After the year we have just had, to say nothing of the three years that preceded it, it is tempting to think about the good old days—you know, the days when life was simpler and we were more hopeful. The only problem with that notion is that in many ways the good old days were not actually all that good. Now bear with me, I am not suggesting that things haven’t changed and even improved a bit here and there. But when you stand back and look at the world as a whole, at the significant issues with which we are contending and which have remained intractably unresolved despite all of our advances it is a sobering realization that we humans are uniquely self -destructive creatures.
We have understood—at least some enlightened souls understood several hundred years ago that we were poor stewards of our planet and its resources—even if we did not have widespread awareness of the degree to which our agricultural, industrial and resource policies and practices were creating an increasingly toxic and un-sustainable future. Even today, in the face of overwhelming evidence we are engaged in a destructive course that may not be reversible, apathy and denial stymie action.
We’ve come far from the days of the black plague—but not so far that there are those who would deny themselves and their children the benefits of what we have learned about preventing and curing many diseases—and some of us like primitive aboriginals think that science is just magic—and pandemics are hoaxes.
Technology has been a boon; we can now hurl insults at our neighbors next door or around the world in seconds—all from the safe harbor of our phone or computer. We don’t actually have to see, listen to or try to understand those who may hold different views—after all the beings at the other end of our self-righteous diatribes aren’t real—they re just faceless, nameless (fill in your favorite expletives). Reality—well what is it anymore when all information is suspect and what we see or hear can be manufactured out of thin air—so nothing is real or true or worthwhile?
Indeed, we have come a long way, but all our exposure and knowledge lead us to make the same uninformed, biased, and emotionally immature judgments about the world in which we live as we did when our understanding was nil and the average person had access to almost nothing by way of education.
We have moved well beyond apocalyptic religion in much of the world—except of course wherever authoritarian leaders in clerical guise –from ayatollahs to televangelists preach hatred, racism, and intolerance under the banner of their self-proclaimed one true religion—picking and choosing words from ancient sacred texts to justify their particular brand of bile.
War—well that too has progressed. We still fight over resources, oil, money, land, religion and so-called politics, but it is increasingly impersonal just like our personal media. We can and do kill from afar—and we’ve managed to invent weapons that can annihilate entire cities—even countries at the push of a button. But we still tax and spend on our armies and weapons a disproportionate share of our collective means to ‘safeguard’ our way of life, while we allow hundreds of millions to go without adequate food or shelter—not all that much different from any time in our past.
I could go on but the point is made—the good old days were just as bad, hard, hateful and ignorant as the present. But people had hope despite the adversity they faced in their age. Not hope writ large—at least that was and remains rare and generally short lived. They had what we have now and should hold onto with all the power we can muster. Hope for a better world in the future, hope for our families and communities that even if we cannot solve the big problems, we can make life a little bit better today, and little more positive for those around us. Hope is individual and personal and also what makes us humans, well, human. We have lived with strife, enmity, disease, war and famine throughout history. Our planet has never truly known peace, has never been an Eden despite all its abundance and the capacity for invention we were gifted with as creatures.
As the end of this annus horribilis draws near I wish us all hope that the new year will be better than the last, and the days ahead will be less like the good old days
Comments