‘If You’re Going to Be in a Disaster, the Best Place to Be is In a High-Trust Society.’
At the suggestion of science fiction author John Ringo, I am reading his book The Last Centurion. I am not a big fiction reader so this book was a good start for me as I like its “bloggy” first person style. The book takes place in the second decade of the 21st century with a world enduring two catastrophes: a mini-ice age and a plague. The book describes a possible future and all the political and military problems and limitations that exist during a catastrophe. As a psychologist, I was struck by how people and society behaved during these crises.
The main character, an American army officer, gives his observations about how important trust is in a society when there is a disaster. “Americans form voluntary random social alliances. Other societies do not. Low trust societies in the U.S. do not.” In other words, in America, groups of random strangers will get together to aid other people for no direct benefit to themselves. In a disaster, it is imperative for people to help each other to get through it and save as many lives as possible.
Okay, this is a work of fiction but extrapolate the concept of trust to the real world and it plays out the same. Americans are often generous and go out of their way to help others because we have a bond of trust here, even between strangers. However, that trust is eroding with much of the propaganda and agitation by politicians and their minions who want to punish certain groups such as men, while rewarding others.
If we keep bashing men and ostracizing them, nothing good will happen. Every time we take away due process from men, throw them in jail for debts to women and children (child support), portray them as perverts and rapists in the media, and treat them as expendable, we break the bonds of trust and threaten our own survival and that of others at the same time. It is societal suicide.
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Cross-posted at Dr. Helen blog.
Related at PJ Lifestyle:
One of the key weaknesses of institutions is that, from their point of view, there can never be a time when the institution doesn’t exist. Deteriorating ties between individuals is meaningless to government, since government “will always be there”.
There is a lot to be said about this assesment. Look at how the residents of inner-city New Orleans handled Katrina and how residents of rural LA and MS handled the same storm.
Stu, Ringo goes into the New Orleans situation in some detail as part of the discussion. And he shows that even in New Orleans, there were inner-city “ants” who helped…. and inner-city “grasshoppers” who sat back and waited to be rescued… and b*ched when they weren’t.
Helen, I’ve been asking the following question in light of Ringo’s discussion:
Can you build a high-trust society that includes the current Left, given their well proven track record for lying, working around the law (EPA is a prime example), and refusing to honor any compromise?
The answer is no. Any totalitarian regime is build on division and suspicion and mistrust. Never open up to someone, never help anyone, always betray anyone that will give you an advantage. (Or material advantage; an Pad, a pair of jeans, toilet paper, revenge on your neighbor who yells at you to turn down your music)
The liberals so much want to be totalitarians. After all, they are from the government and are here to help. And it is imaterial whether you need it or want it. It drives them crazy that they know everthing that is better for you and yet we keep on trying to ignore them! They must put an end to that.
THE GREATER GOOD!
The answer is “sort of”. The key is Ronald Reagan’s old solution, trust but verify. Cheating’s cost/benefit ratio is a variable, not a constant. Incorporating low-trust individuals and building trust is what the credit bureaus do all the time so it is possible. But this process incurs a cost, one that has more serious consequences than usual in a disaster. Given technology that is low power enough to survive off of solar, you can tag people and process their trustworthiness so that prejudice is less necessary as a sorting mechanism. The Internet people have been thinking about this process for years but I don’t know of disaster related extensions that would mediate trust problems.
High-trust societies tend to result when a society implements the classical solution to the Prisoner’s Dilemna: tit-for-tat. I.e., it’s ok to trust, and forgive, and generally be a nice person, AS LONG AS those who cheat are reliably punished. Ultimately, that’s the purpose of a rule-of-law society — to permit high-trust relationships to be normalized. And that’s why things that damage a rule-of-law society — graft and corruption on one hand, tolerance for broken windows on the other — damage all of our best social inventions.
The media does not denigrate all men.
Males with same sex attraction or dark skin are glorified.
I forgot the name, but I think it was the second Terminator movie, where a lot of people probably didn’t notice, but it jumped out at me that there were only three “good” males in the whole movie. One was a child, one was black, and the third was a machine. Of course, the women were all helpless waifs.
