We passed through a phase wherein information was considered power. That said, we are in a world deluged by a lot of information, most of it irrelevant, we need to rephrase the line to ‘ clarity is power ‘.
In such a context it is extremely difficult to maintain a clear vision. While there is a debate raging about the future of humanity, a lot of us are clueless what the agenda is or what are the key questions to be answered. As the bills are not going to be paying themselves anytime soon, we are busy fending for ourselves, raising kids, attending to our aging parents, moving from one daily hustle to the next. Which means we do not have the luxury of investigating or understanding what is going on.
Unfortunately, history does gives no discounts. If the future of humanity is decided in your absence, because you are too busy feeding or clothing your kids or struggling to keep the home fires burning- them and you will not be excluded from the consequences. This is very unfair, but who said history was fair?
All these years, we have studied history, only, never to learn from it!.
Seven plus billion people around the world have seven billion plus agendas. And as already observed, thinking about the big picture is a relatively rare luxury.
A global world puts unprecedented pressure on our personal conduct and morality. Each of us is ensnared within numerous all-encompassing spider webs, which on the one hand restrict our movements, but at the same time transmit our tiniest jiggle to faraway destinations. Our daily routines influence the lives of people and animals halfway across the world, and some personal gestures can unexpectedly set the entire world ablaze, as happened with the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia, which ignited the Arab Spring, and with the women who shared their stories of sexual harassment and sparked the #MeToo movement.
This global dimension of our personal lives means that it is more important than ever to uncover our religious and political biases , our racial and gender privileges, and our unwitting complicity in institutional oppression. But is that a realistic enterprise? How can you find a firm ethical ground in a world that far extends beyond one’s horizons, that spins completely out of human control, and that holds all gods and ideologies suspect?
Without wanting to sound overambitious, it is time that Homo sapiens gets into the act. Philosophy, science and religion are all running out of time. Unless you are happy to entrust the future of your life to the mercy of quarterly revenue reports, you need a clear idea of what life is all about.
The end of history has been postponed.