Everything's Changing

I read another one of those opinion pieces this morning (why do I bother?) explaining how everything is changing. I suppose it may seem that way, given that we've just had another election. Of course, this one is different, historically different (as were, of course, many previous elections). The last time I checked about half of those who bothered (a sizable minority of eligible voters chose not to vote, again) voted for one of the two major party presidential candidates, while almost the same number voted for the other. Because we still rely on an outdated electoral system that was supposed to serve as a check on popular democracy run amok and leave the final selection in the hands of a political elite, it turns out that the person who won this particular election did not actually receive the most votes. This has happened before, and we have lamented it, but despite all the historic changes supposedly afoot (again), we have so far declined to change the way we do our presidential elections.

Nevertheless, those who feel victorious will lord it over those who feel defeated, neither group likely to stop and recognize that not long ago they were in the other position. And so we will lurch from one direction to the other, approximately half the country feeling vindicated, the other half feeling violated. I suppose we can't know how those who chose to sit this one out feel. Perhaps they aren't paying attention, or perhaps they no longer care which way the country lurches, or perhaps they have simply observed that none of this lurching really matters much to them. In any case, it will take some time to sort out what, if anything, our historic changes will actually amount to. History has a way of moving along and sometimes overwhelming those who wish to control it, either by pushing it forward or pulling it backward.

Maybe it's just a result of my advancing age, but I feel like I've seen this movie before. This is about the time I trot out my favorite whipping boy, Francis Fukuyama, who was so wound up by the enormous social and political changes the world was witnessing in the early 1990s that he wrote a famously controversial book which he pompously titled The End of History (1992). It's probably not fair to him to keep bringing this up, but his notion at the time was that human political evolution had reached its conclusion with the victory going to Western liberal democracies. (I could pause here and explain what he meant by the word "liberal," probably not what most would think, but that would be pointless and likely futile as well.) Of course, Fukuyama's thesis now seems absurd, and some thought so even amidst all the optimism of the 1990s. If anything, human history is more like a pendulum than any other sort of trajectory, swinging from one extreme to the other and passing through various moments of perceived equilibrium in between. I also happen to feel that it is like a pendulum in other respects as well, having more to do with forces of entropy than equilibrium. Where we will end up will not likely be satisfying to anyone still around to witness it, but that's the subject for another post.

This post is just to remind myself how often I've written on the subject of change. (Just do a search of my blog and you'll see what I mean.) Change is, as they say, the only constant. But for some reason humans tend not to recognize this. I don't know whether it's genetic or just a glitch in our mental makeup, but we have a tendency to think whatever is will last. We believe in the status quo. But changes happen all the time. And, yet, after every change, we tend to think that this now will be the new status quo. Spoiler alert: it never is (remember: Francis Fukuyama: The End of History). As I said, I'm not sure why humans behave this way. Is it some basic instinct? Do we have short memories for a reason? Oh yes, there's that end that's waiting for us all, if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all.

Anyway, as the Jefferson Airplane once sang: "Life is change. How it differs from the rocks." That's probably one of those glass half empty or half full statements. It all depends on which side of the latest change you happen to be situated. Sometimes it sucks to be me, and sometimes it sucks to be you. And sometimes, no matter how you look at it, it just plain sucks. But nothing lasts forever. And in the long run, it turns out the run ain't all that long. So watch out, or buck up. Here we go again.