In a real disaster, distrusting the white male is probably going to get you killed, but that’s Hollywood.
Pvt Benjamin. The only male in the movie who was not inherently a jerk was the DI, who had to act a bit like a jerk because that was his job.
Trust is an integral part of society. Consider a routine thing that happens millons of times every day – a person boards an airliner. That person is literally putting his life into the care of others. There are a lot of people required to make an airliner fly safely from departure to destination. They include the engineers who designed the plane, the people who built it, the mechanics who repair it, the baggage handlers and groud crew that service it, the cockpit and cabin crew for the specific flight as well as the air traffic controllers who keep the plane safely separated from others. We entrust these people with our lives and they live up to that trust.
By way of contrast, my wife came of age in the Philippines during the Marcos dictatorship. She has told me stories of the rampant corruption at every level of society. There was no trust because none was deserved. Officials at all levels were on the take and the result was widespread poverty.
We have our problems in our country. As bad as Obama and the Chicago cronies are, they have not (yet) reached the levels of corruption that was in the Philippines. Not for lack of trying, though. We’re heading in that direction, IMO, and the result will be widespread poverty.
I agree. I am sometimes in awe of the trust patients give me when they have just met me and I talk about a surgery they need (for a fracture, sometimes urgent.)
The trust in credentialing is not all bad.
Afraid Obamacare will make us more like a lower trust field, with patients wondering if we offer just the cheapest treatment, not the best.
Left/liberals and other low-character Chicago Values types will be Darwin Award roadkill when their Cloward-Piven instigated societal collapse comes… they’ll all be me-first uncoopertive and have nothing to offer but their dysfunctional socialist crud that made the mess in the first place.
Happy starving and living under a bush, hippies!
One can frequently better explain sociological concepts in terms of fiction. I frequently recommend Last Centurion to people to explain that despite Leftist propaganda; a) all cultures are not the same, b) all cultures are not equally successful in all circumstances, and c) that people will cling more tightly to the culture that they were raised in when stressed, even when such clinging is counter-productive or suicidal. There are no “EVERYONE lives happily ever after” scenarios in real life. While life is not a pure zero-sum game; it is not something that Dr. Pangloss would recognize either.
There are practical lessons for hard times in Last Centurion. I would commend to your attention the novel Patriots by James Wesley Rawles for more practical lessons.
Subotai Bahadur
In Last Centurion, Bandit Six (Ringo’s hero) rejects Ayn Rand’s “Objectivist” philosophy because of its “every man for himself” element. (He also states he found Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings “a real snoozer”.)
He states that a high-trust society is necessary if you want a civilization to recover from any major disruption. Actual history would tend to bear him out. (Compare and contrast; Japan after the tsunami, Somalia after Mohammed Siad-Barre packed up and left… with the treasury.)
What would be interesting, in a horrid sort of way, would be a novel about a country (this one, for instance) with a government composed of true-believing “terrible simplifiers” of the “Earth First” variety. Who would be willing to go to any lengths to Protect Holy Mother Gaia from the evils of civilization, as they define same.
Think of them blowing up hydroelectric dams to “make rivers wild again”, for starters. Let alone what could happen with them having access to tactical and strategic WMDs;
Ringo’s villains (and I’m not talking about the Islamists in the book) would be the sort to try it, in the real world. The difference between this and Clancy’s Rainbow Six would be the propagandizing and reign of “compassionate terror” the enlightened thought leaders would institute.
Before moving to their Final Solution.
clear ether
eon
Ringo was, I think, pointing out various theories of society that don’t ultimately work. Or as perhaps his character would say…
Do. The. Math.
It was a very good book.
Fallen Angels by Niven, Pournelle and Flynn.
Excellent book. But I differ with the authors on the “gentility” of the eco-Utopians’ totalitarianism.
There has never been a Utopian simplification or similar movement in world history that did not succumb to what I call “the siren call of ‘cleansing violence’”- the belief that their righteousness justifies the subjugation and/or extermination of the “unrighteous” by the proverbial Any Means Necessary. (The Tai-Ping Rebellion in China being one example, and the Vietnam era “antiwar movement” another.)
