Covid-19 is in fact the THIRD major ‘grey rhino’ event that has happened this century – the first being 9/11, the second being the global financial crisis, and the third being the novel coronavirus pandemic.
These all have in common that they (a) were foreseeable, (b) were foreseen, (c) were inadequately prepared for and (consequently) responded to, and (d) exposed and deepened political and social fissures, both nationally and globally.
Plenty of other Grey Rhinos lurk in the wing: US/China hot war; the disorderly implosion of the EU; the collapse of the global dollar system; a cyber pearl harbor; Indo-Pakistani nuclear war; radically bioengineered humans; discontinuous climate change; etc.
These are all examples of the famous “missing fourth” in infamous Rumsfeld’s typology: these are “unknown knowns” – that is, “we” know about them – as possibilities, as scenarios – but we choose to “unknow” them in terms of adequately preparing for them.
This describes quite exactly what happened in each of the previous three grey rhinos, and I see little reason to believe it’ll be any different when the next one comes rumbling angrily through our campground.
I know that many of the people on this hellsite are ideologically committed to the idea that “the future belongs to optimists.”
But as I always like to point out: optimists are rarely pleasantly surprised.
But as I always like to point out: optimists are rarely pleasantly surprised.
While the pre-Covid world surely ain’t coming back in the same form, one should also bear in mind the persistence of the old regime. Even in the case of WWI, so cataclysmic in its political impact, key features of the pre-war order didn’t really fully disappear until after WWII:
The British Empire reached its largest extent in the years just after WWI; the Third Republic in France continued its shambolic stumbles; the Junkers continued to dominate the German military establishment; etc.
This is exactly why Antonio Gramsci observed ninety years ago, as he sat rotting in a fascist prison, that “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”
