And some are trapped within the perspectives of their own lives.
“He cedes Eastern Latvia as he did Eastern Ukraine” Nitpicky but, I believe you mean “He annexes” not “He cedes”. Using the wrong words distracts and detracts from your point, which seems to be — “oh no, things are changing!”
Interesting, an anthropologist who considers it possible and desirable to stop change. I’m guessing you skipped the lecture on the inevitability of change. Each tomorrow is destined to be different from each today. (Thankfully or, we’d all be primitive nomads, foraging for sustenance.)
You say people are trapped within the frame of reference of their family’s living generations, a very general statement I’d like to refine:
Some people are trapped within the frame of reference of their own lives.
That would be you.
You lament the things you see as causes for effects you fear, ignoring or not realizing, in the stream of human events, each cause was once an effect.
Each of today’s conditions was brought about by yesterday’s events.
You lament today’s causes and fear their effects yet, praise the events which brought them about. You decry Brexit, while maintaining your enthusiasm for that which brought it about — a political European Union that isn’t a social or fiscal European Union.
It was and remains a social improbability and economic impossibility.
The European Union cannot continue, a union of disparate nations of disparate peoples; some with responsible and effective governments, others with irresponsible and ineffective governments; some with thrifty and productive citizens, some with spendthrift and unproductive citizens.
The gaps haven’t closed. The disparities are too great. Brexit is simply the first of many. Brexit is the British people unshouldering the burdens of others while, bravely shouldering their own. Brexit will happen with an ease that will surprise all because Britain kept the pound.
Frexit and Itexit and Spexit will be far more difficult. Imagine at midnight of an unknown, unannounced night, Italy’s Central Bank will confiscate the euros in every bank account in Italy and replace them with new lira. How many lira? What will they be worth? What about foreigners who had Italian bank accounts? What about Italians who had foreign bank accounts? What about Italians who had loans denominated in euros?
How will it all work? How will the European Union devolve?
We don’t know but, we knew decades ago, when the Union was formed that it would someday come apart. Yet, you lament its coming apart but, not its formation.
Why? What is innately good about one and innately bad about the other?
You lament the gradual degradation of NATO and fear for its future while accepting, perhaps praising the social welfare states that caused all but two members of NATO to allow their militaries to wither on the budgetary vine.
Why? Why was the cause good but, the direct effect bad?
You lament the aggression of Vladimir Putin and the isolationism of Donald Trump while accepting the demilitarization of most NATO members and the anti-American posturing of the European Union.
Why? Why were the causes good but, the very predictable effects bad?
You compare Trump, whom you think will be isolationist, to Hitler, who was anything but, and worry they’re the same thing, while in almost all respects, they are entirely different things. Hitler made clear early on what he was about. Trump can barely complete a paragraph, much less a speech, without contradicting himself, taking both sides of most arguments and inventing new sides no one else has been daring (or ridiculous) enough to stake out.
No one, including the man himself, knows what President Donald Trump would do.
Given Trump’s complete lack of understanding of macroeconomics and world trade, his effect on the world’s economy won’t be constructive and can’t be good but, given his further lack of understanding of politics and lack of interest in diplomacy, an isolationist President Trump could well, in fact would be the least dangerous President Trump for which you could hope. He may depress the world economy but, not destroy the world.
You worry about who will first use nuclear weapons. I wonder — for what? Hemispheric war? Putin vs the stuttering midgets of the rump of the European Union? Tactical nukes make little sense to one embarked on wars of conquest, especially when the prevailing winds blow toward him and, tactical use of nuclear weapons precludes their strategic value; once they’re used the threat of their use is gone. Putin may very well carve off whatever parts of Eastern Europe he wants but, he won’t do it with nuclear weapons. He understands them. He’s aggressive but, sane.
The first nuke will come from someone else, someone who’s not sane.
Someone you seem not to understand. The hospitals of Nice aren’t overflowing with casualties of Putin’s doings, or Brexit’s effects, or anticipation of Trump; the hospitals of Nice are groaning under the burden of the clash of two civilizations that have been at war off and on for 1400 years.
The world as you know it isn’t at risk because of Vladimir Putin, who’d like to create an economic and military buffer around Russia, or Brexit, the British people boarding the first lifeboat leaving a sinking European Union, or Donald Trump, who has so little idea how to be President he will likely be too overwhelmed to think about screwing up the rest of the world while he’s trying to make golf mandatory and hiring illegals to build his ineffective wall.
The world as you know it is at risk because of someone you’ve failed even to mention — Muhammad — and the access to nuclear weapons we’ve granted his adherents —
— the real madmen across the water.
(Sorry, you may not catch that, it’s from before your time. The previous generation of Brits were scared shitless of the guy who built up NATO and stopped the same Russian aggression that now scares you.)
Amazing how much each generation seems to be trapped in its own frame of reference, isn’t it?
