What Happens When Society Goes Crazy?

And a reminder of how Heinlein was usually right. What Happened to Nathan Allen? Troubling Omens of ‘The Crazy Years’

And Kipling got some stuff right as well.

This examines the story of Nathan Allen, a 28-year-old from Massachusetts who shot and killed a retired Massachusetts state trooper and an Air Force sergeant in Winthrop, MA. He was then discovered to be a physical therapist with a Ph.D.

Nearly all hate-crime sprees like this are committed by people who could generally be labeled “disgruntled losers,” whose personal failings lead them down the rabbit-hole of racial paranoia. This guy “doesn’t fit the profile,” so to speak; Allen was employed and married and seemed to have a promising future ahead. Why would someone like that go so completely off the rails, and do it so suddenly?

I'm sure the couple of hundred thousand in student debt from that Ph.D. was a stressor, and though he got married in the fall, that was either stress, or not.

But click through for the details on that; something else caught my attention.

A reminder of Heinlein's "The Crazy Years" which a number of his stories were set in. From the Instapundit himself, from 2017. Welcome to our crazy years

First, what are the Crazy Years?

The Crazy Years, in Heinlein’s timeline, were when rapid changes in technology, together with the disruption those changes caused in mores and economics, caused society to, well, go crazy. They ran from the last couple of decades of the 20th century into the first couple of decades of the 21st. In some of his novels set in that era — "Time Enough for Love," for example — he includes random assortments of headlines that may have seemed crazy enough back then but that seem downright tame today.

What does it mean for society?

“Craziness can be measured by maladaptive behavior. The behavior the society uses to solve one kind of problem, when applied to an incorrect category, disorients it. When this happens the whole society, even if some members are aware of the disorientation, cannot reach the correct conclusion, or react in a fashion that preserves society from harm. As if society were a dolphin that called itself a fish: when it suffered the sensation of drowning, it would dive. But a dolphin is a mammal, a member of a different category of being. When dolphins are low on air, they surface, rather than dive. Putting yourself in the wrong category leads to the wrong behavior.”

We’re worried about racism or poverty, so we pull down statues. We’re concerned about terrorism so we confiscate fliers’ charm bracelets with miniature gun-charms on them. We worry about the economy, so we print more money and enact more regulations.

And then a reminder of a Kipling poem: "If—" (Here's an excerpt from the middle...)

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
    And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools;