Rightly or wrongly, I recently found myself taking a very gloomy look at the state of the world. Here are a few previews — I warn readers, it won’t be fun.
1. A formidable power has been taking shape over the past twenty years with the advances of an increasingly aggressive globalized capitalism. New sprawling, arrogant empires can now stand up to very powerful states and make entire societies dependent.
2. The rise of social networks, and more broadly the breakdown of the world of communications, has removed what was the prerogative of national and regional media, local media which operated within norms that were not violated not with impunity. As in the economy, the new media universe has established the reign of giants who have little accountability, obeying the logic of profit and exploitation. We know what resulted: a disregard for ethics, an infantilization of audiences and a manipulation of content focused on entertainment, an excessive commercialization of violence and sexuality which largely targets young people. A troubling conception of freedom has taken hold — Elon Musk defending the right to hate speech on his platform?
3. In the United States, NASA lost the monopoly on space exploration to the benefit of wealthy adventurers like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Richard Branson and others, who found a new playground there. Space is transforming into a new frontier open unchecked to exploitation and competition — it’s the new Wild West. We learn that it is now cluttered with nearly 11,000 commercial satellites which are adding to a mass of debris. Result: the risk of collision with spaceships arouses concern; astrophysicists now struggle to communicate with telescopes to conduct their observations. We have returned to the laissez-faire, chaos that marked the conquest (and destruction) of the “New World”.
4. For various reasons, democracies are in decline. Analysts note an increase in authoritarian, if not dictatorial, governance. At the same time, and for other reasons, several Western states are turning towards a radical, intolerant and racist right.
5. Growing immigration pressures work in the same direction. In a growing number of societies, immigrants have a hard time. It is all the more disturbing since, under the dual effect of desertification and rising ocean water levels, demographers foresee an immense surge of displaced people or refugees who will inevitably head west. How will they be received there? What we can already see suggests the worst (the horrors taking place in Libya, for example, with the surprising complicity of the European Union).
6. Among the powerful who should be at the front of the battle for the environment, what do we see? Too often inaction, deception, unfulfilled commitments, bad faith, and sometimes incredible cynicism: COP28, in the United Arab Emirates, chaired by an oil owner; Azerbaijan, another oil-producing state, host of COP29 (2024).
7. There are hardly any more authorities whose voice could encourage moderation (I dare not say: wisdom). The United Nations (UN) has become dysfunctional (Afghanistan, former member of the Human Rights Committee; Iran, admitted in 2021 to the Commission on the Status of Women, etc.). We also know that the organization is riddled with corruption and infected by a swarm of lobbyists. No one seems to take the summons from their secretary general seriously. We will not talk about the United States, which has long posed itself as the planet’s policeman thanks to self-righteous militarism and which has lost its credibility.
8. Another particularity of the present world: the great witnesses, the beacons that were Gandhi, Simone Weil, Hannah Arendt, Martin Luther King have not been replaced.
9. Trumpism, which has begun to metastasize, feeds on all the slippages, all the perfidies, all the resignations and frustrations, and all the anxieties too. Who would have thought that Canada, which had worked hard to wrap itself in a veil of discipline and virtue, would now risk contagion?
10. To be exhaustive, we should also add the resurgence of large blocs and the threat they pose to peace, the numerous axes of terrorism, the trivialization of violence, the dissemination of nuclear weapons, persistent racism, discrimination against women and children, religions that are panicking, the invasive presence of poverty and wandering in the midst of overconsumption…
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said this week: “The world is entering an era of chaos. » He clarified: too much “anger”, too much “hatred”. The Security Council “is paralyzed”.
I reread it and I find that this portrait is very dark (it is true that I am rereading The pianist). And I wonder: am I exaggerating? Wouldn’t there be reason to hope? And above all, how can we prepare young people for a future that seems so compromised?