JR wrote:
> Regarding Kyrgyzstan, you state, From the point of view of
> Generational Dynamics, to blame this kind of violence on a few
> "provocateurs" doesn't make sense.
> OF COURSE provacateurs focus their efforts on the most volatile
> targets. What, are they supposed to be daring and organized yet
> also stupid? If your statement be true, Generational Dynamics
> fails to recognize the effects of intention on events, which would
> be a sorry lack in a theory of history.
I thought that I had explained this adequately in the article.
Suppose that a "provocateur" went into New York City and tried to stir
up trouble by trying to get people to cross the river and kill people
in New Jersey. He might be able to get a few criminals to cooperate,
and perhaps kill a few people in NJ or burn down their homes. But it
wouldn't go anywhere, because there's no animus between NYC and NJ.
The news reports say that a couple of dozen "provocateurs" caused the
Kyrgyz to attack the Uzbeks, and that this caused what is now being
described as thousands of killings and a million refugees. There is
simply no way that result could have been obtained unless the Kyrgyz
were already primed to do it anyway, and were just waiting for the
right triggering mechanism. So the provocateurs could not have CAUSED
the outcome, but they could have TRIGGERED the outcome that was going
to occur sooner or later anyway.
Another way to describe the difference between the NYC/NJ example and
the Kyrgyzstan example is by means of the word "viral." In the former
case, the violence would continue only as long as the group of
provocateurs were around to keep things going. But it's obvious that
the violence is Kyrgyzstan was viral and self-sustaining, involving
hundreds of thousands of people, even among people who had had no
contact with the provocateurs.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, what's important is
the attitude and behaviors of the masses of people, entire generations
of people. The attitudes of a few politicians, or a few provocateurs,
are irrelevant, except insofar as they reflect the views of the
people.
John