The final chapter of Eric Hobsbawm’s The Age of Empire: 1875-1914 takes the outbreak of World War One as its topic, he says that despite the general feeling that a war was approaching “its outbreak was not really expected. Even during the last desperate days of the international crisis in July 1914 statesmen, taking fatal steps, did not really believe that they were starting a world war”. The system of power had become so fixed that they couldn’t quite believe that it would fail, let alone so disastrously. At the same time, though, they knew that it was coming to an end and could see that “any incident, however minor… could lead to such a confrontation [the war], if any single power locked into the system of bloc and counter-bloc chose to take it seriously”.

I find that psychological portrait rather terrifying. The people who led the world into its first world war knew that a catastrophe was coming, but they couldn’t seem to quite connect that knowledge to a real understanding. It’s as though their actions were held at a distance from them, they couldn’t see that the events that were coming were real and had real effects. (Although, given that the system that they lead was already a system of mass industrialised death when it comes to the effects of industrial capitalism, maybe that distancing makes sense). I also, unfortunately, find that psychology reminds me of our “leaders” today. The balance of forces is very different, both in terms of how it’s structured and the groups involved, but we seem to be in a situation where everybody with real power knows that something is bound to snap. This doesn’t mean that there will be a ‘miscalculation’ – the decision-makers know that another catastrophe is a real potentiality, and we can all see the general trends that will result in it. We’ve entered a stage where it feels like that knowledge isn’t really connecting to reality, or it isn’t connecting to reality in a way that will end well.

This might just be overwrought stress, I have a very poor grasp of history and politics and no amount of reading has ever actually helped me to make a prediction. I should also point out that a psychology, or a vibe, isn’t what makes history. There are real forces at play, and I don’t know anywhere near enough about them to say what might happen. It doesn’t feel good though.

Anyway… The final book in Hobsbawm’s history, The Age of Extremes, is much longer than the other three. It will probably take me a few weeks to get through, particularly as I’m going to be busier than usual in the next few weeks. I’m looking forward to reading it, though. I didn’t, unfortunately, get to much reading on the representation question this week, I have been caught up doing some background reading in moral psychology. I have problems with moral psychology! I have problems with psychology tout court, really. The style of arguments used… I find that the conclusions drawn rarely follow the evidence and arguments provided. Psychologists seem to overstate the strength of their conclusions, the data they analyse seem to underdetermine the conclusions that can be drawn…

I’ve also began to write more by hand, recently. It’s nice, I do seem to focus much better without the internet looming over me as it does on a laptop. And I’m hardly racing the clock, at the moment, so it’s not hugely stressful. I would recommend it.