In search of an ism for 2022
When Gordon Brown recently said that vaccine inequality was a ‘historic moral catastrophe’, I found myself with two strong reactions. Firstly, I passionately agree with him and secondly, I’m thinking, “well, what did you expect. We got what we aimed for!”
The world is full of ‘isms’. Individualism, competitivism, consumerism, globalism, capitalism, communism, elitism, fundamentalism…the list is a long one. An ism is simply what are we putting in the centre of our lives? What is the most important thing here? What is it that we value most? What needs our primary energy and focus of attention? And the thing about isms is that where you start is where you finish.
Let’s take individualism as an example. In many respects’ individualism (I’m not talking about ego here), is a new thing in the long body of human history. Individual rights, individual specialness, individual achievements, individual living, individual well-being. When individualism becomes one of societies key isms then we create an education system based on individualism and it produces a competitive system, exams from the start to finish of your education system, children being repeatedly called ‘special’ (as opposed to unique). Individualism breeds competition rather than co-operation. It is rewarded at work far more than team work. It produces a scarcity mindset – ‘if I don’t grasp as much as I can of life’s cake, then someone else will steal it. I’m alright Jack’ - rather than an abundance mindset,– ‘there is enough food for everyone in the world’ and ‘no one is safe in this pandemic until everyone is safe’. Hence my second reaction to Gordons Browns lament. I want to say to him, (while deeply sharing his lament), “Gordon, we got the result our ism of the past decades was always headed, through the resultant education system and our parenting ethos, that it demanded”. The ism we started with is the ism we have ended up with.
Take a few other examples. Consumerism makes everything a consumption, so we consume 1.75 planets worth of resources, when we have only got one planet to draw from, and this attitude makes it virtually impossible to call and treat this climate and ecological crisis, as a crisis, (which it is), rather than nothing worse than a ‘serious concern’, (which is currently how we are acting). Capitalism makes everything about the market. University league tables now have a dimension that says ‘if you come here, this is how much you are likely to earn in the future’, as if that is the main aim of higher education, rather than learning how to think and invest in societies flourishing for all. We measure what is important to us. Elitism is the expectation that some people will rise higher up the social, political and economic pile and that these people will get to control the isms for the rest of us. Populism has redefined truth, so that for those of us born five decades ago, the word now means something we could never have imagined – a ‘post-truth’ society, where lying no longer matters, but popularity does. To add the double and triple whammy, if you put a few of a few of these isms together, you get a pretty good picture of the world that we are endorsing – an individualistic, populistic, market driven, capitalistic, consumeristic, elitist dominated future.
But here’s my hope for 2022. Some of these isms are pretty new and so they can be change if we want to. In 1968 I passed my 11+ and watched 95% of my friends being labelled as second rate, failures, not good enough, destined for life’s B track…..at 11 years old!! In 1970 I also witnessed the birth of the comprehensive education system, based on a different ism – no one should be a failure at 11, equal opportunity for all. We are slipping backwards, but isms can be arrested and changed.
We need a new vision of isms for our society this year. What isms do we want to define our lives in 2022, because the ism we start with today will shape the society we end up with on 12 months’ time. Maybe today we could revisit humanitarianism (an active belief in the value of all human life), egalitarianism (all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities), humanism (affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives and aspire to the greater good, global-centrism (a desire for the best for all living beings – not just people), collectivism (sacrificing personal happiness for the greater good), pluralism (valuing differences, listening, embracing paradox, complexity and the unknown), and environmentalism (“The goal of life is living in agreement with nature” Zeno 450BC). Let’s talk isms today.