Even If We Don't Want to Admit It, We've Thrown In the Towel.


Is our decline now unstoppable? Author, professor and newspaper editor Andrew Potter argues it is and his arguments ring of truth:

One of the more alarming features of our current moment is how a lot of serious things seem to be going wrong at the same time. Just as it looked like the COVID-19 pandemic had been brought under control, the Delta variant arrived. In Afghanistan, the continuing peace negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban fell apart this summer as the U.S. skulked out of the country – and with the withdrawal of foreign forces complete, the Taliban have retaken the country with astonishing speed. And this comes on the heels of the latest IPCC climate report, which suggested that we have already reached a position where many of the more dangerous aspects of climate change, such as deadly heat waves and powerful hurricanes, are close to being irreversible.

What these and other looming crises have in common is that they are marked by a failure of some combination of political conviction, state capacity and collective action. We have lost the ability to solve big problems and meet big challenges, and there is every reason to think this is only going to get worse, thanks to the effects of a number of long-standing trends. These include the economic and technological stagnation that has been in place since at least the 1970s, the rise of highly polarized and tribalistic politics, and the high decadence of the internet-fuelled culture wars.

Covid's Stark Lesson.

From the earliest days of the pandemic, there has been a sharp divide between the incredible scientific work that was done – identifying the virus, developing tests and treatments, and ultimately a vaccine – on the one hand, and the lethargic and largely ineffectual political and bureaucratic effort that went into making use of that work. But even when governments were moved to action, they found themselves hamstrung by a population riven by tribalistic responses (such as to mask mandates) and magical thinking (such as with anti-vax beliefs). We are, increasingly, a society unable to confront and rationally address the problems we face.

Has Western Civilization Had Its Day?

It is looking like we have reached the limits of our capacity for global collective action. The fiasco in Afghanistan has revealed the UN and NATO as highly ineffective organizations. Free trade has been discredited, geopolitical tensions are rising, and the world is retreating into protectionism and mercantilism. It’s been nearly 30 years since the Earth Summit in Rio led to a groundbreaking climate convention, but we are no closer today to taking meaningful action on climate change.

All of this is almost certainly a sign of what is to come. For the past 200 years or so, the relentless pace of innovation and discovery has made us rich and comfortable in ways that our ancestors would find miraculous. To them, our age would look like one giant and seemingly endless party.

Except all the evidence points to the party coming to an end. This doesn’t mean the apocalypse is nigh, but it does mean as an increasing number of major problems go unresolved, life will get more and more difficult every year. At some point in the future, we may look back upon this time and recognize that this is when we started to realize we were in decline.

Comments

  1. TrailblazerAugust 20, 2021 at 5:39 PM

    Perhaps the spoilt, boomer, generation is not capable of facing the realities of the day?
    Sad, because their parents did.
    The boomers also handed down their selfish ways to their children.

    TB


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Disaffected LibAugust 20, 2021 at 8:27 PM

      I don't know about you, TB, but I haven't found many who have any sense of our predicament and the peril it brings. This isn't a 'Boomer thing.' It transcends every generation. Even my parents' generation - those who endured the Great Depression and somehow made it through WWII - were pretty self-indulgent once the 60s arrived. They were the first generation of the Consumer Era. We, their children, rarely wanted for much.

      There were many factors in play to reach today's result. We came to believe our societies were omnipotent. Any problem would be solved if only we threw enough money at it. That lives on today in those, including some I know who are well educated and very affluent, in a dismissive attitude of "they'll think of something." That's a hell of a safety blanket.

      I lived well but my daughter was fortunate to marry an up and coming Microsoft whiz kid. Their combined revenue stream puts my best earning years to shame and yet it seems to manifest in a constant hunger for more.

      Delete
  2. Northern PoVAugust 21, 2021 at 8:07 AM

    Boomer's Story

    In the beginning: Hi groovy guys, groovy gals. Peace, love, dope. Crash pads, beads-bells-incense AND Hare Krishna.

    Then: You are your own brand.

    Now: What, no sparklingly pomegranate vaccine?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Disaffected LibAugust 21, 2021 at 8:34 AM

      You lost me there, NPoV. My ex used to say that I missed the "greening of America" because I was in khaki.

      Delete

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