"He is writing, after all, at 'the end of history,' when fundamental debates over how to organize societies and economies seem less important that questions of identity and styles of living."
So writes Adam Kirsch, reviewing Philipp Blom's book, The Vertigo Years: Europe, 1900-1914, in The New York Review of Books. I wonder how many of The NYRB's readers' jaws dropped, as mine did, when I read that sentence.
I suspect the sentence can only seem innocuous to a Westerner who doesn't have much of a global perspective. In China, for example, the fundamental question of how to organize its society and economy is far from settled. Should people have recourse to institutions outside their families to protect and support them, or is the family the main wellspring of resources? Should an economy run on cash, or can people be trusted with credit? Should the legal system regulate the economy, or will such responsibility make the legal system too powerful? These questions - and others of similarly fundamental import - have raged around me during the past four-and-a-half years that I've lived in Beijing.
Similarly, the notion that questions of how to organize societies and economies seems less important than questions of identity and styles of living is one that can seem credible only to a person blithely oblivious to - to take two examples - the drought currently ravaging Nairobi, Kenya, and the non-existent monsoons in Pune, India. Climate change - and the droughts and other extreme weather conditions through which it manifests - is the direct result of the way large parts of the (Western) world have organized their societies and, particularly, their economies.
In brief (but for more information, see, for example, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity), because we don't take into account the value of the myriad, "free" services we enjoy from nature (for example, flood protection afforded by forests), we'll be paying the costs in the form of displacement from lands that become disaster-torn and uninhabitable. Nothing short of a complete revamping of our economies to take into account (not "externalize" in the economic lingo) services we receive from nature will diminish the devastating environmental losses we are currently suffering. Compared to questions of identity and styles of living, this issue of how to organize the economy - and the ramifications of ignoring the problem - seems damned important.
Perhaps this Western myopia will be the reason for the end of history when it truly arrives.
So writes Adam Kirsch, reviewing Philipp Blom's book, The Vertigo Years: Europe, 1900-1914, in The New York Review of Books. I wonder how many of The NYRB's readers' jaws dropped, as mine did, when I read that sentence.
I suspect the sentence can only seem innocuous to a Westerner who doesn't have much of a global perspective. In China, for example, the fundamental question of how to organize its society and economy is far from settled. Should people have recourse to institutions outside their families to protect and support them, or is the family the main wellspring of resources? Should an economy run on cash, or can people be trusted with credit? Should the legal system regulate the economy, or will such responsibility make the legal system too powerful? These questions - and others of similarly fundamental import - have raged around me during the past four-and-a-half years that I've lived in Beijing.
Similarly, the notion that questions of how to organize societies and economies seems less important than questions of identity and styles of living is one that can seem credible only to a person blithely oblivious to - to take two examples - the drought currently ravaging Nairobi, Kenya, and the non-existent monsoons in Pune, India. Climate change - and the droughts and other extreme weather conditions through which it manifests - is the direct result of the way large parts of the (Western) world have organized their societies and, particularly, their economies.
In brief (but for more information, see, for example, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity), because we don't take into account the value of the myriad, "free" services we enjoy from nature (for example, flood protection afforded by forests), we'll be paying the costs in the form of displacement from lands that become disaster-torn and uninhabitable. Nothing short of a complete revamping of our economies to take into account (not "externalize" in the economic lingo) services we receive from nature will diminish the devastating environmental losses we are currently suffering. Compared to questions of identity and styles of living, this issue of how to organize the economy - and the ramifications of ignoring the problem - seems damned important.
Perhaps this Western myopia will be the reason for the end of history when it truly arrives.
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