MUCH WILL CHANGE, MUCH REMAINS THE SAME

La plus ça change, la plus c’est la même chose


One event in history that stands out as an instant of great change is the fall of Rome. The sack of the great city in the mid 400s not only marks the oblivion of the imperial and military order which had commanded the European people’s for more than four centuries, it also crushed its entire civilization, or so we are led to believe. But when not long ago I visited Rome for the first time, I was struck by the specter of continuity. By the looks of it there was much that had not changed. In particular, I felt, the historic elements of the city which are an expression of power and authority – the remnants of imperial Rome but also the monuments of Christianity – all seemed to suggest to me that the process of change had been rather transitional and that the epoch which brought us the Dark Ages is just as fascinating for what had been destroyed as for what was preserved.



It all cumulates in the Rome’s predominant monument of history, the Vatican, a complex that was built to intimidate and to assert the supremacy of the Roman pope, much like his imperial predecessors. Christianity may have been inspired by piety and humility, but its appearance in the city of Rome (and, as many will argue, in some thousand years of its existence) rather underscores an unchanging desire to rule and indeed of every effort, throughout the past sixteen hundred years, to match and preserve what was seemingly lost by the hands of barbarism.


Paris, La Bastille, 1789

There have, of course, been subsequent instances of change – or revolution – in our history, such as the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the period of revolution that followed. The two world wars of the twentieth century similarly define major dividing lines, in manifold dimensions. But as with the history of Rome it can be said for all these instances that continuity was as much an interest of the generations which carried them as the enforcement of change. And thus, in a broader perspective, we can look our history as one in which both elements play a role, every time and again. And this must be true for our time too.

Having said this, change has been the fascination par excellence of our present generations. It is our first and foremost addiction. We want to see change every new season. The fashion of our clothes, the design of our commodities, the technology that drives our appliances; our architecture; all of it must be constantly on the move. And if this is particularly true for our material environment, the same holds for other, more abstract aspects of our world. When in our public arena someone calls “change!”, we rally to it en masse, without so much as a blink, as if change itself is more important than the actual purpose it is supposed to serve.



Nonetheless, even the most ardent champion of change must at one point or other concede to things that will not move. Vested interests and vested practices are often tenacious in their defense and so is this anonymous monster called ‘reality’. As a result, real change remains elusive, almost illusory, and it can only be perceived once considerable had passed – by hindsight. Moreover, in our present day, progressiveness and the urge to change the world for the better have taken a back seat (as has happened many more times in the past) in favor of reinvigorated conservative sentiments, even to the point where going back in time is being presented as a legitimate way to go ahead. We see this sentiment both in Europe and America, in the strengthening of rightist populism, much as a response to the perceived undermining of our societies and its traditional cultural assumptions by foreign elements.

But setting this aside, change is ongoing and seemingly irreversible both inside and outside our political arenas. We are just at the beginning of the information and communication revolution that has ravaged our traditional societal and civic fabric beyond recognition. Economic pressures in addition drive public service and commercial organizations to spew out obsolete management and supporting staff in ever increasing acceleration. At global level economic and political power is shifting into new patterns, adding to the discontent of many people in our world in respect of their future up to and including the most basic conditions of their lives. In my own country, the Netherlands, there is a growing uneasiness about the greater divide between rich and poor and about the diminishing opportunities, both true and perceived, of a significant segment of society to aspire a level of wealth - and welfare – similar to what has been enjoyed by the great majority of the people in previous decades.


Futurist imagery in present-day computergames

In this blog I have already alluded to the disappearance of “future” as a source of inspiration (and aspiration) in our collective mindset at several instances (see, most recently: A future that can energize). If anything our prevailing desire is for the present (and perhaps even the past) to remain where it is, with minor adjustments only. But this is a fallacy. We better be prepared, both in our own mind and in the choices we actually make. Change is a roaring monster which we should tame (or keep checked) in the service of our advancement and not the other way around. It requires that we articulate the terms of such advancement, based on the realities that we face. Adverse change will occur when we deny these realities, as we seem to be doing today. If we pursue along this course, we may find ourselves in a similar situation as the Romans did, many centuries ago. If we want to preserve and foster our continuity, we should embrace change in order to achieve it.