There has also never been such a movement run by people capable of resisting the temptation to play God. Especially a “naughty God”, as mentioned in the first Blade movie.
A more accurate portrayal of the likely outcome may be found in the novel Beyond Rejection by Justin Leiber. In Chapter III, he briefly mentions
I can’t really picture the “opponents of pollution and technology” making common cause with the rest of that list. I absolutely can picture them carrying out such a campaign of “rectification” all on their own.
And enjoying every second of it.
clear ether
eon
eon: “Ringo’s hero rejects Ayn Rand’s ‘Objectivist’ philosophy because of its ‘every man for himself’ element”
I’m concerned that a crucial point in Objectivism has been missed, or at least a point in Rand’s fiction. E.g. Dagny Taggart relied heavily on trust in Henry Rearden, and strove to regain Wyatt’s trust after her brother abused it. It looks like a common (mis)representation of Rand’s philosophy. She was no loner, in fact her downfall was that she relied maybe too heavily on sycophants.
Rand’s heroes relied on their reputations in their lives and careers. Her enemies relied on power, open or veiled. Rand had little patience with anyone who did not fall clearly into one camp or the other; those people suffered tragically when they took villains at their word.
After reading this, the comments, and Last Centurion previously, I think I’ve had an epiphany.
How much of the root purpose of religion has been to instill societal trust?
So much of the Judeo-Christian teachings focus on interpersonal relationship guidelines.
“don’t covet”, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, “turn the other cheek”, “all God’s creatures”, “love the sinner”, “love the meek” etc.
How much of this Judeo-Christian-based society trust explains the success of Anglo and ‘western’ societies? The only non-Judeo-Christian societies that have florished I would characterize as have replaced religion-based-trust with nationalistic or racial based trust, where duty, honor, and obligation define a citizens life.
How much of western societial decline is due to secularization, where people no longer fear a spiritual backlash for screwing over their neighbor?
I think you’d like David Gelernter’s book Americanism: The Fourth Great Western Religion http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385513127/pjmedia-20 I’ll be writing more about it soon here at PJ Lifestyle.
In addition to Trust, I believe a sense of Purpose is at play.
Consider Japan whose citizens, as far as interpersonal relationships go, maintain a set of values that are fairly in keeping with the Judeo-Christian ethic. However Japan is exemplary of a demographic decline which suggests a profound national Apathy.
The 10 commandments teach us how to relate to and with God (I am the Lord your God, you shall have no strange God’s before me, etc.), how to relate to the image of God here on earth – the family (Honor your father and your mother . . . )and then, how to relate to others in the community. The key point is that the family bridges each generation, teaching children who God is and how we relate to Him and then how we relate to others. No other religion has so clearly expressed this.
“How much of the root purpose of religion has been to instill societal trust?”
All of it.
I commend for your consideration “Systems of Survival” by Jane Jacobs. The main character presents a check from a German publishing firm drawn on a Swiss bank to his local teller in New York. He walks out of the bank with cash. As he hits the sidewalk, it dawns on him that there is a high degree of trust in the commercial environment!
The book goes on, in Socratic form, to contrast the commercial environment with the “guardian” mindset and finds that the two differ radically in more than twenty areas. Further, the book makes the point that commercial solutions do not work in government and government solutions do not work in commerce. As a trivial example, consider bonuses and other incentives. Obviously they motivate private enterprise endeavors, but imagine the outrage if you gave out bonuses for every arrest made by the police?
On the trust issue, “Trust” is the mainstay of the commercial environment. In the “guardian” philosophy you must NOT trust (your adversary), for if you do one possible consequence is the loss of your country.
“imagine the outrage if you gave out bonuses for every arrest made by the police?” — outrage,yes; but it might work, IF you did two other things: 1) unjustified arrest – i.e. lose the case and you lose the bonus; and 2) strict liability – i.e. bust up the house, kill the dog, beat up the suspect while trying to get evidence, and you’re personally responsible. The bonus would be justified, then, for the extra work it takes to get sufficient evidence for conviction without abusing police powers.
