A Sea of Change

Call me old-fashioned, but I still embrace the idea of progress. It is self-evident that the world is changing. The problem is that nowadays, people tend to be cynical; few people seem to believe the world could also be progressing? This time, I’m no longer writing about material progress, like more mobile phones or faster internet. This may be important, but I’m now writing about human progress. For me human progress is the deliberation of some sort of evil or the construction of something better, with reasonable hope that the change is fundamental, robust and lasting. I’m looking for something that makes us happy or least, something that gives us hope humanity is on the right track.

I’m 52,5 years old now and I have been witness of some real changes:

1.  I remember I was at the age of 11 and the teacher asked us to make a presentation about communism, capitalism and the nuclear arms race. The fall of the Iron Curtain 13 years later was real progress in Europe. We didn’t need to fear for a nuclear war anymore and freedom did its entrance in Eastern Europe.
2.  When I was a child, every good family party ended under a thick layer of cigar and cigarette smoke. We could not imagine anything else. Our social habits have changed since. One may regret the loss of a certain ‘atmosphere’, but everybody will agree we evolved to a healthier way of celebrating Christmas.
3.  When I was a child, the rivers were open sewers, full of dirt, and you could smell it. Now, there is again fish in the rivers. We now have water purification stations between our sewers and the rivers.
4.  When I was a child, South-Europe was still considered to be poor. The countries had regular currency devaluations and you always had to get rid in time from Liras, Drachmas and Pesetas because 5 years later, you had to add a 0 at the right of all prices. Italy, Spain and Greece may still have economic problems, but today we would no longer consider the population as 'poor'. In South Italy, the Mafia is losing its grip on society and there is justified hope that the Mafia will disappear to the history books of feodality.
5.  One of the most remarkable changes in the last decade is the increased transparency. You may argue the contrary is true. But look at all recent revelations of manager salaries and paradise papers. It is becoming increasingly difficult to hide money. Thanks to better computer interconnections, public authorities are starting to exchange information. You may regret this, but I’m convinced this will lead someday to a fairer world.

So you see there is a Sea of Real Change rolling over us. You may argue it is going completely wrong with other things, like the heating of the atmosphere, but I haven’t lost hope yet we can solve this too, if we manage to -really- want it, hopefully when it is not too late.

Other blogs about change were: “Future Shock”, “Globalisation” and “Beschleunigung”.

The Siren Songs of Simplicity

In Greek mythology, the Sirens were believed to be beautiful women who attracted ships with their singing to the coastline. Once the sailors got fascinated by the Sirens, they could not resist steering their ship onto the deadly cliffs. The Sirens constitute an appropriate cultural metaphor for the ease with which people can be tempted to listen to simple messages and choose for their own destruction. Masses tend to behave in a very simplistic way. Anyone who has been giving speeches on festive occasions, knows that crowds of people only react on simple basic jokes (crude subjects like alcohol and sex) and very rarely on delicate intellectual jokes. The same preference for basic simplicity explains recent voting behaviour in a number of countries.

Why are masses so attracted to simplicity? Essentially because it liberates them from the painful duty to think and to doubt. In the midst of dangerous ship manoeuvres, the easy shortcut is always more attractive than the long, difficult route, which raises unbearable tensions among the crew. Sometimes the certainty of destruction is more attractive than the agony of continuous debate. Populist politicians know this instinctively. On the other hand, I hesitate using the word populist here, because the word is losing its meaning due to the overuse by politically correct writers.

In times of chaos, humble and patient leaders often give the impression of being weak leaders. They think a lot about consequences and ethics. They negotiate and talk. Pretentious impatient leaders can then easily lead the people astray with simple, basic slogans or messages, nowadays mostly packed as tweets, less than 140 characters long. Black or white messages are easier to understand than grey, nuanced messages, which require more time to generate and to digest. But the black and white messages may lead us to the cliffs.

Good captains don’t listen to Sirens, even if the crew starts listening to them. Ulysses ordered his men to tie him to the mast of his ship, so that he could not be seduced to act according to the godly sound of the Sirens. Good captains are often wrong in the short term; they may get right in the long term. The problem with our democracy is that the election terms are too short; the long term never happens without coalition change. Our political system kicks out the good captains and replaces them regularly by simplistic ones. Let us blame it on the Sirens.

Other blogs related to group behaviour are: “Tulip Mania”, "Mainstream versus Democracy" and “Senatores boni viri”.