Is America about to fall? Or flourish?

That depends on us.

Following American politics right now feels like waiting for two possible futures: One defined by humanism, the other by anti-humanism. 

Throughout history, we have oscillated between these two extremes. Periods of humanism say: Let’s look at things logically—the economy is strong, people are employed and earning a decent wage. With rational thought, we can chart a course that will make things even better through incrementalism, by voting in good leaders and protecting democracy, by investing in scientific advancement and technological achievement. With logic and rational thought, we can make inroads against poverty and make life better for everyone. Periods of humanism arise when we are prosperous and stable enough to think through our next steps, and to work together to create a society that’s better for us all. Historically, we can think of the early Roman Republic, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment. 

But periods of humanism are often followed by its countermovement. Anti-humanism says: I don’t care about your logic because things don’t feel good. Democracy is flawed and hasn’t always worked out for us and our families. Our jobs are at risk because of technology and immigration. Our values are not respected and are even at risk by virtue of my child’s education. We’re too far away from our politics to feel like we can affect them, and the people with the power to affect them don’t reflect my values. I don’t care about making things better for everyone, I need to make things better for myself and my family. We’re never going to take things back with incrementalism and rules, we need a drastic change—even if we need to take things back by force! Anti-humanism arises when our personal lives feel unstable and we don’t trust the institutions around us to fix them. Here we think of the late Roman Empire, the Revolutions, the Civil War.

World War II was our last period of anti-humanism and we’ve been in a period of humanism ever since. After the war, countries around the world gave up their colonial territories, we established the Geneva Accord and agreed internationally to uphold borders. We set up democracies and built prosperous nations. We made huge inroads against poverty, put a man on the moon, and invented computers and the internet. There was always the threat of instability, during the Cold War, from global pandemics, from inflammatory politics, but we successfully pulled ourselves back from the brink every time. With logic and reason, we avoided emotional outburst and set things on the right track for everyone. 

But we’re collectively tipping toward anti-humanism and it’s not hard to understand why. Those aforementioned grievances are real and people are right to be upset about them. Sometimes we can move things forward with logic and reason, but sometimes reason fails and we have no choice but to turn to emotion.