Social Entropy

The inevitable fraying of a civilization?

Some time ago, I heard the phrase “social entropy”, and it has been echoing in my head ever since. It strikes me as perfectly encapsulating what feels like the fraying of our social fabric. It seems the new millennium blew our mental fuses.

It’s hard to know what to make of things now. Is this just another pendulum swing along humanity’s path or a genuine sign of social decline? Has humanity peaked, been found unworthy, and slid into a dumb and numb acceptance?

What the hell is even going on anymore? What happened to respect, kindness, honor, values, and decency?

I warn you this is a ramble in hopes of catharsis. I have no answers. I’m not sure there are answers at this point. The train is headed somewhere, and it’s probably unstoppable, so we’ll have to ride it out and hope the final destination isn’t Hell Station.

When I look around, I find the world hard to recognize. Journalism is a joke, politics is an abomination, business is (and long has been) dedicated to squeezing every drop of blood from us, scammers and spammers are a constant virulent miasma, stupidity and incompetence are everywhere, quality has all but vanished, and no one seems to care about anything but their own interests. We’re lost in our own bubble universes.

To say things are better or worse (or the same) requires a judgement call and a decent definition of what one means by “better” and “worse”. There is no question that compared to ages past we are — generally speaking — materially better off.

But we’re inundated with a sea of content: an endless supply of books, music, TV shows, movies, and YouTube videos. None of which require leaving our comfy chair. One consequence of this glut of content is that almost nothing stands out anymore. Generations are fragmented and no longer coalesce around single shared experiences.¹

The fragmentation became polarization and a culture war. Both sides paint the other in the worst colors. No quarter is allowed, the other side is invalid, there can be no compromise. This culture war is all out.

We Did It to Ourselves

What disturbs me is a perception I have going back at least to 2016 that this is in part the fault of liberals and progressives. Through what seems abject stupidity and carelessness. What we’re seeing now is, in part, a reaction to social progress going too far too fast.

I think the biggest part of it is globalization and what it did to jobs, but I also think we’re seeing a reaction to too much social progress jammed down our throats. Too much for some, at least, and I don’t think it’s fair to entirely ignore their feelings.²

There is a segment of this country that rightfully sees itself as having built America. The workers who built our roads, bridges, buildings, cars, washing machines, and TVs. They took pride in their work. They were part of our strength as a country. They were the core of what we were as a nation.

Globalization devastated them. Progress killed more than just dreams; it killed jobs and wrecked futures. Broken eggs in a progressive aggressive omelet. And the part of the country who weren’t laborers, the “elite” liberals, cheered for lower prices and technical toys and never gave a thought to “fly over” country.

It’s not hard to understand the rage. I understood exactly why Trump won in 2016. I could even forgive it that time. Many conservatives hated Trump, but they hated liberals even more. Supporting Trump was how they got back at them. They loved how liberals lost their shit over the things Trump does, and I’ve long suspected much of his behavior is solely to generate that reaction.³

That Democrats have failed to understand this disturbs me. Long, long ago, when Biden was still running, in a blog far, far away, I wrote:

If Biden loses in November — and there’s a good chance he will — it will be on the Democrats for never figuring out how to handle Trump, for running questionable candidates against him, and for their reactions to Biden’s age.

Now is the time to be unified. Do we want someone with honor, intelligence, capability, compassion, experience, grace, and understanding? Or do we want an under-educated convicted felon, adjudicated rapist, and bumbling idiot? How is this even a choice?

If anything hands the election away, it will be the faithless reaction of the Democrats. I’m close to feeling they’re going to get what they deserve. But everyone else is hurt by this debacle of a dumpster fire, this self-induced trainwreck.

The part about his age was ultimately justified, but what we’ve learned since about the Democrats hiding the problem and their inability to find a better candidate from the beginning was an unforced error.

Had it been Kamala from the beginning, we might have had a chance.⁴

Disenchantment and Narcissism

I think the seeds were planted back in the 1960s. Modernism led to postmodernism and social deconstruction. Vietnam and Watergate undermined our faith in government. A growing secularism — and the outright evil of too many “religious” leaders and followers — undermined faith in religion. With government, religion, police, education, and science, the misdeeds of individuals, greed, perfidy, or good old lust, devalued those institutions in our eyes (and because post-modernism and deconstruction incline us to view institutions askance).

Increasingly, the modern era seems to cast us adrift in a sea of opiating content (pick your poison) with seas too deep for any anchor. What do we hold on to? What do we believe? What truths are self-evident anymore? How do we find a compass bearing?

The 1980s — the infamous “Me” decade — seemed to turn us inward. A self-help book industry offered to fix whatever needed fixing (for a price). It was all about you, your needs, your desires, your pleasures. Around then the content glut starts to grow (while not yet spurred on by the interweb), but there was an energy and hopefulness. Disco, which had grown popular in the 1970s, became mainstream — part of our happy, if shallow, cultural identity.

In the 1990s the interweb stormed into our lives. I still remember when billboards and ads began to have these strange “www.stuff” things off in some corner. And, wow, did http and HTML ever take over fast. I was astonished at how quickly businesses began assuming you have interweb access.

