Society is constantly changing, yes. The problem is our institutions have not kept up.
A given institution (or complex of institutions) incentivize a certain set of behaviors. Not everyone adopts those behaviors, but enough do that the effect accumulates. Eventually something will break, some set of behavioral interactions start negatively interacting with the system (like, say, a for-profit healthcare system that incentivizes not treating the sick and wounded).
In a functioning system, this would be where you study what happened, and use what you’ve learned about the problem to try adapt the institution. This will create a new set of incentives for a new set of behaviors… and inevitably a new problem will grow out of it and the process starts over again.
I can’t speak for other places, but in the US that is very much NOT what happens. Our status quo is stagnant. We’ve had the same problems for decades now. That is what creates fertile ground for fascism - when the guy saying, “We’ll burn the rot and go back to when it was better” sounds more appealing than, “Nothing will fundamentally change”.
Yes, problem is that there often is gradual change that is not seen enough. I don’t live in the US, the healthcare system there that bleeds the state and the population spectacularly is incomprehensible to me. I don’t understand how there is not a new Nintendo character doing his thing every week, given the cruelty combined with the amount of desperate people who have guns.
I live in a country in the EU that has institutions that rather constantly get updated and change to try and keep up with the needs of society (and the need for politicians to show how useful they are).
The constant change is somewhat exhausting to be honest as the agency where you apply for something today might not exist next year, the requirements for applying for the same thing might be different next month…
Yet even here right wing gains every election because they present a world view with simple solutions to complex problems.
Society is constantly changing, yes. The problem is our institutions have not kept up.
A given institution (or complex of institutions) incentivize a certain set of behaviors. Not everyone adopts those behaviors, but enough do that the effect accumulates. Eventually something will break, some set of behavioral interactions start negatively interacting with the system (like, say, a for-profit healthcare system that incentivizes not treating the sick and wounded).
In a functioning system, this would be where you study what happened, and use what you’ve learned about the problem to try adapt the institution. This will create a new set of incentives for a new set of behaviors… and inevitably a new problem will grow out of it and the process starts over again.
I can’t speak for other places, but in the US that is very much NOT what happens. Our status quo is stagnant. We’ve had the same problems for decades now. That is what creates fertile ground for fascism - when the guy saying, “We’ll burn the rot and go back to when it was better” sounds more appealing than, “Nothing will fundamentally change”.
Yes, problem is that there often is gradual change that is not seen enough. I don’t live in the US, the healthcare system there that bleeds the state and the population spectacularly is incomprehensible to me. I don’t understand how there is not a new Nintendo character doing his thing every week, given the cruelty combined with the amount of desperate people who have guns.
I live in a country in the EU that has institutions that rather constantly get updated and change to try and keep up with the needs of society (and the need for politicians to show how useful they are).
The constant change is somewhat exhausting to be honest as the agency where you apply for something today might not exist next year, the requirements for applying for the same thing might be different next month…
Yet even here right wing gains every election because they present a world view with simple solutions to complex problems.