Author: Tuula Helne, Research unit, Kela (The Social Insurance Institution of Finland), tuula.helne@kela.fi
Those of you who have read their ‘Sapiens’ by Yuval Noah Harari, are well familiar with the thought that telling stories is the feature that distinguishes humans from other species. It is also the cement that holds our societies together – for good or for worse.
The most important story we have been telling each other for centuries is that of endless progress towards a shining future. Since the latter half of the 18th century – since the beginning of the industrial revolution and the onset of unprecedented economic growth – we have even been calling ourselves Homo Sapiens, the wise man.
The wise men have, however, turned into ecological serial killers. Our presence on this planet has never been propitious from the perspective of other beings, but particularly during the last 50 years the extinctions caused by us have become massive. This, dear readers, is why the Anthropocene is not a good thing at all. In fact, humanity has never been as destructive nor moving faster and further from sustainability than at the present moment.
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We now meet the hero of the story I am telling, Mr. Endless Growth. He is also the protagonist of the most influential variation of the tale of progress. Here he is, in his impeccable grey business suit, smiling patronisingly at us, surrounded by his advisors and PR people.
He has (he thinks) all the reasons for his complacency. Now proof on Earth (biodiversity loss, climate change, plastic waste catastrophe – you name it) does not seem to have the power to shake his position. ‘I’m the master of the universe’, he says to himself when looking down from his office in the highest glass skyscraper ever built. Who knows, maybe he even makes a few dance moves.
One fine day the advisors of Mr. E.G heard that the people in his empire were worried because birds no longer came to sing in their back gardens. (Even Mr. E.G had been dimly aware that the birdsong in the garden surrounding his luxurious mansion had grown fainter, but he had soon forgotten about this). So worried were the people that they even stopped buying many of Mr E.G.’s fine products, all manufactured at low cost and sold at a price in his identical shops all around the world.
Mr. E.G.’s advisors agreed that something should be done, and invited a consultant, a charming Mrs. Sustainable Development, to put things back on track. Mr. E.G. was beguiled by her, and decided to take her recommendations into consideration – well, at least as long as they did not collide with his most fundamental beliefs and business plans. Mrs. S.D. realised this and was cautious with her advice. One must not, after all, change things too radically nor too fast.
After numerous negotiations, meetings and conferences a decision was reached: how about a declaration of intent: very, very soon we will do something to make the birds come back. Mr. E.G. climbed up to the top of his tower and made the good news known to all the good people in his empire. Everybody was quite pleased about this; so pleased were they, that nobody noticed that the birds were all gone by now.
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Some of you might say that you do not like this tale; it is far too grim. So much is being done, the advisors of Mr. E.G. are perhaps getting a grip on how dangerous the situation is, and isn’t even the OECD going beyond GDP? (Indeed it is, but it is certainly taking its time). I hate to be a spoilsport, but as long as the European Green Deal, for example, is represented as a new EU growth strategy, we are doomed. No matter how many times we are being lulled by phrases like ‘sustainable growth’, ‘green growth’ or ‘inclusive’ growth, the basic fact does not change: Mr. E.G. is the prime culprit of the ecological annihilation we are up against.
Unless one is talking about plants, green growth is fiction. So is the recent narrative about ‘the economy of well-being’ related by the OECD and the European Union. The narrative may promise a happy end: to put people and their well-being at the centre of policy and decision-making. If one, however, reads the narrative carefully, one discovers that the protagonist whom the happy end awaits is not the poor shepherd or shepherdess turning into a prince or a princess (whichever way you like), but the rich and powerful Mr. E.G. becoming even richer.
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Political discourses are far more contradictory than fairytales: the very same documents that represent well-being as an intrinsic good, also reveal that their main motive for raising the issue of people’s well-being is setting the foundation for stronger and ‘more sustainable’ economic growth (whatever that means).
What I am saying is that the narratives we have been telling for centuries and the narratives we are still been told are deeply flawed. They may work as a bedtime story, if one wants to sleep tight and keep one’s eyes shut. If one, one the contrary, would rather stay awake and act rationally (something that sleepwalkers cannot do), one should ask for better reading. Or, better still, why not find a campfire around which new meanings are being formed and shared, and begin telling new a story yourself.
A long, long time ago, something went terribly wrong in our cultural evolution, but (for good or for worse), humans are resilient, and never before have resilience, resolve and resistance been as necessary qualities as today.
For listening:
Sunrise Avenue: Fairytale gone bad