Writing in 1891, Frederick Engels reflected on Karl Marx’s ‘remarkable gift’ for That is our challenge. One of the ways that Adam Tooze has sought to respond is through adopting the frame of polycrisis, which he has further outlined in a new FT piece and accompanying Chartbook entry. The concept intuitively fits. It captures something in the air.

The framing of these notes around the the idea of imperfection is very deliberate. Partly it is about the imperfection of the subject matter - humans and the shared worlds will build, bend, and break - but also the analysis provided, inevitably partial and incomplete. There is something remarkably freeing about being honest about the limits of knowledge and comprehension.

What to make of the world we find ourselves in? In the last note, I was considering how we collectively understand the trajectory of the pandemic, and the difficulty of ascribing meanings to what has unfolded. Part of the challenge is the odd combination of a broadly shared condition - the ‘pan’ in pandemic - with a huge range of experiences and outcomes.

Ōe no Chisato, Poem 23 from One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each ( Hyakunin Isshu ) Autumn, that most Japanese of seasons, has arrived again. The beauty of the leaves and sky, tinged with the deep melancholy that comes with decay. That distinct sense of loss and sadness autumn provokes, these feelings are in the air as I reflect further on where we collectively find ourselves.

With this note, I would like to thank and welcome new readers, and provide an update on what I am exploring through this Substack. By training, I am a scholar of politics and international relations, and hold positions at universities in Australia and Japan, the former my country of origin, the latter my country of residence.

As we struggle to make sense of our ‘unnamable present’, one logical direction to turn is backwards. Historical analogs are sought out, comparisons are offered, and sooner or later, a reference is inevitably made to the Nazis. Certainly, historical reflection is a vital part of comprehending and acting in the world, but the manner in which it can work as a guide is less straightforward than what is often hoped.

Listening to a major podcast on one of the most important questions of our time, I was struck by a judgement made by the guest, who spoke of policy being used to encourage people to make ‘right choices’. The specific issue and platform are less important than the more general mentality it encapsulated.

I’ve largely avoided writing directly about the war in the Ukraine. My note from the start of March still conveys much of my thinking on it, with the relevance of the Clausewitzian Trinity only becoming more pronounced. The interplay of these three factors - (1) passion and violence, (2) chance and probability, (3) rationality and policy - continue to shape the conflict in powerful and unexpected ways.

Part of what I have been suggesting about polycrisis is the difficulty in making sense of it. Given this, I am trying a slightly different format for this note, it is consciously fragmentary, presented as a series of somewhat connected thoughts, observations and provocations about the current moment.

These are the opening words from The Metamorphosis of the World , the last work by German sociologist Ulrich Beck. He would have likely written this in 2014, a year that has become more significant in retrospect, when Russia clearly announced its intentions towards Ukraine and most failed to listen. With all the shocks and dislocations of the intervening years, his words only resonate more strongly now.

This is a line from The Dark Knight , in which Selina Kyle (Catwoman) offers a stark warning to her dancing partner Bruce Wayne (Batman). Around 2016, I started incorporating it into a course I was teaching on the post-Cold War liberal international order. In pointing to some of the underlying tensions and imbalances in the structure of our world, I was trying to encourage my students to think about what a breaking point might look like.