The Elephant in the Room

Francis Fukuyama's famous phrase the end of history, was one of those comments which was almost correct.... He should have said rupture with history, and used it discuss a far greater problem. OK he wrote it an answer to the Marxist view of history but in a way that just made it even worse. He was simply answering a lot of those left wing academics that he had met during his career. That debate misses the point though. If we step back from our current lives and look around us we live in, perhaps, sorry definitely the most remarkable period in human history...... when did this rupture with history begin? When did we suddenly begin to break away from the past to start living by different rules and what does it mean? Now any student of history will know that there have been periods when developments have flowed more quickly, when amazing things have been constructed, however, we admire them because they managed to complete these buildings and structures when they didn't have our technology. Sometimes we feel we can even learn from some of the things that they had been able to accomplish. For instance the Japanese have studied how Machu Picchu was built and its resilience to earth quakes. The fact remains though that if we were to bring the greatest inventors and scientists from the past and put them into the modern world they would be staggered. Now rupture with history, what does that mean? It means that millions of people around the world have a far higher standard of living than ever before.. It means we can travel, use instruments that people in the past could scarcely imagine.... all wonderful.. all incredible... but it also means there is an elephant in the room which we are all ignoring. Our cultures, our ideas, our opinions evolved over millions of years, and this has also changed but not quickly enough given the present state of the world. The emancipation of women, fewer children in the developed world etc, yet so much of our debate about the world is framed in ideas that have little relevance in the modern world. We talk about a clash of civilisations betweens East and West, whether women should or shouldn't wear the veil, whether abortion should be legal or not, whether condoms should be encouraged...... These issues don't deal with the elephant in the room. These issues are framed by our cultures, by our views which are unable to deal with the elephant..... What is the elephant in the room, the one thing that people struggle to discuss.... The West consumes too much, and the developing world has too many children..... Now you might say that these issues are discussed now, we hear about global warming, we hear about population, but are they discussed? Jared Diamond's excellent books shed more light on this subject than anything else I have ever read, however, even he doesn't want to touch the elephant in the room. The problem is the most productive economic system ever created is based on more, always more... more consumption, greater growth increasing share prices more inventions etc..... In solving the problem, always higher population and consumption, we could undermine everything in our civilisation and what our forefathers struggled for. Waste creates jobs; we are all part of this system, we eat from McDonalds, we watch television, we consume and we want to consume, we all take pensions, and we want to have a good retirement... Can a capitalist democratic system deal with these problems, when it is based on more? Can our companies survive when they are based on more? Can our countries survive? I don't know but the world has to stand up and face it... We consume too much and you guys, I guess I should say ladies are having too many kids. It is naive of ecologists to think that simply by changing our habits by being more aware, by cutting down on our green house gases we can begin to solve the question... Mr. Goldsmith/Mr. Branson to solve global warming we have to commit to having less. We have to tell our children they will have less. We will be poorer, you will be poorer and life will be tougher.... We have to have fewer kids, we have to have less leisure, we have to eat less of what we want... we have to have smaller cars, less cars, we have to take fewer glamorous holidays...the list just goes on... As you relax in your expensive homes, turn on your TV and discuss these ideas with the intelligentsia stop for one second and think what it really means, as your children get excited about the latest IPOD, just stop and think what is really required to make the change..... It is truly scary.. I am scared... I love my life and I love my standard of living... Yet however, we criticise, those that have broken into the modern wealthy world love it. This is the greatest period in history to be alive; we are the fortunate ones... yet... yet... yet..... The elephant is there asking us whether we can or will make the choices..... will I.... do I want to... I don't know but at least I can see it there questioning me when I take another flight, when I wastefully buy some more junk food, when I get into my car.. when I go to a party and look at the waste, when I turn on the TV.... Do you want to change, does society want to that and will we face it honestly and really look at what it means? It means and lets not beat around the bush, that you voter are gong to be poorer and have less. It means that you voter in the developing world are going to have fewer children, and you are not going to ever, all live like the films you watch... ever.... That is truly scary for all of us..... time to turn on the TV, listen to my IPOD, read a newspaper and eat a McDonalds... no one else is really considering this so why should I? I didn't answer when this began.. that will be my next topic.