Outcomes of Societal Disequilibrium: The Model Carefully Refined

The model by which one understands ideological instability at tumultuous times involves something called the abnegation of the center. When a country's center has abnegated, this situation is identical to one in which the average person perceives the political center as incapable of solving the country's problems as well as morally bankrupt. The center -- mainstream society and institutions more broadly and the political class more narrowly -- is in this fractious situation both incapable and corrupt. 

This abnegation of the center, alongside the recognition of the same by the average person on one level or another, results in an obvious increase in far right, far center, and far left ideological agitation and action.

If the societal instability increases, then the far right, far center, and far left will essentially smell blood in the water. They will thus not only look for opportunities to dethrone the political center whose abnegation has opened up the possibility of doing so for real; but they will also feel obliged to act more vigorously in the fight for their very lives, since in many cases to be the underdog in this situation is to risk liquidation and other unpleasant outcomes.

If the far right succeeds in dethroning the political center, then it becomes the hard right. Examples include Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. If the far center succeeds in dethroning the political center, then it becomes the hard center. Examples include the Estado Novo of Portugal and the military dictatorship of Brazil. If the far left succeeds in dethroning the political center, then it becomes the hard left. Examples include the Soviet Union and People's Republic of China.

It should be noted that the far center is definitely a sort of dictatorship, but that of the four outcomes to societal and ideological instability it is the most preferable after option one, which is a renewal of the political center's mandate of Heaven; there will be more on this in a moment. 

If the political center develops additional capacity to rule both practically and morally, it can indeed result in a return to societal stability and equilibrium; with the average person recognizing this and the far right, far center, and far left unable to summon much enthusiasm or support from the average person on the street.

But if the political center stubbornly continues to abnegate its logistical and moral responsibilities, if it continues to defy the threatened loss of the mandate of Heaven, then the next best option as we have seen is a dictatorship of the hard center.

The reason why this is the case involves the absence in the far center and the hard center of the exotic ideological features which tend to result in the most hubbub and suffering and liquidation.

I speak, of course, of the terrible things which happen in dictatorships of the hard right and hard left and which tend to be if not entirely absent from then mostly absent from regimes of the hard center. 

This model is meant to be both explanatory and flexible. People are not to force circumstances to fit the model but rather to force the model to fit the circumstances; this is welcome, this is what the model is designed to do.

For instance, if you look at the regime of Francoist Spain, then you essentially have what begins as a hard right regime slowly but surely transitioning to a hard center regime. This is the third most preferable outcome, the drift of a hard regime of the poles to a hard regime in the center. It is notable that Francoist Spain was very wisely dealt with by Salazar of Portugal and also other nations; in that their actions facilitated this third most preferable outcome.

One would also like to relate the outcome to the armed internal conflict of Colombia, the modern successor to the historical period known as "the Violence". You see, the political center of Colombia abnegated both morally and logistically. It is due to its incapacity to govern properly as also to its heinous acts of murdering civilians to make quotas, known as 'false positives', that the extremes of ideological instability have prevailed in that country.

The example has been given to underline the very real nature of the center's abnegation and its relation to ideological extremism and societal instability.

One hopes that this model will be of use in understanding countless different situations which have involved moral bankruptcy of mainstream institutions and political cadres and consequent vigorousness of political instability and extremism. The center is never to say: we did not do that. The center is always responsible for the growth of ideological extremism, not the other way around. It is the center's place, its noble duty, to recognize any abnegation of the center on its part, logistically or morally, as a prerequisite to lasting change.

Those in a position to act on the basis of this model should pay close attention to how Francoist Spain was managed by the wise actors mentioned above so as to moderate its shift from hard right to hard center and the facilitation of its transition to a new political center with what the people refer to as a "reestablishment of democracy"; which is of course nonsense, but this is only mentioned in passing as an error of nomenclature. For the situation of a political center with renewed moral and logistical capacity is a happy one even if the democracy is not what it appears to be; for all democracies are, if you scratch off the surface, run by oligarchies upon whom there are a certain amount of checks and balances imposed, not systems in which the people govern.

Also notable is the transition between Portugal's Estado Novo and the same "reestablishment of democracy". These processes and transitions are very real, and understanding them is not simply a gratification of curiosity; it is nothing less than an opportunity to spare the most people the most suffering in a real, not utopian, way. It is in the hope that comparative ideology may be loving and unhysterical, as useful to all sides of the political spectrum, that this model has been developed; both in itself and in relation to transnationality, which is also designed not to feed evil or irrationality and completely sidesteps the usual mines in the field.