1996

I have often heard the phrase: ‘‘this is the world we live in, deal with it.’’ But if this world we live in is the cause for global breakdown, over-extraction of resources and inequality all over the world, why do we keep holding on to this idea of progress by growth? By now, most of us are aware of the consequences but we also accept it as a given. As if the world around us is set in stone and history is not made by us. In some way, we could even say that some of us are pretending not to be the cause of it or trying our best to buy a different reality through mass consumption.

We are in a time and place where we should focus on imagining how we could change the way our society works, make it more inclusive and divide the wealth we have accumulated equally. But ’there are eras of human history in which the channels of thought have been too deeply cut … and best was a matter of dogma’.* Today, in 2021, I truly believe that the best we are striving for has become a dogma. A goal that we are blindly following without thinking about the consequences and counting on technology to save us.

*Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance