When we look in the mirror, we realize how time is inexorably running out, and our lives are being consumed. If we were to look at our city from a 10th floor building, we would see thousands of lives like ours, moving to and from, like ants or robots, mixing and shaping what we call a society. Throughout time, generations of people like us have been born and have died. It is unavoidable to question a few times in our fleeting life if what mankind has done is worthy of being called an evolution or an accomplishment. Our race has evolved from a primitive organization, through the discovery of what mother nature has given us on this little planet, to a more organized form of living and interacting together, which we can call a society. Our lives have also been transformed by the industrial revolution and technology. The forms of organizing our societies -- which we can call politics -- have changed from absolute theocracies to the feudal system to the first forms of popular democracy. We have passed through failed experiments, such as communism, naziism and other absolutist regimes, and have also suffered wars which have cost millions of lives and caused widespread bloodshed until just a few generations ago.
Our question – is the current world really any better than it has been for centuries? -- is legitimate.
First, there is no doubt that most of the world population still lives in misery and suffers from starvation, wars and absolutist regimes, deprived of most of technology and basic needs of life, in a way not so different from how our ancestors were living (trying to survive) centuries ago.
Then has the very small part of the world -- called “first world” or “developed countries” -- really achieved a just and fair society and a cozy standard of living? Most fanatics of technology would surely praise our “gadgets” which seem to make our lives so much better. But I am afraid this is nothing more than an illusion. Were our grandparents’ lives so much worse just because they had no color TVs, no cell phones, no computer games?
What will our descendants in 200 years say about us? That our lives were terrible because our cars could not fly, our computers had no protobio-chips and so could not think like humans, our planes could not fly around the planet in 30 minutes?
I don ‘t think so; we cannot desire, or aspire for, what doesn’t exist (yet).
So thinking that we have a meaningful and easy life thanks to the technology and industry revolution is pointless. The real grain of the question is: Are our lives really better? Are we really happy? Are we really free and fairly organized by the representatives of our society (politicians)? Well, from what I can see with my eyes and hear with my ears, I would say the answer is “Not quite.” Most of the world is in disarray, and people are languishing and suffering as they did in the worst periods of the Middle Age. The other part of the world sees most of the population (the so called middle class) working like beasts of burden all their lives to receive – if they are lucky -- a miserable pension which will be not enough to help deal with the ailments of old age. Almost everywhere, including in the most stable democracies of the first world, people are totally discouraged about politics, and don‘t believe the system is fair. So, what it is the point then, if democracy was supposed to have meant “power of the masses”? We, ourselves, are supposed to be in charge, through a select group of representatives we elect. This is what democracy is supposed to be. But this concept is so far from reality, even in the perceptions of the people in the most consolidated political democracies, that we really need to question what is wrong with our society
