Machiavelli and the coming Great Western War

In the 16th century, Machiavelli set in motion the Great Civil War that will start in Europe and spread to the USA and will happen towards the end of this century.

The problem behind it is increasingly skilled manipulation of the sequential processes of presentation, perception, interpretation, deduction and consequent behaviour. Machiavelli is often cited for his great skill in manipulating people via these processes. Centuries on, this manifests in modern society most conspicuously in the twin fields of marketing and politics. Sadly, both have forgotten their proper places.

Professional politics has been replacing vocational service for some time already, and this trend still has far to run. Politicians are less interested in genuinely serving society than furthering their own interests and maximising and holding on to power, often regardless of cost to the electorate. They treat the electorate not as a customer but as a resource to be exploited.

Marketing as a capitalist tool harnesses the most powerful tools available from psychological science and technological capability. It has migrated steadily from the useful purpose of making society aware of new things they may want towards the far less benign manipulation of the customer in favour of those products. Marketing no longer contributes to society, it now treats customers as prey and siphons off valuable resources to maintain itself. It has become a vampire.

Separately, these are already problems, but they are no longer separate. As politics has developed in the last couple of decades, the convergence of marketing and politics has matured a great deal. We call it spin and spin has become far more important than what could be considered in everyday thinking as truth. Un-spun delivery of important information to the electorate so that they can make free and informed decisions has become a rarity.

As we are becoming all too familiar, modern politicians have become highly adept at avoiding answering questions, deflecting them, answering different questions than they are asked, disguising and burying real information that they can’t avoid revealing under heaps of irrelevance and behind thick walls of weasel words. We expect now that they are will only be reasonably open and  honest with us when they are revealing good news and even then they will try to exaggerate their own part in it.

This is a dangerous trend that may eventually lead to civil war. In the everyday world, two reasonable people with different value sets can learn to live alongside peacefully. They will usually broadly agree on the raw facts in front of them. They will interpret them slightly differently, i.e. extract different meanings from those facts because they have learned to look at things differently. Due to their internal thinking processes and prejudices they will draw significantly different conclusions from those interpretations and will initiate very different behaviours as a result. In the political/marketing world we are experiencing now, the differences at each of these stages are subject to some deliberate amplification as well as some that emerges non-deliberately from complex interactions within the socio-economic-techno environment. Because of this combined amplification of otherwise minor differences, the gulf between people on the left and right of the political spectrum has been increasing for decades and will likely continue to increase for several more. It may become less and less easy for them to agree to live peacefully side by side and accept their differences. They may increasingly see each other as enemies rather than neighbours. So today, we witness clash of ideology in the Middle East, in a few decades, it will be our turn.

Reinforcement of attitudes is already being caused by technology that shows us what we are already prone to search for. People who read right wing media have right wing attitudes reinforced and affirmed. Those who read left wing media have left wing attitudes reinforced and affirmed. Neither side is routinely exposed to opposing ideology except filtered through their own media which has an interest in reinforcing their attitudes and demonising the other. They see all of the negatives and few of the positives of the other’s point of view.

Although there will remain a centre ground where differences between people are small, amplification of small differences and subsequent reinforcement means that many will be drawn to the extremes and have their positions there entrenched. With many people on either side, with a strongly opposing set of interests, and competition over resources, ideology and control, eventually conflict may result. I believe this may well be the source of a widespread civil war starting in Europe and spreading to the USA, that will take place in the second half of this century. After a long and bitter conflict, the Great Western War, I believe dual democracy will result throughout the West, where two self-governing communities peacefully share the same countries, with some shared and negotiated systems, services and infrastructure and some that are restricted to each community. People will decide which community to belong to, pay taxes and receive benefits accordingly, and have different sets of rules governing their behaviors. Migrating between the communities will be possible, but will incur large costs. We may see a large-state left with lots of services and welfare, and lots of rules, but high taxes to pay for it, and a small state right with increased personal freedom and lower taxes, but less generous welfare and services.

We already see some of this friction emerging today. Demonisation of the opposing ideology is far greater than it was 20 years ago. It is becoming tribalism built large. Each political party uses the best marketing know-how in their spin machines, making sure their supporters see the right facts, are taught to perceive them in the right way, interpret their causation in the right way, do the analysis on the remedial possibilities in the right way and therefore choose and back the right policies. Each side can’t understand how the other side can possibly end up with their viewpoints or policies, except by labelling them as demons.

How often have you heard terms like ‘the nasty party’? How often do the right portray the left as spendthrift incompetents who want someone else to pay for their lack of responsibility, while the left portrays the right as greedy, selfish judgmental people who want to exploit the poor rather then help them. I read left and right papers every day and I’d say I see those attitudes presented as indisputable fact pretty much every day. We see the arguments in welfare, education, health care, support for overseas military intervention, even environmental care. When we can only have one government in power, we ensure that half the population always feels angry.

We see frequent demonstration and even riots as the left moans about spending cuts while right wing groups moan about immigration. We see fierce arguments regularly on every area of policy – privacy erosion, crime control, renewable energy subsidies, public transport provision, health care. There often seems little room for compromise, it is one getting their way and the other suffering. It seems inevitable that if the polarisation continues to increase along current lines, that we will see each side want to go their own way. The left will want the state to remain in control and grow in power, the right will demand a degree of independence and to be rid of a community that expects them to pay for everything but appears wasteful. With a single flavoured government in each country, civil war would erupt and spread as each country realises it has the same problems and the same potential solution. Just like the American Civil War, it will be fiercely fought, and it will eventually come to an end. But with two irreconcilable policies it wont end with a structure as we have now. Democracy in it current form, where each part of the community seems only to want to further its own interests at the expense of the other, will have failed. The left and the right will have to settle with going their own way, with their own resources financing their own spending. Those who want to pay high taxes but receive high welfare and a guaranteed high service provision by the state will be able to choose it. Those who prefer a small state that interferes little with their lives, to keep their earnings and finance their own services will be able to choose that. The two communities will have their own governments, their own presidents of prime ministers, or any future governing structure they choose. Some things have to be done geographically, such as defence, roads and policing. Governments covering the same areas will simply have to negotiate until they agree on the provision levels. Above that they could add whatever they want from their own resources.

In future blogs, I will write about some of the forces of amplification that I referred to. These ultimately are the engine that drives the system towards ultimate conflict, and need to be examined. But for now, it is sufficient to raise the issue.