As I noted in my very short review of Turchin’s War and Peace and War, asabiya is
… a critical concept and term from Ibn Khaldun, meaning the “capacity of a social group for concerted collective action.”
When a society – or empire, since that was Turchin’s focus – is in decline, its asabiya is running low. For those of us who like economy of expression, asabiya and societal health is correlated. And in a society in which the asabiya is running low and overpopulation is present, Turchin observes internecine war begins to break out in the upper levels of society which are involved in governance as they battle to stay in the elite, or even to become a dominant faction.
While Turchin suggests this is because of a burgeoning scarcity of resources, basically the commoners who do the work, he also notes that it can be caused by the cessation of an existential threat. We’ve seen the latter in the failure of the Soviet Union. China may be just as dangerous as the Soviet Union, but, unlike the Soviet Union in its hey-day, it doesn’t try to frighten the United States into submission; the leadership of the China, whether due to internal issues or due to craft, is very subtle in its adversarial relationship with the United States.
What brings this up? This AP report concerning the attacks of Trump’s allies on Democratic Presidential nominee-wannabe Joe Biden:
A video of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden that was selectively edited to falsely suggest he made racist remarks during a recent speech made the rounds Thursday on social media, raking in more than a million views on one tweet alone.
Experts have been warning about the dangers of selectively edited videos being used as a misinformation tactic ahead of the 2020 presidential election. They are easier to make and do not require the sophisticated technology needed to produce deepfake videos, which are fabricated to look realistic.
In the edited clip, which was less than 20 seconds long, Biden says, “Our culture is not imported from some African nation or some Asian nation.” Social media users paired the video with comments like “It’s almost like Joe Biden is a Racist.” Posts with the video surfaced across social media platforms on Wednesday.
For those of us who believe in the value of facts, truth, and fair play over the ethic (!) of victory at all costs, this is disheartening, especially when Steve Benen predicts this is only the beginning.
So let’s talk about the implications of high asabiya. Often acquired in the face of continual and severe threat, it is a recognition that, as a whole, we are greater than our aggregate worth as individuals. This is essence of teamwork, and so much more. But the binding has to go both ways, the potential members of the society to be bound together by asabiya must have motivations to join that society that are greater than the motivations to remain apart.
Those latter motivations, of suspicion and distrust, are often traceable to differences in color, religion, perceived value systems, politics, etc – and more subtle factors, such as affinity for dogmatism, or certainty that you are always right. These factors are more or less unconscious; one sees conscious, manipulative actions for socio-political reasons, which most often have to do with jealousy of position, as leaders who do not wish to become small frogs in big ponds exert themselves to keep their followers separate – keep the pond smaller so they seem bigger and more dominant. The latter can be, but are not necessarily, pathological; it certainly lessens asabiya.
Contrariwise, implicit in the increase of asabiya is the commitment to treat others in the bound community fairly, in all venues, from sharing food to competing for political position. Treating other members unfairly is the utter equivalent to dumping arsenic in the community water supplies in order to be rid of some hated personality, it’s really simple as that. There may be some short-term benefit, but in the long term, no matter how much the miscreant wishes to believe otherwise, it’s a loser for everyone.
That’s what I see happening here. Someone – I don’t know who, but probably plural – who is no longer worried about outside threats has decided that it’s time to tear the United States apart in their pursuit of wealth, power, and prestige. Nevermind that there are strong external threats, and Trump’s strikes against Iran-aligned Iraqi militias has made those threats stronger.
But what really bothers me is the fact that this is just another step on the path trod by the Roman emperors and Senate, the French nobility, the English nobility, and many others as population pushed up pressure on resources, foes were vanquished, the elite feared losing their status, and the personal pride and religious vanities of some all conspired to destroy the social cohesion which had brought them their eminence in the world. Not that eminence, in and of itself, is desirable, but the positive things that can be done with eminence, such as alleviating illness and suffering, suffocating the warlike instincts of others, and all that sort of thing, are lost when that eminence is lost.
Trump may not be aware of this problem in a direct way, but indirectly, through world-wide polls of confidence in American leadership and its importance to the American citizenry, he has some awareness. We know this because he lies about it. He says world confidence in America has soared since he took office. Wrong.
But, in the meantime, we keep walking this bloody, weary path of history, ripping ourselves apart, rather than operating as a team to face the immense challenges of today. Those who have become fixated on wealth, power, and prestige keep denying reality and use the political weapons of total destruction in their strategies to hold on and gain more of those things, no matter what the cost might be for the future.
It sounds depressingly like Turchin. The path leads down into darkness and disaster.
