What Happens to Dissent When Flight Is a Present Option?

Abstract

It’s something of a truism in physics that closed systems tend to entropy. If we contain a process—if we close it in, in some way—it will degrade faster than it normally would. And this principle clearly applies beyond physics. John B. Calhoun, for example, famously documented the elevated entropy of closed systems with rat populations Calhoun (Proc. Roy. Soc. Med. 66: 80–88, 1973). He gave his animals everything they could possibly need, but enclosed them in a limited space. Inside of their closed system, some males became aggressive, others withdrew psychologically, females stopped caring for their young, and eventually their population plummeted, even though they had plenty of food. Humans are not rats, of course: we are self-referential, thinking beings. Subjected to fully closed systems, we break down mentally. And it is precisely the entropy of closed human systems that underlies this chapter. I will be examining dissent: Cases of dissent where flight was an option, and cases of dissent where flight was not an option. The great difference in space, of course—once we have sufficient technology—is that flight is nearly always an option; on Earth, unfortunately, it is often not a realistic option.