Progress

Reminiscent of the Bloody Mary salad I made after returning from California in April, I escape the heat with some seafood and celery on the porch, accompanied by the house wine from N.Z.

Waiting in line at COOP earlier today, I was standing behind two guys in their thirties talking about that the plastic plates had been replaced by wooden ones. What was interesting was the blasé way by which they were contemplating the end of the world and the perceived unsustainability of everything around them.

I am often told that I am exaggerating, that Malthusian thinking is not widespread in society and that “environmentalism” remains highly marginalized. I am not so sure. In fact, at least in Sweden, large swaths of the population seem to have adopted a kind of meta-narrative of future environmental collapse, that things may be good now but soon the world as we know it will come to an end.

Such defeatism in turn reflects a deeper sense of lost agency. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, many people have come to think that social progress is impossible and that it is simply downhill from here on. Even in the United States which used to be known for its optimism about the future, recent survey data from the Pew Research Center shows to that a majority of Americans think that the economy will be weaker, life harder and healthcare less affordable in 2050. Obviously, such predictions may turn out to be self-fulfilling, especially if combined with distrust in democracy more generally.

So, what do I personally think about the future? I must say that I remain extremely optimistic about our long-term prospects even as I recognize that there may be some major stumbling blocks on the way. Saddened as I may be when I read about plans for new mid-century fighter jets, I think that other forces are simultaneously bringing the world together and that, for all their apparent strength, localism, chauvinism and ruralism will not fundamentally challenge the dynamics that have defined the last couple of centuries, and that as the world becomes more urban, open and fluid, people will become less interested in fixed identities and traditional hierarchical norms.