Splitting Predicts Feudal Politics

When large parts of a society adopt 'splitting' — reducing complex rivals to all‑good or all‑bad — it creates apathy, zero-sum moralization, and dependence on protective elites. Over time this social psychology can hollow civic institutions and normalize patronage or feudal relationships between leaders and followers. — If true, it reframes debates about political decline as a problem of mass psychological defenses, not only policy or economics, changing where reform efforts should focus.