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Back To The Future Or Forward To The Past?
Thucydides and déjà vu
Human civilization is now going backward.
It’s official.
According to the Human Development Index recently published by the UNDP (United Nations Development Report), the Covid-19 pandemic has reversed human development in almost every country for the past two years. And it continues to do so.
The report refers to this as the “uncertainty complex” made up of three interacting strands: “insecurity, polarisation, and demagoguery.”
They state that these are “ominous new forms” and that this triple whammy that creates uncertainty in people's lives is new to human history — is it new, though?
Their analysis is correct. I agree even if we don’t take a detailed look at the actual numbers provided.
We feel it and see it in our daily lives — whether that is purely personal or just by watching or reading daily news reports or following events on Twitter.
We know things are getting worse, not better. But, this idea that “insecurity, polarisation, and demagoguery” they call the “ominous new forms” are new? Balderdash.
All three have been with us and documented, actually, historicized, since the very idea of history was created by Thucydides…
