The Transition From Focused Power to Widely Dispersed Power

[Mike Oliker]

Ignorance feeds ignorance, and extremism on one side creates and extremism
on the other. Unless there are more people like you in the west and the
Muslim world who can see beyond the demonized "other" and their own self
righteous indignation.
> They do this, we do that.
> The fued continues,
> as fueds always have
> and always will
I sure hope the vicious cycle stop, if there is a future for humanity beyond

the next 100 or so years.

There may be an underlying theme which units this current crisis in the
Middle East with all the previous struggles we've had with decaying feudal
systems starting with the American Civil War.  [Consider the KKK as the
forerunner of Al Qaida, et al.]  America tries for a time to coexist with
them, until they attack.  Without meaning to be, the US stands as a vital
threat to such regimes, just by remaining viable.
 
I believe that the Industrial Revolution (and it's forerunners in the
Renaissance) made the end of slavery and the liberation of women possible.
In all traditional societies, the enslavement of the majority is the first
critical task.  If most people aren't willing to be effectively enslaved (as
serfs, slaves, etc.), and still be productive and not require excessive
policing, then no elite can exist to read and write books, create and
propagate culture, learning, and exploration.  It requires a great deal to
make that work; the enslaved peoples themselves had to see the fruit of
their labors as worthwhile enough not to revolt.
 
Having created such a construction, after a huge investment of blood and
treasure, how ready would you be to give it up for something new?  The
traditional view, part of what the serfs are sold on, is that power must be
highly concentrated to be effective.  This is how Nazism and Communism were
sold to central and eastern Europeans when their traditional societies
collapsed.  It is also how Arab Fascism was sold in the Middle East (as
Nasserism) and how Islamo Fascism is being sold now.  The vision is that
even if Middle Eastern societies are economically ineffective (despite their
remarkable people) they can be so terrifying in their enthusiasm for death,
that the West with all it's inventiveness will still submit to them.
 
>From a complexity point of view, how does one make the switch?  Traditional
societies concentrate all their power in one person's hands.  Democratic
Free Enterprise societies disperse it in thousands of industries, producing
a whole which, while tremendously powerful, is almost incomprehensible.  We
are, in effect, everything at the same time.  Every philosophy, every
religion, every style, every language, every field of study, every ethnicity
and race.  We even practice the traditional style as much as needed: a lot
of power is concentrated in our president's hands, especially when we are
attacked.  Still, he can be angrily vilified even in the midst of a war.
 
It is hard for people raised in a traditional society to believe any of that
is really possible.  The average Soviet citizen, I've read, even while
opposing his government, was certain that there must be central planning
being done in secret in America.  Is there something short of conquest that
can convince people that something as amorphous as a self organized economy
and political system could possibly work?  I've read that it was seeing an
American Super Market in New Jersey that sold Boris Yeltsin -- he couldn't
believe that we allow regular working people to shop there.  A big, big room
with >100,000 products for sale is a pretty good symbol for who we are and
how much we empower people.
 
The vitality of American Christianity, and the florishing of American
Moslems, is a strong demonstration that the Middle East does not have to
give up Islam to be modern, democratic, and free.  What will cause people to
flip?  The Iraqi Shiites and Kurds are sold, the Lebonese Christians and
Druze, the Iranians mostly are, what will it take for Egypt?  for Libya? for
Pakistan?  If we've learned one thing in the last 150 years, it's that
societies facing this transition are very, very dangerous.  Think what it
took to change German People's minds on this point.
 
-Mike Oliker
 
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