… if you prefer to read this series as one page, please go to https://mikevargamusings.com/institutions-re-examined/

This was originally going to be two parts of the 6-part series, but I felt in necessary to combine the two thoughts in this writing.  The more I think of it, they have a lot to do with each other, each feeding the other, however this blog is longer than usual.

In the previous blog, I talked about how institutions fail, how threats may begat power and control issues, how bureaucracy can become bloated with the primary goal of protecting and continuing the institution, and how efficiency short cuts lead to labeling and the corruption of the mission of institutions.  Failures lead to distrust of institutions.  Government is the largest institution in our country, and distrust of government is at an all-time high.  As it has failed often in its mission (sometimes spectacularly), it retracts into a protectionist mentality, causing further failures. And so, distrust grows.  Furthermore, as the world gets more complicated, and sources of information become more abundant, we have become less adapt at understanding complexity and at reasoned thinking about the information available.  Also, why go to multiple sources if we can be spoon fed by one news outlet that keeps giving us what we crave… opinion reigning over facts and news.

Crack pots and Conspiracies have always been a part of our system since the beginning of our country. But now anyone with an idea can go viral with the thought if it is just wild enough.  P.T. Barnum was credited with the saying, “there’s a sucker born every minute” but that’s just a conspiracy theory… 😉

Once truth is marginalized, as it has over the last few decades to protect the institutions of a political party, of government, of a news outlet, or of educational, or religious institution, then it leaves the door open to expansive, and more wild conspiracies, as many seek an alternate explanation about why their institutions are failing them, or more probably why they are failing.  They then become part of the failure.  Change is a constant, but change can be confusing.  In our busy world, do we seek to resolve conflicting ideas, or is it easier to align ourselves with the easy path of agreeing to the crowd we are around?  Conspiracies feed on themselves and each other. Ignorance of facts, lack of reason, and a little bit of salacious appeal to our fears, and they can explode.  Consider the big lie, that Trump won the election and it was being stolen by Biden and the Democrats.  There are no supporting facts and all judicial cases of fraud, some 60 or more, have been dismissed, yet the appeal of the lie has found some 30 million people.  It rings true to them because they believe the Democrats are somehow capable of stealing an election across multiple states by getting tens of thousands of dead, or illegal voters, to vote.  Or change the votes in a system that is operating in traditionally Republican States.  The salacious part is that these, in the mind of the conspirators, are somehow brilliant operators, able to mislead thousands and to trick the Republican officials in several states.   So, they then must believe that their own party participants are incompetent and easily duped when it comes to the Presidential election, but are brilliant participants in wining at the local and congressional level… a level of reasoning that is not quite understood.

I’m not suggesting any kind of limit of intelligence on the part of 30 million people.  I’m suggesting that believing in “The Lie” is easier than accepting that the country is changing, that the demographics, the desire for equity of opportunity is more important than maintaining the image of a way of life were races didn’t mix, where one way of worshiping was prevalent, where the family was always mom and dad, not mom and mom, or dad and dad. And most importantly that the government was not to be trusted and we need our guns to defend against a government gone wrong.   Distrust of government as an institution, followed by distrust of “Liberal-Elitist” news organizations, and then the demographic changes (read immigration and birth rates) make this all possible.  They just needed a leader to help galvanize this thinking, and it came in the form of a con-man.  Seriously, there is a sucker born every minute.

Now that is not to say that the other side got it all right.  It is equally intellectually lazy and conspiratorial to dismiss 30 Million people, more over 70 Million voters as delusional.  This is where liberal elitism would call the delusion of millions as a “social psychosis”… (an excellent article in Psychology Today, by Douglas LaBier, A Growing “Social Psychosis” Clashes With Serving The Common Good : https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-new-resilience/201010/growing-social-psychosis-clashes-serving-the-common-good#:~:text=I%20use%20the%20term%20%22social,can%20be%20hard%20to%20recognize.)

A quote from the article:

“I use the term “social psychosis” because a psychosis is a mental state in which a person shows a diminished or loss of a sense of reality. It typically includes delusions and diminished capacity to function effectively in daily life. When delusions are shared on a mass scale, they can be hard to recognize. In fact, individuals who share the mass delusion may not be psychotic, themselves; what they embrace, is.”

However, elitism can be an enormous part of the problem.  Dismissing the conspiracies without understanding the underlying issues that lead to the distrust of institutions and even further, the distrust of science and data, will result in an exacerbation of the division.  A disconnect from reasoned thought and conversation on both sides through dismissive language (Labeling) is exactly what those that benefit from the con would continue to seek.  Consider those in power, who continued lie about the 2020 election and the 1/6 Insurrection, they do so because it is a source of power, and money.  Division ensures their own relevance.

Both sides of the divide, are living and operating on the basis of delusions on where this country is going as well as what is holding it back.

A source of the problem I believe is the distrust of Institutions on both sides, and a distrust of each other.  Recovery lies in the strength of our rule of law in this country, and our youth. The next generation who are willing to break down and change our institutions, and reconsider the biases that separate us from ourselves.