I teach a class entitled "Living in a post-9/11 World" at a women's college in Japan. In this class, I get them to think about the economic, political, and military realities that brought us to where we are today and restrict our options for future development. Today I had them break into groups and work on an optimistic exercise. I asked them to imagine the best plausible future for the world, specifically with regard to the relationships between the G-8 nations, the Middle East, the United Nations, IMF, WTO, etc. My plan was to get some plausible scenarios on the table and to get them thinking about the interplay between these institutions. I asked them to set ideal goals for 5, 10, and 20 years down the line.
As I walked around to each group, most groups were doing well, but one group was stuck. They said they were having trouble because every time they started to think about a positive future scenario, they felt it was a pointless waste of time because there was no way things were going to turn out that good. I reminded them that in the depths of the cold war nuclear annhilation seemed unavoidable, the Palestinian/Israeli conflict has taken surprisingly positive turns as well as negative ones, and that the Troubles in Northern Ireland have come under resolution. As bleak as it may seem, times to change.
But as I thought about it, I realized that these examples aren't necessarily reliable prognostics. The Cold War ended because one side collapsed under its own unsustainable weight and the other two problems proved to only be solvable by the combatants themselves. The conflict between modernity and religious fundamentalism isn't going to end with the collapse of the economy of one side or the other; they aren't tied to physical reality enough to be subject to that kind of pressure. And while it may seem that the combatants are modern nations vs fundamentalist nations (namely Euro-America vs the Middle East), the basic battleground is within the non-modern nations themselves. There really isn't much that outside nations can do to fix the political, economic, and religious states of these nations (unless you consider the approach taken in Iraq to be a viable solution.)
So where does that leave us? I'm trying hard to be a realist, but at times that can lead to defeatism and complacency with the current order, so a healthy does of idealism is needed. Idealism that isn't based on reality is doomed to inefficiency and ineffectiveness, so one has to be realistic. First of all, 10 and 20 years doesn't seem all that far away, and it isn't, but at the same time, there is plenty of time for change. Leaders die or are changed in elections, populations can develop ideas and desires with faddish speed, so it isn't unreasonable to hold out hope for sudden, unexpected, drastic change. But all the same, change has to come from within, and that just doesn't look like it is going to develop soon. And with outside nations only succeeding (apparently) in stirring the up a bee's nest with their good intentions, is there any rationale reason to be positive?
Posted by Nutrimentia at September 10, 2003 02:17 PM | TrackBack