WILL PRESIDENT OBAMA BE AMERICA’S NEXT JIMMY CARTER?

One defining issue: the Middle-East (President Obama and Palestine Autority President Abbas)


President Obama is making every effort to help America get out of the present-day economic slump and to contribute to the broader stability of our world. Thus far much criticism accompanies his administration. It is not my competence to judge his performance nor is this my intention in addressing above question. However, it occurred to me that Obama’s presidency and the reputation it has gained to date have much in common with the days of Jimmy Carter.

I was reminded of this when just recently the newspaper reported Washington’s demand to President Abbas of the Palestine authority that he should visibly move towards new talks with Israel. If not, the item stated, the US would be less than forthcoming in continuing its current relations with the Palestine authority. It is the kind of diplomacy that most people who are familiar with the history of US Middle-East policies will find all too familiar. What must be said, has to be said.

President Jimmy Carter achieved some notable results during his presidency, especially between Egypt and Israel, but otherwise got hopelessly stuck in the broader process in the Middle-East after the gross misjudgment in his time of the revolutionary events in Iran and of the forcefulness of Muslim retaliation after decades of dictatorial, US sponsored, rule of that country. It caught him by the tail and this – directly and indirectly – added to his reputation as an ineffective president.

But my point is not the similarity of the pressures which Obama has to face in comparison with those that faced Carter. They are numerous nonetheless, both in terms of international politics and economy. One could say that Obama faces them in even more forceful terms and that, like Carter, he has to do so against much political “Washington adversity.”

I am rather looking at the potential – further – similarities ahead. As time progresses, the pressure is mounting towards Obama’s campaign for a second term. It will be by virtue of a second term that his presidency can rise in stature and remembrance. No doubt many stalemates by which his administration is being pestered today will only be resolved in the event of Obama’s re-election.

Jimmy Carter stumbled over much bad luck, whatever his good intentions or efforts. One of them was the advent of an impressive, ultimately successful competitor by the name of Ronald Reagan. A caliber of similar weight will be needed to topple Obama, I am quite sure. There is no indication as yet whether the Republicans will bring out such a caliber – it is too early days – but it is a serious possibility nonetheless.

Obama’s predecessor Jimmy Carter gained his ultimate stature most of all through his post-presidential initiatives, up to the present day. His presidency may linger in the shadows of history but the person does not. He his highly regarded for his stance in humanitarian affairs and for his role in international dispute settlement. This is by no means irrelevant, for any individual.


Jimmy Carter, a highly effective former US President

Thus, however his presidency may work out, Obama – in principle – will still have an entire life after it. It would not surprise me if his greatest contribution to America’s welfare and to the stability of our world will only be made in his post-presidential years, reaching both beyond Carter’s and Bill Clinton’s, whose status may well have dwindled under pressure of merely being the husband of Obama’s Secretary of State.

Having said this, I would see Obama’s strategy for becoming a respected and influential ex-President being of no less importance than every strategy he designs to win a second term.

THE 21ST CENTURY AS YET REMAINS UNDEFINED

A defining moment in history - 1789


In every age there is a turning point
A new way of seeing the coherence of the world
(Jacob Bronovski, 1973, in “The Ascent of Man”)


When in the history of mankind have there be true instances of a fundamental paradigm shift reaching across society? One such instance immediately comes to mind. In many ways it is the one on which our world today is largely based. It didn’t take place in one sweep but in stages, near the end of the 18th century, and in three dimensions: industrial, social and political. It is interesting to note that it also had three distinct yet related trigger centers: the new United States, Britain and France. And even though in Europe, after the Napoleonic wars, a severe restoration was enforced of the old order, the revolutionary processes still constituted a road on which there was no return.

Yet however much we can identify these different stages in their various aspects, it is difficult to assign one single turning point in a history that took at least a number of decades to unfold. Along the way there was – and is at any time – continuity too, in people’s minds, their habits and in their broader culture.


