Our society has lost much of its ability to think long term about the good of society. From the 60s we have adopted a "me, now" philosophy. I forget who it was, Bertrand Russell perhaps, who wrote that the key attribute of civilization was the ability to plan ahead, to move from the hunter-gatherer-foragere mentality (I will eat what I can get now and that's it) to spending time and effort tilling the soil and planting when there is no hope of immediate gain, but the gain will all come in future.
Societally, I think we are in danger of moving in the reverse direction. People want what they want and they want it now, without thinking about the long term effects on the social structure or what the long term benefits or cost to society will be. We see it clearly in the politics of deficit spending and campaign promises, among many other things. But it is, I think, also fraying the more fragile social structure.
Plato had much to say about this. It would be nice if we could all take a break and read the dialogues and come back to this discussion. Not much chance of that, of course, sadly. |
