Thread by @OmairTAhmad

1. What Covid-19 has shown us so clearly is a deeply broken world.

Some states have done better than others - more open vs more closed (Taiwan vs PRC) better welfare vs less (Northern Europe vs US), but the global systems - as a whole - suck.

2. People have been saying this for a while, but where was the political space to make these claims, and push for change?

What has been striking about the post-1991 world has been the consensus.

"The current system might have bugs, but it is the best. There's no alternative."

3. A lack of space for real change has pushed many out of the political space, into the arms of loonies of all stripes.

The ones most able, the most organised, and at an angle to the world, where always the religious institutions, especially in the post-colonial world.

4. These were largely dismissed as "medieval", as anti-modern, and they often expressed themselves in that language, but they were (as religion has always been) a response to current day issues.

Some were better than others, but that isn't the issue, it was their need that was.

5. In an old essay on leadership Nixon (yes, that one) wrote, "A leader is one who has followers."

The leadership of the religious (or spiritual) is far less important than that of the followers.

If the "smart men" had all the answers, why didn't they have followers?

6. The short answer is that they did not (spoiler: no human system will have all the answers), but they were loathe to admit that.

Instead we had a whole industry built upon the sneering at those that could not accept that this is the best world we could build.

7. This is at the same time that we had mounting evidence that we were broiling the world, setting off mass extinction of species, incarcerating the poor, honouring war criminals, and putting all measure of advancement at the altar of greed and vanity.

8. Quite seriously, anybody who DID NOT have doubts that we were living in the best of all possible systems should have been checked into an asylum.

Instead we had Fukuyama's End of History, Pinker's Better Angels of Our Nature, and just so much self-fellating junk.

9. Today, as we face this crisis, we are also faced with a crisis of trust, and a situation where people will listen to slick sounding godmen who are speaking utter nonsense, than trust the political systems.

Can we truly blame them? Have we been honest?

10. When this is over, I really hope we take a hard look at the dishonesty, arrogance, and lack of accountability in our political systems.

We just can't afford to go back to blase attitude that ignores the misery of so many. And we need to have some humility.

-end rant-