Where’s a world order when you need one?

Since 2020 began I’ve been thinking about some of the year’s significant anniversaries, especially it being the 75th anniversary of everything that happened in 1945. I was expecting that we’d have heard a lot about 1945 by this point in the year, with world leaders gathering and doing whatever they do at commemorations: pompous speeches, wreaths, and all that. Then the COVID came, and everything else seems like faraway old news.

But this week I realized, the COVID isn’t the only reason we’re not hearing recollections and reflections about those momentous events of 1945, the year the basic framework of our geopolitical order was constructed. There are other reasons no one’s going there right now—and it’s all a little awkward to talk about, the world order being kind of out to lunch, to put it mildly, at a moment we could really use some unity among the humans and the nations.

45 vs. ’45, perhaps? Or is that a smidgen too simple?

Anyway, I wrote this miniature, 500-word opinion piece to try to get at what I realized, and to express it a little bit indirectly. Give it a read at the Anchorage Press and let me know what you think!

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