Keep in mind the internet goes back to the 1960s, but it was for decades the domain of government, academics, and computer geeks (like me). It doesn’t become a global playground and commerce center until the interweb in the 1990s. (And you can thank the porn industry for figuring out how to monetize it.)

We tore down our institutions, our modern gods, and replaced them with a wide wild west emporium and freak show that infests every corner of our lives. We’ve positioned ourselves to be amused to death.

The Death of Journalism

Studies seem to indicate that there is little harm, and much available benefit, from most of the interweb. But they also suggest there is harm in social media.⁵

I’ve never really understood why every online article published needs to have a comment section, especially when it comes to news outlets. But comment sections are seen as drawing people to the site (so they can be subjected to your ads). But we’ve seen that it frequently brings out the worst in people.

Journalism seems a casualty of the modern era. Cable news is the biggest joke among them, but even broadcast TV news seems moribund. Again, it’s all about eyeballs for ads. The news now is nothing but a matrix for commercials. The content designed to appeal to a chosen (purchasing) sector of society.⁶

For a while I subscribed to Apple News, but they disappointed so much that I’ll never willingly give Apple another dime. I tried Ground News but was severely disappointed in it (for different reasons — see this post).

Suffice to say we lack for Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite and Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. Or even Tim Russert. Now all we have are various kinds of clowns and performing seals.

Racism and the Tea Party

The über-conservative Tea Party movement began back in 2009. In large part because we elected a Black man as president in 2008. Some reacted the way liberals did about Trump in 2016 — with great outrage.⁷

There is also that globalization peaked in 2008, so it was in full swing. Unemployment was down to 4.61% in 2006 but rose sharply to 9.61% in 2010. Over the next nine years it fell to a long-time low of 3.68% in 2019. It spiked to 8.09% in 2020 but fell to 3.63% (a new low) by 2022. It has risen to 3.99% in 2024 with a gradual rise predicted in the next two years.⁸

Draw your own conclusions from the data, but prima facie it appears President Obama induced a decline in unemployment resulting in a new low, whereas Trump’s single term spiked it, and Biden’s administration got it back down again. Data shows that Americans as a whole are better off under Democratic presidents.

Wealthy Americans, it must be admitted, generally do better under Republican administrations. The sole accomplishment of the P45 administration was a big tax cut for the wealthy. Now it looks to be even worse.

What the Hell is Wrong with Democrats?

I’ve long believed Hillary Clinton’s campaign was a misstep by Democrats. While I thought she’d be a fine president, it was hard to ignore all the baggage she came with. A female candidate after a Black presidency may have been a bridge too far for some.

But to the Democrats in power, it was “her turn”, so she was the blessed candidate. On top of the baggage, she had some bad luck along the way, the Anthony Weiner debacle, the emails thing, and, of course, James Comey.⁹ Bad luck and bad choices. My question then: was this the best the Democratic Party can do?

The question seemed even more urgent with Joe Biden. He is an outstanding human being and was a fine President but given the inability of people to see straight anymore, I was dubious of his chances. Indeed, many in his own party turned on him. And he was so old.

Politics — formerly “the art of compromise — has devolved into a reality sport. Sound and fury.¹⁰ Pick your team and know they can do no wrong, all the bad is on other guy. And don’t forget to pick your favorite conspiracy theory. “They” are definitely controlling the world.

Not that long ago, I had a back-and-forth with someone who apparently still believes in the 9/11 conspiracy and that global warming is a myth. I didn’t realize either of those was still a thing. The power of people to self-deceive in the face of hard data never ceases to stun me.¹¹

When debating gun culture, it’s frequently missed that America is unlike other countries. Our country, for good and ill, was won and tamed by guns, and we’re in love with them.¹² We’re much younger than any European country — brash and often childish. And I fear that the disgruntlement and rage on the Right is too powerful in the face of disorganization and foolishness on the Left.

Social Entropy

Entropy is the statistical certainty that systems degrade unless effort is expended maintaining them. Unplug your refrigerator, and your food spoils. Let that hot pizza or burger cool off for too long, and your food spoils.

Preventing our country, our culture, our values, from spoiling requires expending energy to prevent it. But we’re too fragmented and divisive to work together. Our values have degraded while we amuse ourselves to — very possibly — the literal death of this country.

It boils down to whether enough people want to change the course that’s been set by outrage and fantasy and divisiveness. What’s needed is a resounding move for democracy and the principles this country was founded on. That requires standing together.

But do we have that in us?

1. For instance, how we all shared Fleetwood Mac (and other great bands).

2. Golden Rule 101.

3. As well as allowing the rage to distract from his real machinations.

4. But in a country that reeks of misogyny and racism, maybe not.

5. To which my initial reaction was, “Duh!” Also, see this Note about a recent study.

6. I gave up on CNN in 2016 and on MSNBC in 2020.

7. I highly recommend Stamped from the Beginning (2016) by Ibram X. Kendi. Even if you’re familiar with the history, it will chill your soul.

8. But with Trump in office now, who knows what will happen.

9. Which now pale in comparison to Trump’s crimes.

10. Signifying fuck all. ~Shakespeare

11. We all visit there occasionally, but some seem permanent residents.

12. As almost any action movie or TV show demonstrates.