Status Quo Is God/Real Life

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Although History Marches On... Examples of Status Quo Is God in Real Life include:

• European politics from the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 to the start of the Pax Britannia in 1815 revolved around the "Balance of Power", meaning any state that grew too powerful or ambitious (and in the process disturbed the existing balance of power) usually found itself at war with a coalition led by the next-greatest power. This is why no one has ever conquered all of Europe.
  • Hell, you could even count the two world wars as Balance of Power politics, with the two greatest powers (Britain and Germany) on opposing sides.
    • Especially WWI, where the Balance of Power politics is actually quite obvious.
    • Which eliminated both as world powers and the USA and USSR rose up to become the next balance. What happened after the USSR fell depends on your political views.
  • This has been mollified to an extent with the launch of the European Union.
• Medieval China remained in a state of cultural stasis for centuries, despite having sufficient resources and know-how to keep it on the edge of an industrial revolution. There were several reasons for this, one of the most important being that Chinese culture was permeated with Confucianism, one of the core principles of which was the importance of stability and the undesirability of change.
• In the early 1950's, North Korea, previously under Soviet influence, invaded pro-Western South Korea over the 38th Parallel, igniting U.N. fears of communist aggression, leading to western intervention in a proxy war. North Koreans raged all the way to the Southeastern port city of Pusan before encountering heavy resistance from U.N. troops, who cut off their supplies and fought them all the way North to the Chinese border. The U.N. forces were on the brink of driving out the communists; unfortunately, Maoist China intervened, pushing the clash back to a stalemate ending roughly near the 38th parallel. The war effectively ended where it began, thus beginning the totalitarian-communist "Democratic People's Republic" of North Korea, which is currently in its third generation of hereditary rule. It has withstood the Soviet Union's collapse, and shows not the slightest sign of change in leadership or attitudes any time soon. The U.S. Military-Industrial Complex, which arose primarily during the Korean War, has also not diminished in size since Dwight Eisenhower's famous unheeded warning.
• The United States penny. It has been literally years since the penny has any worth, but the mining interests and a general opposition to change has kept it in circulation.
  • Except for the opposition to change.
    • The situation is so bad that the zinc and copper in the pennies are worth more than itself. The only reason why people aren't smelting them by the truck load is that doing so is now a felony.
  • Similarly, the United States' one dollar bill. Most other countries have replaced their currency units of that size with coins to save costs. The US has introduced dollar coins repeatedly, but with neither a population willing to embrace the change, nor a Mint willing to force the change by reducing the printing of dollar bills, the coins remain rare.
    • Another minor reason: a substantial number of wallets don't have coin compartments.
  • In fact, United States currency designs in general have a lot of stasis compared to those of other countries.
  • A growing number of automated payment machines (e.g, ticket kiosks and vending machines) accept $5 now. The catch? They give you $1 coins in change. It's probably the best way to get them.
• Borders in the post-colonial world, regardless of how sensible or not it may be, have remained status quo even when they shouldn't.
• Reminding everyone of Y2K, or any other end of the world hysteria, which beforehand people are on the edge of their seats expecting big change, stocking up on food and ... nothing. Status Quo Maintained. See you in 2038.
  • • One part of the problem is the almost unanimous agreement that there will be an End of the World as We Know It, but the details are effectively impossible to pin down apart from drastic extrapolation. At the same time, constant improvements in communication systems and growing network coverage make bad (or just poorly reported) news more and more accessible, providing human pattern recognition instincts with more and more dots to connect.
  • The problem is there are always two groups for a Millennium Bug situation. The first group are the ones who warned X will be a problem unless Y is implemented. So the solution Y is implemented the crisis is averted. The second group are the people that are thinking, "Why did I freak out and stockpile a bunch of stuff?" The second group never seems to realize the reason the problem didn't happen is because the first group fixed it.
  • Only people that expect a doomsday prediction and just wait for it will go back to their usual routine once it comes and goes and nothing happens. However, people who buy into the hype and do stuff like move, quit their jobs or education, or give up all their money and material goods, will return with having nothing left so things are not back to normal.
• The Zimbardo prison experiment has shown, unfortunately, prisoners have a tendency to turn on one another in order to prevent prison riots, essentially doing the guards' job for them, which carries a disturbing conclusion to those who choose to read into these things. Yet the Zimbardo experiment has been criticized by other psychologists.
  • On the same note, Jewish inmates in Holocaust internment camps noted that within about three years, other inmates began imitating the guards in speech and dress. Eesh.
• If anything, the United Nations promotes this when dealing with conflicts assuming it cannot be solved via Balkanize Me. Since 1950, the number of conflicts ending in returning to status quo ante bellum is increasing.
• Egypt remained virtually the same in most all ways for 3000 years straight, only crumbling from power when the religion was changed by the current pharaoh. This results in a literal version of this trope: remove the god, remove the status quo.
• In his book, "Denial: Why Business Leaders Fail to Look Facts in the Face--and What to Do About It", Richard S. Tedlow gives examples and reasons why major corporations begin as innovators and then become victims of their own success. The main reason is they deny that change is required and continue with established procedures.
• Lottery winners tend to spend all their money and go bankrupt in a few years, and can often be found working at their old jobs again. On occasion, they buy a big house in a fancy neighbourhood, hate it, and move back. Several TV shows have lampooned this.
• In general people tend to fall into this in life. Complacency, a sense of normality, and fear of change leads many people to fall into predictable patterns in life. A generation may have it's own problems, but they are mostly the same lives that would be lived in the same situation. This means it is likely the saddest case of Truth in Television to exist.
  • Behavioral Psychologists use this to explain why most "life changing decisions/events" tend to only really majorly effect the months that follow and will be lost/phased out with time until Quo returns.
  • It also appears in some studies concerning various cultures. Some theories made by those from inside and outside of the community are that this is what keeps some cultures "behind" others. Shunning those who "Leave their culture" in order to find a better life only to be ostracized by their family and former friends.
    • In Native American circles it is termed "Crabs in a Bucket" with the idea that a bucket of crabs only needs moderately high walls and no covering because as one crab tries to climb out that others either pull them back in to keep them from leaving or to piggyback their way out resulting in all of them staying stuck.
• In chemistry, Le Chatlier's Principle says that, when placed under stress (ie change), systems at equilibrium will shift in an attempt to counteract that stress.
• In functional programming languages, most values are immutable, that is, they are set only once and never change. According to functional programming proponents, this technique helps to prevent bugs, which is, indeed, good. The adoption of functional languages themselves is, on the other hand, a strong aversion, since they are far from mainstream.
• Inertia. Once something big has either stopped or set on a fast course, it takes a lot of energy to stop.
• The laws of physics will remain the same, no matter what. This is a good thing, since even a minor change would would be utterly devastating and completely reshape the cosmos, destroying everything we're familiar with.

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