Sometimes The Future Demands A Vision. This Is Probably Not One Of Those Times.

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The mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot saw the world through what he called Noah effects and Joseph effects. Joseph effects, as in the biblical story, support long periods of continuity. Noah effects, on the other hand, are like a big storm creating a massive flood of discontinuity, washing away the previous order.

History certainly seems to bear this out. Events propagate at a certain rhythm and then converge and cascade around certain points. For roughly a decade, I’ve thought that 2020 would be one of those inflection points and that certainly seems to be the case. The 2020s are echoing the 1920s in some very troubling ways.

We always need to be careful with making historical parallels, because history is so long and varied that we can find some historical allusion to fit any potential set of facts. Yet, they can also be instructive. Clearly, we are on the brink of a new era that we do not clearly understand and we are a juncture that is fraught with peril. Looking back can help us make sense of it all.

The Dual Revolutions

Until the late 1700s, the Western World existed much as it did for centuries. Monarchs reigned by divine right over feudal kingdoms of lower nobles who, in turn ruled over peasants that were tied to…