Minor Crises

Minor crises occur within the middle of each period or balance? of the pattern. Each minor crisis involves the over-extension of the ideas which provide the basis of that particular balance. Unlike major crises?, they do not threaten the balance itself, but they do create a similar need for resolution.

The four main minor crises are: the temper tantrum, the clique, the fascist impulse, and society-threatening ideas. There are two others which arise with the rare earths: creation ex nihilo and the crisis of faith.

All are resolved by some form of emergent entity: the genesis of goals and souls, the genesis of principles, the genesis of human rights, and the genesis of superorganisms or memes. The rare-earth crises are similarly resolved by emergent entities of a different kind: gods and a science of emergence itself.

All of these emergent entities occur within the privacy of the internal self, so they can either be framed within the context of a cultural system or they can be entirely personal (even if expressed later in the terminology prefered by the culture). This choice can have profound effects on the developing self and its ability at a later stage of development to "think outside the box" of its culture's preferences.

Like the major crises at the end of each period, the minor crises naturally generate quests which force a choice. The choices of the major-crisis quests? offer a path into evil (for a wrong choice), while the minor-crisis quests offer a path to genius (for a right choice which avoids the pitfalls of cultural biases which make it difficult to "think outside the box" of cultural prejudices).

See also Rare Earths.

— Scotus - 30 Jul 2000