Threatened social orders are situations in which people lose confidence in familiar processes, in the actions of others, and in a safe and secure future. They react emotionally and feel pressure to discuss the threat and to look for solutions to the threat. Throughout history and across all cultures, threatened social orders lead and have led to similar patterns of action. People in such situations see themselves confronted with four questions.
WHAT THREATENS US? People who perceive a threat to their social order sound the alarm. They are afraid, angry, or hurt. They point to who or what threatens them and demand action. Other topics lose importance. Threats are always described as urgent – regardless of whether they have emerged gradually or appeared suddenly.
WHO ARE WE? When people believe they are threatened, they begin to think more about themselves and their social order. They ask new questions, or answer old questions in new ways: Who are we? Who belongs to us? And most of all: who doesn’t? The consideration of their own identity in light of a threat leads some groups to break-up, while others become even more tightly bound together.
WHAT DO WE NEED? When their social order is threatened, people are confronted by the question of what they need to avert the threat: who can help us? Do we have enough manpower and food, enough time and money? Answering such questions reveals who has the power to mobilize people and things. Such mobilization can either take place by applying pressure to people or by convincing them with the power of words.
WHAT SHOULD WE DO? When social orders are threatened, people invest significant amounts of energy to overcome the threat. This changes their social order. Some people are excluded, others are integrated. Some gain power, while others lose power. Established knowledge is either reinterpreted or discarded. Institutions are established, ideas developed. Even though the magnitude differs from case to case, threatened order always means one thing: change.
