“Most of us, aware of the heritage we've been left by past generations, would be depressed if we believed that there would not be many generations to come.”
Martin Rees, from his book ‘If Science is to Save Us’
“Show me the famine, show me the frail
Eyes with no future that show how we failed
And I'll show you the children with so many reasons why
There but for fortune, go you or I.”
Noel Paul Stookey, adding a verse to Joan Baez’s ‘There But for Fortune’, composed by Phil Ochs
(Paul Stookey was part of the Peter, Paul & Mary trio in the 1960s)
Last week I watched the movie ‘Wall•E’ on the suggestion of a colleague from Cambridge. Wikipedia describes this superficially children's film as ‘incorporating various topics including consumerism, corporatocracy, nostalgia, waste management, human environmental impact and concerns, obesity/sedentary lifestyles’ — and global catastrophic risk.
It’s a salutary experience to watch this movie in the same week as devastating fires laid waste to large parts of Hawaii, following wildfires which have caused havoc in Europe and blanketed the east coast of America in smoke, together with massive flooding in China — and all this alongside politicians bickering about their programmes for compromising their net zero objectives. So many of these Wikipedia topics are grounded in obsessive, short-termist self-interest: why can't humanity realise what is happening?
We are blessed with amazing intellect and communication skills, but we will be lucky if the human race survives more than a blink of an eye in comparison with the longevity of the dinosaurs.
The plot of Wall•E describes a dystopian future in 2805, with an uninhabitable and deserted Earth: at the present time we'll be lucky if the human race survives a fraction of the next eight hundred years. The causes are clear for us all to see: in the environment, in conflict between and within nations, which all reflect unbridled self-interest.
We do, however, have the intelligence to analyse our motivations and how they have evolved over the past two centuries, during which our capacity to impact the lives or future generations has increased exponentially. During these years, the nature of our self-interest has changed markedly: but its absolute motivational predominance has increased, unbridled by wider constraints.
Two hundred years ago, that self-interest was schooled by a sense of national duty/patriotism and by the prevalence of faith. Much of these influences have now gone, but the intensity of self-interest remains as great as ever. We see it in so many broken relationships and lonely people, in the magnetism of social media, in the rise in mental instability, and of course in the massive polarisation of wealth across the world.
One of the most powerful illustrations of this is the absence of protest lyrics in popular music. Sure, we see campaigns such as ‘Just Stop Oil’ creating havoc, but where are the challenging lyrics of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and so many other singers who attracted such an immense following in the 1960s? They’re nowhere to be seen — the fact is that people have become resigned to the tragedies around us, preferring to be consumed by their own self-interest.
It's my belief that the capacity to care for others is an integral part of the human condition — there are many charities driven by faith, but just as many without that motivation reflect the same selflessness. Indeed, speaking as someone with extensive experience of the Church of England, I have often been surprised by the arms-length relationship between community action and church leadership.
Jesus’s teaching of the two great commandments is as clear as a bell: to love God, and love our neighbour as ourselves; while understanding that ‘our neighbour’ is the person least likely to be in the house next door, but rather those most in need. Community action — such as food banks for helping the most disadvantaged — should therefore be at the cutting edge of the Christian faith. So often, we find that it's not.
We therefore need a new impetus for challenging the excessive self-interest which absorbs our modern society. This needs to be taught, to be experienced, and to be enjoyed: the latter, because the trauma which so many experience can be wholly lifted by a focus on the needs of others. While Martin Rees, who wrote our opening quotation in his book entitled ‘If Science is to Save Us’, sets out how technology can help us resolve our problems, it still requires a massive shift towards caring for others, on a global basis.
However as Paul Stookey’s additional verse to Joan Baez’s ‘There But for Fortune’ points out, the need for this change is no longer purely an issue for our lives in the present. Because what we do today so deeply impacts the lives of future generations, it is critically important that we also show that same care for their conditions of life.
If we want to avoid the worst excesses prophesied by Wall•E, we must therefore change the focus from ourselves to the needs of others, and we need to make this go viral. And, as we proposed on 9th May, this needs to be part of a new focus on long-term governance.
Gavin Oldham OBE
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