prints without limits and seeks to control (potentially sanction) all commercial activity and derive free tribute. It seeks to control the means of production across a Plantation model of the world. The Venetians invented a glass bead from humble sand that pandered (in color design) to African magical thinking. The virtuous business circle involved these trade-beds being shipped as ballast to Africa in otherwise empty ships; then exchanged as currency for human slaves; who were then shipped to the plantations in the Americas and swapped for cargos of sugar, tobacco, coffee, tea, etc. These goods were then shipped to Europe and sold. Rinse and repeat.
Why is this analogy relevant? Replace Venice with the USA Fed Reserve and the shipping with the digital economy and we have much the same system in play. Something from nothing. This is being disrupted by the BRICS+++ models emerging under Russian and Chinese leadership. The glass bead game is losing its core mechanism.
Now for the moral question. Empires come and go. The British was the last most relevant — at least to the Anglophone world. Realities on the ground for the subalterns, the moral dimension was at least reflected in the semantic structures under terms such as “Commonwealth.” Although some legacies exist within the USA — for example, four states in the United States that call themselves commonwealths: Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Structurally a largely meaningless distinction from “State” the term does harbor a different sense of being in the world. Working towards a common future etc.
In my view, the USA has largely failed (or at least so far) in convincing a large section of the planet (space and populations) that “800 bases” “money systems” equals a sustainable common future of shared common wealth, prosperity and peace. Exceptionalism gets in the way. This is the opportunity niche that Russia and China are exploiting — or perhaps “filling” would be a less emotive term.
This sense of ‘exceptionalism’ is not uniquely Western. The Chinese have it in abundance. However, in the West it is largely fueled by religious values that ultimately stand on layers of reinterpretations of ‘middle eastern’ (or, in Pepe Escobar’s preferred label, “Western Asia”). Putting aside the more recent Biblical excitations of a largely traumatised slave class from the Bronze Age, the deeper underlying ‘feature’ is the binary opposites framework that emerged within Zoroastrianism. This construct flows through to European thinking. Indian and Chinese thinking is more triadic and process balance (harmony) orientated.
To end the “riff” with something of relevance, I suggest this is a useful way to see the current situation in terms of response to complexity. Under high stress (real or imagined) the response will be contingent on either a binary (good vs evil) or a trinary (three forces working themselves out into balance).
Using the three civilizational worlds as archetypal examples (USA-Russia-China) one could perhaps see a complex of these 2-3 dynamics. The USA (& West Asian) worlds will increasing ‘snap’ into bipolar and then schizophrenic modes. China will frame it as a “harmony” challenge for which they, as the ‘chosen’ Middle Kingdom (Dragon People), have a cosmic role to smooth out. Time is not critical (a few more on top of 5,000 years of cultural history) and success will confirm ‘exceptionalism.
Russia is the conundrum — a mix of both with its blends of Orthodox Christian history, Asiatic shamanism, and relatively recent Marxist materialism. And, herein is perhaps the appeal for (and need for) the likes of V. Putin and his administration. Drawing on Greek frameworks, he is perhaps more a “Jason and the Argonauts” than wily Odysseus. In any case, his modus operandi is as a lawyer holding a complex challenge together. So far, successfully and history will accord him the title “Great”–much to envy of the faux actors on the stage at the moment.
So what? Well, if this framing is accurate, and deeper myth and belief/values systems relevant to predicting future steps/stages, then Russia (under Putin’s leadership) will play what the English term a “dead bat” (3). The terms were set out in 2022/23 for the civil war in Ukraine. Early discussions in Turkey were aborted. The sanctions have been dealt with as a Judo throw to fuel BRICS+++ change. The north, east, and south vectors are aligned (north pole wastelands; China; Iran etc). The narrative has been established and duplicities (and structural weakness) exposed. The only ‘wild-card’ risk they need to manage is criminally psychotic irrational behavior from the Anglo-American (empire).
Unhinged from a “moral” dimension, this bully elephant, increasingly in musth, can be managed until the condition passes. Or it can be shot as a last resort. I predict (with hopeful confirmation bias) that the USA will be successfully “managed” through their own “USSR” disengagement moment by the Russian and Chinese vectors until after the post-Trump (2.0) “Yeltsin” period when a new state-side “Putin” will emerge to move forward in the developing multipolar, postcolonial world of common wealth, justice, and bearable living.
The challenge is: What are the new images of this future that can help with this process? [Hint: men in drag on the geopolitical world-stage is not one of them! And neither is old incontinence and dementia (4). Watching “Mr 10% for the Big Guy” Joe Biden soil himself and get walked off by the wife for a nappy change was just bizarre. Drawing on an Indian philosophical caste model, we not only have a macro-system class-war between the warrior-administration class (Russia-China) and the merchant/business class running the USA, but also a generational war as the Boomer-gen scabs are ripped (or fall) off. V. Putin was 48-years old (b. 1952) when he took control of the post-soviet mess in 2000. Who in the USA, and capable, will be of that vintage in 2028?
/riff
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(1) “Moral disengagement is a meaning from Developmental psychology, educational psychology and social psychology for the process of convincing the self that ethical standards do not apply to oneself in a particular context. This is done by separating moral reactions from inhumane conduct and disabling the mechanism of self-condemnation. Thus, moral disengagement involves a process of cognitive re-construing or re-framing of destructive behavior as being morally acceptable without changing the behavior or the moral standards. (Wikipedia)
(2) “In economics, a moral hazard is a situation where an economic actor has an incentive to increase its exposure to risk because it does not bear the full costs of that risk.”(Wikipedia)
(3) (cricket) The bat when held with a light grip such that it gives when the ball strikes it, and the ball loses momentum and falls to the ground.
(4) From the Better Health Channel: “When there is a decline of intellect and memory as a result of dementia, incontinence may occur. The changes in a person’s brain that occur with dementia can interfere with a person’s ability to: recognise the need to go to the toilet. be able to wait until it is appropriate to go to the toilet.”
