Christmas 2023
Is anyone else having trouble describing 2023 as a good year? People seem tapped out. When I ask why 2023 was so tough, I get many different reasons. These include a mixture of economic pain, political polarisation and post-pandemic trauma. 2023 was meant to be easier than the previous few years, but it wasn’t. During the pandemic years, the foundation of our society fractured, and it has not healed.
To try and make sense of these times, I followed my curiosity, reading up on western history, and its underpinning values and beliefs. I’m yet to reach too many conclusions though or convert to Christianity either. There’s comfort in being a doubter, accepting your own ignorance, and not preaching who is wrong and what is right. There’s too much of that going on as-is. There is comfort in knowing that humanity has been here before and navigated a path back.
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| “Christmas tree and penguins graffiti” by Tim Sheerman-Chase is licensed under CC BY 2.0. |
I’d like to share some of the books, essays and ideas that have helped me navigate these times. It’s a journey beginning with George Orwell, moving to history and demographics, Jordan Peterson, and ending with religion.
In March 2020, to find solace I went searching for the last time in history when old certainties were falling apart, and I naturally turned to World War II. I had read Orwell’s 1984 at school, but I was too young and naive at the time to really appreciate it. I was aware of his proximity to WWII as a journalist though, so I bought and read his essays. His disdain for the intelligentsia/bourgeoisie and his love for all things English shine through. In The Lion and the Unicorn, whilst German bombs rain down on England, he notes the “overwhelming strength of patriotism” … “as a positive force there is nothing to set beside it”. He also notes that in “all countries the poor are more national than the rich”. In Notes on Nationalism, he draws a distinction between patriotism that seeks to preserve and defend and negative nationalism that seeks to impose on others.
We can draw direct parallels to our times of Brexit, Trump/MAGA and the recent Voice Referendum that have pitched different classes against each other. These are some of the fracture lines. Kos Samaras Director at RedBridge Group, in Australia, highlights this well in this tweet: "… parts (not all) of progressive Australia don’t want to talk about class. Doing that will move the politics in this country away from identity." Can we heal the fracture between our inner-city intelligentsia/bourgeoisie, the essential-worker working-class and our indigenous communities, and unite behind a shared story? What happens if we don’t?
Later I found Doom by Niall Ferguson, an economic historian who writes for Bloomberg. This book was published during the pandemic in 2021, and chronicles disasters, wars and plagues, and also the limits of scientific knowledge and the psychology of political incompetence. Humans tend to think that now is an enlightened time, and the past a time of ignorance (the book highlights scientific failures of the 1918 flu), whereas a better model perhaps is to think of all times, as times of imperfect/flawed knowledge. This helps us stay humble and open to new thinking. He has a fantastic discussion on the network effects of contagion and how to build effective - and not harmful - counter measures. Reading this book help me be grateful that I wasn’t living through say… the bubonic plague!
I’m not sure how I heard about The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe, possibly it was on a podcast. Published in the 1990s, it correctly predicted a time of Crisis from 2008-2029. It’s based on a theory that history in Britain and America has cycles or turnings that last around 80-100 years. These are (in order): High, Awakening, Unravelling and Crisis. This reinforced my interest in Orwell as the last Crisis (1929-1946) coincided with much of his writing. Each turning is characterized by a different mood and defines a generation’s role in history. Though flawed, I found this book helpful in understanding how each generation can choose to play their role.
This year, I saw Jordan Peterson at Rod Laver Arena in front of 13,000 people. He is a fascinating intellectual, with standing in the field of psychology. His dedication to speaking truth - sometimes at the cost of being agreeable - is well-known. As a public intellectual he fills stadiums, so I think it small-minded not to be curious about him. At each event, he creates a new lecture in real-time. When I saw him, he spoke about Faith. I’d always thought about faith as the unquestioning belief in God and the resurrection. He riffed that we absolutely must have faith to function. We need faith or we will freeze in the face of an unknown future. He used the example of choosing a wife or husband. You have no idea if it will work out; marriage is a leap of faith. In the face of uncertainty and little - or no - knowledge, we must act. That is everyday Faith.
And lastly today, I found this amazing essay on Unherd: Our Godless era is dead By Paul Kingworth. The writer takes long-term thinking even further to the time of the first Christmas. His use of Yeats: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst; Are full of passionate intensity” to me sums up our times. It reminds me of a line on Midnight Oil’s last album: “Good people, good people are forgotten”. He argues that the failure of both technology and ideology would prompt a turn back towards the spiritual. And that humans have an innate need for faith. The coming era will see old and new “religions” contend to make sense of a fractured world. Reason alone cannot satisfy us.
How can we have conviction and act well in the face of uncertainty and disconnection? It requires humility, acceptance of our own doubts, and faith to act. A vision of the world where our fractured stories become one again. Everyone has their own path to tread as we heal and reclaim what is true and good in our world. I hope some of these books, articles and ideas are helpful and would welcome any reading suggestions you may have as we navigate these “interesting times”.