It's been more-or-less accepted for nearly a decade now, since 9/11 at least, that history has not in fact ended. It was fashionable after the end of the Cold War to proclaim "the death of history," the United States was so unchallenged for global supremacy, and such a seemingly-benevolent force at that, that they had to craft new words to describe it ("Omnipower" and so on). And then, of course, that system came crashing down with the World Trade Center and things have gotten bleaker ever since.Doubtless it's true that Romans thought that Rome would be around forever, and Victorian Britons thought sure that the Sun would never set on the British Empire. Indeed, peoples in far less influential and more vulnerable nations that Imperial Rome or Britain have no doubt been sure that things were always going to be just like they are forever. No one ever foresees the archaeologist that digs up their house.
I imagine though that Americans are probably more susceptible to thinking we'll always be around than most of our hegemonic forebears. After all, for all the talk of "relative decline" (and I don't think most people really even know what that means) we don't have the sort of empire to lose that Rome or Britain (or even the Belgians) did. Sure, we have a lot of little bases all over, and those could (and probably will) go away, but we have no major imperial possessions to lose. Even in Iraq, where we could have done a cracking-good impression of the Colonial British (lots of gooey, delicious crude to send home, you know), we were hoping to be greeted with flowers, destroy the Dubya-Em-Dees, plant the seeds of democracy and come home to a Grand Review down Pennsylvania Avenue. So it's hard for Americans to think we could be anything other than vital. At the very least, we'll always be a continent-sized nation state with a huge and comparatively-very-wealthy population.
For my part, I've been quite fascinated lately with the idea, which seems self-evident I admit, that 500 years from now nothing will be the same. Despite all the dire talk about catastrophic climate change, I'm very sure humans will be around in 2510. Of course, I'm not suggesting that climate change or any other number of factors won't cramp our style considerably, but we'll be here. Will there be 50 billion people on Earth, or 250 million? Will we have colonized Alpha Centauri or will we be living in yurts on whatever landmass is above water? No idea. But someone will be around.
At the very least, it's quite interesting to think about the future this way: 500 years is considerably farther in the future than it sounds. Consider, the United States is only 234 years old! We're not even halfway there! And if you think about what was going on 500 years ago, well, Henry VIII was 18 and just a year into his first marriage. Shakespeare wouldn't be born for 54 years. 500 years is a very long time.
My personal sense, and things may turn a bit dark here, is that we will have some sort of societal cataclysm between now and 2500. If you look at human history from a macro perspective, it's a long string of "two steps forward, one step back," and we really are severely overdue for a step back. The argument could be made, very soundly I think, that human development in the broadest sense has not had a "step back" since Rome collapsed. That was the last one. And that was 1,500 years ago. It might be a bit hard to accept this assertion since we've fought the most brutal and destructive wars in human history since then, but remember when Rome fell it didn't leave behind any old dark age, it left The Dark Ages and they lasted for 500 years. At least. Indeed, depending on how your look at it, Europe may not have been back to parity with Roman standards-of-living for a thousand years or more. Compared to that, human development-wise, the World Wars of the first half of the 20th Century don't seem quite so bad.
I, as many do, see the world's geopolitical landscape shifting towards a broad showdown between small-l liberalism and authoritarianism. In both cases, visions within these two camps of what form exactly liberalism and authoritarianism ought to take differ. What they are not, though, is ideologically-driven, per se. The US, for instance, is over "spreading democracy," and I don't think India cares a bit how Pakistan or China run themselves so long as they don't get any big ideas about driving on New Delhi. Likewise, China and Russia couldn't care less that the US and Europe have elections so long as they keep buying their cheap consumer goods or fossil fuels, respectively. Additionally, the widely-held understanding that another world war, even if fought conventionally, would be so brutal, so destructive, so fast and, consequently, so bad for business (no time to build new aircraft carriers and tanks, alas!) is probably the best insurance policy we have against just such a conflict.
