Some weeks ago I spoke about how I write my blogs with waning confidence, in the hope that somebody with a better ability to research and investigate can look into tendencies I am suggesting.
Last week I spoke about how I believe we have silently shifted from an individualism dominated by aspirationalism to one dominated by preservationism, and that this has occurred amidst the subsequent crises from 2008 onwards, but most notably since the Pandemic.
A tendency that I believe mirrors this is a replacement of a focus on the future with a focus on accountability.
The future appeared in many variations; the 20th century was a contest between a collective vision and an individual aspirational vision of the future. The individualist vision won over in the West in the late 20th century. But after 2008, there was an emergent sense that something else had to replace it because the individualist vision was so connected to the crises we were experiencing, especially ecological ones and ones of economic inequality.
Via social media, in a less algorithmically monitored moment, visions emerged and energies momentarily merged promising, once again a collective future.
However, co-emerging was a culture of accountability. To bring to justice those personally or historically culpable as a group for acts of injustice and oppression. History was vital – everybody’s histories, everybody who hadn’t been heard, or felt unheard.
In the midst of the Trump, Brexit, the Pandemic, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the emergent focus on a collective future retreated under a now dominant focus on accountability.
This isn’t to say that those who seek justice for what has occurred to them, or a group they belong to, are in the wrong to do so. Far from it – although it does becomes more blurry when it crosses over from progressive forms of justice to accusations based in conspiracy theory.
However, without knowing it, we have forgotten our future, and a reckoning with the past in the Now is what matters. And for totally understandable reasons, because minus a tangible vision of a better future, the 21st century appears in front of us an insurmountable unfolding of tragedies, reinforcing the individualism of preservationism.
As I say, there’s no criticism being made on the act of holding those accountable, especially if they have direct involvement in the fucking over of ecosystems or oversaw war crimes etc, but without the future, it feels very much like a giant trial at the end of the world, as if we have given up believing that a world we can inhabit is possible. And this is my biggest concern.
John B Ledger 