The point is, since 9/11 I have become in many ways preoccupied with the idea that some rough history is headed our way, as Peggy Noonan put it, that we are unprepared for it, and are in fact living in ways that make it difficult even to think about preparing for what could happen.
I agree. But I arrive at that conclusion from what I take to be the perfectly natural and obvious truth that 99% of history has been rough and we have no reason to expect a lifelong exemption from that truth. I don’t put a lot of stock in the prophets of any particular and specific disaster because they strike me not only as indulging in fantastic speculations, but also as buttressing, in a perverse kind of way, the alternative fantastic speculation that peace and prosperity and health and wealth are the natural state of affairs. Both sides completely miss the tragicomic outlook that properly ought to define our tenuous and fragile creaturely existence.
I expect history will intrude on our fantasies in much more natural and obvious — and less conspiratorial and catastrophic — ways. Preparation and expectation, yes. Panic and gloom, no.
