Sooo, you wanna know what I learned this week?
Once again – where do I start? I guess I am continuing the thought of past weeks (“Is it Worth It?” & “Where the World Doesn’t Flow”), guided by the questions: how do we structure our world and all the thoughts in it?
Because there is so much, so much already said, so much thought, so much explanation of what is wrong and why, so much spark and so many trials of doing better. And yet, where do we stand? You look out into the world and once again you see individuals meddling with all the structures and principles of the world – guided by their greed and story. But then again, you don’t feel that shake-up everywhere, and I mean not in every country, but not in all the structures of the world. Yes, of course, the political sphere and international trade are affected – but even their most agenda points move on. So many companies, institutions, organisations just continue their work. Some with more and some with fewer eyes on the political sphere – but in general, the wheels keep turning.
I am not saying this from a democratic lethargy standpoint; this has always happened in history. It’s not that the topics of change are not being discussed or watched in fear – but after being discussed, everyone gets up from the lunch table and continues with their work. Because it feels like the world is the sum of individuals’ wheels being turned, but the macro level has already mastered the art of flying, with only some wheels needed for take-off and landing. I wouldn’t say that this structure is more common in autocratic systems, because at least there it is so clearly visible, talked about, and in the best case demanded to change. But in democratic systems, it’s happening just as much, in different forms, though.
The detachment from the macro sphere is being talked about through analysing political lethargy; people feel more and more disconnected from politics. But maybe politics is getting more and more detached from people. Or maybe, better said, there is a dynamic that makes both worlds harder. The democratic system has a way of making small things even bigger and big things even smaller. Small things are easier to discuss to get that connection – but you are connecting too many people who are not affected by the small thing. On the other hand, big things that do affect everyone are hard to communicate, to put into words – but exactly that would be needed and is not being done.
To give an example that maybe not everyone agrees on – migration. It is at the forefront of every political agenda – but it’s not the causes of migration (the human history of colonizing the world, taking what you can and leaving ashes behind you; disparity on all levels, be it economic or simply the right to exist or time for independent history) being discussed. It’s the evident effects on the individual level that leave cultural differences clashing against each other and the daily problems of it. Not to undermine the problems that are evident, but it’s not the topic that should be discussed; it’s only the effect of it – because once again we are struggling to hold societal discussion, which should be the basis of democracy. Because democracy at its core is discussion and upholding the structures to do so. We haven’t done much upholding recently. And here we are again at the problem of representative democracy.
The academic, but also daily, discourse sees that problem and always summarizes it in the discussion: “Should states (or international institutions on the next level) do more or less?” Looking back at my thoughts, I have given different answers to that question in between the lines. Because there are pros and cons. As I said before, states and international institutions have brought up problems that on smaller levels wouldn’t have even been there. The EU and its bureaucracies (most visible in agricultural policies) have caused conflicts that otherwise wouldn’t have been there. On the other hand, it gives the smaller levels guidance on the big picture – the problem is to agree on the big picture. And not to leave out companies or civil organizations (often described under the term NGO, roaming around the discourse like some Robin Hood, but no one really knowing the effect), that already work on the big picture without the big sphere telling them to. But then again, are they doing it because the big sphere has put the big picture on the plate? Who knows. So maybe the spheres are not disconnected, but only held together by some strings? But what are the strings? I guess the problem is not the connection between spheres, but connection in general.
There is constant thought and ways of doing stuff (whatever that stuff is) right, because we all need that appreciation. And everyone wants to expand that appreciation to the biggest scope of people they can, leading to different circles of working the right way with only some intersection. And I think work is an important word. Because money is an important guideline for that appreciation for many people (not all). To come back to the topic before, maybe companies only work towards the bigger picture if it gets them more profit.
And this is usually where I lose myself. Because once you say “profit,” entire libraries open up. Marx says the profit companies earn is the expropriation of the added value workers put into a product. Others see money as a simple exchange value, to which others again disagree – because just look at my first Weekly Thoughts. And then again, you can throw all of that out the window when you talk to people that simply want to live their lives comfortably. So the thing is, it’s very evident all of us are very capable of producing so much wisdom – not just institutionalized wisdom, I mean practical daily wisdom too – but we are very bad at combining it all and getting into action. And again, even for that there is institutionalized wisdom asking how academic wisdom can be done across disciplinary borders and closer to the real world – where you can ask yourself how they got away from the real world in the first place.
So I guess what we want is all of that being possible beside one another. But can politics provide that? Honestly, in the current form, no. Can we as humans provide that? Aiiiiii. Maybe that is our eternal struggle in this world. You know, at some point I nearly thought in my head: maybe we should all think less and go back to the old ways, make things simple again – it does creep up on you. But let’s not forget that the old ways are even further away from that scene than we are now, not only materially but in the sense of thought. The things we can hope for today were not even thinkable back then.
New potential has come with new struggles – but going back won’t solve it. Awareness will. And that’s only possible with freedom. Freedom to live the life you want and to even know the possibilities. Because people that live the less complicated life – that this thought of “old ways” has brought me to – strive for something else too. And that’s where we have struggled: giving opportunities without scratching out the others – other people, other ways of living, other forms of wisdom, just other. Because my opportunities should not disregard the opportunities of someone else. And we have not found that balance yet. In history, we have not been aware (or chose not to be aware) of the disregard, but now we are. And our reaction so far has not been to change it collectively, but in many cases to continue with a feeling of unease in the stomach. Or at least I hope we feel unease.
And I think we do – but our opportunities make it possible to disregard it once again. And there we are again: we can, because we live our lives individually in a collective world, because we make our decisions in our individual timeline, not in the societal one. It is not the year before the world collapses because of geoeconomic forces, climate, and greed – it is my 25th year in this world and I want to use my youth with all the opportunities I have. And I guess the grip on those opportunities gets harder the more we feel them pulling away. Working on the collective world is a side hustle at best, because it is hard to catch it – even for those who claim to do it as their job. Politicians are humans with aspirations and opportunities just like us; people working in political institutions too, so changing the world needs to fit into 9–5.
Once again: why have we built structures that disconnect the individual from the collective, and how do we change it? Why does life happen in between the collective, which makes it so shitty? We are all struggling, but simply not enough to change it. Opportunities and enduring walk hand in hand.
And you know what the funniest thing is: producing these weekly thoughts is fucking hard. Thinking collectively sucks. All I want to do after is turn my brain off. So I think what we have in front of us is an attempt to make it easy by shoving it off to the next sphere – it just hasn’t been so successful.
Have I made a dent in all that? Obviously not – I don’t think I even found a point. I asked my dear friend ChatGPT for feedback on it and he said “it feels very imbalanced. It doesn’t breath and needs the reader to carry the narrative” – so please carry it.
So what else has been added to the mess:
• I learned about lots of economic theory and have been more confused than enlightened. But what else is new. The biggest question I have for economics is: how do we continue with all that mess of value creation without real creation of goods? Because most of the Western economy is being done by “brain work”, producing more of that wisdom in exchange for money in order to hold the system up. At the same time, we are struggling with existential stuff like food production and healthcare. Why doesn’t it shift?
• What the fuck do we do with this economic/technology elite gaining access to the political sphere, with their chokepoints on society and the economy, pushing the world in the direction they want and taking advantage of the difficulty of thinking collectively and working on making it even harder? Can’t you choose a different purpose? I am sure it will be lucrative as well – just try it.