Reasons for Optimism

 

Great plagues follow the sound of the trumpet.

As civilization itself seems to crash and burn all around us, I look for hopeful signs.

1. As recently as thirty years ago, things looked much better. The Soviet Bloc dissolved; the personal computer had begun its revolution, starting in garages. This was sudden and unforeseen; especially after the dispirited Seventies. People spoke of “the end of history”; the bad guys had lost. Perhaps something like this could happen again, and in any given year.

2. The early or eventual dominance of the Chinese Communists seems to me far from inevitable. Their very actions suggest they feel themselves extremely vulnerable. It seems likely their economy is largely a Potemkin village.

3. With the fall of Afghanistan, there is naturally concern that Islamist terror will return with a vengeance. I think much of that Islamist terror was funded by oil revenues. With the decline in oil revenues in the Middle East, I suspect that may not be the case.

4. Energy from oil is becoming cheaper. We may also be on the cusp of producing cheap and clean power from nuclear fusion. Should that happen, it could be a boost to the world economy comparable to the computer revolution. No more worrying about climate change, no more worrying about running out of oil, energy almost free.

5. We may also be on the cusp of a revolution in medicine. Accelerated by the COVID crisis, we may soon have vaccines for viral diseases of all kinds—including HIV, the common cold, and cancer. With the recent breakthroughs in genetic sequencing, we may be close to a cure for genetic diseases, and even for old age. This could reverse our fears of demographic decline.

6. The incompetence and aggression we see in the clerisy just now may mean the opposite of what it appears to. It may be a result of that computer revolution. It has removed their justification and revealed their relative incompetence and mendacity, like Toto pulling the curtain on the Wizard of Oz. So they are acting out of desperation, even out of hysteria. The long-term trend may therefore be the opposite of the short-term trend: towards greater democracy and individual autonomy. This seems the inevitable logic of any greater and less restricted flow of information, and this is what the new ICT provides. Just as the invention of printing led to challenges and the ultimate decline of “priestcraft” and hereditary ruling classes in its day.

7. Christianity is vital and spreading in Africa. There are signs that, if and when the government lid comes off, it could spread rapidly in China. We could be looking at a world Christian revival. If America and Europe have lost vitality, China and Africa may be ready to take over—not as barbarian powers, like Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia, but as new centres of world civilization as we have known it.

8. Islamism may burn itself out, if it has not already. Leave aside the issue of funding from oil. Islamism looks a lot like a nativist movement formed in reaction to culture shock from growing global interaction. I note that the actual bombers are almost always Westernized, middle class, and Western-educated. We saw a similar phenomenon in Nazi Germany, reacting against foreigners, foreign elements, and “cosmopolitanism.” Perhaps too in China under Mao, or Russia under Stalin. If so, history suggests this lasts for a generation or so, then subsides as the new influences become assimilated and the alienated culture joins the emerging world culture.

9. The US is obviously in dire need of a religious revival, a recommitment to its cultural underpinnings. But it has historically gone through such periodic revivals. If this is some built-in feature of American culture, we are overdue for another one. That might blow America back onto an even keel. 

10. Multiple considerations seem to be converging on the creation of a CANZUK trade area and alliance. While the actual cultures of the CANZUK nations are in the chaos of postmodernism and self-doubt, this reconstituted Commonwealth at least brings one thing back to where it rationally ought to be, and where it was before Europe began to decline in the nineteen-teens.  Britain used to be a bastion of common sense, against the rationalist excesses of the Continent and the mass enthusiasms of America. The new union might restore the self-confidence needed to draw apart from the European and, currently, American cultural suicide. There can be new life in old empires. The ancient Hellenic world yielded to Rome, then revived as the Byzantine Empire, and carried the torch of civilization for another thousand years.

11. The papacy has failed us; but the pope is old, and has been ill. People worry that, since he has been able to choose the electors, the next papacy is likely to be as bad. But by that logic, how did we get Francis? John Paul II and Benedict must have chosen all the electors, yet Francis’s approach is very unlike theirs. Received wisdom has it that the cardinals choose the next pope in reaction to perceived flaws in the previous papacy. That argues that the net pope may be different from Francis.

12. It is at least possible that, in rapid succession over the next few weeks, Gavin Newsom will be replaced by Larry Elder, and Trudeau by Erin O’Toole. We may be talking soon of a gathering right-wing tide. Once a tide turns, it continues to rise.

And hey, if the world really is coming to an end, that's good news for the good guys, isn't it? There are worse things than the New Jerusalem, and heaven on earth.