Interregnum: Stuck in Limbo
Interregnum is an interesting word. It’s defined as a period during which a leadership role is vacant or a lapse or pause between world orders. Seems apt as we move away from the world of Pax Americana we have grown so accustomed to.
I’ve alluded and written many times about the strange state of the world we are in right now. Everyone’s deeply anxious because we know the world we used to live in is disappearing. But we still can’t make out the shape of what the new world will look like. It’s been hard to articulate or even grasp. Trust me, I feel like I’ve spent much of my time & resources these last few years trying to do so.
Thankfully I follow “Train Everything”, a true world philosopher and brilliant thinker on X and in his private Telegram groups. He wrote something that was really helpful to me.
“It feels as if the world has been holding its breath this year. There’s motion, but no momentum. Many events have caused a ripple across the surface, but nothing has pushed us forward in a definitive direction. I think this is the nature of us being at the quarter century mark. Every hundred years or so there are inflection points where the past is exhausted and the future has not yet declared itself.
It reminds me of the 1920s. The world had just emerged from the ruins of a physical global war. The old order was shattered but not yet replaced. Today we are coming out of a global cultural war. The greatest ideological war the world has ever seen. A prolonged conflict over values, identity, and the meaning and purpose of civilization and life itself.
If history rhymes then the next quarter century will determine the trajectory of our age.
The 1920s birthed not only globalism and modernity, but it also gave birth to radical movements in Italy and Germany. Movements that did not simply ride the tide of change, but attempted to seize it, shape it, and propel the world towards a new future.
I predict we are on the cusp of something similar. The old liberal order is visibly dissipating. The promises of globalization and digital utopia have been found to be fraudulent. People are atomized, hopeless, distrustful, numb, and nostalgic. Everyone is searching for something that feels promising and real. These are the perfect conditions for a radical movement to emerge. It will not be moderate or polite. Just like a century ago, it will be born from disillusionment, stress, and the hunger for higher ideals with more meaning.
We are still in the waiting room of history. But the door is about to open, and when it does, the world will not walk through, it will be forced through.”
It really feels like we are in a momentous time, for better or worse. It’s as Lenin was reported to have stated: “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” We are getting close to this time I think. Looking back on this time, we may even be experiencing this in real time right now.