I think the “glue” that undergirds our own high-trust society is the sense that, whatever ideological or ethnic differences, we all share the same common, fundamental values: individual freedom, trust in institutions that ensure rule-of-law, democracy, belief that the American system is good and worthy of defense, etc… If you will, I think most people accept that THOSE fundamentals come from the Judeo-Christian ethic.
That’s what we saw post-9/11, as people were nicer, and helped each other in public for no direct benefit to themselves. There was trust that regardless of political party or skin color, your fellow citizen agreed with you on the basics that this society ran on, and that it was a good, worthy thing.
The racial fracturing and ethnic polarization recently mirrors the tribal conflicts and group loyalties (over country) of the third world. These cultural trends have started to supplant the sense of common cause we still had post-9/11: individual pursuit, of happiness economic freedom, and belief that defending those things is right and worthy, all of which depend on education and civic consciousness accepted throughout the population. Now, those values are being overcome by central planning, collectivism, coerced material egalitarianism, and the notion that individual freedoms and pursuits are “selfish” and short-sighted.
However, I don’t interpret Rand as advocating individual selfishness or “every man for himself.” What was important to her was that relationships between men be voluntary, and based on mutual need and mutual value. It wasn’t every man for himself in Galt’s Gulch, but a society based on the voluntary individual adoption of value for value in the interactions of daily life, taken a bit too far, of course, for illustrative purposes.
To her, the morality of such a set-up for society existed in the voluntary nature of those relationships, and lack of coercion from one powerful group upon another. That voluntary choice, to no longer play the producer-as-whipping-boy in a debauched society, is necessary for the individual to maintain his dignity.
On manly virtues in the classic sense, no, the republic can’t succeed without them. We get a stark comparison everyday of political elites who enjoy a “Hunger Games” type of privilege, sacrificing their own dignity in the process, against men who “reject the paradigm.” Roughly, for example, your Harry Reid, or even Todd Akins, exemplify that small-minded, pitiful and grasping class, while the SEALS who came out in the OPSEC video might, as far as we know now, exemplify the other. Rand might describe them as “men who lived when the country was young.”
As another illustration of those virtues, Lynn Olsen told the story of the parliamentarians who raised Churchill for one last mission in “Troublesome Young Men” then fought Hitler, whether in London or on the battlefield. They, too, acted with strong spines, clarity of thought, and belief that Western democracies were worth defending. May our young men be troublesome enough.
“Can you build a high-trust society that includes the current Left?”
Absolutely not. They are actively and consistently working AGAINST a high trust society. They don’t want people to help and trust each other. If that happens, what role is there for our self-appointed, benevolent ‘leaders’? Their entire object is a submissive, dependent, dumb populace that submits to, no demands, leadership by the ‘right-thinking’ elite. Who will, naturally, be suitably rewarded for selflessly doing the hard, hard work of guiding us morons.
I literally cannot express in words the level of contempt I have for the them.
I have a couple of acquaintances who are both actively involved in genuine charitable causes while also actively supporting the Democratic party. I think it’s possible to have relatively relatively big helpings of government in small, self-contained, areas like a liberal college town. However, the left grows out of control when they get to spend other people’s money and gain control over people outside their local community.
I was impressed how the citizens of Joplin, MO reacted to a massive tornado and it’s immediate aftermath. People drove to the disaster zone and self-organized the transfer of patients from the destroyed hospital to the intact one. Low-level hourly workers got retail and restaurant customers to safety minutes before the tornado struck. They didn’t need leaders and experts to tell them what to do. Those are the kind of people I want as neighbors when disaster strikes.
Why do you have two short pages instead of one medium length page? It’s annoying.
“It is an equal failing to trust everybody and to trust nobody.”
