Peggy Noonan has written a very provocative piece entitled “The Old New York Won’t Come Back”, in which she contemplates the very realistic notion that, after one year, the pandemic has shaped a fundamental transformation of what we can consider “normal”. And I don’t mean anything like the flippancy of the term “new normal”; I mean, and I think she means major change in how we perceive what has really happened to us. As she says, “we keep saying the pandemic changed everything, but I’m not sure we understand the words we’re saying.” She believes that it will be decades before we fully appreciate what the pandemic did to us.
And by “us”, she is referencing New York, but I would suggest that we could pretty much substitute America for New York and be safely in bounds–the old country won’t come back. I’m a “war baby” of the generation born during World War II, and for all of my life, and that of the succeeding “boomers” as well, the point of reference for trends in American culture, economics, religion, business, education, technology, entertainment, foreign affairs, and way of life has been “postwar”, meaning since World War II. But the times are hyper-transformational, and it is possible that we will be shifting from this point of reference to “post pandemic”.
Noonan says we can’t stay fixed in the Before Times, we’re in the After Times, and I agree we won’t fully know what that means for maybe 20 years, but we can’t wait to adjust. She thinks that times like these will require more artists who see the broad shapes of things, not an analyst who sees only data points. I think of Alvin Toffler’s The Third Wave, the most strategic book I have ever read. The first wave was launched by the agricultural revolution, the second by the industrial revolution, and the third by the information revolution. Are we ready for the fourth? There will be mistakes in vision, but never have we needed visionaries more than now. Henry Kissinger once said that great leadership means taking people from where they are to where they have never been. We’ll need plenty of those kinds of leaders and we will also need to maintain our grounding in, and even double down on, our country’s founding principles.
A tall order given the constant assault on the founding principles by the left and their fawning media friends.
We blew the chance to swing the pendulum back toward the middle in 2020. Is it possible that Biden and his band of diverse and merry men and women will give foundational thinking people a chance in 2022 and 2024 to right the ship? I hope so for our country’s sake!
Odds are against. See HR 1, licensed massive vote fraud.
My biggest concern for a fourth wave is coming from the Far East- namely China. This is a country with clear and defined plans to change the world and do it quickly. A country of genocide, organ harvesting, world wide pandemic killing millions, the destruction of democracy and jailing protestors in Hong Kong and, I believe, an imminent invasion of Taiwan. And through it all China is currently reaping the financial rewards of disruption and chaos, which they created. Having worked in China for 30 years my fears are grounded on personal experience and observation.
You are on point here, Larry, and although Alvin Toffler if he was still with us would admit that he doesn’t know how the fourth wave will develop, he would certainly agree that China will have a big role in shaping it. The question is whether or not we are up to the challenge to adequately defend our worldview vs. that of the Chinese Communist Party. The stakes are obvious.
I agree with you, Larry. And if China invades Taiwan, Biden will just mumble and pull up his mask.
I am of Jim’s age, and surely do not plan on living much longer. So pre-emptively nuking China does not generate fear, and offers our best hope for the future. Pre-emption rather than 2nd strike is called for. We will have less to rebuild.
The Democrats should in honesty rename themselves the Socialist-Communist Party. Their mission is to make the US an economic colony of China: we sent $, they send necessaries like our meds (as long as they feel like it!).
Who makes fentanyl, killer of thousands of Americans yearly? Why, the Chinese, who could shut down production in a heartbeat if they chose.
We are certainly seeing increasing needs for world policies with enough teeth to work. Like trade policies, disease prevention and control, environmental policies, immigration policies, use of commons like the oceans and environment, etc., cyber security, peace, and the list goes on.
Jim – You might be right about a trend toward more globalism, but I still believe the nation-state is the right model, with an effective forum comprised of members that honor the consent of the governed.