Fear, tensions and opportunism
I believe that there are 3 major, global phenomena that are currently shaking our world — and potentially shaping its future:
Political extremism in Western democracies: it has been going on for a while, and we are all extremely well aware of this. But what we may factor in less are the reasons it has been going on — and why/how it could go away. The same way the economy works in cycles, socio-political undercurrents work in trends. The current one points to a polarized debate in Western democracies, because we are witnessing a generational shift: traditional, lower class, white citizens are slowly but surely loosing their socio-economic footing, and that sets off a series of xenophobic, chauvinistic and/or racist outbursts everywhere. The January 6 event — and the American presidency that let/made this happen — is but the latest flagrant example of this.
Beyond that, I also see the sad cyclical effet of mankind forgetting the lessons of the past: it’s been generations since we last saw all-out wars, and at least one that we haven’t been involved in a traumatic and/or deadly conflict. Afghanistan, for all intents and purposes, was a far more limited military option than Vietnam was. Or at least with less damaging consequences on the Western front (the jury is very much out in regards to the Eastern front). Because we have fewer examples/memories of war, we tend to forget that it can happen and we let tensions rise. Again. Now, I’m not one to consider that things are worsening — on the contrary, so I believe that potential upcoming conflicts, military or otherwise, will likely be less violent than those of the past. But they could be / have been preventable is my point.
The (post-)Covid crisis: Covid quite simply made everything worse, i.e. more potent. We saw that our way of life was very much a fragile affair, we discovered what a modern pandemic — one in which we actually know a lot about what’s happening in near-real time — looks like, we realized that things can get worse in a whole new way. Indeed, we were familiar with military violence or the climate change problem, but not global diseases in that way. And that made fearful populations all the more… fearful. Not that we are slowly / hopefully moving past Covid, we should very much learn from it so as to a) take less medical chances, b) become more resilient societies. Despite current backlash, I believe it will happen, although probably not as swiftly or profoundly as it should…
The environmental challenge: meanwhile, climate change isn’t going anywhere. Or, rather, it is getting worse. 2020 may have produced less carbon emissions — for obvious reasons — but pollution is on the rise again this year. And the solutions to tackle this issue are still very far from identified, planned out, let alone implemented. Here as well, I remain optimistic: Jeff Bezos’ theory that we should outsource polluting industries outside of the earth’s surface appears both problematic — and too long term to be effectively relevant. Instead, there is a host of issues that we as a species have started to analyse, and first ideas / solutions are being tested and implemented, even if the process is slow and there remains a great number of unsolved questions. What is positive is that we are finally addressing the topic, beyond the usual wishful thinking… In other words, there is hope, even if our industries remain on this earth.
On this note, I’ll let you enjoy the remainder of your weekend!