You speak of the cycles of world order history as Neil Howe (Fourth Turning) and Peter Turchin (cliodynamics) and Ray Dalio do. That societies have seasons rooted in generational responses. Every 80-100 years defines a cycle - much like bananas. Green, yellow, spotted, brown. It is natural ripening and rot that no amount of social engineering can undo as it is rooted in evolutionary human nature.
So, like the 1930s and 1850s and 1770s - we stand on the brink of collapse. We face a test of the old order perishing (but not going gently into that still night) and the clamor for a new world order. With new rules and governance and tools and institutions appropriate for the modern era. This is a natural cycle. Every bit as much as a forest fire terrifies all the creatures who live there (and kills many), but is absolutely necessary to burn away the overgrowth that keeps sunlight and nutrients from keeping the forest itself alive for generations. In short, this collapse cycle is on time, natural, and this is HOW it happens. Violently. Painfully.
What’s more fascinating to me: what comes next?
In past turnings - collapses - we n the democratic west could turn back to democracy and see if it was still the best way forward. Till now, it has been. We’ve recommitted to it after the Revolutionary War. After the Civil War. And after WW2.
But now? Can democracy REALLY be counted on to answer the bell for western nations in an era of digital immersion, social media atomization, the erasure of borders and boundaries, the global networking effect, and (soon) alien intelligence ruling from The Sky as artificial super intelligence?
I fear both this natural cycle collapse (winter), but that we’ll no longer have a democracy to turn to once we’ve exhausted the war. Just as humanity revoked monarchies and theocracies and papal Roman rule in medieval Europe - I believe democracy too is on its last legs. The revered steam train that will be relegated to the museum of human achievements in a bygone era. But no longer useful in a world of passenger cars, drones, jets and spaceships. Humanity is entering a fascinating era.
I like Strauss and Howe a lot and think people took them less seriously than they should simply because they didn't come out of the usual academic background. Fourth Turning on their generation cycle theory gets a lot of things right, although I do find it a little too rigid and mechanical. But there is something important they spotted that isn't taken enough into account.
My own background is more based in political realignments and realignment theory, which overlaps a lot.
Curious if you think democracy, as an organizing governance structure, is still suitable in today’s hyper connected online world.
I submit it is eroding beneath our feet (as tech networks act as a social solvent, not a unifier) and can not withstand the onslaught of AI and “right for me everything”.
I submit this is as vast and more powerful than the printing press in Europe spreading the Reformation.
And just like mankind never returned to a papal theocracy post-printing press - I think we can’t return to democracy once this turning collapse crisis is over.
I do. I'm of the Churchillian view that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the other systems that have been tried. The most important task of government isn't making good things happen, but stopping stupid things from happening. Good things are never as good as you think they're going to be, while bad ideas are always more destructive. This is what democracy is best at, checking idiocy while imposing accountability on people trying to change things without thinking them through. This is why it has so far worked. I don't know of any other system I've seen or heard that doesn't run into the problem of human nature mixed with power blundering catastrophically and blowing everything up.
I think what I’m exploring here is the possibility that modern man, immersed in modern tech, can not be served by this once useful organizing structure. Any more than modern man travels via horseback, covered wagon, or steam train - all splendid and state-of-the-art in their day.
I’m toying with the possibility (not fact) that modern man + modern tech = an online mega-sphere that erases physical borders, patriotism, common kinship that are requisite for democracy to work.
I’m making the case that technology - the printing press, moving pictures, social media, AI - fundamentally transform the human race by mass spreading ideas at the speed of light and rewiring our brains (as “the medium IS the message”).
I’m proposing this possibility to you as a specialist in political realignment. As someone who understands how innovations obsolete old things. As surely as carriages were replaced by automobiles and gas lamps by electric bulbs - so too have monarchies given way to republics and democracies. It is not the End of History - as Fukuyama once thought.
Excellent piece. Very thoughtful. Thank you.
