No time to read Friedman’s book The Next 100 Years? George Friedman was interviewed by Smithsonian.com about the predictions he makes in the book. Since I didn’t actually focus on his conclusions in my previous posts, it’s worth a look.
I love reading StratFor‘s coverage. Well, maybe love is too strong a word. I’m fascinated by it in a sort of horrifying way. And though I find their analysis useful, I’m always on the look out for counter-arguments.
Frank Gavin recently spoke at The Long Now. He talked about how policymakers might use the work of historians to inform their decisions. Among the best of his observations in this utterly absorbing talk was the fact that historians can’t agree on the near past – the stuff they lived through. How do we expect them to have clear guidance on the future?
This is why he offers broad tools rather than specific solutions. I hope to draw on his talk in a future expanded critique of Friedman’s take.
Gavin’s five key concepts
Here are some excerpts from Stewart Brand’s summary on the seminar page.
- Vertical History
What are the deep causative patterns behind a current situation? - Horizontal History
The interconnecting events of a particular moment…profoundly affect decisions. - Chronological Proportionality
The New York Times always gets it wrong, and they’re the best of the media. - Unintended Consequences
Things turn out differently than we expect. - Policy Insignificance
What policy people do is often not the main event at all.
Among these points, something that really stuck with me was the idea that policymakers can “strategically do nothing.” But since politicians aren’t rewarded for not doing something, this is an unexplored dimension. Non-events don’t register in the public consciousness and so can’t be identified as valuable.
Balancing perspectives
I’m attempting to cultivate a healthy interest in this subject without being entirely beholden to one or another take. Maybe its just a more cowardly form of fence-sitting, but I think that avoiding tunnel-vision is a bit more important than accusations of cowardice. Let me know what you think in the comments.
