Trump’s dangerous rhetoric during his campaign has many of us fearing the worst for our freedom. Are we at the beginning of a destructive phase in the cycle of history? How can we tell, and how can we fight it?
A Facebook friend linked me an article on medium.com written by Tobias Stone, an anthropologist and historian, back in July. Here’s the main thrust of his argument:
It seems we’re entering another of those stupid seasons humans impose on themselves at fairly regular intervals. … It happens again and again, but as most people only have a 50–100 year historical perspective they don’t see that it’s happening again. As the events that led to the First World War unfolded, there were a few brilliant minds who started to warn that something big was wrong, that the web of treaties across Europe could lead to a war, but they were dismissed as hysterical, mad, or fools, as is always the way, and as people who worry about Putin, Brexit, and Trump are dismissed now.
Go read Stone’s article to see the details he raises. His perspective as an academic is practiced and well-informed, but this piece is an opinion and is not heavily researched. What I find most valuable here is the structure of his argument and the way he lays out the trends he sees. Follow me below as I dig in and attempt to find good questions for going forward.
As someone with a science education who likes to think in terms of characteristic time scales, I appreciate how he lays out the time scale of most people’s understanding.
My theory is that most peoples’ perspective of history is limited to the experience communicated by their parents and grandparents, so 50–100 years. To go beyond that you have to read, study, and learn to untangle the propaganda that is inevitable in all telling of history.
This helps to explain why our self-destructive tendencies are released in cycles. After a few generations pass, the cultural memory of disaster dims, and we become vulnerable to repeating those mistakes. Stone also gives reasons why we tend to miss the signs of this happening.
But as with before, most people cannot see it because:
1. They are only looking at the present, not the past or future
2. They are only looking immediately around them, not at how events connect globally
3. Most people don’t read, think, challenge, or hear opposing views
He goes on to describe how Trump fits the mold of a narcissistic leader, and lays out scenarios where the world after Brexit and Trump sparks a war.
The possibilities here are alarming, but Stone pushes back against the notion that this view is merely alarmism. There is a definite pattern in history that he sees us beginning to repeat. Because it is a pattern, I think we should pull back and realize: This is not about Trump.
Trump may be a catalyst, the pebble that falls to start an avalanche. Trump may be an opportunist, seeking to profit from the pent-up energy of people who feel slighted by the existing system. The instability he is unleashing or exploiting was there to begin with, though, and has precious little to do with him. If Stone is right, we are seeing an emergent behavior of our human systems running out of anyone's control.
This is important, because we progressives have had a tendency to focus on Trump himself and on his bad behavior. While it may be the case that Trump is responsible for unleashing these forces at this particular moment, they have been building for a while, and were it not for Donald himself, someone else would have likely had a similar effect. If we are to overcome the challenges of the rising radical right, we must understand the part of our humanity that it is feeding off of, and we need to work on systemic solutions, not just simple opposition to Trump's outrage of the day.
What is the problem? My takeaway from reading Stone's piece is disconnection. A large subset of our population is disconnected from the past, because they rely primarily on personal and family relationships to understand the world, and those only reach so far. They are disconnected from people who are different from them, because they don't leave their part of America enough and they don't purposefully challenge themselves to read up on opposing viewpoints. They are disconnected from the future, in part because they reject scientific understanding. Each of these connections has some potential to hold in check the raw emotional appeal of a demagogue. Without them, people are focused on the present and on people like them, as Stone posits. Groups of them react emotionally to changes in the world en masse, and they attack what they don’t like without thought to the damage it causes.
What is there to be done about this? I am no expert, but here are some ideas partly inspired by my reading about systems analysis:
- Alter the existing system by strengthening or adding flows of information.
- Promote and invest in education.
- Build relationships with Trump supporters without compromising our values, so they can be exposed to those values.
- Invest in rural communities, so that the people living there have more opportunities to go other places and learn new things, as well as less anxiety for the future.
- Create a robust alternate system to counter the failing or hostile system on multiple fronts in a sustained way.
- Reinforce norms of inclusion with actual rules and consequences in the institutions we can influence.
- Invest and participate in progressive, inclusive communities that share our values and can help us defend ourselves and organize.
There is no easy way out of this. If Stone is right, we may now be standing in the riptide that comes before a big crashing wave of chaos. That is no excuse to let up on fighting for what is important to us. He also points out that, although individuals inevitably suffer, humans are resilient, and humanity as a whole always survives. “The human race will be fine, changed, maybe better.” The forces seeking to destroy our progress may take a long time to unravel, but we must take the longer view, and look for ways to preserve our values for the generations that will live on the other side.