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 <sasm...@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 <piet...@randcontrols.co.za> > <piet...@randcontrols.co.za> > Date: 8/8/21 20:26 (GMT+01:00) > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> > <friam@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 <j...@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. >> >> >> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam >> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ >> > > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe <http://bit.ly/virtualfriamun/subscribe> > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ >
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