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What will they
say about us in the year 3000?
Here’s a question: what will our descendants
think when they look back at us in a few hundred years’ time?
How will today’s world appear to people in the year 2200, 2500,
or even 3000? When we cast our eyes back to societies in
history, we feel rather sophisticated by comparison. In the wake
of social progress numerous customs have made the transition
from long-accepted status quo to being considered backwards and
unworthy of civilised society. We have cast aside a host of
cruel and unjust practices such as legal slavery; state
persecution of religious non-conformers; formal political and
social discrimination against women; and the inherited authority
of those belonging to an elite bloodline. Most of the world now
considers these unacceptable and has developed political systems
and passed legislation to that effect.
A citizen of the 21st century might even indulge in a
self-congratulatory pat on the back for being part of such
progressive times, having shed ugly customs which persisted for
hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Indeed, we haven’t just
got rid of some of the nastiest bits of history, but we have
created international agreements to recognise the rights of
individuals, regardless of their race or nationality: the notion
of a universal declaration of human rights would seem pretty
revolutionary to our ancestors.
But how will we look to people in the future? What are the ugly
features of our world to which we have grown so accustomed that
we fail to see their incongruity in contemporary society? It
would be arrogant to deny they might exist, even if our
‘embedded’ viewpoint makes them hard to recognise. How about the
massive inequality present in most of the countries, including
my own, which are described as ‘developed’? As citizens of these
countries we may not be wholly comfortable with the level of
inequality, but we nonetheless give tacit acceptance to it, and
the catalogue of social ills that accompany it.
For the sake of argument, imagine that future societies manage
to eliminate such stark inequality. Indeed, some countries,
notably those in Scandinavia, already fare much better in this
respect. What would these future societies make of the fact
that, despite our rapid political and social progress, we were
so accepting of huge inequality in the most advanced nations on
earth? What would they make of our spiralling wealth gap and the
emergence of a class of super-rich? Would they wonder why the
salaries of some dwarfed those of others, often in apparent
inverse relation to their contribution to society? Will they
wonder why so little political action resulted from the research showing the damaging effect inequality has on society
as a whole?
There are persuasive philosophical and economic arguments for
allowing inequality to varying degrees: the value of aspiration
and opportunity, the motivating effect of competition, and the
defence of individual freedoms. But there were ‘good’ arguments
against giving women the vote; at least that’s how many saw it
at the time. Similarly, some would say great inequality is
unavoidable if we want to enjoy the benefits of a free market
system. But a couple of centuries ago many Americans doubted
their economy could withstand the abolition of slavery. It’s
difficult to put a mirror to ourselves and spot the modern day
elephant in the room; perhaps a few hundred years of history
will bring it into sharper focus. |