A new challenge: catering for an aging population

But perhaps we should look at the evolution of our human societies from a more distant perspective. Over past two thousand years there may have been just two or three substantive shifts which constituted a profound redefinition of our world and of our existence and outlook in life, including the key arrangements of our political and social institutions. The advent of Christianity and its broad embrace in mind and spirit of the people’s of Europe most certainly was one of them. It was the single defining factor in our history for some thousand years. By the same token one could say that Christianity’s loss of its social and political predominance was the next main watershed. And perhaps there have been no other. Science, free thought, liberation on all fronts, the institution of democracy in our western world – all have been its consequence. The people of our age are still the offspring of this broad history. We have made no fundamental turn in any of these dimensions over the past two hundred years. History, with all its upheavals in the mean time, progressed along the precepts of the Enlightenment.



How will our young people move?

Today we live in anticipation of a new defining moment. It is key theme of this blog. Our world is challenged at its root assumptions. It has been debated that – our – history will soon end. But can we really expect – or even desire - a turn any time soon? If anything, most of our energies, whether effective or not, are driven towards continuity rather than to revolution and our younger generations do not appear to be motivated otherwise in any respect. We still herald the main accomplishments of our forebears in material and in spiritual terms. If anything the way to overcome the threat of global scarcity – in energy, raw materials, fresh water – is to counter this through accelerated advancement and throw all our trust in our capability to mobilize our technologies and political institutions to that end. This is what we firmly believe or at least desperately wish to believe.


Not the future, hopefully

In the mean time we are faced too with a militant and determined countervailing force – largely coming out of the Middle East – which many in our world view as nothing less than an attempt to throw us back into a new age of religious absolutism and deliberate global attrition. Again, historic antagonisms stare us in the face and it is far from certain that we can overcome this by the same force of reason and enlightenment that guided our history over the past centuries. But we also need to provide a satisfactory answer to the downsides of a rational world which leaves many people living in a spiritual void and encaged by extreme consumerism. We herald individualism and human liberties but they have not made us happier as human beings in our larger communities.



Thus, both from within and from outside, the ingredients of a substantive upheaval in our prevailing conventions seem abundant. But we can not say that we are truly standing at any historic doorstep. At no time this can be foreseen with any degree of certainty. History is written by hindsight. For that matter the next decades could well be an ongoing muddle, one way and the other, without a substantial breakthrough in any dimension.

Yet, breakthroughs are in great need. Clean, infinite energy; political resolutions, food for all… it can hardly be just a shortlist. If our younger generations do not wish for a revolution, then at least let them groom the leadership with a vision that can make this century the most memorable of all – preferably in the most positive light.

UNSPEAKABLE FUTURES

It is difficult to escape the notion that our in our present time we experience a new threshold of history. Much can go wrong, much can still go well. And many interests worldwide are at stake. Today’s financial muddle is just a symptom of a more profound and substantive historic agony. It extends beyond mere economic stagnation or ‘climate’. Our world – our planet – is on the verge of a burst. We have arrived at a stage where every inspiration, every ideology, every invention and – most specifically – every resource has reached its near exhaustion. In baffling speed we have broken down the traditional fabric of our communities to the point where either we secure the continuity of our advanced, high tech and interdependent global society or we fall back to the greatest disarray that humanity has ever experienced. In both scenarios we pay a considerable price.

Continuity implies great adjustment. This includes a sizeable investment in new technologies to sustain the level of material comfort to which we have become accustomed – and in which most people living today were born. Previous generations lived through adversities – both in material and in humanitarian terms – which we consider unthinkable. All we – should – know is that there is nothing romantic about a world falling into collapse, with everything that is bound to follow.

But a future of sustained welfare and ongoing advancement is far from certain. We truly have come the end of a history that is crying for another rebirth. Before we know it our world of privilege – particularly our Western World.- will find itself in the same position that some hundred years ago the elite of kings, emperors and their entourage found themselves in: abundant, ignorant of the true needs of their people, consuming wealth they did not really earn. At a global scale, we are now that elite, potentially oblivious of the needs of the rest of our world, its huge population, its dying wildlife and its barren fields. Are we going to defend our privileges at all cost, our access to the last remaining oil wells, the last gallons of fresh water, our last kilos of beef and tons of steel to just continue as we are?



