Hi everyone! My name is Jamie Nickolaisen and I am not in Jenny Hicks’ class! I am the MORE Programs Writing Workshop Assistant and wanted to contribute to this blog as well.
To say that I enjoyed The Parable of the Sower would be inaccurate, although I found it very captivating and was unable to put it down. Honestly, it freaked me out just a little bit. I started thinking about what the end of the world would look like and decided it is going to be similar to the situation in the book. However, in fifty years, I see our great United States of America in a slightly different form of distress.
I think that relatively soon, the national government will be overthrown. People are already so frustrated with the government’s inability to make decisions and the political divide continues to grow. As the government continues to go into more debt and print more money, people will quickly become frustrated with the increasing inflation and rising costs of the necessities of life. As the economy continues to worsen and unemployment rates continue to rise, people will realize the government’s inability to allow people’s lives to get better. As taxes continue to be raised, people will have to spend more and more of their precious income in paying the national and state governments and will quickly grow tired of letting the incapable government have control over their money. For the most part, people are intelligent and know when something isn’t working. And when the day comes that the majority of Americans are frustrated, the national government will fall.
The states will then separate and run themselves as individual countries. The smaller governments will be better able to execute the political wishes of their constituents and will be far more effective than the national government for a time. However, some state governments will begin to fall as well. Sadly, California will probably be one of the first. Our huge debt and financial strain will not continue to allow the function of our state government. Also, the lack of water supply for Southern California will be an issue. California will have to make another deal with surrounding states to have a water supply and the other states will be less willing as their populations increase and their need for water increases. For our government to supply water to Southern California, it will be very expensive and require a lot of money that we simply do not have. The government will eventually fall under such strain and my guess is that Northern and Southern California will form two new governments to be run separately.
As governments continue to fall or be incapable of doing anything, people will band together in family or religious units to help provide for one another economically, spiritually, and emotionally. Other groups will form out of similar desires, but with an evil spin—gangs, drug dealers, etc. and probably won’t be seeking spiritual enlightenment. In urban areas, these evil groups will be more prevalent and what benign groups were formed there will quickly migrate to safer areas. Rural areas will be the safest as they are more out of the reach of drugs and violence.
In this sense, I am more optimistic than Octavia Butler who thinks everywhere will be dangerous. While she considers police and other public servants a threat, I think that very few will exist as governments will have either fallen or have no money to give to failing police departments. They will be just like everyone else, with a family they want to provide for and will seek some kind of protective unit whether it be good or evil.
I also think that similar things will happen across the globe. Already in the Middle East and Africa, revolts and civil wars have been going on for decades. In other places, as the divide between social classes grows, revolutions will become more prevalent. Throughout the world, people will be frustrated with what their governments have become and will take matters into their own hands causing universal upheaval and distress. It is sad to think that this is a more optimistic outlook of what is going to happen in our world.
No comments:
Post a Comment