Thanks to Justin, I had the pleasure of reading "RAFTS" -- the introduction to Bill Whittle's upcoming book about American civilization. He's grappling with things that are as essential to understand as they are elusive, and he's honest enough and self deprecating enough to recognize that he might just be wrong. And so might we all. Yet we hate each other anyway:

There was a time, an age ago, where the differences between what we call the Left and the Right seemed more or less academic; maybe the distance from one high-rise tower to its twin – close enough to see the coffee mugs and family photos on the other side’s desk.

Then something happened.

Now we peer across a divide so wide that we can no longer see the other side; where the residents of the opposing camps are not viewed as having a difference of opinion so much as being considered insane.

Two worldviews this opposed cannot both be right (although they could both be wrong). I was about to write that one of them must be closer to the truth, but I stopped myself, for often people will define truth as conforming to their ideology, rather than the reverse. But surely one of these positions must conform better to reality, to the evidence, for anyone with an open mind to see?

Which one? And how do we tell?

Anyway, back to the failed spectrums of our dysfunctional political divide. We're all used to thinking along the traditional spectrum of liberal/conservative -- an axis, really, of many axes to grind. Libertarians proposed a realignment, and instead of liberal versus conservative, they offered totalitarian versus anarchist.

All good and fine. I can handle three dimensions. But the more I thought about neo-primitivism, and those I called "anti-civilizationists," the more I wondered . . .

How do we chart those people? What about anarchist Luddites who support Islamic totalitarians in order to work their way back to the middle ages with a goal of helping to bring about the eventual downfall of human civilization? Certainly not "liberal." Definitely not "conservative." Not by a longshot "libertarian." And "anarchist" is far too simplistic a term to describe those who oppose civilization itself.

So, does that mean we have a new spectrum consisting of primitivism on the one end and civilization at the other? Civilization versus anti-civilization?

Well how the hell do you square that with totalitarian versus anarchist? Or liberal versus conservative?

If we use liberal versus conservative as a starting point, we see that conservative tends to preserve the old, while liberal wants to usher in the new. But right there we're lost on today's liberalism and today's conservatism -- because it depends on what is new, and what is old. And what about totalitarianism? Is that not a modern phenomenon, made possible by technological developments, and promising a better world? I hate totalitarianism, but that doesn't mean I can determine with any confidence where it might belong along the civilization/primitivism scale. On the other hand, there's nothing modern about primitivism or anarchy. People once lived that way -- before we rose up out of the slime.

I hate to think that returning to the slime is the ultimate form of conservatism, but if we see "conservative" as rolling back the clock (as opposed to preserving what we have), certainly moving 15,000 years backwards is a form of rolling back the clock. (How anyone could advocate such a thing is beyond me, but for now I'm just trying to look at spectrums.)

So, my question. Is there always inherent tension between what we call "civilization" and the forces of government? Go too far towards either anarchy or totalitarianism, and civilization suffers accordingly? Back to animalistic primitivism with the anarchists, and "back to the year zero" with Khmer Rouge-style totalitarians?

Juxtaposing the two scales of totalitarian/anarchy and civilization/primitivism doesn't quite work. That is because totalitarianism often includes such brutality and inhumanity that man reverts to his savage animal past, and civilization is degraded. And anarchy can be equally brutal, and equally degrading to civilization. Is it possible that the more we move in either direction (towards totalitarianism or towards anarchy), the more we move away from civilization, and towards primitivism? (Likewise, too far in the direction of civilization runs the dire risk of barbarians attacking the undefended wealth that tends to be an excess of civilization.) If my "math" is right, then these two scales influence each other. Too far in either direction, and you'll get pulled into one the pathways leading into the other scale. (Mutually intersecting Scyllas-and-Charybdises, perhaps?)

I cannot state with confidence that I know, and I don't claim to have the answers. All I know right now is that Bill's thoughts about maps and charting ships have made me think.

(And made me realize how little I know.)

Once again, great job, Bill Whittle!