I am not in the habit of being a doomsayer. It is merely a contemplation of possible futures that occupies me. My understanding of history – at every stage – in the past thousands of years is that it very much derives its character from discontinuity, manifold perils – not limited to the perils of war and conflict – which caused humanity to readjust, not necessarily for the better at every instant. It can be a gradual, creeping process that suddenly hits, or it is an unexpected great disaster. The Roman Empire took decades if not a hundred years to finally collapse, both from within and outside. The old European world of Kings and Emperors required one irreversible shot to trigger its demise, however much it was a world at its end anyway.




Hotspots of our present world

One could also look for examples in history where progress was achieved beyond prevailing paradigms without any cataclysm. Can societies arise above stagnation by the force of their own energies? Some civilizations did manage to do so, at least to some extent, but never without great sacrifices amongst themselves, such as the Chinese. But we can also think of the Renaissance of Europe, in the 14th and 15th centuries. Battlefields and disease did accompany it, but it was a substantive transition.

Paradigm shifts are called for, in many fields, whether or not technology will help us to overcome the emerging material scarcity. We should ask the question whether indeed we can allow the pressure to mount, populations to grow, resources to remain exploited in the way we do now. We actually know that we can not.

Among the futures that we face are those which we better do our utmost to escape. We are world filled talent and youth to achieve this. At the same time we tend to waste it and we allow our consumer habits to rule our interests as human beings living on a lonely but highly precious planet. We accommodate sizeable migrations, there seems very little choice, but we fail to invest sufficiently in blending newcomers into the rhythm of our societies.

Vulgarization, alienation and complacency may threaten us more – from within - than any present day conflict or natural crisis may do from outside. To sustain what we have and what we are is not enough. Stagnation means disintegration. Strong, forward looking ambitions should guide our world to a new horizon. It will demand every leadership and inventiveness available.





My sincere wish is that such leadership will also take us away from the antagonisms that plague our present world and articulate new, inspiring missions for humanity. Traditionally we look at the Western World – the US or Europe – to mobilize the critical mass to this end. But this another great question mark. It is not because such leadership may be absent, but because we have become too self-interested to understand its necessity.

The world in 2050 will be vastly different from the world we know. By reasonable reckoning I will not live to see it. I am nonetheless as much concerned about that world as anyone belonging to our younger generations. We have to be. Most of the decisions – and hopefully: breakthroughs – of the next couple of years will determine the parameters for the longer term. We either strike out the potential for disaster, or we will have to embrace it.

TOTAL FALL-OUT, OR NEW PROGRESS

The conundrum of a huge horse shit problem

Early 2001 I was in the mood to say to a young history student: “We will experience another Middle Ages!” I knew it was an exaggeration to utter such a prophecy but I did foresee turmoil and confusion before, not much later, it actually hit us. Things were going ways they couldn’t last, I felt. And bang! 9/11 happened and there was a subsequent burst of the economic bubble. It is not a delusion coming out of wisdom by hindsight.

Every since, the world has been too optimistic about the immediate future. A bubble had burst, the world adjusted to a point – but by far not enough, Afghanistan and Iraq were overrun by the Western world, many tens of billions of dollars are drained from the world economy and after a few years the bubble sizzles again, big time… and things as yet are getting worse. Still, we are led to believe that our leaders are on the right track.

The crisis that we experience now is going to be a long one, I am convinced of that; long and still more painful, not less, both for the stagnation in our economy and for reasons of world politics.

But does this all amount to such disintegration or disfigurement of our world that real times of darkness and strife lay ahead, a world – a western world in particular – going out of control? Anyone contemplating such prospect would find it both highly unlikely and plausible at the same time. On the one hand we are too sophisticated – in all dimensions – to let this happen. Whatever forces of disintegration may challenge us, our societies have too many vested interests to uphold their intricate structure, their governance (at all levels) and infrastructure, the organization of our markets and services and so on. But all of this at the same time is our great vulnerability. If only we think of a worldwide failure of the internet (however this may happen) or of the potential fall-out as a result of secondary consequences of Global Warming. None of it may be around the corner, but we can not rule them out. Increased interdependence at ever increasing scale in terms of systems, governance, markets and supplies inevitably offers us as many opportunities as it offers the potential of great peril.