-Thomas Fuller
I have read Last Centurion a couple of times and checked such of his facts as I can; found them to be accurate. Fiction can be a test tube, a thought experiment if you will, from which to learn, There is a lot to learn from this book. Along the lines of a thought experiment, I picked up an old fiction/fantasy book in Half Price Books the other day, titled A WIND FROM BUKHARA by M J Engh, I am only at the half way point, but it is( I think) headed toward eon’s comment re: earth firsters. It is a 1976 copyright, so check amazon or ebay. So far, a good but brutal story.
So, in the coming societal collapse, you want to be in rural Kanasas, Minnesota, or Utah. Well, really anywhere in suburban or rural flyover country. Gotcha.
The War Nerd had a column about it and came down to the conclusion that tightly knit religious communities will survive disasters because of trust and numbers. You won’t do well alone and a community after disaster has binds that will tie.
We all rely on the kindness of strangers.
Which is why it’s very important to be polite and kind to others as possible. Kick ‘em in the teeth on the way up, and you’ll make acquaintance with their boots on the way down.
Far better to be nice – might not get you so high in the food chain, but you’ll end up a lot happier and not having to watch your back.
Giving kindness to strangers in now illegal, Comrade.
http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/region_phoenix_metro/central_phoenix/valley-woman-told-she-could-not-hand-out-free-bottled-water-in-summer-heat
One thing which was illustrated, but not talked about specifically, was the self selection process during the crisis. More people survived inside high trust groups. Low trust groups, such as inner city thugs which were aided by the administration, produced a horror show of slavery, exploitation and racism. Urban Liberal “useful idiots” found themselves discarded as useless or they were degraded.
Counter productive activities by the leftist Federal administration was bypassed by the military (Kula bars for instance) and the private citizenry, such as when naifs were put in charge of farms. If a person knew how far out of their depths they were and begged for help, then help would be provided, sometimes from the very person whom the government stole their farm from. Many people were allowed to starve, because they followed the Leftist administration’s expert advice. Political correctness was harshly punished by the crisis. Preparation and self reliance were not always rewarded, but tended to be.
It was a very interesting book, but few leftists would finish it.
More brutally: stubborn stupidity was allowed to be a self-punishing capital crime.
That book is a tome about the leftist philosophy of processing reality through a filter of political ideology, and clinging to that process through the pain of starving to death.
Those who could not break out of this mental rut paid the ultimate price.
The cold hard truth is that should such a thing come to pass, society would be better off without those stuck in this model of reality.
The drawback being that if they hold the reins of power, they are certain to take a lot of innocents down with them. Whose only crime is being caught in the machinery when the “Enlightened Ones’” plans blows up in their collective face.
Belgium didn’t ask to be on the natural invasion route between Germany and France. Nevertheless, being there cost them dearly, several times.
As Captain Kirk once said, the weak innocents always seem to get caught in the middle. (“Errand of Mercy”.)
cheers
eon
I listened to this on audible.com. Good narrator. Loved the premise and laughed mao at the skewering of the global warming racket. Interesting that the potus was female. Maybe he was anticipating HRC? Actually, it’s no stretch to see the current occupant of that office behaving like “the b*tch”. Hope his story turns out similarly. Great point about high trust (and high cohesion) societies — that’s the only place you see such things as barn raisings.
I just wish he provided some clue where to find some of the statements he made in that book. Stuff like how organic was not very productive, how a vegan diet would actually increase the amount of land required for farming, etc.
Can’t “Do. The. Math.” without numbers to plug into the equation.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture used to put out a yearly book called, logically enough, The Yearbook of Agriculture. Each year’s book had a main theme, with the articles in it revolving around that theme. 1950-51 was “Crops in Peace and War”, 1953 was “Plant Diseases”, 1955 was “Water” (irrigation), and so on.
When I was growing up (on a farm) these books were the Bibles of farming, laying out in careful detail what did and did not work, whether in commercial farming, organic farming, or even “truck gardening”. Several of the narrator’s points in the novel I recognized as coming directly from older (i.e., pre- “tofu-eater”) USDA publications like the Yearbooks. My guess is that Ringo, a “farm kid” himself, probably used them as references.
