Signs of a major shift in the world order are everywhere – from protracted wars and tested alliances, to an America increasingly withdrawing from its traditional role as a global guarantor. A commentary published by The New York Times warns that the world is entering a new era of disorder, comparable to major historical upheavals, and that refusal to recognize the signs risks catching us unprepared.
When a storm approaches, the signs are always there. The wind suddenly stops. The tide recedes more than usual. Streaks of clouds cross the sky.
These signs can be misread or even ignored – we can convince ourselves that the first drops of rain are just a passing shower – until it’s too late. Then the real problems arise.
What is true for the weather is also true for the world. Regimes seem strong – until they are not. Internal revolutions and upheavals of the international order, which often go hand in hand, are easy to identify retrospectively, but are rarely anticipated. And yet, looking more closely, the signs were, most of the time, there.
Those of us living in relatively stable and well-organized societies would like to believe, akin to Voltaire’s absurd Dr. Pangloss, who moves from one disaster to another, that “everything is for the best”. We can grumble about the economy or the prospect of a distant war, or we can listen sympathetically to radical voices from both ends of the political spectrum, but we do not expect our world to be turned upside down, writes Margaret MacMillan, a Canadian historian and emeritus professor at the University of Oxford, in The New York Times. She is the former principal of Trinity College in Toronto and a professor of history at the University of Toronto and previously at Ryerson University.
The signs are everywhere
It would be wiser to heed the warning of another French writer. In Albert Camus’s post-war novel, “The Plague”, when dead rats appear on the streets of the Algerian city of Oran and people begin to fall ill from a mysterious disease, local authorities and most citizens ignore the signs, until it is too late. “There have been as many plagues as wars in history”, says Camus’s narrator, “and yet plagues and wars always take people by surprise”.
Today, writes Margaret MacMillan, dead rats are everywhere around us. Temperature records were set and then shattered again this summer, the earth was baked under drought, and wildfires wreaked havoc. The debts of advanced economies are approaching historical levels. Reductions in medical and food aid, particularly those carried out by the United States, have caused avoidable deaths and contributed to the spread of diseases, one of which could become, sooner or later, a new pandemic. Artificial intelligence continues to develop rapidly and unregulated, threatening jobs, security and, in the darkest scenarios, even human existence.
Details, HERE
