Our understanding of a central issue in geology—how the continents were formed and located—wasn’t clearly settled until the 1960s (I still am amazed that such an important aspect of science remained unclear until so recently!). The (now) standard theory is called plate tectonics and it posits the existence of a group of (quite large) “plates” (16 major ones) that float on top of Earth’s mantle. They bump up against each other and—from time to time—move, usually causing earthquakes and tsunamis. Most of the time there’s no action, just a build-up of pressure, until the tension becomes too great and the plates jerk into a new configuration.
Shortly thereafter, a similar theory emerged which was applicable to the story of the evolution of plants and animals: things alter minutely and incrementally until some shock to the system causes major and widespread changes. It’s called “punctuated equilibrium,” most notably championed by Stephen Gould in the 1970s.
Now, many aspects of social studies (sciences?) can be analogized to physics and other sectors of the physical (“hard”) sciences; such concepts as entropy, gravity, and inertia can each be applied to the creation and function of human societies, their politics and economics. So, I’m espousing a theory of “political tectonics” which suggests that human societies—and, in particular, their power structures—move in similar ways. As with any analogy, we must allow for some ‘slosh’ room and not look for precise matching. This is especially true where we move from measurable and quantifiable sciences to the “softer” realm of people and history.
In terms of domestic political change, we might analogize from terrestrial “plates” to socio-political groupings, movements, parties, organizations, and other institutions. These groupings evolve, to be sure, in the ordinary course of things; changing membership, shifting ideologies, and accreting or shedding political power vis-à-vis other groupings. Much of this is not so visible unless closely studied (usually in retrospect). Often, however, the tensions build without much change…until they do. Historically, we can look at the status of slavery in the US in the early 19C, or the powers of the British House of Lords in the late 19 and early 20C. The status of women and Blacks in the US made only incremental process until the 1960s. In each case, a crisis forced things to a head and remarkable and significant changes resulted.
The great revolutions in France and Russia can be seen in the same light. Ditto for China in the early 20C and Iran in the 1970s.
A similar perspective applies internationally. The collapse of the Soviet empire came pretty much out of the blue, despite some rumblings in the 1970s and 1980s. The start of WWI can be seen as the cataclysmic spasm of realignment of the Great Powers in Europe early in the 20C. Lately China has made modest strides at projecting global power, but we may well look back on the 2020s as an inflection point in global geopolitics.
In each case, surface appearances and political institutions remain stable (until they don’t); but underneath they mask a shift in political power. It is the accumulated tension of this mismatch that—due to some butterfly effect—can break out into dramatic realignment. There is an interpretation of British political history in the 19C that saw its gradual accommodation of the emerging power of the working class into the political system as a great accomplishment in the avoidance of the punctuated revolutions which characterized European continental developments in the same period.
If geologists have a hard time predicting earthquakes or volcanic eruptions (usually even moments before), much the same can be said of social scientists and generic pundits’ efforts to do the same for political and social realignments. Instead, we are deluged with this crowd revealing all sorts of scenarios as to what might happen soon; in part to fill their words per month output quotas, in part so they can (when lucky) and say “I told you so.” The vagaries of political polling (from “Dewey Defeats Truman” to a pair of Trumpian triumphs) are notable in this regard. The media—from lame/mainstream to micro-social—are replete with this sort of blather.
It may be frustrating to many that despite the immense strides in sciences of all sorts, much of the time we simply don’t know what’s happening to our world/society until things actually happen. Our disappointment is partially due to the high expectations we have developed around the predictability achieved in many areas of the hard sciences. It is also due to our difficulty in tolerating an awareness that our world and social structures are precarious and could be tipped over in an instant. We’ve managed (so far) not to blow ourselves up in a nuclear war. The financial meltdown of 2007-09 could easily have done far more damage to our banking/insurance/credit systems. Our luck, however, is no cause for comfort regarding the next “big one.”
Even if we make progress in mapping geologic phenomena to a degree that our understanding of plate tectonics approaches that of electric grids or telecom networks, people are a couple of orders of magnitude more ephemeral, contingent, and flaky. The operation of social systems therefore has to be more speculative and the fundamental analogy of this argument is limited. Even AI is unlikely to be able to predict things any better than we do now (although its mechanistic appearance may seem more reassuring).
In sum, as Donald Rumsfield famously said: there are the “known unknowns” and the “unknown unknowns.” We might track geologic plates in the hope of figuring out the next earthquake, or speculate about the impact of working-class social disaffection on the current political culture, or even on the impact of massive AI-driven investment on labor or energy markets. Even if we can only suss out directional indications rather than any specific implication, it’s good to bear in mind that we won’t know much until it happens.
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