Crisis: The Sudden Unveiling of Social Structure
According to Jared Diamond, a crisis is the sudden unveiling of a society’s true shape. It is the moment when a collective loses the luxury of ignoring the obvious, and existing adaptive strategies cease to function. This article analyzes how nations cope with such shocks by applying the principles of psychotherapy to the state level. You will learn why selective change is the key to survival and how culture and geography determine our ability to respond to threats such as artificial intelligence or armed conflict.
The Psychotherapeutic Model and Cultural Frameworks of Crisis
Diamond proposes a psychotherapeutic model for analyzing national crises, translating twelve factors of effective individual therapy to the national level. A nation’s acknowledgment of a crisis resembles the moment an individual stops rationalizing their breakdown. However, the USA, Europe, and the Arab world present different cultural frameworks for crisis. Fatalistic collectivism (crisis as the will of God) dominates the Arab world; radical individualism and blame-seeking prevail in the USA; while Europe focuses on institutionalization and technocratic reforms.
These differences influence how artificial intelligence optimizes crisis management. Gulf states see AI as a tool for sovereignty and control, the USA treats it as a fuel for productivity (despite the risk of polarization), and the European Union focuses on regulations protecting individual rights. Without adequate institutions, however, this technology may deepen the structural weaknesses that catalyze crises—which Prof. Elżbieta Mączyńska defines as the need to redefine development goals rather than merely "tightening the screws" within the system.
Finland and Japan: Selective Change and Symbolic Fences
Finland serves as a paradigm of effective crisis management. Instead of adopting the role of a victim after the war with the USSR, the Finns transformed their isolation into a realistic political doctrine, balancing necessity with autonomy. A similar path was taken by Meiji Japan, where selective change became a method of modernization. The Japanese rapidly adopted Western technology and administration while simultaneously erecting symbolic fences to protect the core of their identity: the position of the Emperor and the language.
These "fences" allow nations to distinguish inviolable values from those that must change. The lack of such an ability is evident in Indonesia, where a lack of consensus blocks the resolution of the crisis surrounding the trauma of 1965. Without honestly naming the trauma and establishing new boundaries of identity, the state cannot build a stable legal infrastructure. Effective adaptation thus requires a painful self-assessment, which contemporary superpowers often lack.
The German Zeitenwende and the Paradoxes of Global Business
After 1945, Germany underwent a process of accepting historical responsibility, transforming a culture of guilt into a culture of responsibility. However, today’s German Zeitenwende forces another transformation of the economic model and a shift from the image of a "civilian power" toward real military strength. Meanwhile, the USA exhibits barriers to applying the twelve factors of crisis resolution: polarization prevents consensus on threats, and the myth of exceptionalism blocks learning from other nations.
The capacity for change is also influenced by geography and geopolitics. The isolation of the USA grants it the luxury of making risky decisions, while the location of Germany or Finland necessitates strategic caution. In this context, institutional memory serves as an archive of precedents. However, a corporate paradox emerges: tech company boards, prioritizing profit, may move assets out of unstable home countries. In a meta-logical sense, this inevitably deepens the crises of those states, destroying the very environment in which the corporations themselves grew.
Summary
In a world where crisis is becoming the norm, the true challenge is finding a balance between adaptation and the preservation of identity. The examples of Finland and Japan teach us that nations can survive the most severe shocks as long as they can selectively relinquish parts of their sovereignty or tradition to save what is most precious. Will modern societies, caught between technological acceleration and political polarization, manage a brutally honest self-diagnosis before the trajectory of the crisis becomes irreversible?
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