The Strain of Empire

Embracing and extending a sociologist's theories for social self-diagnosis and liberation.

Yuvraj Singh, The Imperial Metro, Washington, DC

He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
—Thomas Paine

Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.
—The Kybalion

On the political left, cultural revolutionaries and critical social justice activists spent my entire life engaged in various forms of iconoclasm. They razed statues, gutted our unifying mythos, and despoiled our liberal ideals. Let’s say the end of the Vietnam War marks the beginning of the Long March Through the Institutions. In the first quarter-century (1975-2000), the marchers took refuge in the academy—training two generations of sleeper cells who would be activated in the 21st century. In the second quarter-century, the cells woke, spilling out to infest school systems, cultural outposts, and one of the main parties.

On the political right, cultural reactionaries, drug warriors, and war peddlers cried “freedom” at their rallies and revivals when what they really meant was “order.” And I don’t mean emergent or communitarian order. At home, they wanted a police-battalions-with-batons kind of order. Abroad, they wanted a “bomb ‘em-to-the-stone-age” kind of order. In the first quarter-century, they took refuge in the megachurches and chambers of commerce. In the second quarter-century, they sowed the seeds of the surveillance and censorship state—infesting one of the main parties, which served us MISO soup for the soul.

As each began to converge on authoritarianism, neither was anything close to liberal, which is to say concerned with human freedom—unless it was politically expedient to claim.

Today, we’re seeing something very strange.

While the cultural revolutionary fringes of the left fight the cultural reactionary fringes of the right in a grand spectacle known as the “Culture War,” behind the scenes, the wings conjoin. A Uniparty greets the courtiers of the Empire. Each wing tolerates the other in the corridors of power, waiting to seize the commanding heights of Wall Street, the Welfare State, and the Warfare State. Despite 300,000+ dead in Ukraine and $30+ trillion debt in the US, culture warriors stay locked in combat, distracted from the atrocious realities far away.

And as upright citizens, we are supposed to pick a team. As upright citizens, we are supposed to forget that the American Story has always been about freedom.

Sara Cottle, Arlington National Cemetary

Strain Theory

Robert K. Merton's Strain Theory is foundational in sociology, particularly in the study of deviant behavior. The core idea is that societal structures may pressure citizens into deviance whenever there is a big disconnect between culturally approved means and culturally approved ends.

Here's a breakdown:

1. Cultural Ends. Societies can determine culturally approved ends.

2. Institutionalized Means. Along with determining such ends, people also establish accepted and approved means to achieve these goals.

3. Strain. Strain arises when individuals find themselves unable to use the culturally-approved means to achieve the culturally-approved goals.

When faced with strain, individuals might adapt in one of the following ways:

• Conformity. Adherence even when the goal is unattainable.

• Innovation. Employ unapproved or deviant means to achieve the end.

• Ritualism. Abandon the end but go through the motions.

• Retreatism. Reject both the ends and the means and “drop out.”

• Rebellion. Reject both the ends and the means and strive to replace both.

Strain theory suggests that when there is a discrepancy between cultural goals and the available means to achieve those goals, some will resort to deviant, even criminal behaviors as alternative strategies. According to Merton, this diagnostic lens is essential for understanding the social and structural origins of crime (or dissidence) in society.

The American Dream vs. The Pursuit of Happiness

Merton thought that the “American Dream” was the culturally-accepted big objective. If you work hard enough (means), you’ll have your house, two cars, and a white picket fence (end). The God Mammon is America’s God. As a certain percentage of society could never quite climb out of poverty—which has consistently hovered at around fifteen percent despite The Great Society programs—millions would feel the strain and turn to deviant behavior—adopting one of the five abovementioned adaptations.

Let’s apply Strain Theory differently.

Assuming two different types of Empire—bread and circuses Empire (internal) and expansion and occupation Empore (external)—we can apply Merton’s logic to another American story, one that is truer and runs more deeply than the so-called American Dream.

Applying Merton's Strain Theory template, let’s replace "The American Dream" with "Living Free."

To live free means to live out from under Imperial yokes or tyrannies and to exercise rights derived from our Founding Pamphlets and Charters—and, of course, to defend those rights through the consistent exercise of voluntary association and civil rights. Today, that American mythos might sound like jingoistic bromides. But there are millions out there who still want to live free.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.

If our society has the overarching end of "Living Free," this can be interpreted as the ability for individuals to exercise personal and political freedoms and to be treated as equals before the law. In its fullest expression, that would mean “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and “the consent of the governed.”

The approved institutional means to achieve the end are supposed to be exercising rights as laid out in the American Founding documents, engaging in voluntary association and free expression to protect those rights, and using peaceful means, such as protests and legal challenges, to redress infringements on said rights.

Strain arises when authorities actively prevent the people from using these approved means. Such could be due to censorship, surveillance, discrimination, or any other threatening actions by state actors. Call this The Strain of Empire.

In adapting to The Strain of Empire, people will behave in the following ways:

1. Conformity means using established means, such as voting harder, hoping for “gradual” change, or renewing faith in the system.

2. Innovation means striving toward "Living Free" but establishing new forms of community governance or developing alternative liberation strategies.

3. Ritualism means losing faith in the real possibility of "Living Free" but continuing to engage in the approved means out of habit, fear, or duty.

4. Retreatism means to "drop out" or leave entirely, rejecting both the goal of "Living Free" in America and the conventional means of achieving it.

5. Rebellion means actively pushing against the authority structure, perhaps advocating for an entirely new framework.

By applying Merton's Strain Theory, we can gain insights into the various ways individuals or groups might respond when they feel they can neither exercise nor defend that end.

Transmutation of Means to Ends (and Ends to Means)

At Underthrow, we don’t disagree with Merton all that much. We’re just taking his butter knife and using it as a screwdriver.

In other words, our adaptation to the Strain of Empire can be turned into strategy, which is all about 2 and 4 — which are subversive innovation and exit—or both in combination.

The Ouroboros: ἕν τὸ πᾶν, hen to pān—The All is One

But here’s the thing: Merton had another separate idea, which he called “the transmutation of means to ends.” In service of underthrow, we can add to that “ends to means.”

If the end is to “live free,” then the means must also be living free come what may. It is the means and the end. And if the means are living freely in courage, then we must never lose sight of the same end, which is, and has always been, the American Story.

We’re simply writing new chapters.

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