Culture

In many of our current crises, I believe we tend to see a lot of problems as cultural or political, when their deeper roots are actually in economics, and deeper still, unconsciously embedded in our infrastructure.

There are, however, elements of our cultures which are historically damaged by centuries of violence and intergenerational trauma, and a more general backdrop of natural scarcity. There are also elements which seem very compelling, but I believe distract us from more critical issues.

Western cultures remain strongly influenced by Christian ideas of good and evil. Many accept that complex social issues are the result of evil conspiracies, or selfish motives, without needing actual evidence. Such beliefs are actually theological, and based on fears about humanity's original sin. This can also lead to focus on purely personal behaviour, linked to individual redemption, with a backdrop of inevitable cultural decline – which distracts from the collective solutions we need.

This links to more modern but equally corrosive cynicism. Any problems we face clearly arise because powerful people, or shadowy cabals, are busy enriching themselves. Such conspiracy theories require no evidence, and provide clear villains, in narratively satisfying ways. Clearly inequality, greed and selfish behaviour do exist, but we need a genuinely new theory of evil to explain when they gain dominance.

The West also has an uncomfortable love/hate relationship to capitalism. An old aristocratic disdain for grubby commerce persists in some parts of British culture, which I do not recognise in Asian, Islamic, or early Quaker commercial traditions. Commerce once relied on honesty and relationships. American culture, on the other hand, reveres impersonal 'free markets' with a religious fervour.

Capitalism has a history of terrible exploitation, but moral injury can obscure the material abundance it has also created. Not all wealth is based on the exploitation or suffering of others, while the labour theory of value is outdated. Automation alone shows how, in many ways, labour has become irrelevant, raising important but different concerns.

We assume some people can't do well without others suffering, or creating hidden costs. Assumptions that trade-offs are zero-sum derive from almost theological ideas of balance. This blocks us from appreciating genuinely new possibilities, and the obvious reality of unprecedented abundance.

We can trace this tension historically. Europe's elite royal families were locked in fierce battles of existential competition with one another, despite closely entwined family relationships, before their desperate search for funds and resources spilled into the Americas and other parts of the world.

Increasing European populations coupled with the sometimes forced emptying of agricultural land, and the growth of crowded cities, sparked Malthus and his fears about population growth (1798). The Protestant Work Ethic eventually merged with more secular evolutionary concepts: resources will always be limited, so only the most deserving, strongest or smartest would survive.

Human progress justified conflict, while the suffering of many became easier to ignore – if not predictable, and even desirable. Utilitarian thinkers wrestled with how to evaluate and trade-off utility and harm. The rise of huge but potentially careless systems of state power led to Ivan's challenge:

Tell me honestly, I challenge you answer me: imagine that you are charged with building the edifice of human destiny, the ultimate aim of which is to bring people happiness, to give them peace and contentment at last, but that in order to achieve this it is essential and unavoidable to torture just one little speck of creation, that same little child beating her chest with her little fists, and imagine that this edifice, has to be erected on her unexpiated tears. Would you agree to be the architect under those conditions? Tell me honestly!'

Fyodor Dostoevsky – The Brothers Karamazov (1879)

A belief in unavoidable social trade-offs became mainstream, and – after a period of huge transformation, and greater optimism – have resurfaced. This is despite unprecedented material wealth, less conflict, vast improvements in health, and far larger populations than were imaginable, living in generally better conditions.

Even now, I can hear you mentally looking for the trade-offs, in terms of the environmental cost, and so on.

My goal is to convince you otherwise.