When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
For now we see through a glass, darkly…
— 1 Corinthians 13
I do in fact plan to put away childish things, when I become a man… eventually. But I am delaying the inevitable as long as possible.
Things, for those who may consider themselves “men”, is looking a bit dark, lately. The men at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, for example. They published a report last month entitled “Global Trends 2040: A More Contested World”. These are grown men who like to play “I’m a spy” and other intelligence-gathering games. (We note, the Bible doesn’t give a firm definition of “childish things”.)
The “Global Trends” report comes out every four years. Here is the “Global Trends” logo, that appears on page 2 of the report, and which I personally think would make a great logo for a video game.
Key Themes
During the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic has reminded the world of its fragility and demonstrated the inherent risks of high levels of interdependence. In coming years and decades, the world will face more intense and cascading global challenges ranging from disease to climate change to the disruptions from new technologies and financial crises.
These challenges will repeatedly test the resilience and adaptability of communities, states, and international systems, often exceeding the capacity of existing systems and models. This looming disequilibrium between existing and future challenges, and the ability of institutions and systems to respond, is likely to grow and produce greater contestation at every level.
When I typed out these two paragraphs from the report’s introduction, my computer underlined the word, “contestation” as a misspelling. Apparently, my computer is still understanding things as a child, because several dictionaries have a valid definition for “contestation”, and even some synonyms:
controversy, debate, difference, difficulty, disagreement, disputation, dispute, dissension, firestorm…
As I was saying to my friend the other day, if you always expect the worse to happen, you can never be disappointed… and you might be pleasantly surprised. Obviously, the Office of the Director of National Security subscribes to the same philosophy. But we need to be careful, because when you are working as in the intelligence community, you not only expect this to be going badly… you want things to be going badly.
Job security, folks. Job security.
No intelligence agency would ever be crazy enough to tell its citizens, “Don’t worry, everything’s coming up roses.”
What… no bad guys left? No one to spy on, and steal secrets from? No reason to jump out of a helicopter and save the beautiful blonde?
But I’ve gotten distracted by the beautiful blonde, and the contestations. I was supposed to write about when I thought as a child, and spake as a child, and my experiences with my first grade teacher, Ms. O’Hara.
I distinctly remember that it was springtime, and I was looking at the ash tree outside the classroom window. The tree was festooned with tiny, lime-green leaves, and — pondering, as a children are wont to do — I imagined how the tree would look in a few weeks, when it would be spreading its broad, cool shadow over the sandbox… and how my best friend Rusty and I would build a sand city complete with highways and parking lots. The city would of course include a school, featuring a tiny ash tree and a sandbox… and two miniature boys building a city complete with highways and parking lots…
I felt a shadow fall over my desk, and Ms. O’Hara was standing above me. She was looking at me, but she was addressing her remarks to the other students in the room.
“Louis didn’t hear the question I just asked… because Louis is too busy daydreaming. I expect he will fail the math test on Friday, the same way he has failed so many tests this year. I expect the rest of you, who have been paying attention, will all do just fine on Friday. But I expect Louis to fail, once again.”
Of course, I did fail the math test on Friday. Ms. O’Hara expected me to fail, and I did. If the test had been a spelling test, and the words were “contestation” and “disequilibrium” and “fragility”, I would have failed that test as well.
Looking through a glass, darkly, it’s not always obvious if the glass is dark… or whether it’s your mind that’s dark.
When you expect the world to fall apart, there’s a fair chance it’ll do exactly that.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.