Demographic transitions between social orders produce cultural chaos and danger

Evidence

In the history of the nation, there are moments of extraordinary transformation, when the wheels of demographic, cultural, and economic change turn together. In between the old and new orders, particularly for those who are most swept up in the currents, there seems to be little direction to the flow of history. Chaos rules. The old assumptions fail. Hierarchies are turned on their heads. Common sense no longer functions. In his Prison Notebooks, early twentieth-century political theorist Antonio Gramsci expressed this sentiment from his cell in a Fascist prison in Italy: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum, a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” In a recent essay, Slavoj Žižek, a contemporary philosopher and cultural critic, powerfully paraphrased the last part of Gramsci’s quote in a way that captures the anxiety and fears—and real dangers—that these moments produce: “Now is the time for monsters.” — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 43

Categorization

• APHORISMS: Gramsci’s interregnum framing — old dying, new not born, morbid symptoms appear — is a durable lens for understanding any transitional era.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what exactly are the ‘morbid symptoms’ Žižek means by monsters, and how does Jones apply that to American racial transition?
• XREF: connects to: Population un-mixing follows decades of demographic expansion that exceeds a single lifetime — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 58; Epidemics of speed-induced sickness mark phases of societal acceleration — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 177; Unequal population growth between neighboring cultures generates adjustment and conflict pressures — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 327 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Each social system has its own demographic equilibrium whose breakdown can be catastrophic. #expands (0.85)
• Unequal population growth between neighboring cultures generates adjustment and conflict pressures #expands (0.80) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 327
• Population is a chaotic category that must be broken into internal relations of difference #qualifies (0.75)
• Demographic categories of migrants are contingent socially constructed subjects #complicates (0.70)