Richard Fernandez:
The riots in Charlottesville reflect the breakdown of the Narrative, which has been the subject of several past posts. What happened on the street has been a long time coming on the Internet. The bonds of trust are breaking down. Reputationand authority are no longer recognized outside of a membership group. The personal, already political, finally become commercial. Some companies have flatly refused to serve those whose views they disapprove of. Political views are becoming conditions of employment. Some national political leaders are proposing explicit “litmus tests” to sort people according to virtue.
Now cars are ramming into people.
The riots and death in Charlottesville are the physical manifestation of the breakdown of consensus. If the thought is the father of the deed, the children of hate, the offspring of “by any means necessary” and the scions of superiority so long in gestation, are finally being born. Donald Trump’s plea for calm and his exhortation to remember “we are all Americans first” may find scant resonance among those for whom hyphens come first of all. The war of the hyphens has broken out, and for it’s combatants there is only one thought: how do I get back at the other hyphen? The long sought after diversity has been attained, and it is not what many imagined.
President Trump denounced the riots in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday afternoon saying, “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides…many sides.”
“We must love each other, respect each other and cherish our history and our future together,” the president said in remarks before signing the Veterans Affairs Act in Bedminster, New Jersey.
“What is vital now is a swift restoration of law and order and the protection of innocent lives,” Trump said. “No citizen should ever fear for their safety and security in our society.”
“No matter our color, creed, religion, or political party, we are all Americans first. We love our country, we love our God, we love our flag, we’re proud of our country. We’re proud of who we are,” said the president.
“We want to get the situation straightened out” he declared, adding that it’s important to “study it” to determine “what we’re doing wrong as a country.”
Hopefully it isn’t too late for reconciliation but there is every chance that resentment will intensify. Human history suggests that conflict like entropy, grows faster than understanding. It is harder to unscramble an egg than to scramble it. The process of division may grow until the resentments which drive the hyphens apart are finally overcome by the attractions of cooperation and commerce. That day has not yet returned. Until then division will spread and spread.
One of the recurring themes of recent Belmont Club posts is that complexity has raised the costs of a hyphenated society to such a degree that individuals are hiding behind the interfaces of group identity. The Narrative led people to the cliff — and they refused to jump. When public policy itself turns public life into a kind of zero-sum competition for resources and legitimacy, they may feel obliged to join gangs to get a slice of the pie. We are in a self-made political prison and the hyphens have become our prison bars. This is tragic, but if it is inevitable at least the opportunities in promoting inter-gang trade, cooperation and negotiation in our newly fragmented world should be pursued to the fullest.
Let us see if this violent episode awakens anyone to denounce the violence they have been using to further their political agenda so that ALL violence can be duly condemned.