75

We hear much these days about law—of which in our culture no one is above! Law is the bedrock of civilization. Law directs government. Law says yes or no. Law protects civilization from chaos. But law is not natural.

The earth is a ball of molten lava covered by tectonic plates, great slabs or crusts of rock, thicker than oceans. Geologists say there are seven of them always moving around and if they meet head on, something has to give. Sometimes they will slide sideways grinding away coastlines. Sometimes one will slide under the other, which then might buckle and form mountain ranges. All kinds of things happen. That’s how oceans are formed, how continents separate and move around. 

The image may be useful to illustrate great cultural changes that move on a different scale than planet changes. Tribes had to give way to kingdoms which in turn had to blend in or be erased by empires which then had to struggle against nation states. The idea of created equality met the idea of slavery.

The latter is being ground away—but it has not yet entirely disappeared. The divine right of kings is pushed away by democracy. Isolationism gives way to world economics.   Change is constant, large and small, and sometimes it is only in retrospect that we can distinguish vast tectonic movements, continents separating. 

In our moment there are many tectonic cultural movements. They vary in significance. One is privacy struggling against technology. Another is seen in what is called the ‘polarization’ in American politics. Yet another is what might be called the emergence of feminism or woman’s rights, which confronts and pushes against various social and sexual practices and a history of male dominance.

While we may not observe geological change, we may observe some cultural change, and though we can only guess what lies ahead, our guesses should be as informed and thoughtful as we are able.