Take the future away from a man, and you have done something worse than killing him
That line occurs in John Berger’s first novel — A Painter of Our Time, written in 1958. It comes when the narrator is commenting on the character and beliefs of the missing painter of the title. The full quotation is this:
‘There is something even more fundamental than sex or work,’ he said. ‘The great universal need to look forward. Take the future away from a man, and you have done something worse than killing him.’
This is perhaps the most succinct description yet of why there is such an air of nihilism couple with despair pervading politics at the moment. Fascism, after all, cannot thrive in healthy climes.
My generation is probably the first in a century who, barring those safely passing on their tax-haven based tax-free inheritances to their children, are aware that the lives of their children threaten to be lives of struggle.
And our children are the first generation in a century who look to their parents with envy. That children should envy the opportunities their parents knew must surely be the most damning sign that neoliberalism has failed. (Does anyone still believe neoliberalism was anything other than a carefully executed scam run for the benefit of the wealthiest sectors of society?)
And, of course, it is not simply their economic future that seems blighted by the greed and pillaging of the corporate state. The planet itself threatens now to add to the miseries of their adult lives.
My generation has let this happen. We have stood aside and sniped at neoliberalism but happily accepted the poison pill of temporary and illusory benefits. Too late do we realise that our selfish concern for rising house prices and cheaper and more varied goods has come at the cost of a future for our children — and for the planet itself.
We have politicians now that no longer see representing the people in parliament as the pinnacle of public service. Politicians now see parliament as a stepping stone to lucrative positions within the transnational corporations that parliament now serves. It is, after all, the corporations who now devise legislation and demand the savaging of the welfare state and the destruction of the social contract that once bound us as a nation.
Our politicians — especially those on the right — have forgotten what it means to act for the benefit of the population. Food banks, homelessness, and increasing childhood poverty are the signs of a collapsing nation, of a society crumbling inwards. It is no surprise that anger and disgust are the prevailing mood. And with the corporate press determined to ensure this anger and disgust are turned away from its rightful targets, we sow the seeds of fascism.
It is time, surely, to find a way to hand the future back to our children.
