Something my prof said in Anthropology yesterday made me realise that, for the first time in my life, I am paying taxes.
Which means I am paying for a war in Afghanistan, for not saving Darfur (at least, that’s what the pamphlets tell me), for this and for not that.
Not feeling quite as politically apathetic as before.
How often have you heard someone say that young people these days just aren’t the same? That we aren’t responsible or stable or persistent, or in some way or another, are not going to be able to cope with the world we are inheriting?
Sometimes I ask the same question — not why we’re so hopeless, but how we’re going to cope with the world we’re inheriting — the world our predecessors don’t know what to do with either. It’s not just us.
Let me just share with you the results of a survey I participated in some months back. It was a UK-based survey targeted towards university applicants and what they think of the future (because, after all, it is our future more than anyone else’s). And sure, it’s not representative of everyone, but I think it’s worth thinking about:
– 78% think that our lifestyles need a radical overhaul for human civilisation to survive the next 100 years or so,
– 85% think climate change will affect our lives,
– 75% think that business is a force for good, but could be doing so much more,
– 86% think that material consumption must be reduced
– 40% think that society would benefit if we cut down on air travel, but
– only 16% will avoid flying because of environmental reasons, while 82% still want to travel,
– 41% of respondents think that personal carbon quotas will benefit individuals, and 49% believe such quotas will benefit society as a whole, and
– 82% value an interesting job as important to future happiness, with recognition as a criteria attracting just under a third of respondents.
I have a copy of the survey results for anyone who is interested in looking at it.
The Anth lecture was on war and peace yesterday. The prof ended the class on the note that war, of all the human inventions in the world, is probably the stupidest one of all — that we are inventing weapons for the sole purpose of killing, weapons we can’t use because they would wipe us all out, yet we are okay with this — and called on us all to start taking responsibility for one another, to end the stupidity.
The class applauded him. It’s the first lecture we’ve ever done so, but it made me think that while we are not perfect and while we are not the energetic, amazing superheroes some people want us to be, our hearts are in the right place. It’s a start.
