Not so long ago the term inflection point was given new life by the tech industry gathering to itself a gravity that is questionable. The term is clear, inflection points are moments, generally viewed in retrospect, when significant change has occurred or will in the near term. In the tech world these have been mostly benign though significant developments--the invention of the transistor perhaps or more recently the creation of large language models which presage unheralded advances in machine intelligence. But inflection points are hardly limited to technology, applying to the greater affairs of humanity with far more transformative and longer lasting effect.
Few would disagree that pivotal events in the lead up and aftermath of the first and second world wars were inflection points that forever shifted balances of power, the geo-political map and the creation of the world's current state of affairs. With the benefit of hindsight, the path to historic inflection points is readily observed. The on-going situation in the Middle East for example traces its origins to biblical times but owes its present and extreme circumstance to decisions made by colonial powers in the wake of WW1. And who would argue that the rise of the third reich was the predictable outcome of a hugely flawed end to that same war.
I recently picked up Tolstoy's War and Peace, a masterpiece that I must admit I had not fully enjoyed when I read it in high school. There is much to be appreciated, including Tolstoy's finely drawn caricatures of the key players, their vanities and aspirations and all too human limitations. But it is on the subject of war--and by extension the politics of war and human calamity that Tolstoy reveals the moments that lead to inflection, and the caprice that attends those moments when monumental shifts occur in the affairs of humankind.
For those who may not recall or have not had the pleasure of reading Tolstoy's work, kindly allow me to share some observations. The broad strokes of War and Peace portray a cast of characters in the Austro/Russian campaign against Napoleon motivated by both lofty idealism and frank opportunism. Bonaparte's ascendence and adventurism foreshadow a threat to the established order--to monarchy, serfdom, and class distinction. But war is also a time when young men of some social standing, whether with or without means, can suddenly propel themselves into positions of social esteem, power and wealth by their actions on the battlefield.
The singular impression Tolstoy conveys is one of individuals and nations blindly wandering into cataclysmic clashes with little more thought or planning than their personal and equally held national belief in a form of manifest destiny. So blinded by their aspirations, it is obvious to the reader that it cannot end well and indeed it does not. The folly of that war and all that followed, whether fought for noble or inglorious reasons is that little was obtained that endures, peace was a momentary state and humans learned nothing from the errors of their past.
It is just such a moment in our own history as we witness upheaval of staggering proportion and stand by largely mute at the systematic erosion of our rights and what standing our nation retains in the world order. In our hearts, however deeply hidden, we must know that nothing we are experiencing will return our country to a vaunted greatness, but more likely reduce it to the very thing our founders despised and so greatly feared. As we watch our sole set of guiding principles, our Constitution and rule of law cast aside in mere days we are witnessing an inflection point the outcome of which will echo through future generations.
Is it possible to arrest this fall over the cliff on which we are poised? It is always possible to alter the course of history but the cost is a price few are willing to pay. It was a price our ancestors paid less than a century ago and at our inception, yet here we are watching as our freedoms seem to be vanishing before us and the safeguards we set in place against such a circumstance appear to have failed.
Were Tolstoy writing today, one imagines he might invoke a contemporary version of the scene he so brilliantly painted as Prince Andrew Bolkonski is wounded in the battle of Borodino. Just as he believes his moment of destiny has arrived, Prince Andrew can only see the sky above him. His thoughts are the revelations of a man at the moment he believes he is dying and, in that moment, he finally understands the truth of his own and his nation's ambitions; "How was it I did not see that sky before? And how happy I am to have found it at last! Yes! All is vanity, all falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing but that. But even it does not exist, there is nothing but quiet and peace."
I possess no crystal ball, I am not a prophet, but I can plainly see that our nation and our world will never be the same. This is indeed an inflection point, a moment of destiny, and Tolstoy would tell us that it is a product of ambition, opportunism, ignorance, vanity and falsehood, but we should not believe that quiet and peace are its end.
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