I have written about this before, about how our society has become addicted to crisis. Particularly the over-educated parts of our society. We have a ‘Climate Crisis’, we have not one but two medical emergencies, Covid-19 and Monkey Pox, we have wars and rumours of war and we have recession and supply chain problems and shortages. Now some of these are real, others not so much, however even the real ones are exaggerated.
How did we get to a stage whereby we live in constant crisis?
What benefit do people get from this constant crisis?
Lets look at the first question, For over 40 years we lived in the Cold War, a period where fear of the outbreak of war was constant. Armies stood ready to fight and if war had broken out few would have been surprised. Most of the time things were normal, with nothing really happening and then without warning a major crisis would appear. But it was always in the background, shaping people’s opinions as well the operations of institutions. Many got used to it, in fact it came to seem as if the constant threat of war was normal, the way the world had always been.
This way of thinking moved away from the military and government and came to be viewed as normal in other areas. Maybe the first time this became evident was in the AIDS crisis of the mid-1980’s. At first it was unclear how this new disease worked, but by 1984 it was clear that it was a blood disease and that the transfer of blood between people was the only way of transmitting the disease. But instead it was strongly stated that this was a sexually transmitted disease and that the primary way of transmitting the disease was through sex. Normal sex between heterosexuals does not involve the transfer of blood. Which means that they lied and they knew that they were lying.
Although maybe the first time was the New Ice Age scare of the 1970’s?
Which lead on to the hole in the ozone layer which lead to Global Warming, now known as Climate Change. The idea that man can change the climate by accident and that man should be able to change the climate back to some optimal setting. But of course the climate is always changing. it has never been static as the Climate Change lobby likes to imply.
Of course we have seen the rise of the medical crisis, the idea that every new disease can kill us, in fact it has the potential to kill us all. The medical profession has decided that it likes crisis.
In every one of these we see the hand of the over-educated, they need purpose in their life. They need to feel that they are making a difference, that their lives matter. Because the crisis is one of the major things that excites them, but it also is a class indicator. The over-educated need a way to show that they are special, that they are moral, that they care and that they are in control of the world. They control disease, they control war and peace, they control the economy, they control how society is changing and they control the weather.
They need to be in control and the constant crisis gives them the illusion that they are in control.
Originally published at Upon Hope. You can find Mark’s Subscribestar here.