Decivilization May Be Under Way

When one person is brazenly murdered, it is "decivilization".

So what do you call it when scores of people are brazenly denied health care they are entitled to and allowed to suffer and even die simply for the sake of corporate profits?

Business and "civilization" as usual?

Seems like the alarm might be just a little misplaced.

Aside from any claims of decivilization, the US should have universal public healthcare. It's basic function of a competent nation state. The US has failed to achieve it.

Get civilized first. Worry about decivilization after that.

Continuous obligations to grow over time long ago can't be satisfied forever. When the end comes, institutions tend to derange. The people who are willing to paper over any missed growth targets, etc.. tend to be promoted, and end up running the ship. This is why most of our institutions, including our health "insurance" companies are rapacious viper pits.

The problem isn't with the citizens, it's with the incentives rewarding deranged behavior, and a lack of sufficient justice (including prison terms) for those responsible.

When Macron used the phrase “process of decivilization” it was vague to French observers. I think it’s very clear in an American context:

Can the CEO’s alleged murderer get a fair trial? Will we believe a verdict if it’s unanimous guilty?

Following the shooting, the richest man in the world noticeably carried his child on his shoulders; in front of him like a human shield.

Reading the decades before Elias, we should predict that Jan 6 combatants are not only pardoned but implanted into sensory positions in the next administration.

> The line between a normal, functioning society and catastrophic decivilization can be crossed with a single act of mayhem.

First, society is hardly normal and functioning any more for a lot of people. Millions are basically cogs in a machine with not much hope on the horizon except consumerism, which is frankly, getting tiring.

Second, catastrophic decivilization is highly unlikely at this point. It is unlikely because our addiction to technology and technological advancement means that too many people are too deep into it to let de"civilization" happen. The system has too many defense mechanisms.

Thirdly, decivilization can only happen once technology itself destabilizes. Indeed, a few targeted killings, or even dozens, will only result in a tightening of security with more technology to prevent them. More cameras will be installed, more facial recognition, etc. Individuals cannot destabilize civilization while they are still mostly benefitting in the short term from it unless the mechanisms that bring those benefits (technology) is itsel destroyed.

> The process of decivilization may begin with profound distrust in institutions and government leaders, but that distrust gets far worse in a society where people brutalize one another.

I sincerely doubt people will start brutalizing each other in general. It is much more likely that the brutalization will be restricted to those who hold the power and collect the most resources. Times are different now, and we are going to see a new breed of individualistic violence where the true monsters are targeted, and the mass media and governments want everyone thinking that such acts as Magione's will lead to mass violence because they are deathly afraid of the much more likely eventuality that it is just the power structure that will be targeted.

Looks like doomervision. There's plenty of capital and opportunity to enact a sufficient and necessary amount of socialism and smart, nuanced regulation to make America adequately healthier and saner. What is missing is political will and leadership that doesn't worship greed.

This is just one broad, unsupported assertion after another. Sloppy. It’s not that the author doesn’t prove things—you can’t expect that in an editorial—but that the assertions aren’t even argued for.

I think this is not a sign of decivilization, it’s a sign of a broken democratic process.

If things would become insufferable in Italy or France a we would vote the communists into power and have a red October. France is halfway there already, if not for the failed European immigration politics the left hardliners would govern.

I am not saying that this is the correct approach, but Americans don’t even have the option, and it shows in the political decisions.