Why Europe Must Learn the Language of Power
I'm just back from another stimulating Digital Life Design (DLD) conference in Munich where all the talk was about the growing technological and political gap with the United States and China. From Machiavelli and Hobbes to Napoleon and Bismarck, Europe invented the modern concept of state power. But decades of outsourcing security to NATO and the US have left the continent dangerously rusty both in the language and execution of power. According to Marta Mucznik, a senior analyst at the Brussels-based left-leaning International Crisis Group, "projecting power is the language of today's world." And unless European politicians relearn it, Mucznik warns, that growing gap between Europe and the bipolar reality of a US-China centric world will only continue to dramatically widen.
Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe
Damien Lewis on a Profound Sense of Duty: What Josephine Baker Had in Common With Queen Elizabeth II
Andy Kroll on the Madness of Online Crowds: What the 2016 Murder of Seth Rich Tells Us About Our Conspiratorial Age
Kim Samuel: Should the Right to "Belong" Be Enshrined As a Sacred Human Right?
Jason Feifer on Darwin 2.0: How to Embrace Change, Adapt Fast, and Future Proof Both Your Career and Your Life
Michael Sayman: How the Gay Son of First-Generation Peruvian Immigrants Became the Most Influential Latino in Silicon Valley
Mark Bergen: Given YouTube's World Domination, Should the Google-Owned Video Platform Be More Aggressively Regulated and Controlled?
Douglas Rushkoff: What the Escape Fantasies of Tech Billionaires Reveal About Our Apocalyptic Age
Josh Chin: Why China's "Surveillance State" Is More Nuanced Than Either China Lovers or Haters Would Have Us Believe
Ross Dawson: How Can We Be Sure That This "Futurist" Author Isn't, In Fact, a Smart Machine?
David Livermore: How to Get Along With People That You Want to Eradicate
Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell: Feminist or Feminine? A Twentieth-Century History of Skirts
Louise Perry: No More Sex? A "Feminist" Case Against the Sexual Revolution
Jonathan Darman: How FDR Learned to Be FDR: The Personal Crisis That Transformed Him Into a Historic Leader