This is the time of the year when everything seems to crash. The dystopian image of the end of the world, people rushing to close as many ‘things’ as possible because… hey, it is December! Like if in January the world would not be there. What would be the unexpected event that will turn the new coming year an apocalyptic situation?
Let’s imagine this is what would happen exactly at 00:01 on 1st January: a genetic degeneration of plants DNA caused by surpassing the global warming boundary will turn the plant kingdom the origin of a silent human extinction. By the end of the day, only those avoiding the vegetables to detox after the festive period will remain alive and looking to understand how to survive our world… the same world we leave behind but a world where they (or we) can remake on a foundational new social contract.
The world we leave behind
We are leaving a world of social injustice and inequalities. A world in which minorities are kept silent by elites and majorities claiming the truth. An overpopulated world, continuously and exponentially failing to address a climate collapse. A crisis that came along with multiplicity of economic ideas, also failing to be implemented behind what we all know as capitalism. Known and unknown hidden corporations claiming to be saints and seating in big conferences promising environmental and social commitments but lying to the world and themselves in creating more profit for a restricted elite that has nothing to do with the reality lived in suburbs worldwide – those probably more affected by the climate impact. A world ruled by economic, politic, scientific, and more elites that claim to have the right to ‘dominate’ in the name of citizens and behind the idea of a fictional representative democracy.
We are leaving behind a fragmented but at the same time interconnected world. A growing digitalisation process that makes us slaves of the technology we claim we need to improve our quality of life. A world fragmented within urban borders, where dual cities live together, not divided with a clear line, but in a multiplicity of internal borders where those more vulnerable keep claiming the right to live and the others deciding and interceding in their name walk the city without even looking at them. A world where marginality keeps being marginalised and where new forms of marginality and vulnerability emerge.
We are living behind a world in which the social demand of living a present with dignity is regulated by a supply of a promised better future. Always a more democratic, fair, transparent and sustainable future. The powerful formula for all. A world in which the demand is growing and becoming highly complex, while the supply is made upon power-related agreements. A supply side, always more and more politicized and corrupted, embedded in amazing narratives and discursive festivities of emptiness in a world that still needs quite urgent action.
A foundational stone
In the paradise of beautiful words, one thing may be useful: crises are windows of opportunities. The ‘last inhabitants’ of this world will find themselves lost in trying to start over the year (and the new world) with the alibi that they managed to close all those ‘pending’, maybe not urgent things. Even trying to understand if eating meat is still good, considering the lack of knowledge and evidence if the intermediary subjects of the trophic food chain may transmit the disease or not. What a situation as they/we are/were living in a world based on evidence, data and more data!
Schuman area in Brussels doesn’t look like it does today, a futuristic scene of lights, blocks of buildings and infinite car traffic. Half of the believers in the need of reforms were actually vegan, and plants took a ‘natural’ revenge. We don’t have more bureaucrats, thus who is going to decide the future of Europe? Maybe, after all, people can engage in active citizen participation or sort of self-decision. Or maybe in the new future, no more institutions are needed and decisions are made a bit like in ancient Greece with few people discussing in the agora.
The question in this new phase is, will we manage to use that opportunity to rewrite the new world? The climate collapse deleted the climate urgency and turned it to be in Smithian terms, our new enemy (we were – we are – already fighting the enemy, without knowing who is the real enemy of the climate collapse). We need to find a way to share this world with nature, a nature we need to live but a nature that can end to the very last with human beings on Earth.
Inhabitants of this new world face themselves with writing what the new world would look like. There may be many chapters and topics to touch upon – the same way we have political agendas, research programmes or school curricula. What do we do with the economy, with education, with health, how do we govern the new world? Will we manage to finally articulate local, regional, national, supranational governments? Will we reinvent new geographies? Will the foundational stone writers still think the green and digital transitions are key for the new era? Will we put the success examples of solidarity, will we move forward with a science based on fair research assessment, a revolution towards full openness and more democratic science, without intervention of the logics of capitalism of science? Will we live in a world of freedom, acceptance and respect towards what is different from us, or where people have freedom to express and live in this new world?
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It is second of January, first working day for many of us. Surprise! The world didn’t crash at all. But we still have the opportunity to have foundational stones. Let’s imagine there is a market of utopia and reflect: if the world collapse today, what would be your foundational stone for a realistic change?
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