The Inverse Rule Of Civilization
My observations have led me to develop something I call the Inverse Rule of Civilization. I’m sure it isn’t original, but it is something that helps me make sense of our contemporaneous cultural battles.
It proposes that the more prosperous and advanced a civilization becomes, the more likely it is to destroy itself.
I have long argued that progressivism is a disease born of prosperity because prosperity distances people from the hard realities of life. At its base condition, human existence looks very much like what Hobbes described: “No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Like it or not, history proves that is humanity’s default setting. Everything else is constructed, maintained, and defended.
I tend to think in analogies, and sometimes the simplest one is the most effective. In my early years, I was a competent mechanic. I rebuilt engines, repaired transmissions, and handled whatever broke. Today, I cannot work on my own vehicles. I outsource the work because I no longer possess the knowledge required to navigate computerized systems. I do not even change my own oil because the economics make it irrational. A specialty shop can do it faster and cheaper than I can, and I can afford to pay for it.
That transformation happened over roughly thirty years. During that span I lost practical knowledge, not because I became less intelligent, but because the systems became more advanced and prosperity allowed specialization. I adapted, but when an entire civilization follows the same path, the consequences are far greater.
Like my struggles with auto repair, members of a prosperous society slowly forget what it takes to maintain the health and operation of their culture. They think less about how they arrived where they are and what must be done to sustain it. Instead, they fixate on perceived deficiencies in a system they have always known and assume the underlying foundation will simply always be there because it is the only baseline they have ever experienced.
The longer a civilization remains prosperous, and the more insulated it becomes from hardship, the greater the detachment from reality it begins to accept as normal. That is my Inverse Rule of Civilization in a nutshell.
If you sometimes get upset or shocked by the weakness of thinking (and living) displayed by grown ass people on social media (or by trying to talk to them) as I do, we need to check ourselves before we wreck ourselves, and sit back and realize that we created them.
As a follower of my writing noted, you can’t bring logic and reason to a dogma fight.
We have stopped rearing children with any rational perspective of hardship, of what survival requires, and of how fragile complex systems truly are when, like our complex socioeconomic system, they are often subject to single points of failure.
We caught a glimpse of civilizational strain during the COVID panicdemic. Supply chains faltered, social cohesion fractured, and fear replaced confidence. When it came time to absorb the lesson, however, we failed the test and chose not to reflect on what those uncomfortable months really represented. Instead, we doubled down on comfort and distraction and as a result, we ceded power to a generation of soft, sophomoric adult children unable to comprehend real pain or delayed gratification.
These adult babies are idealistic and ideological yet bereft of knowledge about natural law, economic reality, or the requirements of living in a productive society, and they are living in an illusion of reality, not reality itself. Daniel J. Boorstin was right when he said that “We risk being the first people in history to have been able to make their illusions so vivid, so persuasive, so ‘realistic’ that they can live in them.”
History records many civilizations that fell through revolution or war, but rarely does it record one that had not already rotted from within. Decay precedes collapse. When cultures pause to enjoy extended affluence, they often produce generations of ne’er-do-wells, foppish and self-indulgent classes who mistake comfort for permanence. Societies begin navel-gazing, self-recrimination, and endless moral posturing. Forward motion stops, and weak links form in the chain of progress. Leaders who appease those weak links as indulgent parents once did often accelerate the decline.
Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing inherently wrong with affluence. Success is not the problem; however, danger arises when prosperity is not paired with a deeply rooted, society-wide drive to achieve, improve, and compete. Capitalistic, free societies function as engines of progress precisely because they are externally focused and growth oriented. They understand that achievement is temporary and must be renewed. America, by contrast, has become internally focused. Significant portions of our academic culture wallow in self-loathing, dwelling on national mistakes as if there is nothing to learn from America’s unparalleled success.
Our knowledge economy increasingly confuses technological novelty with civilizational advancement. It is impressive that a drone can deliver a package in thirty minutes, but technology is a means, not an end. It is a labor-saving device, not a substitute for cultural vitality.
We forget the basic structure of Maslow’s hierarchy: physiological needs, safety, belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. One climbs upward step by step, satisfying the requirements of each level before advancing. Decline does not work that way. A society can fall multiple levels at once. Only people climb the ladder. Only people raise the bar. Technology merely holds it in place long enough for people to lift it higher again. When a society forgets these truths and chooses a rung to rest upon rather than striving upward, it begins the quiet descent toward eventual fall.