What frightens me most, though, is that all the energy in the new mega-bipolar world, at least right now, rests with the authoritarians. While China and Russia grow relentlessly (and do so, it seems, with relatively-content populations) and while the Islamic world pulses with latent religious energy, the liberal societies atrophy. We don't seem terribly excited about our elections or the "rights of man" or any of that stuff anymore. We look upon the authoritarians with a bit of envy, really. They seem to know what they're doing.
And into this recipe for heartbreak, let's toss in a dash of technology. Consider, right now, today, if a government were determined to do so it could probably surveil its entire population more effectively than anything Orwell could have dreamed of. At least Winston Smith could find a part of his living room where the telescreen couldn't see him.
I know that I sound progressively-more paranoid. I don't really mean to. I don't think there will be a Third World War, and I rather doubt that governments will find it necessary to keep everyone under constant surveillance (beyond automatically fining your bank account when you speed in your car). But there will be conflict. Energy, in particular, will become more scarce than we can today imagine. Even other necessities like water and food could become flashpoints as Earth's population grows, at least in localized areas. And of course, we can't forget climate change. What the fallout from that will be we really don't, can't, know.
All I know right now is that the next 500 years are going to be momentous one way or another. Unless we wind up with three perpetually-at-war, paranoid superstates watching our every move. That would suck.
My personal sense, and things may turn a bit dark here, is that we will have some sort of societal cataclysm between now and 2500. If you look at human history from a macro perspective, it's a long string of "two steps forward, one step back," and we really are severely overdue for a step back. The argument could be made, very soundly I think, that human development in the broadest sense has not had a "step back" since Rome collapsed. That was the last one. And that was 1,500 years ago. It might be a bit hard to accept this assertion since we've fought the most brutal and destructive wars in human history since then, but remember when Rome fell it didn't leave behind any old dark age, it left The Dark Ages and they lasted for 500 years. At least. Indeed, depending on how your look at it, Europe may not have been back to parity with Roman standards-of-living for a thousand years or more. Compared to that, human development-wise, the World Wars of the first half of the 20th Century don't seem quite so bad.
I, as many do, see the world's geopolitical landscape shifting towards a broad showdown between small-l liberalism and authoritarianism. In both cases, visions within these two camps of what form exactly liberalism and authoritarianism ought to take differ. What they are not, though, is ideologically-driven, per se. The US, for instance, is over "spreading democracy," and I don't think India cares a bit how Pakistan or China run themselves so long as they don't get any big ideas about driving on New Delhi. Likewise, China and Russia couldn't care less that the US and Europe have elections so long as they keep buying their cheap consumer goods or fossil fuels, respectively. Additionally, the widely-held understanding that another world war, even if fought conventionally, would be so brutal, so destructive, so fast and, consequently, so bad for business (no time to build new aircraft carriers and tanks, alas!) is probably the best insurance policy we have against just such a conflict.
What frightens me most, though, is that all the energy in the new mega-bipolar world, at least right now, rests with the authoritarians. While China and Russia grow relentlessly (and do so, it seems, with relatively-content populations) and while the Islamic world pulses with latent religious energy, the liberal societies atrophy. We don't seem terribly excited about our elections or the "rights of man" or any of that stuff anymore. We look upon the authoritarians with a bit of envy, really. They seem to know what they're doing.
And into this recipe for heartbreak, let's toss in a dash of technology. Consider, right now, today, if a government were determined to do so it could probably surveil its entire population more effectively than anything Orwell could have dreamed of. At least Winston Smith could find a part of his living room where the telescreen couldn't see him.
I know that I sound progressively-more paranoid. I don't really mean to. I don't think there will be a Third World War, and I rather doubt that governments will find it necessary to keep everyone under constant surveillance (beyond automatically fining your bank account when you speed in your car). But there will be conflict. Energy, in particular, will become more scarce than we can today imagine. Even other necessities like water and food could become flashpoints as Earth's population grows, at least in localized areas. And of course, we can't forget climate change. What the fallout from that will be we really don't, can't, know.
All I know right now is that the next 500 years are going to be momentous one way or another. Unless we wind up with three perpetually-at-war, paranoid superstates watching our every move. That would suck.
I expect to see more change in the next 50 years than the last 500. As for the next? Well, thanks to those next 50, I intend to have a firsthand account.
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