How Can This Be? Are People Getting Better While the World is Getting Worse?
Where does it go wrong? It seems to me that we know how to help individuals heal from trauma. It seems to me that we even know how to enable individuals to live more fulfilling lives. But this doesn’t transfer neatly and naturally into making the world a better place.
In my life I have spent some time listening to people. Some of these people had significant difficulties doing the usual things and maintaining the usual types of relationships. Some couldn’t persevere in a way that meant being employed even a few hours a week, others had very few relationships — some didn’t want to go out their front door.
At what is thought of as the other end of the spectrum, for a brief while I worked in a gaol. This taught me a couple of things: most crime is financial, and most crime is drug related (so legalise the damn things and find a way to deal with it!). I was leading classes in ‘Cognitive Skills’ (which came down to thinking about the consequences before acting) and such things.
In all this time spent listening to people I have been surprised by how well people do. Even with people who exhibit quite nasty behaviour, when I have found out their background I have been surprised by how well they are doing. I have found this without exception.
A qualification is in order. I have been listening to people who are willing to talk — so this is a biased sample. To some extent these are people who are willing to at least talk about what is happening for them, and what has happened in their past.
With this qualification I have found that people are usually doing better than could be realistically expected once we know their past trauma. I have met several people who have had experiences that I am certain I couldn’t have gone through and remained sane. My observation is that people are usually doing better than their parents did. This leads me to think that individuals are getting better.
It seems to me that in many ways the world is getting worse, especially in relation to the two crises of ‘ancient sunlight’ (fossil fuels). There is the crisis of heating our planet by burning fossil fuels (global warming) and the crisis of their imminent demise (peak oil). These crises affect us all, but not equally. It is the poor who suffer first and most severely. The response to both these crises by government seems pathetic. We have had the remarkable spectacle of oil companies doing more about alternative fuels than governments (at least in Australia, where I’m from).
What I find so intriguing and appalling is the mismatch between individuals and the global situation. Individuals are getting better, but the global situation is getting worse.
There is a saying that good people lead to good families; good families lead to good neighbourhoods; good neighbourhoods lead to good countries; and good countries make a good world. The counterpart is that, “For evil to triumph, all that is required is for the good to remain silent”. (I pass over the problem of who is good, who is bad, and who decides.) Both these approaches reduce the global to the individual. If the world is in a bad way it is up to me to fix it.
This reduction to the individual has its truth. Sitting around complaining may be pleasant (for some people anyway), but it doesn’t do anything to address the situation. Every change starts with someone — and if I don’t start I don’t know whether it will be me.
But, well, it doesn’t seem to work. Most people do not approve of much injustice they see around them, and yet it persists. Most people would never treat those close to them, or even strangers, with the flagrant injustice handed out to the poorer nations or the poor in the richer nations. Somewhere along the line, good people aren’t leading to a good world.
The biggest problem I have with this reduction to the individual is that it seems unrealistic — or just plain grandiose. The change may start with one person, but it doesn’t stop there. Changing the world involves large numbers of people — and often huge amounts of communication and technology. To expect one individual to change the world is a crushing burden. For each individual to change what they have control of can be liberation.
A qualification is in order. There are huge numbers of people and organisations working to make the world a better place. There are extraordinarily creative and innovative breakthroughs being made. It seems to me that there are no technical impediments stopping the world providing a good life for all its inhabitants (though perhaps without a few of the material goods that those in the wealthier parts of the world are used to).
Where does it go wrong? It seems to me that we know how to help individuals heal from trauma. It seems to me that we even know how to enable individuals to live more fulfilling lives. But this doesn’t transfer neatly and naturally into making the world a better place.
Here are the ideas I have about where the breakdown occurs between the individual and the global and what to do about it:
- I think we know how to be human in small groups but not in large crowds.
- I think that if power corrupts, then so does powerlessness. People want a sense of agency — control over their lives, and the sense that they can make a difference to the problems that they see around them.
- I think that to fix global problems, people need a local way to address the global problem.
- I think that we need better ways of decision making than the bureaucratic and current political polarising. There are ways such as citizen juries already in existence.
I am aware that every word I have written here can be contested and disagreed with. I invite you to do this in the comments. In my experience it is possible to find a way toward a common goal with those I disagree with. If we, with good will, can surface our disagreements and discuss them, then I find that relationships improve instead of deteriorating. And, as grandiose as this may be, this gives me hope for our world.
Other articles by Evan Hadkins
This article was last reviewed by Dr Greg Mulhauser, Managing Editor on Monday, 4th May 2009. You can leave a reply below.
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5th May 2009
Hi Evan,
Thanks for this article, you have obviously spent a great deal of time thinking about these things and they mean a great deal to you. Its a shame more of us don’t take the time to do the same.