Dali's pessimistic view of our world

At the same time we have severe unresolved conflicts in our world and the responses thus far have not brought us close to a sustainable resolution by any measure. The combination of age old regional strife, a long history of Western interventions, and protracted social and economic stagnation in the Arabic world is a major complication in our present time. We tend to reduce the antagonisms which plague the Arab world, including their considerable adverse spin-offs in our world, into simple – indeed, often medieval - terms of political and religious conflict. Our interest – more than ever – is in grasping its complexity, in many more than mere political (or religious) dimensions. 1)


A future of our world as we wish to see it

The underlying failure of the Western world is to come to terms with its own role, indeed in a long-winding history going back more than a century, in the creation of these antagonisms, with the impact of its current (largely military and political) involvement and with its true interests in the longer term. I am not suggesting that all of this is negative or driven by our own interests only. Nor am I suggesting any excuse or justification, for instance, for the violence caused by countries and people in the Arab world itself. Again, there is too much complexity to put it into terms of good versus bad. We do have interests of course, which can not merely be expressed in our desire to secure peace and security in the world, let alone our projection of freedom and democracy as the best recipe to affect these. One such interest is the continued exploitation of and access to the remaining oil resources.

But if it is true, as many contend, that the present state of affairs – and the daily draining of huge resources needed at least to not make it worse – is an exercise without end, then only some thorough rethinking on all sides will ever get us out of it. Mere pacifism and idealistic benevolence are insufficient and will prove just as ineffective as a protracted projection of military might and corporate muscle. But this is only self-evident. The key first of all is understanding, not any immediate solution or intervention.

But however this may be, the political climate to really rethink our concept of sustainable solutions for the multifaceted issues between the Western and the Arab world on our side is not helped, to say the least, by the images we hold (perhaps first of all of ourselves and) of Muslims, the Islam in general and of the general character of Arabs. Deep down many of us nourish the sense of their backwardness, cruelty, lack of imagination and their obstinate refusal to align with the modern age. When we see them, in increasing numbers, walking on our own streets, occupying our space, erecting Mosques and draining our social resources, and there is an outcry: stop the Islamization! A single sentence that summarizes the mind prison that we have allowed ourselves to be locked into. But it isn’t as if the armies of Iran or Egypt stand at our front door, the reality is quite the reverse. We call it upon ourselves if our medieval prejudices lead to the disintegration we profess to counter. Without sympathy we will never succeed.

Every time I think of the seemingly insoluble issues of our time – resources, population, economy, security, all up to and including the very sustainability of life on our Planet – I am reminded of the greatest issue facing the government of New York City by the end of the 19th century: the cumulating pile of horse manure, caused by increased traffic. It wasn’t solved, eventually, by effective “horse manure drainage provisions” or traffic policies of any kind. The issue simply disappeared from the agenda by the advent of the motorcar.


The true solutions of many issues are still hidden in the Chrystal Ball

Perhaps, in hundred years time, historians will look at our issues much in the same way. We struggled to win a lost cause, but were saved by one or the other innovation, a new perspective, perhaps a common enemy, or a combination of all. We can not foretell. But I am convinced that by merely wishing to solve the issues of the Middle East and related issues, we will not succeed. Intrinsically this would offer noting, no true perspective beyond the known horizons to the people involved.

All of this seems to point at magic as the single force that can save our world. Indeed, how Medieval can one become? To a certain extent, we have no alternative, at least if we are to sustain our material prosperity. Some breakthrough in the search for new, durable energy capable of lighting and moving the masses, is obviously required. But in a time when Facebook has decided to run its servers in part on coal, this prospect should for be projected at considerable distance in the future.

In the mean time, it is better not merely wait for the magic. What counts is not when solutions are found, it is the commitment and (self-) confidence that we need to get there. Otherwise indeed the slope downwards will be one without end.

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(1) I find myself greatly inspired, for instance, by Robert Fisk, Arabist and celebrated journalist of “The Independent” and author of a number of books on the history, nature and underlying complexities of the present-day conflicts in the Middle-East. In one sentence he describes the insoluble reality of the US presence in Iraq: “America should leave Iraq, it will leave Iraq, but it can’t leave Iraq”.