On our way to a 'post-civilizational' Wild West

Exclusive: Sean Harshey notes when cops can't enforce law, the people are forced to do so

Most people can only relate to events or experiences that happen during their lifetime and only understand those things in the context in which they experienced them. An example of this is people sharing recollections of what they were doing when they heard President Kennedy was assassinated. Events that happened before we were born seem like "history" to us. This difference in perspective is most apparent when a group of people of similar ages are together, but where some historical event occurred between the births of the older and younger members of the group. Asking a classroom of college students to share where they were at when the September 11 terror attacks occurred, for instance, will elicit vivid recollections from older students and blank stares from younger students not yet born at that time. To one group it was a life event. To the other group it was a historical event studied in class, along with the Civil War and the Great Depression.

Americans living today have never experienced a pre-civilization society. Civilization, in simplest terms, is an organized society of people with a government, culture and common social norms. The last time Americans lived in such conditions was in the days of the Wild West, or homesteading families on the prairies, mountains and deserts of American territories before those areas were organized and admitted to statehood. People at those times and places had little security besides what they could provide for themselves. Their lives, homes and possessions were at the mercy of the strongest and most aggressive. Traveling was dangerous. Organizing into a civilization and setting up a government with the authority to impose order through compliance with laws allowed citizens to live with greater peace, collective protection of private property and increased commerce and prosperity that comes from greater predictability and less chaos.

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