How does a society decay?
Societies do not decay all at once.
There is no story of decadence that wakes up one morning and says, “No more morality, no more conscience.”.
Decay starts silently.
First the language deteriorates.
Then the values stretch.
Then norms shift.
Eventually, people no longer see what is wrong as wrong.
At that point, society is rotten.
And this is exactly the crisis Turkey is facing today.
This is not just an economic crisis.
This is not just a political crisis.
This is a is a crisis of conscience.
This is how we rot
We did not experience decay all at once.
Even our own cultural teachings, proverbs, and social wisdom have ceased to be moral compasses. We have turned it into a justification for moral flight.
“We said, ”The one who holds the honey is the one who licks his finger.".
We normalized bribery.
“We said, ”The state's property is the sea, whoever doesn't eat it is a pig".
We have made the plunder of public resources commonplace.
“We said, ”They eat what they don't eat.".
We considered fraud as intelligence.
“We said, ”Ride the horse, take up the sword.".
We have substituted power for morality.
These are not just words.
They are the is a sign of the collapse of their moral reflexes.
Decay is not only the fault of the individual
It is simplistic to attribute the decay of societies solely to individuals.
Because it is not only personal character that shapes individuals.
Institutions.
It is politics.
Culture.
It is ideology.
The decay in Turkey today cannot be explained solely by individual moral weaknesses.
This also means is a political decay.
The political culture produced by the government, the alternative not produced by the opposition and the system of interests accepted by the society have created a cycle that feeds each other.
The new economy of politics: rent
Politics in Turkey is no longer based solely on ideologies.
Politics has an invisible but very powerful dimension:
rent economy.
Tenders
zoning decisions
municipal projects
urban transformation
These are not only technical management areas.
These are also are spheres of political power.
A zoning decision can increase the value of a plot of land tens of times overnight.
One tender can bring in millions of liras.
That is why politics is often not based on ideology, over resource allocation takes shape.
Municipalities: service or patronage?
Municipalities in Turkey are local service institutions.
But they are also huge centers of economic power.
Zoning plans.
Infrastructure projects.
Transportation tenders.
Municipal companies.
Where there is such a large economic space moral risk also grows.
Therefore, municipalities are sometimes not only service-producing institutions, but also political patronage mechanisms it can become.
Parties win municipalities.
Then municipalities feed the parties.
Patrimonial politics
In the political science literature, this structure has a name:
patrimonial state.
In this system, institutions function through relationships, not rules.
Loyalty trumps merit.
Cadres based on subservience are formed.
The state or local governments cease to be public institutions and become part of political networks.
This system is not just a problem of one party.
Over time, this system can infiltrate almost all political structures.
Opposition's comfort
Political debate in Turkey is often reduced to this dichotomy:
power is bad
opposition is clean
But politics is not that simple.
The biggest problem of the opposition is often not criticizing the government.
Issue, is that it does not produce a moral alternative.
Instead of transforming politics, it often develops an understanding that aims only to take over power.
This creates the following perception in society:
“Even if the government changes, the system will not change.”
And people lose confidence in politics.
Silent society
But the biggest cause of decay is neither the government nor the opposition.
The biggest reason is the silent society.
Turkey's most powerful political ideology is this sentence:
“Long live the snake that doesn't touch me.”
Everyone tries to protect their own small interests.
Everyone is after a small advantage.
A business.
A tender.
A torpedo.
That is why great injustices grow in silence.
Corruption is ignored.
Lawlessness becomes normalized.
Nietzsche's prophecy
When Friedrich Nietzsche said “God is dead” he was not really making a religious argument.
He is a member of modern society that you've lost your values he was saying.
Old values were destroyed.
But new values had not yet been established.
What was left in the middle was this:
Benefit
pragmatism
selfishness
And often in the name of “realism” It's called.
The dark side of enlightenment
Adorno and Horkheimer describe the tragedy of modern society as follows:
Instead of liberating, reason can become an instrument of domination.
Politics today often does not seek the truth.
Strategizes.
Knowledge does not produce wisdom.
It produces manipulation.
And so society becomes more and more sophisticated but more and more immoral it becomes like this.
The tragedy of modern man
Modern man thinks he is very clever.
But most of the time it is just a more rational selfishness.
People today don't often ask the question:
“What is right?”
He asks:
“What is advantageous for me?”
This is where the decay begins.
The banality of evil
Hannah Arendt came to a shocking conclusion while analyzing the Nazi bureaucracy.
Evil is often not evil.
It is ordinary.
Great evils are not often done by bad people, by people who don't think It is done.
This is often the case in Turkey.
People are not bad.
But they don't think.
They do not question.
And they remain silent.
How does a society get back on its feet?
Decaying societies end in two ways.
Either they collapse completely.
Or a moral awakening they live.
This awakening often does not come from politics.
It does not come from parties.
It does not come from the state.
This awakening from intellectual courage income.
It starts with some people saying this sentence:
“This order is wrong.”
This is how we rotted.
We remained silent.
We normalized it.
We ignored it.
But recognizing decay is the first step towards rebirth.
Because it is not the majority that changes societies.
They are a minority with a conscience.
And history shows us this:
Societies rise with their values.
Societies that lose their values are not only economic, and morally bankrupt.
This is how we rotted.
But there is still a chance we can get back on our feet.
If we dare.