The A-B-C of Civilizational Collapse

A bit of a summation ... and a bit of a rant.

Sep 01, 2025

Us humans are pretty clever and extraordinarily stupid. Both of those things. At the same time. That’s the point. We hold these two extremes in fine tension and, generally, it actually serves us quite well because it means we get to test hypotheses. Admittedly, it means, in turn, that at any point in time we might wipe ourselves out, but without that risk maybe we wouldn’t get anywhere at all?

The extremes seem to me to be always ultimately based upon one factor, the congruence, or lack of it, between the micro and the macro.

The space each of us occupies in this vast universe is infinitesimally tiny. And yet, each of us is the centre of a personal universe that is the biggest, most important thing we know. This dichotomy, and the tension it creates, operates in every facet of our lives.

It is not just the recognition of a need to acknowledge the micro and macro influences in any situation. It’s more complex than that. It means recognizing that, in the normal course of events, the micro and macro in any group tend automatically to align, to a significant extent at least. It’s because of the operation of function-systems and it’s so familiar that we have long since labelled it culture - here’s a definition:

… a unitary complex of interacting assumptions, modes of thought, habits, and styles, which are connected in secret as well as overt ways with the practical arrangements of a society and which, because they are not brought to consciousness, are unopposed in their influence over men’s minds.1

For a very long time, this has enabled the groups we call societies to cohere. Courtesy of similarity and familiarity, the variations across particular societies have tended to be limited, making them manageable through what we might term regular political activity.

The point is that the kind of argumentation and discussion that happens within what, in liberal democracies, we term a parliament can only function properly if the participants’ views are within a finite range. That range will vary over time, of course, and there will always be some outliers to left and to right, but so long as the range of participants’ views is not too much of a stretch, the culture function-system will hold.

Then, traditionally, when two differing societal systems have needed to discuss some issue, normal practice has been to involve the specialists who we call diplomats. It’s why diplomacy exists and why it is normally held in high regard.

The problem is that the current experiment with multiculturalism drives a coach and horses through this model and makes it increasingly likely - almost certain, in fact -that the variations within some societies may be so wide as to be unbridgeable.

When I was a teenager, my parents told me that my vote, when I reached the age to exercise it, was precious. I should, I was told, make any voting decision personally, based upon my choice among the programs being put forward by different political parties. My vote, they assured me, was my vote and not anyone else’s business.

I say this because my folks were ordinary working class people, not ‘political’ or well-to-do - far from it - but they were crystal clear on this topic. And it was, I believe, a feature of English and British society, and had been for a long time.

That’s not to say that everything always went along sweetly and fairly. As a reminder that there are always some questionable goings-on, I have an original Hogarth print on my wall with an image related to the notorious Oxfordshire Election of 1754. (see image at top)

Anyway, after a long period of struggle towards our form of representative democracy, it was ever more robustly established that personal choice was both central and inviolate. Until it wasn’t. Now, in the 21st century it is being challenged to destruction from three directions:

A.

Particularly post-Second World War, there has been what might be termed ‘The Brotherhood of Man’ campaign. (At least, that’s the ‘respectable label’ applied to it although various more questionable objectives are also involved.) Widespread human civilization has existed for a long time but it seems increasingly to have been considered inequitable … particularly, it seems, where the white races of the West are concerned. The uppity Westerners seem to have been adjudged as overbearing and rapaciously greedy. Therefore, the 21st century conception of a global human civilization has sought, prima facie, to recover a bit of equitability. Various shades of this view have been promoted, for disparate reasons, by those portions of our societies that have come to be known as ‘the elites’. This activity, which has led to points B and C, has thus far managed to skirt around the need for proper democratic accountability: “I mean, the elites know best, don’t they?” “Obvs.”

B.

A key component of the ‘let’s straighten out the global inequalities’ campaign has been mass migration from poor to rich countries. This has led to unparalleled levels of immigration from the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere, exclusively into Western liberal democratic countries. The inevitable consequence is that the composition of the electorates of some Western countries is changing at an unprecedented rate so that, rather than making any effort to understand and cohere with historically-attuned existing societal structures, many of the newcomers cluster together in separate groups and relate to a significantly greater extent with the societal function-systems and norms of the places whence they have come.

C.

Alongside all of this, it is increasingly common for political parties in Western European countries to make manifesto promises that they either are not competent to keep or have no intention of keeping in the first place. This activity … or non-activity! - has been greatly assisted by an invention introduced in 1967 by a gentleman called Alan J. Pifer (1921-2005) of the Carnegie Foundation: the Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organization - the Quango.

When people object to or rebel against this A-B-C they are labelled populist. And, despite the fact that Christopher Lasch described populism as …

the authentic voice of democracy2

… it is now used by the left as a derogatory term.

There are many examples of the sheer gaslighting and effrontery of the activity thumbnailed above. Here’s a recent example that particularly relates, I think, to topic C.

On 12 May 2025, the UK Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, gave a televised address to the nation about “what I believe in”. The speech included this:

Nations depend on rules – fair rules. Sometimes they’re written down, often they’re not, but either way, they give shape to our values. They guide us towards our rights, of course, but also our responsibilities, the obligations we owe to one another. Now, in a diverse nation like ours, and I celebrate that, these rules become even more important. Without them, we risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together.
So when you have an immigration system that seems almost designed to permit abuse, that encourages some businesses to bring in lower-paid workers rather than invest in our young people, or simply one that is sold by politicians to the British people on an entirely false premise, then you’re not championing growth, you’re not championing justice, or however else people defend the status quo. You’re actually contributing to the forces that are slowly pulling our country apart.
So yes, I believe in this. I believe we need to reduce immigration significantly … It’s about fairness.
Migration is part of Britain’s national story. We talked last week about the great rebuilding of this country after the war; migrants were part of that, and they make a massive contribution today. You will never hear me denigrate that. But when people come to our country, they should also commit to integration, to learning our language, and our system should actively distinguish between those that do and those that don’t. I think that’s fair.

Got that? Most of us would probably say that his comments were quite sensible. And, remember, he did prefix them by making clear that it was “what I believe in”.

All the more disconcerting, therefore, that by late-June he had changed his mind - not just a bit but a complete U-turn.

It was, it seems, the phrase “an island of strangers” that caused the trouble, because it echoed a speech made, in 1968, by the Tory politician Enoch Powell. Anyway, on 27 June 2025 an interview appeared in the Observer newspaper. Here’s how the BBC website reported it:

In the Observer interview, Sir Keir said he made the speech on immigration not long after an alleged arson attack on his family home in London.
"It's fair to say I wasn't in the best state to make a big speech," Sir Keir said. "I was really, really worried."
He said his wife Victoria was "really shaken up", adding "it was just a case of reading the words out and getting through it somehow".
The Observer article quotes Sir Keir as saying he should have read through the speech properly and "held it up to the light a bit more".

So, far from it being “what I believe in” it was, rather, “just a case of reading the words out and getting through it somehow.”

Why, then, should anyone believe anything that he says?

Aargh! by David Pinder

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