2023 has given us a strong marinade of crises, from climate and nature, war and poverty to nationalistic selfishness, democratic crises and expensive times. In short, there is little enthusiasm and optimism at the moment. No one in power is able to propose a realistic solution to the climate disaster, which is in full swing from Svalbard to Australia. Nature is being razed everywhere, so that people who are already senselessly rich can become even richer. Poverty is still widespread in the south, but also in the north, times are expensive and millions have to choose between cooking dinner and staying warm indoors. Some of the world’s most powerful countries are ruled by deadly politicians. Developments in artificial intelligence have taken everyone to bed, and the outlook is uncertain and at least as frightening as it is exciting. (If you ask an advanced artificial intelligence to solve the climate crisis, it might start by exterminating humanity.) At the same time, war and violence are part of everyday life for many, from Nigeria to Sudan, from Congo to Yemen, from Gaza to Ukraine. Thousands of innocents become faceless and nameless victims of the insensitivity of others. The only thing missing to make the misery complete is for the Pole to run out of champagne before New Year’s Eve. Joking aside, there is frankly little to cheer about now that it is time to settle the status of 2023. The term polycrisis, introduced by the sociologist Edgar Morin before the turn of the millennium, is being used more and more often. Different crises flow together like small streams that turn into a mighty, roaring river. The grief over the lost faith in progress is everywhere now, from Dagens Næringsliv to Klassekampen. Now we have to show our grandchildren’s grandchildren how they should be able to regard it as a temporary local affliction. Psychologists have long researched happiness and quality of life. It is difficult to measure moods, and the results vary. However, most people agree that it is not the short-minded egoists who have the highest quality of life. People experience meaning in life for different reasons, but often in the same ways. Some of us were born in a village in New Guinea, others in a Brazilian city. Some are small farmers, while others are lawyers. Some believe that technology will solve the climate crisis, while others pray to their god every day or advocate an ecological society that does not destroy itself. Despite major cultural differences, it is relationships with other people, and perhaps also the nature of which we are a part, that make life meaningful. In other words, increased consumption is not needed. Nevertheless, it seems that consumption satisfies a craving for meaning in life. That’s because religion and faith in progress have lost much of their appeal, leaving a void that had to be filled by something else. For thousands of years, religion gave comfort and hope when life was a struggle and the world a valley of woe. In recent times, religions have lost much of their power for millions of us, especially in the materially secure middle and upper classes. Belief in progress, development and a better life made the promises of “pie in the sky when you die” fade, and for a long time things seemed to be going well. Life became both longer, healthier and more comfortable here in the north. Many even believed that the whole world would follow suit, so that the future would be peaceful, without hunger and oppression for the vast majority. It hasn’t worked out that way. The polycrisis of recent years not only reminds us that the problems are far from solved, but that we are on the wrong course. The reasons for the historically unique prosperity for a large part of humanity are identical to the reasons why the situation cannot continue. We saw over the branch we ourselves are sitting on. In order to continue living as we do now, we are dependent on destroying nature, changing the climate, exploiting underpaid and overworked people who make our gadgets and clothes, and closing the borders so that the damned of the earth don’t come here and bother us. Not even the privileged escape, and the boomerang effects are already visible. There is no indication that the richest will be able to escape to Mars in time. The beautiful promises of modernity have abolished neither poverty nor rage. Not everyone reaps the short-term gains of consumer society or the freedom ideals of globalisation, and many of them are enraged by the humiliations they are reminded of on a daily basis. This will continue as long as the injustice is not dealt with seriously and not only through party speeches. It does not seem as if the very richest generally continue to have a high quality of life. Those who own half the planet, on the contrary, often appear as troubled. They constantly end up in lawsuits, they suspect that they lack real friends because everyone is just looking for a piece of their wealth, and on a bad day they feel like Skrue McDuck in the legendary “Christmas on Bjørnefjell”: – I hate everyone, and everyone hates me. We know the weaknesses of this attitude from religions, myths and moral philosophy – from the myth of the insatiable King Midas to the Chinese proverb that whoever owns more than five things has become the property of things and therefore unfree. Jesus put it to the fore when he said, according to Matthew, that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Almost two thousand years later, Karl Marx wrote that the excitement over owning things (commodity fetishism) was a misunderstanding, because the purpose of things is not to belong to people, but to create relationships. It is therefore wrong that clothes create people. Clothes create relationships between people, and that is why people create clothes. But of the 359 items of clothing Norwegians have in their closets, only a few manage to create such relationships. Most hang there as silent, useless things. When you are full and warm and safe and have a roof over your head, you don’t need increased consumption and more property. It is love, your own and that of others, and the privilege of being allowed to do something difficult and important, and being recognized for it. With the exception of incorrigible sociopaths, everyone knows this to be true, but we are brainwashed into pretending otherwise. We have to stop that, for the sake of ourselves, each other and the fragile planet we are responsible for. Far-sighted and responsible leaders in politics and business know that it is necessary to change course. It’s just so damn hard to make it happen. It is precisely here that we must insert the shock. In this context, we mean everything from my nearest and dearest, via the county and the nation, to the continent and the planet. It is not selfishness and pointed elbows that can lift us out of the corner we have painted ourselves into. What is needed is hope. And courage. “Sometimes you have to do things you don’t dare, otherwise you’re not a person but just a piece of shit”, as Astrid Lindgren reminds us. Our civilization is on the edge of the precipice. In 2050, we will be somewhere else, in a world where we do not destroy ourselves and everyone else, and where burdens and benefits are more fairly distributed than now. In a less unjust world, there will be less uncontrolled migration, fewer wars and less terrorism. Both rich and poor will benefit from changing course. Those in power are still steering towards doom on autopilot. But we don’t really have a choice. We have 16 years left. Changing lanes will be insanely difficult. Everyone’s effort is needed, and we will make it happen. Such a vision gives hope, a word that is almost extinct in well-to-do Norway, where oil has trickled over the country for forty years, and where increased consumption has long since replaced a deeper and more lasting meaning of life. We have become a hopeless society. We have everything, but that is also all we have, as blessed Ole Paus said. A fairer, ecologically responsible world will forgo endless growth and overconsumption, but in return it will give us a better quality of life. Because how do we want our descendants to remember us? Like irresponsible and thoughtless mobs on their way to hell in first class? Or are we able to change course and reap more unity than selfishness, gratitude rather than greed, trust rather than suspicion? You and I will get better, our fellow humans will get better, and the planet’s ecosystems can breathe a sigh of relief when we have changed course. Because we will do that in 2024. 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The world after the local grief – Statement