On your comment about knowing how to be human in small groups but not in large crowds, I would have to say in my experience, disordered individuals will always act according to their nature even in small groups. What is difficult is facing up to the fact that somebody is being cruel or mean. How many times have I seen others just be neutral bystanders when somebody is getting bullied? In my experience, human nature is just as selfish in small groups, and it is in fact a microcosm of what happens ‘out there’ in national politics or huge multi-national corporations.
Human nature is the problem here I think, and everyone has their own theories on how that works. I think the best thing we can do is to recognise that there are some truly evil people out there, some who live in our neighbourhoods. If we can stand up to them others will be likewise inspired to do the same. Small groups of healthy individuals who don’t allow bullies to push them around are rare,so larger groups will be even rarer. If we can find the moral courage to no longer be neutral bystanders in our own lives, it well may translate to the world stage.
At the very least, we will be living with clear consciences and that has to be better for our kids and our friends.
5th May 2009
Thanks Blackbird. I certainly agree that moral courage is called for. Thanks for your comment.
5th May 2009
Blackbird – I think you raise a really important point here about how very nasty dynamics are often present in small groups. And a massive point when you bring that down to human nature.
In fact, Evan, while I do agree with your point, I could also make the opposite one – some people behave within a close relationship in a way in which they wouldn’t dream of behaving socially…
5th May 2009
Very true Sarah.
5th May 2009
I think that to live in this society is not easy b/c most of the rewards (promotion, acceptance , respect) are given to those who conform to the social order and those who dont are called “troublemakers”.Few years ago I discussed this same topic with one of my professors and I carry her answer with me, -”we need to have harmony between our political belifs and our personal beliefs”.I think this is true… or at least true for me and that is the way I live my life…even running the risk to be called troublemaker.
5th May 2009
Hi Lunna,
I try to do the same – with difficulty and with far from complete success. Thanks for your comment.
5th July 2009
G’day Evan
I’m afraid “It’s worse than that he’s dead Jim!”. To quote Bones McCoy in an early Star Trek. The family I mean, or at least on its last legs, in my experience.
A 40-50% divorce rate in the western world, many children conceived in marriage- less relationships, further weakening the bonds. All set for an increasingly self centred, unstable and disconnected life style. The proof is the increasing market for single adult homes – the detritus of divorce.
Social abortion at 200,000 per annum steady, in the UK alone, despite 40 years of the pill, etc – life is, in essence, cheap.
Families are cheap too where government gives all the necessary power and financial support to ending marriages, with an increasingly overburdened welfare state. Eventually society has to pick up the exponential damage of 120-150,000 divorces each year – 70% of which are brought by women against, usually financially, ‘dead-beat dads’.
Government statistic: 23% of women and 15% of men aged 16 to 59 said they had been physically assaulted by a current or former partner at some time in their lives. These figures increased to 26% and 17% respectively when frightening threats were included.
Add to that the message sent to the children of such a relationship..? Are we really getting better as individuals in the microcosm of the family? I think not.
Any wonder then that 50% of father’s lose contact with their children due to disputes, after just 2 years of separation. An expanding generation of increasingly irresponsible and violent boys with no clue how to be a father and a generation of girls who don’t trust men. (Abandonment compensation issues).
Charity begins at home, goes the popular axiom. The trouble is that we are rapidly losing any real concept of what constitutes a ‘home’ and ‘traditional family values’ – the sort that politicians bang on about all day long but do everything in their power, effectively, to undermine and devalue.
No one wants to put in the votes, work, time, money and self sacrifice to pull families back from the brink, if we haven’t already allowed them to slip irretrievably over the edge?
If societies around the world blithely or ‘benignly’ allow the family to self destruct then imploding families will eventually take the world we have known with them – like the insatiable hunger of a stellar black hole, once the chain reaction is set up it can’t be stopped until there’s nothing left of a whole galaxy. Or the ‘Butterfly Effect’, if you wish to be less dramatic..?
5th July 2009
Hi Paul,
Thanks for your comment. You obviously care deeply.
I agree with you about politicians not following through on their rhetoric. I would like to see limits on working hours for instance so that people have time to spend with their kids; and some kind of income or compensation for domestic labour so that both parents don’t need to work to afford a house.
Like you I also think that domestic violence can have awful consequences for those who witness it (the children) as well as those who suffer it. I hope that the stigma against reporting is disappearing – my guess is that men still aren’t reporting (though I have no evidence for this apart from the experience of my friends). My belief is that we could do much to help and educate people.
I do think that there are some who put in work to help families. Although with both parents needing to work the participation is charities and voluntary agencies is bound to decline.
Thankyou for a very heartfelt and passionate comment.
