What Are The Marks Of A Sick Culture?

"It is a bad sign when the people of a country stop identifying themselves with the country and start identifying with a group. A racial group. Or a religion. Or a language. Anything, as long as it isn't the whole population."

"A very bad sign. Particularism..."

"So far as I have listened, before a revolution can take place, the population must lost faith in both the police and the courts."

"Elementary. Go on."

"Well...high taxation is important and so is inflation of the currency and the ratio of the productive to those on the public payroll. But that's old hat; everybody knows that a country is on the skids when its income and outgo get out of balance and stay that way - even though there are always endless attempts to wish it away by legislation."

"I want to mention the obvious symptoms: Violence. Muggings. Sniping. Arson. Bombing. Terrorism of any sort. Riots of course - but I suspect little incidents of violence, pecking away at people day after day, damage a culture even more than riots that flare up and then die down...Oh, conscription and slavery and arbitrary compulsion of all sorts and imprisonment without bail and without speedy trial - but those things are obvious; all the histories list them."

"...Sick cultures show a complex of symptoms such as you have named...but a dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than a riot...This symptom is especially serious in that an individual displaying it never thinks of it as a sign of ill health but as proof of his/her strength."

-- Robert A. Heinlein, Friday