Should We Save the World? Or, Should We Simply Head for the Lifeboats Like In the Titanic?

Are we too stupid to save ourselves? Will we ever learn from our mistakes and change course? As Climate Change wreaks havoc across the world with Superstroms and Extreme Weather events becoming the norm, rather than the exception, and that too in the midst of a devastating Pandemic, that laid bare the deficiencies of our Neoliberal system, one gets the feeling that maybe, it is too late to save the world. Indeed, humanity’s best days might be over and it is time to wake up to an Era of Permanent Crises.

We have been caught in the Vortex of Crisis after Crisis since 2008 when the Great Recession upended our most vaunted “assumptions” about our financial and economic orders. Next, a series of unprecedented events that culminated in the Ascendancy of the Right meant that, whatever little pretense we had about “doing something” were overtaken by the “primal desire to survive” as irrationality, cant, and pettiness coalesced into a Perfect Storm of Out of Control Crises. While we can indulge in Blame Games, considering that all of us contributed to these crises, at least the Liberals made some “noise” of Saving the World, whereas the Right simply told us to Shut Up and Sit Down.

So, are we Doomed? When Politicians cannot agree on Spending to combat Climate Change, yet, show alacrity in increasing Defense Budgets? When we make a mockery of laws and regulations and the Courts, instead of Stepping In, cheer the Lawbreakers as is the case with the Ruling on the Abortion Law passed by Texas, it is time to be worried, and really worried at that. Do we even have a semblance of “normality” or is it just that Might is Right in the Jungle we live in and where even the small traces of civility and civilization are being sacrificed at the Altar of Business as Usual. Indeed, what use is Business when Usual means embarking on a Mindless Drive to Destruction?

Moreover, the most baffling aspect here is that We have been Numbed to such an extent that we either do not care or cannot care, dulled as we are by the Intoxicating and Addictive Technologies that let us “escape reality” into a Zombie like state of Permanent Highs where the Dopamine Hits keep coming in an Endless Miasma of Highs that comfort us and leave us wanting for more. Technology was supposed to liberate us. Instead, it has made us all Slaves to an Ether Like Omniscient Presence that lets us Deny our Problems and find Salvation in Doomscrolling.

So, here we are! At the intersection of Climate, Economy, Technology, Health, and Law and Order all converging into a Spiraling and Devastating Accelerating Crises, which one day would overwhelm us and submerge us (literally and metaphorically) to the Point of No Return Moment, where the Reckoning is Inevitable. Maybe like the Titanic, we are sinking and so, instead of all this Hand Wringing, we should ideally Head for the Lifeboats, and stop Overthinking and start planning on how and whom to save when the Ship Sinks.