Amending “The World in 2124”

… Am I Still Optimistic?

Last April, I wrote a Warp & Woof piece entitled: The World in 2124 … I’m Cautiously Optimistic. Much has happened in the world since then. Has the optimism of my “medium-term” prediction for the next 100 years diminished? The main events, from a historical perspective, that transpired in subsequent months are a series of elections in several developed countries. Not least, of course, here in the U.S. this November.

Mainstream analysis of the meaning of those elections has focused on an overarching desire to “throw the bums out.” It’s been bad for incumbent parties the world over. Is there something bigger behind this restlessness in the world’s democracies? Enough has been written now, in search of explanations, that I thought it worthwhile to offer my two cents’ worth. (Especially since Medium, where I publish most of my Warp & Woof posts, has apparently weighted its algorithm so that the original April piece is far-and-away the most viewed, most read, of anything I’ve put up on Medium!)

My POV as wannabe amateur social historian tends to favor a “thermostatic” view of short-term political history, things like elections. The mean, over the medium-term (say 100 years), always seeks the center. This is frustrating for would-be revolutionaries of all stripes; nevertheless, we persist. That view was the crux of my optimistic medium-term forecast last April. It has not changed.

So, what about that spate of disruptive elections around the world in 2024? Not just our own, but the Tory drubbing in the U.K., shaky results in South Africa, South Korea, Japan, and an uncertain future for the incumbents in the 2025 elections in Canada (Liberals) and Germany (SPD)? What do they portend for the next 100 years, if anything?

Let’s look at my four specific predictions from The World in 2124:

Prediction #1: World Still Recognizable in 2124 – Sure, our civilization will still feature the built structures of the last many centuries of development, but I now can see the outline of a transition away from “classical liberalism” of the last two or three centuries. One interpretation of the anti-incumbent trends worldwide this past year (notably Donald Trump’s MAGA movement) is that some of the shibboleths of liberalism are crumbling. I believe that there may be a thermostatic reaction underway against some shallower manifestations of liberalism that characterized the 20^th century (call it progressivism, the New Deal as bulwark against Communism, or that horrible trope of 2024, “wokeness”). But none of that reaction will ultimately detract from the underlying principles of John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau … or even Thomas Hobbes and Karl Marx. Human dignity and community will continue to be the primary driving forces behind social order – never oppression! Let those privileged victims of “cancel culture” whine all they want about restrictions on their freedom of expression, but ultimately rationality will prevail, and the world will see the absurdity of their complaints.

Prediction #2: Science and Technology – Nothing has happened this year to cause me to doubt the importance of continued emphasis on scientific research, or the promise of technology (including AI). There is a tendency among populist politicians (like Trump) to disparage the socially elite status of the academic (and scientific) community. This is merely a populist political ploy – those without an education often resent those that have it, haves vs. have-nots – and the obvious solution is to reduce inequality between the two groups by subsidizing higher education and reducing the disparity in income between workers and “bosses.” This is the basis of class conflict, at least in the U.S. Again, as with Prediction #1, rationality will prevail and the solutions to most of our social problems will continue to be seen as dependent, at least in part, on developments in science and technology.

Prediction #3: Religion – Does anybody think that wars of religion are more likely now than last year? I don’t see it. As I wrote in April, sectarianism will continue into the next century and beyond, but the only real threat to the common worldview that all major religions increasingly share is the danger of one organized religion “othering” different religious traditions as somehow representing an “enemy.” I see no signs of such a tendency increasing over the past year. ISIS is virtually dead (exiled to Africa), and the more militant Evangelicals in this country are clearly fighting a defensive war against their declining membership. Indeed, there are bureaucratic power struggles within certain hierarchical religious bodies (American Conference of Catholic Bishops, some Anglicans, and the famous SBC struggles) and some commentators have alluded to a continuing tension between sects in Islam, but these seem to be largely ethnic (the Islamic world is very diverse!). I see no reason to modify my prediction for the next century that any conflicts between sects, between larger religious groupings, or between secularism and religiosity, are on track to decline rather than intensify. While asserting this, however, I do see a somewhat more organized effort to valorize “traditional values” versus the presumably rootless secularization (or commercialization) of modern life. This often leads, over the short term politically, to a cultural conservatism which politicians can easily exploit. This is where reproductive rights are in the U.S. Vladimir Putin and Victor Orban have been trying to massage those same tendencies in Europe. Will this conflict persist for 100 years? Not likely.

Prediction #4: Geopolitics – Here, it seems that the role of the United States is likely to persist for perhaps another 100 years. I can only hope that my prediction of a multi-polar world may still be accurate due to, among other trends, a boom in China – our principal competitor, key to the birthing of secondary powers. If China continues to have difficulties in the next century, vis-à-vis the U.S. and those aspiring mid-range economies, the future for my medium-term geopolitical prediction may be less favorable. As I see it, growth of the world economy, tied to capitalism as it is, will be the main factor in bringing about any multi-polar realignment. If the U.S. and China continue to stifle worldwide development through their continued market domination the world will be poorer in 100 years. Climate factors are, of course, continuing to exert many external pressures over the entire globe. All rich countries will see far more climate migration in 2124 than they see now. If the world’s industrial base (especially U.S. and China, maybe India) devotes significantly more resources to fossil fuel production and growth, that climate pressure will increase even more. I will concede, at this point, that my most serious doubts about my optimistic posture in April orbit that climate crisis. I’m hoping for some thermostatic mechanism to capture politics over the next several years (much less decades), avoiding the worst outcomes. This is the most frightening aspect right now of Trump’s coming term in the U.S. We are altogether too important to the world economy to settle for his defeatist position regarding climate matters. Right now, it looks like we need to root for China’s revival – given their correct, rational, assessment of climate imperatives compared to the U.S.

My assumptions regarding all four of April’s predictions are that the thermostatic nature of history is valid, and our current short-term difficulties will be ameliorated over the medium term. It is because of my belief in that thermostatic mechanism that I can still say, yes, I am cautiously optimistic about the next 100 years. Just a bit more cautious now …

— William Sundwick