The Great Derangement

This is highly indicative of a country under increasing strain and stress and it’s manifesting in people engaging in riskier behavior.

Matthew Yglesias wrote a blog post on something we’ve all witnessed firsthand, but hasn’t been given the comprehensive treatment it deserves: the rise of bad behavior in society. The complete entry is available only to paid subscribers, but he was kind enough to share a good chunk of it, enough to get his point across:

With that in mind, I think it is under discussed the extent to which we seem to be living through a pretty broad rise in aggressive and anti-social behavior.

Shooting someone is an extreme behavior, even in a country as violent and gun-soaked at the United States of America. But everyone has some margin along which they can get a bit more reckless, a bit more hostile, a bit more indifferent to the people around them. And as far as I can tell, a much larger swathe of the population is moving in that direction than the tiny number of people who are doing murders. You’re seeing more killing, which is a subset of the increase in shooting, which in turn is a subset of the large increase in gun-carrying. But traffic deaths are also up. Unruly passenger incidents on airplanes have surged. Schools report more discipline and student safety issues.

Yglesias is a left-liberal and his critiques and conclusions are often wrong (not necessarily because he’s a man of the Left). However, he tends to see things for what they are and he’s absolutely correct - something has happened fairly recently where Americans, broadly, are increasingly engaging in degenerative, self-destructive behavior.

Though the rise in crime has received the lion’s share of attention concerning America’s breakdown in social order, there’s also been a rise in other variants of bad behavior. Yglesias cites reckless driving, “air rage,” and increased violence at schools. None of these problems are new, but the numbers do show that they’re becoming more frequent and that the general likelihood of any of us getting involved in some sort of altercation or incident with another person has increased, if ever so slightly. This is highly indicative of a country under increasing strain and stress and it’s manifesting in people engaging in riskier behavior.

It reminded me of something Fernando Aguirre said about what happened in Argentina following the economic collapse:

When the [sh**t hits the fan], everything starts slowly eroding and degrading. That includes street signs and the way people drive as well.

…

As everything suffers, so do other people’s driving skills.

You get used to aggressive drivers, and people that don’t bother using their lights when turning or switching lanes. It’s an overall chaotic traffic situation that respects few rules. Maybe that’s why this country is among the top three countries in car accident deaths.

But no such collapse has happened in the U.S. yet. Yet, this country is behaving like a collapse is occurring or has already occurred. This is deeply unsettling because it raises the question: what happens when things do get really bad? If you’ve been reading this blog, following me on social media, or reading my articles, you know my prognosis for the future is not good, to put it mildly. While I reject some of the more nightmarish scenarios like civil war or total collapse, I still believe all indicators are showing America headed for a more chaotic, disorderly, and violent future. I’ll say it as many times as I need to, but if things are this bad when the system is still more or less holding together, why do you think it wouldn’t get worse when that system starts failing?

Yglesias shares some policy prescriptions for addressing this uptick in derangement, but you need to be a subscriber to see them. However, I’m going to say that there isn’t really a political solution to restoring domestic tranquility beyond using the blunt power of the state to crush any debauchery. This is what the Left often gets wrong, thinking that state can fix what’s ultimately a cultural problem.

The status quo wasn’t reached inside a vacuum. In many ways, it was decades in the making. Social norms changed, eroded, or outright demolished, our population continued to grow and become more diverse, communities and families faltered, and whatever sense of nationhood we once had has been erased. We’re not even two nations living in one country, we’re millions of individual nations living in one country. Because the only thing that really binds Americans together any longer is that daily grind, we’re increasingly in direct competition with one another and, therefore, strangers at best and adversaries at worst.

How and why this happened is beyond the scope of this post. After all, it’s not like there was a golden age of social cohesion in America, either. The point is that a society of adversaries and strangers will find excuses to act callously and cruelly towards others, increasingly so as the overall state of the country worsens. I use the term “callous” because, contrary to conventional wisdom, people don’t necessarily exact violence against others out of hate or malice. Rather, it’s borne of a lack of care or regard for other people.

