One of the problems in the Ukrainian crisis is that very few Westerners know their history, or if they know it, what they learn is what we call the Russian version of history.
After a crisis we tell ourselves we understand why it happened and maintain the illusion that the world is understandable. In fact, we should accept the world is incomprehensible much of the time.
This is real. This is not a phase. This is not a temper tantrum. The average American who I believe makes this country work thinks the Republican Party is actually oriented against its interests and does not understand or believe the crisis they think the country's in.
Life is much the same when it's going well-- resonant and unremarkable. But who, not under disaster's seal, can understand what life is like when it begins to crumble?
If we start to use social media data sets to take the pulse of a nation or understand a crisis - or actually use it to deploy resources - we are getting a skewed picture of what is happening.
It is only when a man feels himself face to face with such horrors that he can understand their true import.
I think to adequately manage a crisis, you have to see it. Because there's only so much somebody else can tell you about it, and they impose their own distortions on the description. You need to see it yourself.
The essential thing we need to understand is that the climate crisis is not some future threat, but a very present peril, the biggest one humans have ever encountered. Until we understand that, we'll dawdle.
