I suggest that The QUANDARY of the next MILLENIUM (Y2K) will be

in trying to keep from slipping or edging too far into TRIBALISM (in more sophisticated and unrecognized forms
• which may result in a powerful COUNTERACTION (from BUSINESS and powerful political leaders) to bring back THE HIVE, the COLLECIVISM (FASCISM/COMMUNISM) WHICH dominated such much of the past century.
In this century, we maundered between the collectivisms of TRIBE and HIVE. From 1917 to 1987, the world community was threatened by the Communist or Fascist Hive.

But, with the fall of "The Iron Curtain", there has increased the threat of the Tribe, whether secular (as in much of Africa) or religious (as in Iran, Sudan, in 1996 Israel and Algeria, etc.).

If we do not solve some of our most difficult problems -- social, economic, scientific, etc. -- many our descendants may have to live under one or both of these collectivisms!

Please don't misunderstand me. We need some degree of collectivism -- the Tribal "support group" and the State's "Social Contract" -- to survive and flourish. The STATE is THE GROUND on which THE FIGURE OF INDIVIDUALISM can take shape!

(I deal with certain aspects of this in "HATE BIG GOVERNMENT? (NPR! AND SEE, FOR MINIMAL GOVERNMENT!)". In particular, my (unique) concept of (demographically) representative provides a mathematico-statistical basis for some "useful collectivism".

However, the most disturbing trend at the end of this MILLENIUM is the FRAGMENTATION of Western Societies, particularly in America, which is PROTO-TIBALISM, and, under threats, passes into TRIBALISM.

One sign of this, which seems unrecognized, is the increasing failure of CITIZENS to vote and to take part in processes which affect our culture, economically, politically, artistically, spiritually. I repeat what I've said elsewhere: NONVOTING IS FREELOADING!

I am very very very disturbed over the way the the Media, the intellectuals, the scientists, the artists, etc., ignore the threat of our maundering "Between Tribe and Hive". I CHALLENGE you to find ways of dealing with this!