You can see it in the utter senselessness of many of these incidents. Take a look at this incident in Florida from last year, where a gang of motorcyclists obstructed the free flow of traffic and was confronted by a motorist who had every right to be angry, but then engaged in seriously reckless behavior that nearly got him killed:

Then there was the infamous “Mask Karen” incident on a recent commercial flight:

And, to prove none of this is an abberation, witness this event from over a year ago, where hot coffee was thrown on someone for not wearing a mask:

Finally, here’s a collection of road rage incidents that occurred in 2021 and 2022. The oblivious recklessness of these people is mind-blowing:

Make no mistake - tensions are high in America and people are on edge. How could they not be? And these are the incidents that made it into the news - many don’t, especially if no crime was reported and the police weren’t involved.

What most of these instances all have in common is that there was no justification for violence at all. Many are the product of “monkey dances” - people feeling their honor or social standing was violated in some fashion and are compensating with violence to save face (“My feelings were hurt” or “I was disrespected” are common refrains in these situations). The fact is, regardless of what may have precipitated the incident, both aggressors and victims alike could have avoided the situation by simply walking away, minding their own business, or, better yet, not behaving so irresponsibly in the first place. Nothing about any of these incidents was inevitable and are distinct from crime, which are committed by people who’ve devoted their lives to the exercise of violence for personal gain. While the callousness may be similar, “The Great Derangement,” as Yglesias puts it, involves far less deliberation and is often the result of people acting impulsively in the moment.

That said, forget the social ramifications, because this is about something far more fundamental: personal safety. Dwelling on the social consequences of The Great Derangement makes for fascinating conversation, but nothing is more important than being able to go about your daily lives without exposing yourself to unnecessary conflict and violence. Americans might be at war with each other, but that doesn’t mean you have to be a part of it.

Personal safety, of course, is a broad topic deserving a deep dive of its own. There are a few critical lessons everyone should internalize today:

• Nothing, literally nothing, is more important than you making it from one place to another in one piece. This should be your goal above all else. Asserting your dominance, “owning” someone else, “sticking it to the man,” it’s all besides the point.

• Nobody likes being disrespected. Some people do and say things that are incredibly cruel, inconsiderate, and trigger strong emotions. It’s easy to get provoked into responding to these people and there may indeed be times where it’s worth defending your honor.

But, none of it’s worth losing your life, getting hurt, or causing death and harm over.

• Speaking of honor, there’s shame in being a coward. But there’s no shame in behaving responsibly and taking proactive steps to stay out of trouble. Believe it, if things get really bad, you won’t have to look for trouble, trouble will find you.

• If you ever find yourself in a conflict or confrontation, stay calm, stay focused on what’s really important. Slow things down, ask yourself and the other parties involved - what is the problem here? Is there a way out of this for me? How about all of us? Forget about “winning” and putting yourself over at the expense of the other. In social conflict, victory only comes in a peaceful resolution that allows both sides to walk away with their pride intact.

• Again, if your life is truly at risk and requires violence on your part to ensure your survival, there will be very little ambiguity. If you have a way out of the situation without needing to resort to violence, take it. You’re not responsible for enforcing law and order. Don’t do things that’ll escalate the situation, it’ll just make it harder for you to get out of the situation with both your body and pride intact.

• If your pride is that easily wounded, spend less time thinking about how to react to such a situation and more time thinking about how to avoid such a situation. Again, this doesn’t make you a wimp, it makes you responsible. Responsible behavior, not a carefree mindset, is what allows you to live freely with less worry.

Note that these are good pointers for happy and healthy living even in the good times. It’ll only become more critical in the bad times, as your exposure to risk will grow and your margin for error will narrow. No matter how tough you think you are, there’s always someone out there tougher than you. You can only bluff your way out of a sticky situation so many times before someone decides to call it and then you won’t have the option of walking away.

Finally, this is all the more important at a time when the Regime governs in a fashion that enables and incentivizes criminal activity while keeping the bar so high for law-abiding citizens as to constitute a set-up for failure. Expect anything you do to be heavily scrutinized by both the authorities and in the court of public opinion. If you want to avoid legal prosecution and public persecution, you must have your wits about you so you can act prudently and concretely defend every action you take. Criminals are judged by lower standards, but your personal conduct must be above reproach at all times.

The secret to surviving anarcho-tyranny isn’t all that different from surviving under any other regime: know what the rules are, take proactive steps to avoid trouble, and have a plan for getting out of trouble when it finds you.

Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.

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