The enormous central molten core of the planet Earth knows not of our trivial machinations on the surface of this spaceship through time, but has served us without fail.  Pulled at by the huge forces of gravity, molten iron simultaneously pulled crushed and surged under impossible pressures,  sends out streams of convection currents created by extreme heat that convert the earth into a giant magnetic dynamo, both creating electromagnetic poles on the planet while simultaneously doing epic battle with killer solar wind radiation out in space.  Radiation that, as a consequence never reaches us, supporting life and vitality otherwise doomed without its protective effect.  All this has occurred undeterred, as it is written, for billions of years – except every once in awhile, say every half a millennia or so, the dynamo decides to metamorphosize unpredictably and have the magnetic poles travel, and at some point flip, such that, north becomes south and south, north, and the known world must adjust.  Humans have not been capable of recording the effects of the last time it happened – recorded human history has always noted a north and a south and reflected accordingly.  Since 1900, the magnetic north pole has been drifting north and eastward, and has particularly accelerated of late, such that has it has left north Canada far behind and now lies near the true geographic pole.  Are we headed toward a more perfect alignment of north and south, or a dramatic flip of directionality that would turn everything upside down?   There is great unease as to what might be the consequences of a crucial protection so long fixed, determining a whole unpredictable future.

As the magnetic pole goes, so goes our civilization.  There is great unease right know as we seem to be heading north and south simultaneously on so many fronts.  Civilization has experienced these inflection points before.  What does one make of the spasm of the French  way of life that convulsed in revolution in 1789, standing on the shoulders of the Enlightenment and the measured American Experiment that had produced the Declaration of Independence and People’s Constitution, overthrowing a thousand year way of life in an effort to declare the sovereign Rights of Man, yet by 1792 declaring a year Zero, with the obliteration of all societal strata that had come before, climaxing in  the crushing of religious hierarchy and beheading of the monarch.  By 1799, after years of self immolation and terror, the seeds were set for the return of power to the elite, succeeding only in exchanging the king for an emperor.  Edmund Burke, the British Parlimentarian, reflected from England that the French spasm seemed to him rudderless and ignorant of foundation, seeking the destruction of one set of institutions with no conceptionalization of another , resulting in chaos and calamity:

“In that very short space of time they had completely pulled down to the ground, their monarchy; their church; their nobility; their law; their revenue; their army; their navy; their commerce; their arts; and their manufactures… [there was a danger of] an imitation of the excesses of an irrational, unprincipled, proscribing, confiscating, plundering, ferocious, bloody and tyrannical democracy… [in religion] the danger of their example is no longer from intolerance, but from Atheism; a foul, unnatural vice, foe to all the dignity and consolation of mankind; which seems in France, for a long time, to have been embodied into a faction, accredited, and almost avowed..”

Are we at such a tipping point?  from the projection of historical scope it would seem ridiculous. The world by the year 2019 has never been more in continuity, more free in action and opportunity, more prosperous, more environmentally respectful, and free of disease.  Food and water has never been more plentiful and available; information more universal and accessible.  The massive effort by free people to avoid by fearfully violent struggle and sacrifice the twin tyrannies of Fascism and Communism has proven successful beyond all measure with two thirds of the world successfully liberated and the residual third trying to identify the magic elixir.

Like a great magnet tipping upon itself however, the seeming clarity is awash in an unstable field of doubt and indecision.

America, birthed on  British political genetics imbued upon the rule of law determined by free citizens, is in a bipolar frenzy.  It is simultaneously strident for the rights of unfettered actualization of any self formed view of gender expression, yet schemes  to corner and restrict free expressions of speech.  America seeks to restrict citizens to rigorous regulation of what they eat, how they get to work, how much of their productivity is theirs  and how much communal, and how they must sublimate their desire for stability in family and morality, while propagating the expansion of all rights of non-citizens to ignore borders, work rules, contribution to health and welfare, felons to vote, and criminals to demand the understanding of victims.  America is positioning to simultaneously  support a socialist firebrand for the position of president of the greatest country of free will and enterprise in the history of  the world four short years after electing the populist firebrand who pledged to stand athwart any tendency to undermine the country’s two hundred year legacy of self determination and equal opportunity.

Great Britain three years ago voted in epic fashion to throw off the bureaucratic shackles of a European overlord and restore self determination.  Three years hence, the elected elite has proved incapable of accepting the verdict and seeks through delay and obfuscation some comforting shackle that neither achieves freedom or union, but to live instead in a perpetual purgatory of passive acquiescence to the worst of all positions for a once great nation – insignificance.

The international intellectual community continues to shill armageddon scenarios in place of measured reasons on issues such as anthropomorphic global warming (the earth will end in twelve years unless we do something), micro aggression ( an adult can not possibly stand up to any environments where safe space is not guaranteed), and capitalism( man is not capable as Burke would say of flourishing, liberated from the rapacity of blinding passion, inner anarchy  and appetite).  The intellectual need is rather an adolescent drive to belong, to adhere, to function as a collective where views are settled by others and there is comfort in knowing someone else has thought it through for you.

The many more examples of the wobbling of our magnetic core are too numerous for a short tome, but they are ever more present and the world feels them whole.  We seem to have left one place, and are seeking another, but can not relate why we left or what we hope to find.  The many features of a stable, forward looking civilization was recognized by Burke as requiring a fealty and understanding of the past, and for that we are woefully deficient. How did we come to our morality, our sense of right and wrong,  our recognition of the right to life and of living with free will, while engaging with those around us who hoped for the same thing? We seem caught in the throughs of a fulcrum about to flip on itself, either to once again right itself, or enter a whole new and unstable physics.

Jefferson over 200 years ago defined the human civilized core to be a simple construct of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.  Is it possible that we at some point will catch ourselves and restore the greater meaning to existence that makes it possible to recognize once again our existence at all?  At our core, the protective umbrella of this powerful and magnetic dynamo known as civilization wobbles uncontrollably and seeks an unknown country.  We best find our roots, and hope for the day when our compass is restored and true north is once again where we always knew it would be.