You speak of the cycles of world order history as Neil Howe (Fourth Turning) and Peter Turchin (cliodynamics) and Ray Dalio do. That societies have seasons rooted in generational responses. Every 80-100 years defines a cycle - much like bananas. Green, yellow, spotted, brown. It is natural ripening and rot that no amount of social engineering can undo as it is rooted in evolutionary human nature.
So, like the 1930s and 1850s and 1770s - we stand on the brink of collapse. We face a test of the old order perishing (but not going gently into that still night) and the clamor for a new world order. With new rules and governance and tools and institutions appropriate for the modern era. This is a natural cycle. Every bit as much as a forest fire terrifies all the creatures who live there (and kills many), but is absolutely necessary to burn away the overgrowth that keeps sunlight and nutrients from keeping the forest itself alive for generations. In short, this collapse cycle is on time, natural, and this is HOW it happens. Violently. Painfully.
What’s more fascinating to me: what comes next?
In past turnings - collapses - we n the democratic west could turn back to democracy and see if it was still the best way forward. Till now, it has been. We’ve recommitted to it after the Revolutionary War. After the Civil War. And after WW2.
But now? Can democracy REALLY be counted on to answer the bell for western nations in an era of digital immersion, social media atomization, the erasure of borders and boundaries, the global networking effect, and (soon) alien intelligence ruling from The Sky as artificial super intelligence?
I fear both this natural cycle collapse (winter), but that we’ll no longer have a democracy to turn to once we’ve exhausted the war. Just as humanity revoked monarchies and theocracies and papal Roman rule in medieval Europe - I believe democracy too is on its last legs. The revered steam train that will be relegated to the museum of human achievements in a bygone era. But no longer useful in a world of passenger cars, drones, jets and spaceships. Humanity is entering a fascinating era.
I like Strauss and Howe a lot and think people took them less seriously than they should simply because they didn't come out of the usual academic background. Fourth Turning on their generation cycle theory gets a lot of things right, although I do find it a little too rigid and mechanical. But there is something important they spotted that isn't taken enough into account.
My own background is more based in political realignments and realignment theory, which overlaps a lot.
Curious if you think democracy, as an organizing governance structure, is still suitable in today’s hyper connected online world.
I submit it is eroding beneath our feet (as tech networks act as a social solvent, not a unifier) and can not withstand the onslaught of AI and “right for me everything”.
I submit this is as vast and more powerful than the printing press in Europe spreading the Reformation.
And just like mankind never returned to a papal theocracy post-printing press - I think we can’t return to democracy once this turning collapse crisis is over.
Thoughts?
I do. I'm of the Churchillian view that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the other systems that have been tried. The most important task of government isn't making good things happen, but stopping stupid things from happening. Good things are never as good as you think they're going to be, while bad ideas are always more destructive. This is what democracy is best at, checking idiocy while imposing accountability on people trying to change things without thinking them through. This is why it has so far worked. I don't know of any other system I've seen or heard that doesn't run into the problem of human nature mixed with power blundering catastrophically and blowing everything up.
Yes, I like Chirchill’s quote too.
I think what I’m exploring here is the possibility that modern man, immersed in modern tech, can not be served by this once useful organizing structure. Any more than modern man travels via horseback, covered wagon, or steam train - all splendid and state-of-the-art in their day.
I’m toying with the possibility (not fact) that modern man + modern tech = an online mega-sphere that erases physical borders, patriotism, common kinship that are requisite for democracy to work.
I’m making the case that technology - the printing press, moving pictures, social media, AI - fundamentally transform the human race by mass spreading ideas at the speed of light and rewiring our brains (as “the medium IS the message”).
I’m proposing this possibility to you as a specialist in political realignment. As someone who understands how innovations obsolete old things. As surely as carriages were replaced by automobiles and gas lamps by electric bulbs - so too have monarchies given way to republics and democracies. It is not the End of History - as Fukuyama once thought.
So, if true, what next?