I’m noticing lately that many high-profile commentators, intellectuals and thought-leaders seem to be at pains to remind us that humanity has come a long way over the last few centuries.
I’m curious about this trend.
Whilst it is true that we’ve made great advances in things like reducing poverty, increasing GDP and spending less time at war, it’s also true that these are highly selective measures of what we might deem ‘progress’.
If we were to measure wealth inequality, soil health, species diversity, the prevalence of mental illness or the rate of preventable diseases like type-2 diabetes, things would start to look quite different.
What I also notice is that these views of historic progress rarely focus on just the last 20 or 30 years. And they pay little attention to where we might be headed next.
I’m curious why so many intelligent people with an influence on our culture are sharing these views.
Is it simply a call for more positivity, an attempt to lift us out of the less pleasant mood we’re experiencing?
Or are we, perhaps, comforting ourselves with past progress as a defence against recognising the state we’re in and where we seem to be headed?
Are we turning even further away from reality?
Optimism and pessimism feel like redundant concepts here, it’s about seeing what is. A burning room is still a burning room regardless of whether we choose to toast marshmallows or weep in despair.
To paraphrase Yvon Chouinard, there’s no difference between an optimist and a pessimist because in either case the result is the same – nothing gets done.
If we take away these constructed perspectives and seek to see what is really happening, what might be revealed then?
And do we really want to see it?
[image by Hans Eiskonen on Unsplash]
