Haricots beurre

Two days later and the world is still here. I make a pasta salad with lemon, halloumi and beans while I wait for my social work students to finish writing their 100+ exams that I have to mark before I can leave for the Middle East.

For obvious reasons, modernity is often associated with disruption. While many processes, urbanization in particular, may be highly disruptive for the individual, I still think that the defining feature of our time is rather one of continuity. Unlike in the pre-modern world where currencies suddenly became worthless, territories changed owners from one day to the other and disease could strike at any moment, the liberal world order has provided social and economic stability in ways that previous generations could not even imagine.

Looking through a collection of old Lufthansa ads, what stands out, beyond how much more patriarchal the world was only three or four decades ago, is precisely the continuity of small things. While certainly no guarantee for the future, it is somehow reassuring that a person so unhinged as Donald Trump can still somehow be contained.