The pessimism that is swallowing the world.
Are we running towards change or to a dead end?
*Leia esse artigo em Português.
The more we evolve as humanity and reach higher stages of enlightenment, more the world seems to be falling apart. The political, social and environmental issues we’ve been facing in the past decades are building a scenario of pessimism. Would this be a very odd moment when optimism just doesn’t exist anymore, or is it rather a signal that remarks a change in course?
As designers we understand that problems can be translated into solutions able to make life better. Solutions that can build a better present and future for people and for the planet. On a mission to understand this “dark future” which we are heading to, we decided to investigate the different paths we are following right now and the possible directions that they might lead us to. In a quick workshop in the office, we asked two questions to our team: “What are the main push backs that are preventing our evolution as a prosperous and welfare society?” and “Are there samples of possible brighter futures happening right now?”. Everyone was asked to share their thoughts on two panels which were hanged for two days each. The result you can see in the image bellow.
Despite all that had been written, the difference from one to the other is clear. The panel asking for problems, the sources of pessimism, got big when compared to the one asking for examples, projects and ideas that are fighting for a better world. Of course finding problems is easier, since they are bothering us everyday and after a solution is found it gets so natural to our life that we stop minding it — just think about a life with no Wi-fi for example.
But we cannot deny that we are facing pessimistic times on conflicting world. Society might be going bad for left-winged minds, but also so do right-wing ones might think the same. However, it also might be going well for giant business corporations that never got so much profit, also for lower middle-class people that finally have purchase power and access to things that before would be limited just to the richest. Is in this ambivalence where our real dilemma actually lives: we still haven’t found a way to live equally and in peace and also how to keep our planet’s balance.
According to Dom Edward Beck’s Spiral Dynamics theory and other similar studies, we are always evolving on the mindset level. And he argues that for every change of mindset, conflicts, polarisation and pessimism emerge. At this point it is on us to decide whether to face this pessimism as a dead end, or to use it as a fuel to fight for change.
A quote says that “a pessimist sees difficulties on every opportunity, and a optimist sees opportunity on every difficulty”. Take Elon Musk from Tesla for instance, an entrepreneur that can be considered a super optimist. To turn Mars, a hot planet with no atmosphere into a place which can holds welcome life and become a second home for humans requires a lot of optimism. But what exactly makes Musk to believe on a project like this? The answer lives on his and our pessimism. This Silicon Valley business man believes that earth might not survive to the damage we are doing to it and we might need a plan-B. Then this “end of the world” scenario becomes a driver for innovation.
We do not want the end of our planet, therefore this pessimism works better when directed towards optimism. If Musk’s vision simply was the death of planet Earth, Tesla wouldn’t be working on creating impressive solar panels that can solve critical issues regarding energy efficiency as well.
Pessimism is also a strong tool to avoid naive thoughts from extreme optimism. If we all stay seated, believing that everything will be good because someone else will make it alright, things might go wrong. Pessimism balanced with optimism is the only way we can keep our sense of reality, judge things well and become drivers of change, from the individual scale to the collective one.
With holistic mindsets and technologies emerging, we are heading now for an integral and unified world, but some new ideas still so fresh that orthodox mindsets are fighting against them. A past based on short term planning and exploitation built a complex society held by a super fragile layer, where find the right ways to handle a peacefully and fairly transition might be difficult, however keep an optimistic pessimism is needed.
But our journey to understand better this moment is just starting. From now we will keep sharing our steps through our networks and at some point all this investigation will be materialised on a special content. Stay tuned.
Mateus Bagatini (Tokyo JP)
Content creator