If you want to “see the work”, that is where I would suggest you start. Just don’t put much stock in any data from USDA after about 1970, is all.
cheers
eon
Many thinks. The fedgov is not entirely made up of idiots.
Entirely.
This book is very good. One interesting feature is many of the counterproductive actions the author projected the fictional president in the book would do, all fit in with Obamas philosophy. The only way he got it slightly wrong is he modeled the president on Hillary Clinton, as I suspect he had predicted Hillary rather than Obama would win when he wrote it. But the boneheaded leftist actions taken to deal with the crisis, track exactly with what we would expect Obama would do in a similar situation, and with actions he already has done in our slightly less severe real crisis.
On high trust societies, the author is correct that it is an important feature of the US, and one reason for our resiliance and success as a nation. And Obamas policies are rapidly undermining this quality, since he does not want us to trust and help each other, but to trust and expect help exclusively from gov.
#22 Phillep Harding
I can’t furnish exact figures, but I can offer some thoughts on the subject. I am making what I consider reasonable preparations for bad times in the near future. Part of that involves transition of my [large] home garden to something that while it may not be organic, is sustainable; as in it can be done without depending on outside inputs. Heritage seeds not hybrids, because hybrid crops do not always produce viable seeds for the next year. Chemical fertilizers replaced by animal fertilizers. No insecticides, no herbicides. Not because I have anything against modern means, but because they may not be available.
The goal is to find crops and methods that work, here, in the absence of outside resources. And hopefully can be stored. Guess what? Yields are way down, and it is a lot harder work. That matches historical experience.
As we went from small subsistence farming in this country, to modern farming methods; yields went up exponentially. We, until recently, fed the world. If we were not deliberately wasting food crops as fuel; we would still be able to do so. It is going to get real hungry out soon in some parts of the world [take a close look at Egypt's balance of payments and caloric consumption]; and for the first time in decades we will not be capable of providing the food to save them. Because those in charge of our government “can’t do the math”. They think the surplus is going to always be there, because it always has been. If we ever lose the ability to use modern agricultural methods, it will be hungry here. And the world will just starve.
Not being vegan, I can’t speak for how much land it will take. But I can speak a bit to dietary requirements. The healthy human body requires a range of amino acids to make proteins to live. A vegan diet may be able to furnish them, but to do so you need a variety of crops and foods. They do not all grow in all places. In my area, growing beans [which are critical in furnishing some of those amino acids] organically is not possible because of bean beetles that require the chemical equivalent of tactical nukes to control. I am experimenting with high protein pseudo-grains. I commend amaranth and quinoa to the consideration of those whose growing seasons permit. But it comes down to the fact that tasty, tasty animals are the easiest way to furnish those amino acids if you can grow a caloric surplus of some crop to feed the critters. And if they are milkable critters, cheese stores protein over time.
If times get bad, it is going to take a community effort just to survive, just to get enough food to survive. The addition of a politruk [политический руководитель] telling people what to do when they have no idea themselves defines the concept of “useless eaters”; which the politruki themselves would define as “women, children, and the elderly”. Referring to the comments on this post by Dr. Helen over on her own site; Politruki make good dog food. Dogs have a useful function.
This is not hard math, but I hope it helps. Of course, YMMV.
Subotai Bahadur
Subotai
One small observation on survival farming from a life long Southerner; goats really really like kudzu.
otpu
Know any good recipes for Canadian Goose? I’m not much of a gardener but I’ve been taking note of what’s out there for me to grab.
Thanks for the heads-up on kudzu.
Jeannette, corned goose is fantastic. Just brine it for about 7-10 days as you would corned beef (using Morton’s Tenderquick, available mail order) then cook it as you would corned beef. It’s really terrific.
A few years ago, I had the honor to transcribe some survivor interviews for the National Holocause Museum. The people who survived the death camps were, for the most part, *not* the people who grabbed what they could when they could, or the ones who hoarded their own resources. The people who did best were the ones who shared their resources; who despite being at starvation levels, would hold onto some of their bread to char and give to people who were ill, or who would keep going through their exhaustion to help others who were near to collapse.