CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – Austin Peay State University’s third annual industry summit – titled “Leading in a Disruptive Environment” – invited local leaders and panelists on Tuesday to discuss a rapidly changing social climate.
Montgomery County Mayor Jim Durrett helped open the even event, reflecting on how the COVID-19 pandemic had forced the summit online. He also acknowledged the community’s successes during the pandemic.
“I think today is, even though we’re doing this virtually, which is a little bit different … quite frankly, it’s a lot different, I still think it shows the collaboration between all of the local players,” Durrett said. “We have a great community. We have willing partners who work together collaboratively.”
Because of the pandemic, this year’s summit – which education, government and industry partners together for discussion– took place as an online seminar comprising several speakers and panel discussions.
As Clarksville Mayor Joe Pitts introduced the summit’s keynote speaker, Washington Post columnist and best-selling author Max Boot, he foreshadowed a major theme of Boot’s presentation.
“The topic ‘Leading in a Disruptive Environment’ kind of gave me pause because I view life as a state of continuous disruptions,” Pitts said before praising how the local community and its leaders have navigated us through the pandemic. “We have proven we are strong, and we have proven we are resilient.”
Max Boot: ‘I don’t know what normal is anymore’
Boot is a foreign-policy analyst and national security expert who has been described by the International Institute for Strategic Studies as one of the “world’s leading authorities on armed conflict.”
Much of Boot’s presentation focused on multiple black swan events – occurrences that deviate from what normally happens and are difficult to predict – that the world has faced in recent decades.
“In the last 20 years, I think we’ve seen one abnormal event after another, from 9/11 to the coronavirus,” Boot said. “In the previous 10 years, we also saw some highly unexpected events like the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union.
“So I honestly don’t know what normal is anymore,” he added. “I think normal in America is changing greatly because the makeup of our society is changing.”
Boot also noted the recent role that disinformation has taken in further complicating disruptive events.
“I think conspiracy theories and disinformation are one of the biggest dangers that our political system faces,” he said. “We saw that danger manifest on January 6.”
Boot tied disinformation to the struggles we have faced while navigating the pandemic.
“We’re in danger right now because there’s so much coronavirus denialism,” he said. “A lot of the deaths that we’ve suffered because of the coronavirus are completely unnecessary.”
Boot said one way to combat disinformation could be through education, teaching children the distinction between credible and extreme news and information sources.
“We need to educate, I think younger people in particular, but really everybody, … to be skeptical about their sources of information and look for credible, mainstream factual sources of information,” Boot said.