We Live In Dangerous, Confusing Times. Here’s How To Make Sense Of Them.
I still remember how, during the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, everything took on an air of inevitability. It seemed that the forces of history were on our side and that the corrupt powers that had ruled the country were breathing their last gasps. Their old ideas and tired ways would have to succumb to the new wave of democracy.
Of course, none of that was true. Five years later, the old regime would be back in power. The reality was that the Orange Revolution wasn’t a revolution at all. It was a political revolt. True revolutions are rare. As Fareed Zakaria points out in his recent book, Age of Revolutions, they involve shifts in technology, economics and identity.
What is also likely to be true is that we are, today, in an era of global revolution in which things are changing on a fundamental level. Many of the changes underway are political, but to understand what’s going on we need to look at those three underlying forces. Revolutions tend to happen when they gather underneath the surface, fester and, eventually, explode.
The Spark Of Technology
The first technology that is often described as revolutionary was Gutenberg’s printing press, developed during the 1430s. It made it possible to disseminate information widely and cheaply, which helped lead to the rise of literacy Protestant Reformation, the Renaissance and eventually, the Enlightenment.
There were also the two industrial revolutions. The first, driven largely by the steam engine in the late 18th century, helped Britain become a superpower and, through railroads and steamships, would transform transportation. The second, driven by electricity and the internal combustion engine, made the 20th century an era of mass production and mass consumption.
Many have touted digital technologies as revolutionary and that may or may not be true. Yet clearly, they is driving a number of new technologies, such as synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, materials science, manufacturing 4.0 and space technology that will have deep impacts on energy, healthcare, agriculture and just about every other facet of human life.
Throughout history, technology has been deeply corrosive to incumbent institutions. The printing press was intensely disruptive to the Catholic Church. The first industrial revolution, along with the French Revolution, would undermine Feudalism and divine right monarchies. The second would shift power across the Atlantic to the US, while at the same time enriching Islamic regimes in the Middle East.
You could argue that technology played a role in the Color Revolutions of the early 2000s, which included the Orange Revolution, as of the Arab Spring which came on its heels. Certainly, the Internet and mobile phones played a role in organizing the protests, but it would be a stretch to say that technology was a driving force.
Shifts In The Underlying Economics
The industrial revolution of the late 1700s was far more than just a technological phenomenon but unleashed economic forces that were as powerful as they were unpredictable. As noted above, being based mostly in England for the first half century or so, it set the stage for British dominance. Also, because it was originally rooted in the textile industry, it had the ancillary effect of impoverishing India.
The effects on Europe were even more pervasive, as economic power shifted from the landed aristocracy to a new class of industrialists. Peasants moved from sparsely populated agricultural communities to the cities where they could find work in factories. There, they could be organized by activists with new ideas such as socialism. Eventually, these forces would erupt in a widespread series of uprisings known as the Revolutions of 1848.
Today, we can see echoes of many of the same forces. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the US, the EU, the IMF and the World Bank pushed a program often referred to as the Washington Consensus on much of the rest of the world. In some cases, such as Eastern Europe, this led to important and successful reforms. But in others, especially those affected by severe austerity measures after the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997, it bred resentment.
These forces were very much in play in the color revolutions. The relative success of Eastern European countries such as the Visegrad countries of Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, as well as the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, created enormous discontent among the former Soviet republics, like Ukraine, that were left behind.
Many of the same neoliberal ideas that underlay the Washington Consensus also led to the inclusion of China in the World Trade Organization, leading to its rise and the hollowing out of manufacturing in much of the western world, creating class conflicts and fueling a populist wave across Europe and the US.
A Crisis Of Identity
I still remember a conversation I had with a friend, a prominent Ukrainian journalist , in the aftermath of the Orange Revolution in early 2005. Although I thought it was important for Ukraine to seek out NATO and EU accession, he sensed that Ukrainians just wanted to go home and, similar to Finland, have equal ties with east and west.
Yet Putin would make that impossible. When he blocked a trade pact with the EU in 2013, the Euromaidan protests broke out and, as I explained in my book, Cascades, this time it would be different. It would eventually become known as the Revolution of Dignity, because it marked a fundamental change in values and identity. Ukraine now considered itself a European nation.
In a similar fashion, today powers such as Russia, China and Iran have joined in an informal axis to preserve their identity and counter what they see as an American led global order. Vast migration from countries in the global south to Europe and North America are providing much needed labor but, in the eyes of many, undermining national identity.
Marshall McLuhan predicted that electronic media would bring about a global village, which he did not see as a peaceful place. In fact, he predicted it would lead to a new form of tribalism and result in a “release of human power and aggressive violence” greater than ever in human history, as long separated—and emotionally charged—cultural norms would now constantly intermingle, clash… and explode.”
He was, of course, amazingly prescient.
Taking Change Seriously And Surviving Victory
Western society tends toward reductionism. We focus on our own particular area of expertise, learning subtle nuances largely invisible to those outside the field. As a result, we tend to overvalue developments within our realm of knowledge, while that which lies outside our immediate attention often seems less relevant.
Yet the reality is that everything is connected. We simply can’t separate the forces of technology, economics and identity. So while Silicon Valley types wax glowingly about the wonders of the latest advance, waves of disruption crash through people’s lives, creating crises of identity that result in backlash, undermining progress that could have potentially been made.
These forces can bubble beneath the surface for decades, while incumbent institutions try to keep a lid on them, curbing the worst of the turmoil, confusion and disorder they create. But eventually, they must be dealt with and some fundamental change to the existing order—a revolution— needs to take place. That is the point at which the danger is greatest. History tends to converge and cascade around certain points and we seem to be at one now.
The philosopher Martin Heidegger thought about technology in terms of both revealing and building. The forces of the universe being what they are, we do not have much choice in what we uncover. Yet how we create and channel technologies such is very much in our control. The choices we make not only reflect who we are, but what we will become.
We can’t separate the forces of technology and economics from that of identity, because they are inextricably intertwined. We are, no doubt, at a time of great potential, with technology advancing to such a point that we may soon have the power to create infinite energy, shape biology and conquer space. What we lack is a shared vision for what we want the world to be.
Surviving progress is always a matter of identifying and leveraging shared values. As Francis Fukuyama has written, “Identity can be used to divide, but it can also be used to integrate,” and that is how we navigate to the other side.
Greg Satell is Co-Founder of ChangeOS, a transformation & change advisory, an international keynote speaker, host of the Changemaker Mindset podcast, bestselling author of Cascades: How to Create a Movement that Drives Transformational Change and Mapping Innovation, as well as over 50 articles in Harvard Business Review. You can learn more about Greg on his website, GregSatell.com, follow him on Twitter @DigitalTonto, his YouTube Channel and connect on LinkedIn.
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