Perish

             Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. (Proverbs 29:18 KJV)

Today, let’s move to the second phrase: the people perish. It’s easy to imagine that this refers to individual people dying for lack of vision or hope, like the rats in the vat in the dark. And there could be something to that. In the dark, the rats would hear and smell, but not see one another. I don’t recall how many rats were in the dark vat, but would one rat in the vat have died faster than two, three, or ten? Would one rat in the lighted vat die faster than the two, three, or ten in the dark? How much of the life-giving hope was gained from the light, and how much from other rats being nearby, acting with rodent courage?

The first question, then, is whether people primarily describes individual people, or a group of people, whether a family, a church congregation, or a nation. While an individual who is unrestrained may not commit legal crimes, chances are good that social infractions will take place, meaning that the unrestrained person will be ostracized, and/or will gather other such misfits. The second possibility will tend to increase the unrestrained behavior, at least potentially resulting in death.

If the lack of restraint spreads to a whole group, the group will lack the cohesion necessary to make it a group. The people will perish as a group, even if they still call themselves by some name. And while it might not seem like a big thing, it tends to be disastrous in the long run. The depopulation of a group, whether because the members no longer identify with it, or because the members are not reproducing (biologically or ideologically) enough to replace themselves (AKA depopulation) causes the group to perish. This is being faced in a wide variety of social organizations, from churches to nations like France.

          The alternative is small-n nationalism or group identity in a positive sense. It’s not “you aren’t one of us, therefore you don’t deserve to exist” but “we deserve to exist and are going to restrain ourselves to do what is necessary to survive.” And that takes us back to the vision phrase.