Think Different

Today, many of us feel we are living in unstable times, marked by AI, widening inequality, war and a looming climate catastrophe, among other deeply unsettling realities. Yet our attitudes towards unhappiness and anxiety often downplay the broader sociopolitical context, placing responsibility on the individual (to practise mindfulness, cultivate work-life balance, and so on). Two hundred years ago, Musset and many of his contemporaries instead blamed the times for the pervasive mood of dissatisfaction and unrest that gripped their generation. They believed that the mal du siècle was shaped less by individual temperament than by far-reaching historical, political and cultural forces. Could we benefit from reframing our current malaise in similar terms?

It’s hard to get short-term governments to implement and secure long-term policies, so here we are:

• housing price crisis
• retirement pyramid schemes
• climate maladaptation
• refugee waves
• arms races

So many big issues impossible to solve without a long-view planning body.

Parliamentary governments are executive, not planning bodies. Are we waiting on the EU to solve all the major problems?

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On the other hand, the future of democracy needs as much a bottom-up direction as the top-down one. We need to take the following initiative overdrive and not kept in a basement: online voting on direct petitions to the parliament.

Not a random website pulling traffic and serving little purpose. A government-run and monitored avenue for direct citizen participation in democracy.