Wednesday 18 December 2019

systemic isomorphic mimicry

Credit once again to Kottke for directing us to a reflective and objectively true set of observations about the self-inflicted wounds of Anglo-Saxon society and how that results in failed states in this excellent essay by Umair Haque (previously, ibidem).

Nothing I can add or augment I think could improve upon his diagnosis and prognosis of the self-destructive and uniquely self-perpetuating behaviours of which the United Kingdom has been the chief net-exporter and the pitiable impoverishment that follows. Those poles apart in a polarised milieu (from geopolitics down to the most granular levels) despise each other because their ideological foes-partners in sanctimoniousness-reflect back to them the worst traits in themselves that they’d rather go unacknowledged, but don’t over-emphasise how fraught tribalism is and the forces that would whip it into a frenzy, because that focus (that cannot be remedied through consensus or something called bi-partisanship or else anything aspirational) distracts from the fact that contempt transforms to hate once collectively society grows too marginalised to look after anything save its own self-preservation and fails to thrive. Though the United States and Britain may be oblivious of their trajectory towards oblivion, maybe their hubris and hegemony will present a cautionary tale for the rest of the world and the world is paying attention.