One of my new favorite blogs is now, Scholar's Stage.  I actually found it through my interactions over at Sublime Oblivion and I think it is quite excellent as it attempts to go far beneath the superficiality of so much of what passes for commentary in AMerica today.

One of its more recent posts refers to a fascinating theory of instrumentality vs. institutionalization.  In essense, things that eventually become institutions from states to churches to bureaucracies begin as instruments to achieve specific purposes.  Over time, the instruments decline and one they become "institutions" they becom calcified and more interested in their own self-perpetuation than in accomplishing anything worthy outside of their own existance.

The author's comments on the institutionalization of America, is both depressing and illuminating.  It shines a light on the real darkness of the problems America faces and it goes much deeper than partisan sniping would have one believe.

One should read the entire post, but here are several illustrative examples, including this quote he pulls from another blog while making his argument,

" 'A state is an instrument but it is only an instrument. It can be discarded if it ceases to be useful and becomes an end only for itself. Poland the state died but Poland the nation lived on. In the course of events, Poland was able to reacquire a state of its own. A nation acquired a state as its instrument. Similar to Poland, while the United States as a state apparatus may disappear, America the nation will endure. Constitutions are parchment. Laws are words on a page. Speeches are wind. Politicians are dust. Bureaucracies are passing. The empires of the past built merely on state power passed away eventually. Political communities built on surer foundations endured. Language endures. Land endures. Religion endures. History endures. Peoples endure. The American nation is a rock and upon this rock the true instrument of state will be built. If it isn’t the United States, it will be something else better adapted to our situation. Is the United States an instrument or an institution? The times we are in will tell...'"

He then goes on to make these comments,

"In the summer of 2008, the Bradley Project released a report on America's national identity titled "E Pluribus Unum". The report opened with an alarming statement:

To inform its work, the Bradley Project asked HarrisInteractive to conduct a study on Americans’ views on national identity. While 84 percent of the respondents still believe in a unique American identity, 63 percent believe this identity is weakening. Almost a quarter—24 percent—believe we are already so divided that a common national identity is impossible. In their minds, it is already too late. And young people—on whom our continued national identity depends— are less likely than older Americans to be proud of their country or to believe that it has a unique national identity.If the American nation is a rock, it is a rock eroded by time and warped by unrelenting exposure to hostile elements. A "surer foundation" it is not, nor will be.

If the American nation is a rock, it is a rock eroded by time and warped by unrelenting exposure to hostile elements. A "surer foundation" it is not, nor will be.

That America's ruling class has not moved to protect the American nation is unsurprising. The upper classes' isolation from their fellow citizens and identification with other members of the transnational elite play a part in this, I am sure. Yet there is a more fundamental reason for the upper classes' disengagement: perpetuating the American nation is simply not in the elite's best interest."

If America fails to find once more a tie that binds, its eventual descent into a torpor of self indulgence that may even border on irrelevancy will continue.  It may take two or three more generations for a "Rome" like collapse, but the outline of a looming catastrophe cannot be in doubt.  The American people and our leaders are sleepwalking towards an end goal that will lead us to a very bad place.

Unlike many who assume that as America falls as the lone "Superpower" someone else like China or a consortium of sorts made up of the newly rising powers like the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India China) will fill the void, I believe this end of American preponderance will usher in a neo-Middle Ages of chaos.  While something catastrophic will not happen all the time, with the proliferation of dangerous technology, when something catatrophic does happen, it will be shocking and destructive on a large scale.

America, as much by default as by design (perhaps, even more so by default), is the relative guarantor of stability.  We must find the strength within ourselves to guarantee that we do not allow this scenario to play out.  There will be no globalized governance that will make the mass of humanity sing from the same hymn book, there will only be anarchy without a Leviathan.