In the twenty-first century, a wave of political, creative and technological change has capsized our old certainties and assumptions, creating both opportunity and danger.
A confluence of crises is upon us, one emergency cascading into another. As people become steadily more disillusioned, new radical voices at the margins and the grassroots are disrupting the status quo. This is the time of the outsider – the protester, the start-up founder, the outlaw. Some of these outsiders have sown chaos, like Donald Trump, and others have provided inspirational leadership, like Volodymyr Zelensky. But all have managed to grasp this fragile moment to make something new.
Writing with a critic’s incisive understanding of cultural trends, Michiko Kakutani outlines the consequences of these new asymmetries of power, and looks back to similar hinge moments in history, from the waning of the Middle Ages to the aftermath of the Second World War, to find a way forward.
For there is, Kakutani argues, always the promise of radical transformation in times of turmoil. We can surrender to the waters, give in to the gathering chaos, or we can use the wave’s momentum to propel us into a more stable and sustainable future.
