2021: Past, present and future

(JNS) — Looking back at 2021 in the hope of having something sensible to say about the past year, I found myself musing on a perennial question. Is history a story of progress, in which greater numbers of human beings become healthier, happier, more affluent, more tolerant and more educated with each year? Is it a story in which we learn from our past errors and those of our predecessors in order to not repeat them?

Or is history a series of random cycles, in which health, happiness and wealth are at best fleeting experiences in a world where the same ills return to overcome us, regardless of...