Consciously and subconsciously all of us harbor the notion that between heaven and earth powers are at work which guide our lives on a predetermined path. We do not necessarily believe that this is true, and most of us will dismiss such notions as outright imaginary or primitive. But however rational we may be, it is very difficult to entirely disregard the feeling that eyes and minds beyond our reach somehow influence the opportunities that we have or the direction that we take.
Beyond our individual fate we also harbor certain notions about the time and circumstances in which we live. We may think that certain events are inevitable, for instance, as some people strongly “pre-sensed” the end of the world near the turn of the Millennium. Such convictions can also be more realistic and to some extent they may constitute a self-fulfilling prophecy. One example in history is the overriding belief among many people in Europe at the turn of the nineteenth century that war was a certainty in their time. It almost seemed as if the collective minds of the continent were driven into it by an invisible hand. Even today one might ask what caused the war that broke out in the late summer of 1914. A house of cards came tumbling down. Nobody in his or her right mind would have wanted the Great War as it actually unfolded, yet masses of people hailed its advent as if to celebrate their satisfaction that the prophecy had come true.
By the same token, in times of prosperity and general progress, we can think that it will last forever. Economic recessions invariably take us by surprise. Time and again the “boom and bust” of our economies are accompanied by unreasonable optimism and unreasonable pessimism respectively. In a longer term perspective, i.e. the perspective of an entire generation, the broad conditions of our youth frame the sense of the probable and the improbable in our own minds. The social and cultural context in which we grow up (including the absence or presence of religion) furthermore shape our view of the immediate and longer term future, including our subconscious sense of fate – of what may happen or of what is “bound to happen”. As illustrated above the general mood of a generation can have a direct or indirect impact on events that actually occur (even though thy may not be truly inevitable or necessary).
I am alluding to this interplay between the rational and the irrational as in our current time as many certainties of the past decades have increasingly come into question: our continued progress, the shared values and general coherence of our societies and indeed the very foundations of peace and security which have been self-evident in our world for an unprecedented long period. In a way, this outlook – at least superficially – very much resembles the situation described above, some hundred years ago. Many elements differ, for sure. Classic imperial conflicts have been replaced by manifold global tensions. The struggle to maintain - or achieve – social and economic equilibrium for an ever increasing world population is one in which nations and political regions face substantive stumbling blocks such as scarcity of resources and ecological deterioration. At the same time historical adversities and violent animosities especially directed at the western world constitute serious impediments for our traditional mechanisms of international consultation to reach long term consensus on major issues.
We most certainly have not reached a boiling point of global proportions to merit popular fatalism or another collective urge towards an armed resolution of prevailing conflicts. If anything, the past century has demonstrated the devastating outcome of such resolution – on would say – in highly convincing terms. However, as indicated above, it is not merely our rational deliberation or our memory of history which will determine the fate of our world in the foreseeable future, nor, for that matter, our personal fate. If anything, in our current time we witness another surge of popular sentiments which only two or three decades ago the great majority of the people in the western world would have considered perfectly unjustified if not insidious. This, unfortunately, includes racial, ethnic and cultural sentiments that most of us would have thought were left behind decisively some five decades ago.
Nothing in our world is predetermined. Yet our anxieties, our sense of the inevitable and the certainties we harbor have their own role to play, even if this would imply a course of action against all better wisdom. From our present point in time it is perhaps even more difficult than ever (at least considering the past three to four decades) to make a reasonable assessment of key factors of our world in ten, let alone twenty years time. Most of the postings in this blog address these factors. Indeed, they are manifold, complex and far reaching, affecting every dimension of our livelihood.
Our world has grown much beyond the mass hysteria – guided by monopolized mass propaganda – that led the people in the western world to the gates of hell just half a century ago. Most of us living today can not imagine the horror and devastation to which previous generations have been subjected. We should nonetheless realize that even in our own time people live in desperate circumstances. The shifting global power balance creates new influences and antagonisms which in turn can ignite irrational sentiments and new fatalism.
I, for one, do not believe that there is a guiding hand beyond our own – and those of our leaders - to steer clear from disaster. However, in countering populist anxieties rational policies or resolutions will prove sufficient only if they respond to the people’s inner convictions and beliefs at the same time. Nothing in the future is predetermined, but without satisfying at least some sense of destiny, human kind will progress – or otherwise – in a spiritual desert.
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