From Russia my friend Nikita Pokrovsky emailed me:
“ I arrived at the National Humanities Center in 1989 on the crest of the world's trajectory, at the climax of Perestroika. It was a turning point in history. Now there is an equally long-lasting and opposite in its meaning turning point. “
Nikita, I think, has hit the nail on the head: we are at a turning point, not just in Ukraine, Russia, and Europe but globally, and the new era we are entering may not be the relative calm, or maybe even honeymoon, we enjoyed from 1989 to the present.
But “turning point” towards what?
I fear it we have entered a new era, not just a return to the pre-1989 Colkd War, and maybe not “Back to the Jungle,” as Robert Kagan suggests. More likely, I think, it’s a new historical era,
That would mean a time when things may seem to get back to “normal,” when they look the same but under the surface ideas, values, culture may change in ways we cannot fully anticipate, but which will profoundly affect our lives and those of our descendants.
“ I arrived at the National Humanities Center in 1989 on the crest of the world's trajectory, at the climax of Perestroika. It was a turning point in history. Now there is an equally long-lasting and opposite in its meaning turning point. “
Nikita, I think, has hit the nail on the head: we are at a turning point, not just in Ukraine, Russia, and Europe but globally, and the new era we are entering may not be the relative calm, or maybe even honeymoon, we enjoyed from 1989 to the present.
But “turning point” towards what?
I fear it we have entered a new era, not just a return to the pre-1989 Colkd War, and maybe not “Back to the Jungle,” as Robert Kagan suggests. More likely, I think, it’s a new historical era,
That would mean a time when things may seem to get back to “normal,” when they look the same but under the surface ideas, values, culture may change in ways we cannot fully anticipate, but which will profoundly affect our lives and those of our descendants.