Five Factors That Lead to Social Decay

Five Factors That Can Lead To Social Decay

Sometime ago, U2 made a perceptive remark along the line that a person's views on life can be affected by certain books he has read ( I quoted from memory). That remark has stayed with me since I agreed with it.

A person's education is largely shaped by what he has been exposed and digested. We learn mostly by reading. A person who reads serious, informative, thought-provoking materials tends to develop an appreciation for knowledge and truth and can distinguish cant from reality. Education is a lifelong process. Thus, a person who maintains an intellectual curiosity and a thirst for knowledge is likely to surpass one who wrongly thinks that education stopped on the day he received a diploma in his hands.

The above paragraph serves as a lead-in to the five factors that Jared Diamond, a man with many intersts, has listed in his latest book and now are referenced in a book which brought together in sharp focus things I have hazily and lazily thought of. I am listing the factors here so we can see how the upcoming collapse of Vietnam can come about and maybe those who still care about the distant land where we grew up and used to call it home, will do something to avert the collapse which leads directly to the disappearance of that land as a sovereign nation

1. A failure to understand and to prevent causes of environmental damage.
2. Climate change.
3. DEPREDATIONS BY HOSTILE NEIGHBORS.
4. The inability of friendly neighbors to continue trade.
5. How society itself deals with problems raised by the first four factors. A common failing involved in this factor is the dislocation between the short-term interests of elites and the longer-term interests of the society the elites dominate and exploit (read: in Vietnam, the VCP does not give a damn about the well- being of the general public. The VCP only cares to hold on to power so it can amass wealth and then passes on the power and wealth to their children. A new, perverted form of monarchy and its new class of mandarins called dang vien).

wissai