Flawed humans are often too eager to over inflate information that suits them to build the exciting revolutionary narrative of their fantasies. We should always be wary of falling into the trap of this alarmism, but as 2020 comes to an end there are some truly unique events happening in the West, especially America that cannot be ignored. The Covid-19 Pandemic, or should I say governments' strange measures to fight it, have eroded one of the major pillars of Western stability, that is rarely acknowledged. Life in the West is finally becoming uncomfortable and whether this is "good news" is up for debate, but it is certainly good for creating major political change.

The most unseen form of repression is perhaps the most effective

If we look at the late 20th and now the 21st century it is critical to acknowledge that the main means of coercion of the population of a given nation is comfort. Throughout all of human history from the point when we first started to slap together farm implements there has had to be some form of repression/coercion to keep the system, that we call society, on its feet. The serfs needed to toil, the knights needed to defend, the traders to trade and the elite to oversee it all. This is one of the paradoxes of Democracy, we created a system that tells us the people are in charge and free to do whatever they want when in reality society exists as it does, exactly because people cannot do what they want and do not have the power to topple the system.

Fancy textbooks call the willingness of individuals to submit to society "coercion". Traditionally we, not surprisingly, think of this coercion in the most blunt and obvious form that is easy to understand – the police. In most nations there is an army for external threats, but the police have the same hierarchy of ranks, fancy uniforms and weapons only their enemy is you. The good news is they don't want to kill you, just coerce you into enough obedience for society to function. After the truncheon club, many point the finger at religion or media as the great repressor. Many of our views and opinions are formed for us by these two factors and it cannot be denied that they shape our way of thinking, which can and does create coercion. Comfort though is usually not mentioned anywhere despite it being probably the most powerful form of repression we have ever seen, but this is not surprising.