The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: Signs of a ‘Total Systems Collapse’ Are Everywhere—Are You Paying Attention?

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Starting point is 00:00:25 We'd love to talk, business. When complex societies of sophistication and intricacy, bureaucracies become very vulnerable if some little quirk appears, and the society no longer operates on empiricism, meritocracy, but it's governed by ideology or superstition. In a sophisticated society like the United States, where we have complexities of travel and power, and we have a diverse population from all over the world, if you don't have a margin of error. And if we don't follow the norms that gave us that prosperity, security, and freedom, then the system starts to break down. When you operate on anti-mericratic DEI orthodoxies and you have ideologies that overrule common sense and tradition, then you get something like a total systems collapse. Hello, this is Victor Davis-Hanson for the Daily Signal.

Starting point is 00:01:31 I'd like to talk about a concept called systems collapse. Anthropologists use it, historians use it. It refers to complex societies that suddenly implode because the level of sophistication and intricacy, intricacy, bureaucracies, becomes such that it's very vulnerable if some little quirk appears and the society no longer operates on empiricism, meritocracy, but it's governed by ideology or superstition. We usually look at systems collapse in terms of, oh, the Misenian Greeks, to take one example. Very sophisticated, linear B tablets, palatial culture, and yet something went wrong in that concentrated structure of the palace and the entire society collapse. We are a very sophisticated society. We require meritocracy and puricism credentials. and we have very sophisticated transportation, education,

Starting point is 00:02:33 healthcare, et cetera, et cetera. And if we don't follow the norms, it gave us that prosperity, security, and freedom, then the system starts to break down. And we've seen the indices of that. The Pacific Palisites fire didn't have to happen. It didn't have to destroy the entire beautiful and ancient neighborhood of Palisades.

Starting point is 00:02:58 it didn't have to mean that they haven't even started rebuilding. But when you operate on anti-mericratic DEI orthodoxies, and you have ideologies that overrule common sense and tradition, then you get something like a total system's collapse. So the mayor knew it was fire season. She knew that the Santa Ana winds were approaching. She knew that the hills were dry, but she was in Ghana. Why is Ghana important?

Starting point is 00:03:28 I guess it has some DEI connection to her. We know that the hillsides need to be gleaned a brush and clean. Green orthodoxy says you can't do that from global warming. We know that the head of Los Angeles' power and water came from PG&E. She was a DEI appointment, and the result was there were fire hydrants that didn't work, and there was a reservoir critical to the survival of the palisades that had been empty for, months. We know that the fire chief herself had her budget cut by Karen Bass the mayor, but we also know that she kept haranguing people about DEI rather than prioritizing, at least

Starting point is 00:04:11 publicly, and then her communicates the need for preventing fire protection. I could go on about the zoning, but what I'm getting at is when you have a sophisticated society living in a fire prone area with a known two-century history of Santa Ana Wins in the late fall and early winter, then nothing can go wrong. It's an unnatural habitat. And yet what happened? D.E.I and Green Orthodoxy overruled traditions of trial and error empirical knowledge about how to treat fires, how to prevent them, how to get water to parched areas, how to glean hillsides, why the mayor has to be there, why the deputy mayor, he was under house arrest for phoning in a bomb threat, why was he even a deputy mayor, someone of that caliber?

Starting point is 00:05:03 Finally, we saw that same systems collapse with a tragic killing of Iranian Zara Utka, and everything went wrong. First of all, why would you enter a light rail? car without having to have a ticket. This was an honor system. It encouraged people to abuse the system to think that you really don't have to pay anything for a free ride. It said you couldn't have a concealed weapon, but what does that mean when you don't even have security to check people? You can't stop and risk people apparently anymore. She came in there and there were four people around her, including the assailant. He killed her. But what kind of society is it where the

Starting point is 00:05:48 four people adjacent behind her just walk by her as he's watched the killer commit this horrific act of cutting her throat. And then after he leaves and he mutters, got the white girl, then they don't do anything. They didn't do anything to stop it. They didn't do anything just to walk a few feet over or a foot over and try to help her in her death throats. What ideology is that that allows that to happen? Why would Van Jones say that this has nothing to do with race when 80% of the people around the killer were African American as he was, but he selected the one person who was white and the people around didn't do anything to help her?

Starting point is 00:06:32 Why did the mayor, why did the mayor almost Vi Liles almost immediately say, arresting our way out of this won't work? We can't demonize the homeless. We can't show this video. Why didn't she say instead, as we know from the history? of criminal justice. We've got to find this perpetrator immediately. We've got to make sure that he faces stiff sentences. We can't let people who are 14-time felons out. This was a mistake, and I promise that won't happen. Why didn't she do it? She didn't do it because she knew that message would not appeal to the constituencies that had elected her because it was a total

Starting point is 00:07:09 systems collapse. And finally, Teresa Stokes, the magistrate, why did she live? let Carlos Brown the killer out. He had 14 felonies. He had just committed a felony. Why did she let him out? And the answer is the systems collapse. Why would you have Teresa Stokes, who had never passed the North Carolina Bar as a magistrate? She really had no credentials in that sense as a legal expert. More disturbingly, she co-owned an alternate treatment center. So when she was sentencing, seen felons, convicted felons, or felons that were up for trial, she was in some cases, what, directing them to a center in which she had a profit motive? Why did all this happen? Why did the media suppress it, suffocate it? Because it disturbed the narrative. The narrative was that

Starting point is 00:08:06 there is no such thing as inordinate black crime, and to talk about it violates the canons of un-empirical or non-empirical critical race theory, critical legal theory, the new anti-racism of Professor Kendi. And the result is that no one wanted to cover the story, even though had the roles we've been reversed racially, it would have been a George Floyd moment. What am I getting at? I'm getting at that in a sophisticated society like the United States, where we have complexities of travel and power and construction.

Starting point is 00:08:43 and safety, and we have a diverse population from all over the world, and we have 55 million people who were not born in the United States residing here. You don't have a margin of error. And the only way you can succeed in the way that prior generations have is to insist on common sense, knowledge of what worked in the past, and meritocracy, and empiricism. But if you throw all that away and you go the superstitious route and adopt diversity, equity, inclusion mandates in place of meritocracy, or you say that those hillsides are ready to go up in flames, but I can't do anything about them because Green Orthodoxy says it would be contrary to nature, then you're going to have a system's collapse. And we saw that in both cases.

Starting point is 00:09:36 Thank you very much. This is Victor Davis-Hanson for the Daily Signal. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please like, share, and subscribe to be notified for more content like this. You can also check out my own website at victorhansen.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.

The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: Signs of a ‘Total Systems Collapse’ Are Everywhere—Are You Paying Attention?

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