The recent civil unrest for the last two months in several cities, vividly shows the process of social mitosis at work.
James Lyman BSAE, BSEE, MSSM
The murder of George Floyd on the 25th of May, sparked protests against police brutality, police racism, and lack of police accountability across the nation. Now, more than sixty days later, not only do those protest continue, but they are gaining in momentum and intensity, spreading to other cities. Why? Young people continue to come out and protest, then near riot, to show their disapproval. WHY? Because many young people are dissatisfied with the government and with society, so the murder has triggered a release of frustration and anger, which is focused on the government and its institutions.
We are seeing a process called social mitosis, a process where social groups begin pulling apart, as people strive to go in different directions, resulting in a pulling force against each other. This is illustrated by the figure on the left, with ‘a’ the first stage where we have the α (alpha) people, who are a fairly homogeneous uniform society living in harmony. But the people begin wanting different things in life, wanting to go in different directions to pursue their wants, as seen in ‘b’. This ‘going’ in different directions causes tension as the α people pull against themselves, so sub-societies begin to form, becoming the αΓ (alpha-gamma) and the αΩ (alpha-omega) people. This pulling apart puts more stress between them which in turn further aggravates and polarizes the people.
Left unattended, this pulling away or polarizing continues with the sub-cultures becoming more pronounced resulting in further separation until the subcultures become very distinct entities. In ‘c’ we now see the Γα (gamma-alpha) and the Ωα (omega-alpha) people, the alpha ‘α’ subscript indicating there is still much commonality between the people, but still they are now becoming very distinct cultures with different believes, wants and desires in life. There are increasing stresses between the two cultures over what the shared environment will look like, what it will be like. As this pulling apart continues, the commonality decreases to the point where there is now two separate distinct cultures as represented by ‘d’, there now being the Γ (gamma) and the Ω (omega) people with distinct cultures each wanting to shed the other people and be on their own, charting their own course in the world without having to consider the other people.
Then finally, there is a point . . . an event, which causes an actual breaking apart of these two people at ‘e’, and that breaking often results in revolution or insurrection and the violence of war. A war to determine who will dominate and who will be submissive. A war that is the worst kind . . . one usually of savagery and brutality. War that the participants stumble blindly into unaware just what they are getting into, drawn by the illusion of independence, romantic images coupled with a nonsensical understanding of revolution. The present social mitosis started in the sixties when I was a boy, with the emergence of the counter culture. The hippies and flower children who were disenfranchised with the society they lived in and yearning for a world of their own.
They had become alienated in their home land.
Slowly, but surely the splitting process progressed, in perceivably divisions which widened into separate cultures. While over the decades, this mitosis process has waxed and waned, with the division between people becoming deeper and deeper, and people often migrating to different areas of the country to be with their own. Technology also drives this division, with people failing to advance and therefore be a part of an advance technological society. People become aliens . . . people who fail to advance technologically, so they become aliens in their own homeland. Technology also caused further stress as people became obsolete, they being replaced by technology and machines. People began the long slide downwards from one lesser paying job to even lesser paying jobs, thus leaving people even more alienated and dissatisfied. Add to this is the constant pushing out of the‘social – economic’ system by technology, the same exact thing that happened to the Native Americans over a century ago. A corollary of war-
A technologically advance people will displace a lesser people.
Although the murder of George Floyd is what triggered this unrest, it’s now a reaction to this displacement, the unleashing of pent-up anger, fear, frustration, aggravation and rejection of the world they don’t understand, yet are trying to live in. The young people of America just don’t see any future for themselves with 20 to 25% of college graduates unemployed or underemployed. They want a world of their own, a world where they can belong, to be comfortable and happy in. They don’t feel they are a part of the advance technology world they reject, so they want out. The actions you see in today’s protest is a manifestation of social mitosis. But right now, there isn’t any real direction or goals to their actions, just expressions of anger and frustration through violence.
For any government, the police is the face of that government, consequently when people are dissatisfied with the performance of a government, the people lash out at the police, often blindly. But so far, the actions and violence have been to gratify feelings of anger, lacking any real direction or goal. For the ‘rupture’ to occur, there is a need for a viable political philosophy, a philosophy that people are willing to risk life, limb, liberty and property to pursue. That sets a goal for the people to work towards to fulfill their dreams and desires. That’s what causes stage ‘e’, the actual breakaway of the two societies . . . nearly always with violence or revolution. And that’s when it all turns into one ungodly nightmarish mess for all.
With a closer look at these actions and attitude, many will consider these ‘protest’ to be unproductive, even foolish, but what you are also seeing is the analytical, intellectual, and problem solving skill levels of the protesters, those skills they have for the twenty-first century, which as we might guess, isn’t particularly strong. This is why businesses are continually seeking technologies which allows them to avoid such people as workers. This further pushes them out of the social-economic system. Other than being a consumer, these people have very little of value to offer for the twenty-first century.
All that is missing . . . to have a conflagration, is that viable political philosophy.
My book, “America’s Slide into Domestic Terrorism” in the series ‘Technology Monograms for Law Enforcement’, (available on Amazon.com) explains the three principle forces now pushing so many people, especially the young people (millennials and generation-Z) out of society. It includes the basic theory of war and therefore how those three forces, through social mitosis, can lead ultimately to wide spread domestic terrorism in America.
In all forms of insurrection, the police are the first and foremost targets for the insurrectionist, we’ve seen that recently in Iraq and Afghanistan, for when the Allies started establishing police forces, the insurrectionist immediately attacked the police trying to foil their establishment. The police is what translates the intangible academic power of the state into real tangible power. Without the police, the rest of the government ceases to effectively exist and therefore becomes impotent. But with a collapsed government, innumerable little groups and individuals come out of the woodwork convinced they should be the one who governs. Quickly, they turn to violence trying to impose themselves on the people, thus bringing civil war as we saw with the Arab Spring recently.
Bottom line- what we are witnessing in cities like Portland cannot to be casually dismissed one way or another. Nor will simply repressing and dispersing the demonstrators solve the problem. Only by addressing the problems of obsolete people and alienation of people can any real progress be made. And that means having a functioning government rather than image makers!
WORK THE PROBLEM!!!