The Illusion of War and the Failure to Evolve: A Reflection on Our Civilizational Crisis

“You can’t wake someone who is pretending to be asleep.”

— Navajo proverb

In observing the trajectory of modern geopolitics, especially the ongoing U.S. & China trade war, I can’t help but sense that we are once again playing out an ancient, self-destructive drama—one that has plagued human societies for millennia. A drama of ego, fear, division, and illusion. And like all great tragedies, it repeats itself not because it must, but because we refuse to learn.

A New Trade War—Or the Same Old Wound?

While the headlines may focus on tariffs, rare earth minerals, and export controls, what lies beneath the current U.S.-China conflict is far more psychological than economic. Trade wars today are not just about jobs or market share—they are about identity, grievance, and the weaponization of fear.

It’s hard to ignore that under the current Trump administration, policy decisions seem to be driven more by ego and emotional reaction than by logical statecraft. There is an unmistakable desire to punish, to dominate, to assert control—not just over adversaries abroad but over perceived enemies within.

This resonates most strongly with a demographic that has felt left behind: the working-class Americans of rural and post-industrial regions, particularly in the Midwest. To them, globalization feels like a betrayal. Technological advancement, immigration, and the offshoring of manufacturing are seen not as systemic evolutions, but as theft—of jobs, culture, and dignity.

Politicians and interest groups, ever attuned to the emotional weather of their base, exploit this resentment. They offer symbolic victories—like steep tariffs or nationalist rhetoric—in place of real, systemic solutions. It is, in essence, identity politics with a different flag.

The Futility of Reversing Globalization

But here lies the crux of the problem: you cannot un-ring the bell of globalization. The world is now entangled in a complex web of interdependence—supply chains span continents, financial markets operate in nanoseconds, and AI models are trained on multilingual data from every corner of the globe.

Efforts to decouple or “repatriate” entire industries may offer the illusion of control, but in truth, they are gestures against the tide. And in the process, they often harm the very individuals they claim to protect. Higher prices, economic inefficiencies, and global instability are borne not by elites but by everyday citizens—both in the U.S. and abroad.

Worse, intelligent, rational voices are marginalized in such an emotionally charged atmosphere. Those who advocate for nuance, cooperation, or long-term systems thinking are drowned out by those selling certainty and tribal vengeance.

A Species That Still Doesn’t Learn

It’s now been more than a century since World War I, and 80 years since World War II. These were cataclysmic events meant to teach humanity about the cost of division, hatred, and unchecked power. Yet here we are again—staring down new forms of conflict, both physical and economic, as if nothing was ever learned.

Despite our advanced technologies—quantum computing, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence—we remain emotionally unevolved. Our limbic systems, wired for survival in tribal bands, still override our prefrontal cortex when fear is triggered.

“The splitting of the atom has changed everything, except our way of thinking.”

— Albert Einstein

We are a species with godlike tools and childlike emotional maturity.

Civil Unrest: The Modern War of Tribes

One of the most concerning outcomes of this global regression is the threat of civil unrest, not just between nations but within them. As shared narratives collapse and echo chambers harden into dogmas, society fractures into warring tribes—each convinced of its moral superiority, each dehumanizing the other.

This isn’t just a political divide. It is an epistemological chasm—a breakdown in how different groups even perceive reality. In such a world, hatred becomes currency, and truth becomes irrelevant.

Unless a critical mass of individuals awakens from this trance, the trajectory will not be pleasant. It may take collapse or catastrophe before enough people realize: the true enemy was never the other tribe. The enemy was always within—our unexamined illusions, our projections, our need to be right rather than whole.

The Only Way Out: Awakening, Not War

The path forward is neither easy nor popular. It is not found in stronger borders or louder slogans. It is found in the quiet, personal decision to turn inward. To investigate our own minds. To transcend inherited narratives. To feel pain without weaponizing it. To hold anger without turning it into vengeance.

Human evolution will not be measured in GDP or AI breakthroughs, but in our capacity for compassion, complexity, and consciousness. Until we learn to regulate our inner worlds, we will continue to project them outward—creating enemies where there were simply unmet needs.

A Final Thought

This is not a time for blind optimism. But it is a time for conscious realism.

There will likely be more tension, more economic shocks, more tribal conflict before anything resembling unity emerges. But eventually, after enough suffering, people will begin to see that hatred is a mirror, not a solution. That war is a failure of imagination. That peace is not the absence of enemies but the presence of maturity.

And those who can see this truth now—those who are willing to speak, to build, to guide—must become the architects of what comes next.

Because the question before us is no longer “What will happen?”

The question is:

Who are we willing to become?

Unite Our World

Disclaimer: this blog post was cowritten with ChatGPT, based on a meaningful discussion I had with AI on human psyche, globalization, etc. The AI has learnt so much about us. It is a powerful tool to have objective insights and guidance for the better future of our entire human race.