Friday, February 17th, 2006
COLLAPSING RULE-SETS AND PNM THEORY
Jeff Medcalf at Caerdroia posed some arch questions regarding the validity of some key ideas in Dr. Barnett’s PNM theory yesterday:
“How does PNM handle the collapse or approaching collapse of rules-sets in core nations? The flow of people from the gap to the core is inherently going to bring gap rulesets — those travel in people’s heads, after all — and this is already apparent in Britain, France, Spain, Italy, the Low Countries, Denmark and Norway. I suspect we’ll see the same in Germany, soon, because they have the same demography/immigrant problem as the rest of Western Europe.
Once the gap rulesets have been imported into the core, can the core rulesets remain established, or are the core rulesets inherently self-defeating? And if they are inherently self-defeating, at least when confronted with a lower-order ruleset from the gap, what changes to the core rulesets (and hopefully there are some short of mass deportation or genocide) can be made to avert the consequences of a core ruleset collapse (the main consequence being moving from the core to the gap)?”
Good questions, all of them. Dan of tdaxp and Dave Schuler made their remarks at Caerdroia, my commentary follows.
First, in regard to the example of rioting Islamist thugs in Europe provided by The Belmont Club link, I would argue that the established rule-set is being undermined not merely by the Islamist thugs but by the local European -probably socialist – political elite that enabled the rioters by ordering the police to refrain from intervening. Of the two, the latter is the far greater threat to the integrity of the rule of law, representing not only moral cowardice but betrayal of the values of a liberal, democratic, open society.
I dealt with this very issue, albeit briefly, in an article on rule-set theory in Dr. Barnett’s short-lived journal. We have between secular, democratic, Europe and the ghetto Islamist activists and “underclass” rioters of North African origin, a case of ” value-rivalry”. European states have the power to easily enforce compliance from the rioters or expel them but the political will to do so is another question. It is admittedly bad form to quote myself, but in this case, it fits:
“An explicit rule-set can be undermined by implicit rules and values that are antithetical, that encourage destructive behavior….Such a conflict is typical of a dysfunctional rule-set that characterizes a system in decline.
….To intentionally ignore criminal behavior as defined by law, to appease enemies, to fail to maintain order in the face of gross violations or violence may be a partial repudiation of the prevailing rule-set by the system’s own leaders”.
I doubt highly that what was behind the failure of will of the European officials in this case was exposure to the Sharia imported from the Gap so much as homegrown, irrationalist, European postmodernism mixed with a cynical personal opportunism that disconnects Euro-elites from their own countrymen. The problem of Western rule-set collapse can be found in the prevailing ideology of that part of the elite, political and cultural, who subscribe to the worldview of the New Left/’68ers/Crit theorists. A problem that is solved best by politically isolating, delegitimizing them and removing them from positions of power or influence via democratic elections so that common-sense policies may be enforced to defend society.
Secondly and more generally connectivity is indeed a two-way street as Jeff recognizes in his second paragraph, a point which also made by William Lind, the chief 4GW theorist, who would attempt to firewall off the Gap from the Core for that reason. That option really isn’t feasible for a host of economic reasons related to energy, capital flows and geography though tightening up on the flow of mass-migration to allow for reasonable screening prior to entry and required assimilationist policies afterward will help. By assimilationist, I do not simply mean language or superficial cultural norms like banning headscarves but economic as well. Ending the bizarrely irrational restrictions on labor mobility by abolishing the anticapitalist EU or national regulations that keep Muslim immigrants poor and on welfare will do more to bring them into the European mainstream than anything else.
So, no I do not think the Core rule-sets are inherently self-defeating. Properly enforced, they are powerful nonzero sum engines of societal dynamism, systemic economic growth and human creativity. I think the real problem is that a part of our Western elite a priori rejects the capitalist-liberal democratic rule-set and would so much like to see it be replaced by something considerably more authoritarian that they indirectly abet those who would attempt its destruction.
