We now appear to be in one of those periods where we sense we are losing more than what is being gained. Most of us feel out of sorts. We went from the “we can do this” effort of banging pots and pans for our health-care workers to splintering into strident advocates or detractors in everything from vaccine mandates to trucker convoys. Our loyalties seem all over the map. Our individualism, rather than leading to cooperation, seems less an asset and more of an accelerant for endless criticisms. We are becoming strangers to one another, even in our own families.
Perhaps the worst of it all is that we are having trouble locating what is missing, what it was that held us together in a confusing time. In our worst moments, we entertain the thought of civilization’s collapse. We feel we are wandering about in a revolution of cultural, moral, and spiritual decay. The result is that we hardly know one another anymore.
In our rush to tear down our key institutions, we failed to realize that it was those collective embodiments of who we are that kept us together. Sure, they were flawed and carried historic dysfunctions that blunted their ability to lead us forward, but they were also where we healed, learned, gathered, worshipped, celebrated, governed ourselves, and, though slowly, progressed as a people. COVID is prompting us to reconsider if, in our abandoning of these benchmark organizations, we have lost our ability to come together to find a way forward
The big question remains: As we forsake our institutions, what is to take their place? Populism? Factionalism? Rampant partisanship? Regionalism? Any attempt to build new institutions to replace what we are disappointed with will take decades to achieve the influence that can help pull us together. Do we have the time left to achieve it, with climate change, economic shifts, homelessness, mental illness, racial divisions, and political extremism on the rise everywhere?
And, so here we are, surrounded by rubble. Can we see our way out of this? The truth is that we are faced with a crisis of character:
We remain a disappointed people, and yet we frequently fail to see our own role in the general despondency. Are we mature enough to confess that we failed our institutions? Far too many of us pulled away from politics as it became more self-absorbed. We treated it more like entertainment than the representative structure it was supposed to be. Before our present appreciation of our health-care workers, millions of us bemoaned the decline of our health systems instead of holding governments and health administrators to account for the erosion of one of our key accomplishments since the Second World War. We often chased after cheaper products at the expense of higher employment and better wages for our domestic workforce.
We watched as our post-secondary institutions spiralled upward in cost, as governments and administrators focused more on earning than on learning. We watched as gender equity stalled in our public institutions and shrugged our shoulders. Witnessing climate change firsthand, too many of us voted against or ignored those organizations that sought to usher in an age of sustainability. We used to boast of how Canada was for kids, but somehow made it into a playground for adults.
None of these things is easy to write or admit, but it is that lack of collective attention that permitted our institutions to lose their way. What is missing in this age of disillusionment is ultimately us. We could vote, spend, save, protect, learn, celebrate, and lead as citizens in ways that would leave this pandemic in the dust. The way to accomplish it is to renew our institutions, not abandon them. They are how we come together to do great things, as our parents and grandparents knew. Blame institutions or rebuild them. That’s the choice and it is ultimately ours.
As Cassius reminded Brutus, "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves."
Image: mocah.org
10 comments:
Mr Pearson has forgotten to mention two of the biggest concerns in society is inequality and over population. All while we have need to make lots of money to be heard, to be recognized as worthwhile people able as contributor; , not looked upon as lesser, we will continue to face these troubling times. No one person has the right to look down upon anyone, not even the Queen especially her Courtiers. Neither the Pope nor Elon Musk have a right to believe they are much more than anyone else. Anyong
Unfortunately, many of us take pride in being better than others, Anyong.
Wealth inequality is the 300 pound gorilla in the room that pundits studiously avoid. There's a ton of empirical research showing declining social cohesion strongly correlated with increasing income inequality. Covid has exacerbated the problem.
There's also a ton of historical research showing similar conditions in Europe around the end of the First World War, leading first to communism and later to fascism. There are still plenty of survivors of communism to discredit it, but very few survivors of fascism are left. Besides, the masters of the universe like fascism, so it's the option they won't quickly move to eradicate. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that our current neo-liberal economic orthodoxy is grooming us to accept fascism. Until we restore the tax rates that prevailed from the end of the Second World War to the 1980s and aggressively break up monopolies and cartels, we'll be playing whack-a-mole with right-wing populist uprisings financially supported by a faction of the business elites.
Cap
We are ruled more by our heritage as apes than we by our aspirations as humans. Thus it has always been and has yet to be any other.
I agree, Cap. Forty years of misguided policy have led us to this moment. If we had a real understanding of history, we would recognize what has happened.
We have evolved as a species, Dana. But there have been moments in our history when we have devolved.
I think he's trying to say that Canada didn't listen to the leftists who condemned everything he listed happening in Canada during recent decades while they were happening, only to be ignored or derided the entire time. As for our institutions, ... stephen harper shat upon all of the foundational principles of parliamentary democracy and we let him get away with that.
I don't think we're inferior to previous generations. But I do know that collectively, the adult population of Canada has been failing for years and years.
This is a generational thing, thwap. There are large groups of us who have thought more about our rights and less about our responsibilities.
This brings to mind a post about the Munich Security Conference that opens today or tomorrow. The theme this year is "collective helplessness." It appears to be a constant, background tension tinged with a sense of fatalism. It's said to be particularly corrosive to liberal democracy.
The report describes a mood of "collective helplessness." In the same way as ordinary individuals, whole societies can be overcome by a sense that they simply have no answer to the challenges they face.
"There can be no doubt about it: 2021 could not in any way be characterized as a year of geopolitical optimism. New crises hit the headlines on a more-or-less monthly basis, contributing to the sensation that a growing wave of crises was threatening to overwhelm us," the report reads.
When it's skilfully exploited despair can be a powerful force. To what extent, if any, it contributed to the Ottawa occupation probably won't be known for some time.
We treat this coronavirus as somehow conquered, an illusion that we'll cling to until some new, perhaps more lethal variant emerges. What then?
We continue to prop up an economic system based on perpetual, exponential growth, ridiculously fragile supply chains and worsening inequality.
When, if ever, will we prepare for climate change? I believe that the IPCC will release its first report on climate adaptation next week. What are we doing to adapt, building a pipeline? We're still recovering from a massive atmospheric river that, in one swoop, severed every rail and highway artery connecting BC to the rest of Canada. Further east, megadrought is setting in.
Democracies are flagging. Our man, Trudeau, promised electoral reform, the keystone to democratic restoration but showed little to no interest in it once elected. Instead we're descending into a divided populace, shades of tribalism.
Collective helplessness? Absolutely. We're being set up for a very chaotic future and even the most ignorant among us sense it.
We are increasingly pessimistic, Mound -- which doesn't bode well for the future.
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