Inflection Points

I'm convinced we're at one of those rare historic inflection points, where the formerly reliable center can't hold and, without the benefit of our imminent history, we flail around wondering why our life isn't as stable as we think our parents' was.

Inflection points are like the high school chemistry experiment involving a super-saturated salt solution. Heat a beaker of water short of boiling, add more salt than it could dissolve if cool, then let it cool. Sharply tap the beaker of liquid and clink! it grows salt crystals until it's all salt and no liquid. A disorganized state spontaneously organizes itself into a structurally coherent crystalline lattice.

This happens periodically in our history:

All power and property is owned by the king and Magna Carta! ...Monarchy tilts down the slippery slope toward rule by nobles and, God forbid, landless riffraff.

God, and therefore man, is at the center of the universe and Copernicus! ...We're a minor planet on an inconsequential sun.

The Universe is elegant clockwork with all problems solved and Planck! ...Nothing is what it appears to be and matter constantly disappears here and reappears over there.

The British Empire demonstrates to the ages that northern Europeans are destined to rule the world and Gandhi! ...No colonial power can expect to hold its empire together.

Governments and centralized media control all messages to the passive populace and internet! ...Every damn fool is talking with every other fool and working out their own future.

escapable logic Britt Blaser, Thursday, January 23, 2003

clipped January 24, 2003

Collection: American History