[FRIAM] Moral collapse and state failure

Mon Aug 9 02:39:26 EDT 2021

Steve,

Your "The Wrong (formerly Right) Wing in the US"
reminds me of the quote by Larry Elder:
"Conservatives consider liberals well-intentioned, but misguided. Liberals
consider conservatives not only wrong, but really, really bad people."

P

On Mon, 9 Aug 2021 at 06:06, Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:

> Jochen -
>
> Thanks for the original article reference.   It lead me to seek out and
> find another interesting /relevant introductory/survey article:
>
>     Stability of Democracies:  A Complex Systems Perspective
> <https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6404/aaeb4d>
>
> In regards to your original question, my own biased intuition is that it
> is a vicious (rather than virtuous) cycle.   Our various corrupt leaders
> with notable presidents such as Harding (Teapot Dome), Nixon (Watergate++)
> and DJT-45 (Tax, Emoluments, Election, Sexual Misconduct, etc... many left
> to be exposed I suspect) definitely undermine the confidence in and
> commitment to our imperfect Democracy, driving it further away from any
> ideal it might aspire to.
>
> I personally wasted half of my voting life in reaction to Nixon and the
> next several cycles following.   Watching the shenanigans of 2000 and then
> 2016 and worse 2020, I expect there will be entire new generations as
> disaffected as I was.  It is hard to maintain a legitimate participatory
> Democracy with that level of disaffection and confusion.
>
> The Wrong (formerly Right) Wing in the US seems nearly dead-set on
> leveraging this to the extreme.   In hindsight, the rhetoric of the Wrong
> Wing has been playing at this for my entire adult life, but it is acutely
> worse this past 1-5 years.   From Trump's embrace of nearly every right
> wing dictator he could find to Tucker Carlson in Hungary this week, it
> seems to be happening entirely in plain sight!
>
> - Steve
>
>
> On 8/8/21 2:09 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote:
>
> Good example. Like the USA South Africa was a former British colony. And
> both countries had to struggle with racism in the past. But the development
> of democracy was different. The rise and fall of democracy is an
> interesting topic
>
> https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691177465/the-decline-and-rise-of-democracy
>
> I wonder what the essential factor is: do immoral presidents cause the
> collapse of democracy in a country by undermining democratic institutions
> or is it the other way round: the economy (and therefore the country) is
> already broken and institutions are weak, which enables immoral
> authoritarian rulers to grab power? Or a combination of both?
>
> -J.
>
>
> -------- Original message --------
> From: Pieter Steenekamp <pieters at randcontrols.co.za>
> <pieters at randcontrols.co.za>
> Date: 8/8/21 20:26 (GMT+01:00)
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
> <friam at redfish.com>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Moral collapse and state failure
>
> Well, I'm from South Africa, and we have been close to moral collapse and
> IMO that could have led to our state failing.
>
> If you ask ten South Africans you'll get maybe twenty opinions, below is
> just my very brief view of what has been and what is happening in South
> Africa.
>
> South Africa became democratic in 1994 with Nelson Mandela the president.
> With him at the helm we had the moral high ground. His immediate successor
> Thabo Mbeki also did well. But between 2009 and 2017 Jacob Zuma was our
> president. He looted very seriously from the state and unfortunately under
> him many people in all state organisations started to also loot. The
> corruption became very deep. He is in jail now.
>
> We now have Cyril Ramaphosa as president and it's anybody's guess, but at
> least I'm very confident that Cyril is leading us again towards the moral
> high ground and away from state failure.
>
>
> On Sun, 8 Aug 2021 at 19:18, Jochen Fromm <jofr at cas-group.net> wrote:
>
>> This paper from last year argues that moral collapse and state failure
>> are linked. Would you agree?
>> https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpos.2020.568704/full
>>
>> -J.
>>
>>
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