The Tipping Point

Did I mention this already? Gladwell, in his book "The Tipping Point" (I already told you you have to read it) describes the process that leads to the kind of moral chaos we are witnessing in New Orleans. Just as a healthy body can withstand a certain amount of infection--but once that threshold is passed, the body succumbs to disease, so also societies can tolerate disorder without falling apart. But when the "tipping point" is reached, the critical mass of disorder overwhelms the entire system. Evidently, this is something that can even be charted statistically. Once you pass the "tipping point," whether it is a matter of infectious disease or shoe styles or mayhem, the trend is transformed into a generalized condition which sweeps the entire organism or society. In a certain way, it would seem, people at that point surrender even something of their capacity to resist. The force is so great that only persons with heroic interior resources can withstand it. Perhaps in days and weeks to come, we will learn about some of those people. For now, we seem only to be hearing about those who have been swept into the tide of chaos, once a tipping point of disorder was breached.