I’ve had quite a lot of time to reflect on things lately and came up with a list looking for a story. My teenage daughter looking casually over my shoulder at the headlines I had written suggested that they looked like ‘the kind of things bored housewives post on the internet’. You should always trust your harshest critics but if you are bored, and have five minutes to spare, you can decide.
Hope is not a strategy
I read that headline somewhere and I don’t know the source but either way, it illustrates nicely how far out on the thin ice we’ve got when the only thing holding us up is actually hope. The Russians have a proverb, ‘Hope is the last thing to die’ and judging by the poor quality of life of the majority of those who live there, it’s an essential part of the illusion in which they participate. Hope was a winning strategy for Barack Obama back in 2008, but we are a long way from Kansas now and the Wizard of Oz was revealed as a glittering fake tap dancing in ruby slippers. Like George Carlin said: it’s called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it. Just ask any immigrant if there’s no place like home — there really isn’t.
If social media is your main source of information, accept that it is better to be uninformed, than misinformed
It’s a bit of a Hobson’s choice these days if you are planning to get your news off social media channels instead of accredited and fact-checking institutions — there’s a difference between facts and opinions and most institutions make this clear in the division between their news items and their editorials and columns. When Mark Twain pointed out that if you don’t read the newspapers, you are uninformed and if you do, you are misinformed, he would undoubtedly have recommended avoiding social media as a third alternative completely for that very reason.
Identity politics is looking for a new home
Abortion rights didn’t move the needle in one recent election but over-complicating gender and turning it into political and social spectacle sure did — in the wrong direction. Human biology and human identity are complex but reducing them to a Starbucks menu with added sprinkles and expecting everyone else to get with the program or be cancelled is where Mein Kampf meets the Emperor’s Clothes. As Sam Harris said in his appraisal of the latest election result, identity politics needs to be buried deep. I/they/it agree(s).
Populism like religion requires blind faith in father figures
Populism brought the UK Brexit. Populism brought about wall-eyed conspiracy theories and a rejection of facts in favour of opinions and hearsay. Populism is either a symptom of cynical politicians or a reaction by people en masse unable to cope with the complexity of modern life and looking for simple solutions (as well as someone to blame). It’s a bit of both, I suppose. But stern father figures (or even jovial ones) are equally dangerous when they wield power with the unquestioning consent of their parishioners or followers. If you can’t tell whether it’s a religion or a cult of personality you may realise too late that thoughts, prayers and votive offerings can be just as deadly as pitchforks and firebrands.
If you put the clowns in charge of a circus, expect chaos
While vastly popular in his day, and loved by children, Ronald was never elected CEO of MacDonalds and finally, when people figured out just how sinister clowns are, this face-painted monstrosity was shuffled quietly away into the annals of fast-food corporate history (or was it to the sewers of Derry, Maine?) alongside his pal, the kleptomaniac Hamburglar. It could happen again.
Nostalgia is not what it used to be — it’s better
Nostalgia is having a bit of a moment right now. It’s the old chestnut that the Boomer/X generation and generations before them grind on ad nauseum about how things were better in earlier years. Nostalgia is a very powerful force because by drawing you back to ‘happier’ days you are simultaneously enjoying something you will never get back and comforting yourself in a weird way that you have at least enjoyed some modicum of comfort before the whip came down. Objectively, life in 2024 is much better than before by many metrics for many more people but for the greatest percentage of humanity, it’s still shit. Also, we’re not just dealing with the threat of nuclear annihilation like the post war generation, we’ve also got a non-negotiable threat of climate change to consider too. It’s all coming down the pipe fast so yeah, I get it that nostalgia isn’t just what it used to be — it’s looking better day by day.
The global village is separating into gated communities
Do you remember the bright optimism around the opening of the internet age to create a global village? It happened around the same time that globalization became a thing with the idea that wealth and opportunity would be distributed more fairly everywhere. It was aspirational but like every good notion or movement, it was exploited, cheapened, commercialized and parcelled off. Off shoring to exploit cheaper resources caused the collapse of communities on shore. Extended supply chains became improbabilities, especially during Covid, and now with America withdrawing from its post WW2 guarantee of safe seas, practically untenable.
The internet for all its worth has become the vector for a viral infection called social media, invisible algorithms determine our thoughts and reactions, and AI makes the unbelievable believable. Whatever small dreams we may have had for a better future were permanently extinguished by the 2008 banking crisis and a nasty cold that went viral in 2020. It’s no surprise that countries and economic blocks are circling the wagons and surveying the perimeter for hostiles — they are out there, and they are very pissed off.
Stop in the uncanny valley to smell the flowers, but don’t expect a fragrance
Ah yes, to return to the paragraph before, in demographic terms, there are still places for people to go but it’s getting more difficult. As the seas rise and storms intensify, climate migration will undoubtedly be our biggest challenge as a species going forward but the rich get ahead of the queue. Is it any surprise to you that the billionaire class have already built fully functioning luxury bunkers in some of nature’s most remote and beautiful garden spots? For everyone else, it’s hold on to what you’ve got while you can and hope for the best (see paragraph one).
In the meantime, we in the West are invited by those same billionaires to walk deeper into the uncanny valley where everything looks beautiful but is an illusion of someone else’s making. Homesteaders in the 18th century heading West were willing to risk hardship and death to achieve their dreams of liberty but it feels like we have reached land’s end for now (until Antarctica melts).
Final thoughts
It’s easy to paint a bleak picture of how humanity has countlessly dropped the ball, but we have. The earth is not paradise, but it certainly has provided us with the means to sustain countless generations, build up vast complex civilizations and even set a course for the stars. But come on, for all we have achieved, it really is starting to feel like the need for a big reset — not to factory settings but something that precedes that. I’m not sure what that is but I have a suspicion that it’s a journey through the valley of the shadow before we get to the real kingdom of heaven. In the meantime, fear no evil. It was never meant to last anyway.