6th July 2009
Hi Evan
Thank you for your empathetic response to my seeming tirade. Based on statistics alone, I believe that global society has lost any real sense of direction, and due to conflicting agendas is unable to visualise and act to avoid the inevitable, collective effect of its spiralling, destructive behaviour.
A macro-syndrome magnifying all the dysfunctional behaviour and habits of disturbed characters discussed in this excellent website. Global Political Myopia.
For instance: Population Control – it failed with China. It has no hope with India, and by 2020 both countries will constitute 3 billion people. Add to that the almost exponential growth levels of countries like Nigeria and you swiftly get to the hand wringing realisation of the UN – we are already past the point of no return. As all these emerging countries demand more of the goods they see on TV, we are also faced with a concomitant rising tide of 3rd world ‘me too’ consumerism.
How can mother earth indefinitely sustain such an irresponsible lack of what needs to be very painful UN enforced global policies, in order to sustain a population at below crisis levels?
The increasing demands for fuel, food and water are set for the last half of this century as the new harbingers of war, hunger and pestilence.
Sadly, in a way, I was brought up in an Armageddon-scenario religion as a boy. I left it years ago, through total disillusionment, but it still bangs the drum for a messiah-sourced benign dictatorship as the only hope for mankind because we have ‘lost our way’ – as if we ever knew it to begin with (?). Still, we can’t ignore the obvious evidence of man’s globally ‘collective insanity’ – an oblique reference perhaps to Jungian ‘Collective Unconscious’.
Freud said, 100 years ago, “Neurosis is the cost of Civilisation”.
I put it to you Evan, that neurotic, narcissistic, self-indulgent, materialistic societies, afraid of painful choices, will be the end of civilisation as we know it..? It’s not a mesmerising, sci-fi horror case of, “Watch the skies!” but more mundanely, simply, “Watch the News” – and read our collective social history as a species and join the dots…
6th July 2009
Hi Paul,
I mostly agree with your final paragraph (and the rest of what you say).
The thing I want to add is that many people want a world their children can be happy in. What is missing I think is an easy and effective way to make these desires real. To tell someone that they have to change the whole world isn’t good news.
Whether our civilisation – or even many of our species on our planet – will survive is very doubtful.
Thanks once again for you passionate and concerned comment.
7th July 2009
Dear kindly Evan
Sadly, most of all I fear for my two estranged children, torn from me when they were just 2 years, and 3 months old, respectively. It almost killed me and caused 12 years of panic attacks due to the stress of constantly frustrated contact. What I have seen them grow up to become in the last 16 years is a pair of smug, entirely self centred individuals. Both talented, academically gifted and highly intelligent but due to living with a permanently depressed bipolar mother they have little concept or interest in anything beyond the end of their noses. Show little or no gratitude for my 80,000 miles driving to maintain contact with them this last 9 years, due to my relocating, and are only interested in the depth of my wallet.
What hope for the future when a generation of entirely materialistic young people have no ideals, gratitude, empathy or sense of altruism? I don’t even get a Father’s Day or birthday card in recognition of my existence. Their mother has spent the entire last 18 years driving a wedge between my children and me, not to mention 120 miles distance. She didn’t even want children in the first place and now she has totally wrecked her life and body by ballooning to 300 lbs, while being kept alive by Warfarin – with permanent DVTs, one for each leg. Work for her is now out of the question. A fine self-respecting role model, now that both children are more than capable of looking after themselves and cooking a meal. Incapable of helping herself or her children and adamantly refusing to exercise, lose weight or get a job.
She has never got in the swimming pool with them their entire lives and leads a horizontal lifestyle in front of the TV, watching soaps and snacking all day, within a series of three brand new 3 bedroom houses during the last 16 years, (couldn’t get on peaceably with the neighbours – or me, even for the benefit of the children), courtesy of the family friendly state… “Moan, moan, moan (self inflicted cripple), “moanâ€.
“It’s life, Jim – but not as we know it!â€. (Mr. Spock).
Is it any wonder I despair of the human race?
7th July 2009
It’s no wonder at all. It’s an incredible story. And I’m sure you’re not the only one with a story like this.
7th July 2009
Hi once again Evan
The worst aspect of all this has been my exprience of the whole government led support structure biases entirely in favour of the mother, even if she is a bipolar psychotic. If I complained about her foul language and violence in front of the children to any authority, I was the one who was either threatened with eviction or arrest – even though I was the victim. As I’ve said elsewhere possession (of the children, 95% to the mother) is 9/10ths of the law and I can vouch for that.
[Editor's Note: This comment has been edited from its original form.]
7th July 2009
Hi Paul,
It seems you have had quite awful experiences.
Our discussion is becoming personal. If you wish to continue discussing it with me individually you are welcome to contact me via my blog http://www.wellbeingandhealth.net.
However our discussion is drifting from the topic of this post. So we need to either bring it back on topic or continue it in another venue.