Top Down Society Buiding

Real society is built from the bottom up by people coming together for mutual support. Society emerges as people in local communities connect with each other, support each other and watch out for each other. Attempts to create society from the top down usually fail.

Moses and Joshua knew that society has to be established from the bottom up. Moses put people together in families and tribal groups, so they could take care of each other and support each other.

Moses acted as a temporary supreme court judge to teach people how to apply the new laws that God had given them, but he disestablished the position when he died, because he knew that justice is best established by local judges emerging in local communities.

Joshua acted as a temporary military commander while the children of Israel were going in to the promised land, but he disestablished the position when he died, because he know that communities must be protected at the local level. Groups of communities may need to come together to defend against a larger enemy, but the process must be controlled from the bottom and be temporary.

Jesus knew that his new society had to be built from the bottom up. He turned down the opportunity to bungee jump from the temple without angels instead of bungee cords in order to be appointed as king with top down power in Israel. He instead chose twelve men and established them in a replicatable community that would multiply and grow until the top down authority of the Roman Empire was exposed and redundant.

The American people used to understand this.

When the first settlers moved out from the east coast, they moved with families and friends. They looked out for each other, shared resources and helped each other to build houses. When attacked, they joined together to protect themselves.

The same thing happened when during the later moves into the west. Groups of people travelled together. In times of trouble, they shared their equipment and supported each other and came together for protection.
However, they very quickly forgot.

The constitutional congress was really a coup in which a group of clever men pretended to put in place bottom up institutions, buy actually sowed the seeds which would emerging into a top down society.

Abraham Lincoln really pushed along the idea of establishing society from the top down. The old idea that the central government can only exercise powers that had been given to it died. He finished the job (according to the movies) by sending his taliban generals to destroy what was left of bottom up society and followed them up with carpetbagger politicians to impose top down political power.

Americans can no longer circle the wagons because they have driven their cars into the suburbs and retreated into isolation among people they do not know. During tough times, they do not go to their neighbours for support, but get food stamps from government officials.

At the same time, they get into deep arguments about which of several messianic presidential candidates can establish the best society. They just assume that society must be changed from the top down.

The zeal for guns is a residual from the old order when society came together from the bottom to defend themselves from and external attacker. Now guns are used to shoot neighbours that they don’t know and do not trust.

This explains why most American efforts to export social order fail. Most attempts try to establish society from the top down. The process begins with the people voting in a purple finger election to appoint a president to control society from the top. This top down power allows the president to take half of everything produced in the economy, obstensively to create a better society, but mostly to look after the president’s mates.

The second prong of the American nation building approach is to establish national defence forces (including military, police and security forces). This takes all the best young men out of their own society and productive life and turns them into a burden and a nuisance. Those so do not join the army join the revolution and become a destructive burden on their local community.

This two-prong approach produce economic chaos and military destruction that tears apart the local communities needed to establish strong societies.