Yesterday does not predict tomorrow
Timeless values rather than transient, political events are the subjects of these essays. But this week’s events in the United States are not transient and they are far more than political. They call for comment.
The US elections are the third event in eight years that permanently changed the course of global history. But there is something even more startling about those events than the changes they ushered in. In all three cases we saw the failure of yesterday to predict tomorrow.
The three events were 1) September 11th; 2) the current financial crisis; and 3) the Obama landslide victory.[1] In each case the instruments traditionally relied upon to predict future trends proved incapable of doing so. In each case the world, including its experts, was taken by surprise and shocked out of complacency.
The United States had a sophisticated intelligence system that was caught unaware in 2001. The world of finance was driven by complex models designed by brilliant minds using cutting edge technology, but it could not foresee the collapse of US credit markets. Even Alan Greenspan told Congress last month that he was in a state of “shocked disbelief.” Barack Obama’s victory was not a surprise (although not very long ago many considered it impossible and even in September McCain’s lead was considered within the margins of polling error), but its landslide dimensions were. None of the polls predicted anything like it.
Yesterday is over
The reason that none of these events were predicted is because the future is no longer a continuation of the past. No longer can one use yesterday’s tools, data and trends to predict tomorrow. Yesterday is over. One needs a deep understanding of today to predict tomorrow. As it Pirkei Avot (Ethics of our Fathers) says: “A wise man is one who is roeh et hanolad – who can visualize that which has just been conceived.” Many of the factors that drove the course of history for decades and maybe centuries drive it no more. New factors have been born that drive it now. Mr. Obama seems to see those factors and uses them.
Change is not new to the world, but this change is. Unlike most change that is linear, this changes is not. It is discontinuous. This means it is not a natural extension of past events. It is initiated by an unpredictable wave of new phenomena. The direction of linear change can be predicted, discontinuous change cannot. Large volumes of data can inform us about the past and provide near-certainty about a linear future but can predict nothing about a discontinuous future.
All security is fragile
All three of these events bring a common message: the fragility of security. On 9/11, human imagination and religious passion shattered the world’s most powerful fortresses of might and money. It was the triumph of misguided religious fervor over the complacency of material security.
The collapse of the world’s financial markets wiping out the savings of millions of people, showed us how fragile our monetary system is. The Chafeitz Chaim[2]saw the great depression as a lesson to the world that neither a society nor an economy can function without faith. People invest because they have faith in the future and in one another. When they lose that faith they disinvest and markets collapse.
Barack Obama did not launch his campaign from the traditional powerbases of conventional politics. He understood that the majority of Americans do not feel secure in what has been and are seeking new territory. He touched the souls of America’s youth by offering them hope. He recognized that the new generation is not apathetic, spoiled and entitled, but disillusioned with leaders, teachers and offerings that cannot nourish their souls.
Religion, faith and hope
Conventional predictors did not factor in the roles of religious fervor in warfare, the need for faith in business and the need for hope in government. Those predictors missed the degree to which people will make sacrifices for leaders that nourish the soul and talk to it, and to the degree which business that is not underpinned by faith is not sustainable. These predictors are unable to deal with factors such as hope and faith that cannot be measured.
More than half of the people in the world are of a young generation with changed norms, paradigms of thought and even values. When treated with condescension, this generation withdraws into its fantasy worlds of technological distraction and general apathy. But when touched, this generation’s energy is beyond anything previously seen. The polls could not measure the power of ordinary people with extraordinary spirit whose hearts were ignited by a man who offered them a cause and gave them faith.
This new generation has lost faith in business, government and even religious institutions but they have faith in themselves, in each other and in the future. Technology allows them to connect with each other without needing yesterday’s social, political and religious institutions and structures. Leaders and educators need to learn new ways to access the energy and deep yearnings of young people as President-elect Barack Obama did or they will lose them as Sen. McCain did.[3]
Let go of yesterday and welcome tomorrow
Yesterday is over and to embrace the future we need to let go of some of the past. This is key to moving ahead in the rapidly changing landscape in which we are living. In the opening of ourparsha, our father Avraham, embedds into Jewish DNA the ability to leave the past behind and move into an uncertain future.
Go, Avraham is told, from everything that is familiar to you, to territory that you cannot know or imagine, territory that I, G-d, shall show to you. Do this not only for the impact you will have in the world, but also for your own good and your own benefit (Rashi 12:2). Avraham’s departure from his homeland is not an act of reckless adventurism. Avraham walks into unchartered waters because although he does not know to where he is going, G-d does. He is going to a very specific place; a place chosen for him by G-d, who will lead him there. The knowledge of G-d’s part in our uncertain futures is what provides us the security with which to stride forward.
In unpredictable times, faith in the future can be a hyped up illusion created by desperation. Real faith in a real future needs to be founded on emunah and bitachon (belief and trust). Belief and trust are the vehicles that help us move into an uncertain future that we cannot see.
Is the President-elect selling hype or hope? “Yes we can”, is hype. “Yes, with the help of G-d, we can” is hope.
Notes:
[1] I am in no way linking Obama’s election to the previous two events in respect of their destructiveness and damage, only the scale of their impact and the degree to which experts did not anticipate them.
[2] Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan (1838-1933)
[3] These ideas will be expanded in my upcoming leadership book, “Lead by Greatness.”
