The Reaction Syndrome

There are a number of basic, underlying problems in the world. One of the most basic is that of population. The problem is not that people are using gasoline (petrol), the problem is that there are too many people using petrol (gasoline). The trouble is not that people require food and produce garbage, the trouble is that there are too many people in the world that require food and produce garbage. Another of the basic, underlying problems in the world is that rich people have few children while poor people often have many children. This concentrates wealth and spreads poverty.

Today, I would like to describe another underlying flaw that keeps the world from being the best place that it could be. I have named it the "Reaction Syndrome". Every new system for ordering society that human beings come up with is a reaction against something that came before. We either repeat history or react against it. The trouble is that when we react against a system that came before, we almost invariably go too far in the opposite direction for best results.

This causes so much of the wastefulness and bad things that did not have to happen that has plagued human history. When we have a system that brings about bad things, we react against the system but in doing so we go too far in the other direction and so get more bad things. Life is a lot like a ridge in which the top of the ridge is the best that things can be. This Reaction Syndrome causes us to zig zag from one side of the ridge to the other instead of progressing in a straight line.

One of the reasons for this zig-zag progress instead of the straight line which would be much better is that when it comes to the system of organization in the society we live in, our thinking is colored (coloured) by our emotions. The feelings of some against the present system and the vested interests of others in favor (favour) of the present system prevent us from seeing the center line that represents the ridge, the high line, of life. This causes the progress of history to be an inefficient and calamitous zig-zag.

American laissez-faire Capitalism was a reaction against European class strictures and heriditary status. But it went too far in creating a few very rich and too many poor. This brought about Communism, which was designed to help the working class proletariot but went too far and destroyed incentive while forstering too much corruption. This caused America to swing too far right during the administration of George W. Bush after the fall of large-scale Communism. This has now brought about a swing back to the left with Barack Obama and the implementation of full-scale socialism in America. We just cannot seem to move forward in a straight line because of this Reaction Syndrome.

The only way to find the ridge of best efficiency is to react in both directions. Our emotions and the Reaction Syndrome prevent us from seeing the ridge clearly so the best we can do is to go through a double reaction. I define a mature ideology as one that has gone through at least two such reactions, one in each direction. New social orders tend toward the more extreme but as the order matures, it invariably finds it's way toward the center because that is where the ridge of best efficiency is to be found.

The ratings of the best countries in the world to live by the UN leave no doubt that a mild version of socialism is the best system. That is because centrist socialism has already gone through a double reaction, one on each side, against both Capitalism and Communism. Politcs and economics is a complex realm where the best course of action has shown to be to listen to the valid points of both Capitalism and Communism and to craft a system that gives the best of both rather than choosing one system or the other.