Modern Life : The Best of Times and the Worst of Times

2016, modern life. It’s a ‘Tale of Two Cities’. It’s ‘the best of times, and the worst of times’, a time of plenty for some, in a post-Dickensian dystopia, a Mad Maxian eco-apocalypse. As it’s been said, the future is here, it’s just unevenly distributed. The promises that capitalist democracy, technology and industrial agriculture and horticulture would free and feed the world have inevitably failed. We’ve got poverty and starvation in a world of stockpiled food supplies and planned obsolescence.

Epidemic levels of homelessness even in ‘civilised’ societies, barely raises a brow. We’ve got pharmaceutical monopolies controlling access to cures for diseases caused by modern life and its products. Today’s Unknown Soldier bombs desert-dwelling innocents using a game console from afar, in the interests of a war on terror and pursuit of peace.

It’s a planet of Eden gone bad. Capitalism and consumerism have squandered the flourishing forests, and the oceans and their inhabitants, and sent them up in smoke that now chokes cities and cooks the climate. We live in an era of unprecedented sociogenic extinction, where oceans are expected to contain more plastic than fish, and the fish contain radiation. Within a couple of decades it’s predicted much megafauna will be gone for good.

Neo-colonial manufacturing and production relocated to developing countries has displaced jobs elsewhere, bypassing hard fought labour laws and environmental regulation. Economies across the world are saturated with junk made from raw and precious resources so that the capacity of markets to keep buying is almost full.

In our own land of milk and honey, both these locally produced foodstuffs cost more than a litre of gas – and that was even before the price dropped below $30 a barrel. Credit is cheap and interest rates are low, but houses have never been more expensive or unaffordable relative to income – unless you’re an equity rich investor, and maybe have rich parents or a number one song. The lucky land owning classes often have beachside holiday homes and a ‘rental investment portfolio’. ‘Sir’ Russell Coutts who made his millions in the white mans’ sport of sailing big yachts, and beat New Zealand while skippering for America, builds a 650m2 beachside house while young (mainly dark) kids sleep in the bush and many (poor) people can’t find a home. Police illegally raided Nicky Hager’s home, when in fact he should be given a medal and police protection! Free education cost families $161 million last year, and access to tertiary education comes with a lifetime debt guarantee. Free trade offers up the country to willing buyers because Aotearoa actually is for sale. We have not one, but two referenda on the Clayton’s Choice change of flag, but riot police are conspicuously training in preparation for Waitangi Day.

It’s a pretty bleak prognosis if you lump it all together like that. Dark forces prevail, and even though we live in better times than those in any time in history, I suspect worse times await generations ahead. The mainstream media will tell you there’s nothing more important than the Kardashians, best and dressed celebrities and whether Lorde has broken up with her boyfriend according to Instagram.

Sometimes it feels like us critics of all this, risk just talking to each other through facebook and online media, keeping our anger (and compassion) alive, and venting our frustration and dismay while oblivious elites continue to eat canapes and sell us down the river. John Key in particular, retains his confident, untouchable position as most loved Chairman of the (monopoly) Board that New Zealand Inc has become.

Systemic change comes slowly – or it can come in a sudden hit – “punctuated equilibrium”. Wobbles in the world economic order and simmering crises of capitalism based on environmental, social, political and credit instability mean well established edifices can change or fall. And of course in ‘failed states’ around the world, and in often hidden ‘failed societies’, capitalism already has. One thing for sure is that change is inevitable, and at worst, we can help support a vision and narrative of social and environmental justice; of work with dignity, creativity, value in itself; of bounty and happiness (anyone remember laughter?). We can ‘wage peace’. By keeping that vision alive, we can set the preconditions for the better society we deserve, provide resilient solutions and alternatives in the face of uncertainty. We might even force change itself.

Desiderata says ‘in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it’s still a beautiful world”. And it’s wise to remember anthropologist Margaret Mead’s saying that we should “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has”.