Two Challenges of Our Time
2024-11-22
(Originally published in Swedish here)
Morning meeting with the gang at Klimatsekretariatet. As so often, we quickly dive into the biggest of questions even before the first sip of coffee. How can we save the world as it looks today? What needs to happen, really? What’s standing in the way? If I were to distill my conclusions from the conversation, I would land on two challenges that must be addressed:
1. How do we get more people to be active? How do we awaken the masses?
When modern society was being shaped, my understanding is that the broad masses were on board. On the train. “Activists” were all of us, or at least enough of us. But maybe it was called something else back then. People were unionized, politically active, or involved in building society in other ways. Today, the majority sit at home in front of the endless offerings of streaming services. Going to the community center and actually “doing something” is perceived, at least in my circles, as something very niche. “How do you have the energy? Do you really think anything can change?” Those who benefit from the status quo are probably quite pleased that the word “activist” has gained such a negative connotation today. Well done there. But what do we want, if not active citizens?
The environmental movement’s big problem is that it fails to reach beyond its own bubble. To do so in an era dominated by a constant media flow and a cynical/nihilistic attitude is no easy task. Consider the following:
Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.
What Albert Einstein wrote in 1949 was probably true then and is definitely true now. We live in a reality where the majority uphold policies for the privileged minority—and the flow of information is a central part of this. Some form of digital and media liberation is needed, both on an individual and collective level, not too dissimilar to the temperance movement that lived symbiotically with the labor movement in the early 1900s. How can you change the world while drinking? How can you change the world while stuck in front of Netflix? We talk a lot about the polarizing effect of social media but hardly at all about the pacifying effect of the media giants.
Okay, since we’re already talking about Albert, I have to throw in another quote:
I believe, indeed, that overemphasis on the purely intellectual attitude, often directed solely to the practical and factual, in our education, has led directly to the impairment of ethical values. I am not thinking so much of the dangers with which technical progress has directly confronted mankind, as of the stifling of mutual human considerations by a “matter-of-fact” habit of thought which has come to lie like a killing frost upon human relations. … The frightful dilemma of the political world situation has much to do with this sin of omission on the part of our civilization. Without “ethical culture,” there is no salvation for humanity.
By the way, his page on Wikiquote is a goldmine.
2. How do we get those already active to stop being fragmented and instead see the common struggle?
There are countless interest groups and organizations fighting for their causes—good causes. But all too rarely, I think, do people look up and see that there are actually certain common denominators in our society causing the problems we are fighting against. My analysis increasingly points to the economic system and the profit-driven paradigm that completely dominates it. It’s no coincidence that we have a climate crisis, international conflicts, exploitation disputes, polarization, overworked public employees, gambling addiction, youth crime—all while we see extreme and accelerating wealth concentration and record-breaking mass consumption. These are natural consequences of the logic that prevails today and has prevailed in recent decades.
So let’s question the logic?
But more on that another time. Time for Friday night coziness in front of Netflix (nah, just kidding. But maybe På Spåret*. After all, it’s Friday).
* Swedish TV Quiz show