I’ve written here often about civil war; I even went so far as to publish an article about it at American Greatness a few years ago. We flatter ourselves, here in the West, that in our “progress” toward Utopia we’ve moved past such atavisms of barbarity, but the truth is that human nature never changes, and there’s never been such a thing as an unsinkable ship, or a society that can’t bring itself to ruin.
In my essay at AG I described the approach to civil war with a concept from astrophysics:
One of the peculiarities of civil war is that it is hard to say, except in retrospect, when a nation has passed the point of no return. There is rarely anything so distinct as Caesar’s fateful crossing of the Rubicon. It is, rather, like falling into a black hole: there is an “event horizon,” at some distance from the singularity, beyond which nothing can escape. To a space-traveler falling through it, there is no visible difference, no noticeable boundary—but once you have crossed that fateful border, there’s no possibility of turning back. All future timelines must pass through the singularity.
Is that where we are today? For the answer to be “no” means either that one side in this great political conflict will simply admit defeat, or that there will be some softening of grievances, some sort of coming together in a newly formed political center. Does that seem likely?
The possibility of civil war was the topic of John Derbyshire’s latest weekly podcast (if you aren’t a regular Radio Derb listener, you should be). In it he introduced us to Professor David Betz of King’s College, London, a scholar of civil war who warns us that the UK may already have passed the event horizon.
Derb refers us to an interview of Professor Betz by the British podcaster Louise Perry. The audio is here, but it’s long, and so John has also kindly provided a transcript at his own website, here.
You should hear (or read) what Professor Betz has to say. While there still may be some hope for the U.S. to avoid the singularity, there is good reason to think that England’s prospects are grim.
7 Comments
The problem with calling the West’s current irreconciliable divide an incipient “civil war” is that only one side is fighting the war, as a true war. The American and Spanish civil wars are examples of true war, with each side mobilizing its forces and fighting it out with maximum violence until one of them emerges victorious. But today, only the Left is at war. They do everything in their power, no matter how vicious, unprincipled, or bloody, to destroy the other side. The “conservative” side struggles, but never approaches the warlike methods of the Left.
Therefore, I would be hesitant to call the developing storm “civil war.” That may change, but it hasn’t happened yet. Not even close. Sure, we may have passed the point of return on the road to total collapse, but that is something different.
Malcolm,
I almost didn’t click on the Derbyshire link: I hate podcasts. But I did anyway and was pleased to find a transcript. Reading through it, I see that Derb hates podcasts for the same reason I do.
AWOL’s comment above is good.
AWOL,
Dr. Betz does address this distinction in his interview. What he foresees isn’t a proper “war” of conquest, or secession, with regular armies “fighting each other essentially conventionally on a large scale using regular operations that could be represented on a map”, but rather a Troubles-style conflict of sabotage, assassination, street violence, etc.
Of particular interest in his discussion, I thought, was the idea of “downgrading” as a cause of civil wars – a technical term in his field referring to a previously dominant faction or ethnic group being relegated to inferior or minority status. This is being done, carelessly and ruthlessly, to the native people of Britain, and he thinks the pressure is becoming critical.
Malcolm,
I acknowledge the distinction between “regular armies” and “troubles-style conflict of sabotage, assassination, street violence, etc.” The point is that even in the latter, which of course is our current situation, only one side is fighting in this manner. It seems to me that calling it a “war” implies some sort of reciprocity, with both sides battling it out, whatever the manner of conflict. When one side tries to assassinate the president, and the other side worries about the midterms and threatens lawsuits, that is not a civil war or any kind of war.
My real beef is that calling it civil war masks the true nature of the problem, which is the lack of any relief from the ongoing destruction of Western civilization.
And in France …. https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/frances-marine-le-pen-found-guilty-of-embezzlement-b8c42dac
AWOL,
One reply to that might be to say that it shows we’re already halfway there.
Agreed. This can be insurgents vs. the government, or factions vs. one another, etc. (During the violence of 2020, it seemed that it was Leftist mobs in cahoots with the government against the traditional American nation and people.) But Professor Betz isn’t saying that what we have now is civil war; he’s saying that things have become so fractured and destabilized, and the native British so aggressively “downgraded”, that civil war seems inevitable there in the near future (presumably once “the English begin to hate“).
When it does indeed kick off, obtaining such relief is exactly what the fighting will be about.
Jason,
This blow against Marine le Pen, who was the hope of many of the downgraded French people for some restoration of their nation (and of their status within it), is sure to raise the temperature and pressure in France as well.
The next few years are going to be “interesting”.