Things Fall Apart (Part 1)
August 8, 2018·10 comments·politics
We are all Tony Soprano today. We’ve tried to reason with Phil Leotardo. We’ve tried to compromise. We’ve tried to maintain the cooperative institutions of Our Thing. But the guy won’t take “yes” for an answer. He wants it ALL. So when one of his crew insults our daughter, we lose our mind. We overreact. We suffer Phil Leotardo Derangement Syndrome and we kick the lieutenant’s teeth in. Now we’ve got a choice. Do we settle with the guy we hate? Do we voluntarily pay the heavy price for breaking the “norms” of conflict with a guy who we suspect wouldn’t hesitate to break any norm at all? Little Carmine’s comic relief notwithstanding, we all believe that we are at the precipice of an enormous crossroad in American politics.
But what if it’s not a choice at all? What if the choice has already been made for us? What if we are immersed in a competitive equilibrium of a competitive game, where the only rational choice is to go to the mattresses? To do unto others as they would do unto you … but to do it first. What then?
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