Introduction
It is, in my opinion, a common ailment of the 21st
century world (or, I concede, perhaps just the Western world) to take a
paradoxically good and bad view of the future. It is my thesis that these
contrary yet simultaneously occupied outlooks merely reflect a disparity in
perspective. For the average Westerner living today is probably experiencing an
existence that is – on average – significantly improved compared to their
contemporary from any period prior, and so, surrounded by an abundance of items
they believe necessary for the continuity of their existence, and safe in the
assumption that such abundance will continue (for, perhaps you could argue,
they have never known any different) will, from this perspective, project their
future life to be quite a positive one.
However, that same Westerner, when pressed on their supposed
future from the perspective not of what do they have now compared to what
others did not, but rather what do they want
in the future compared to what others have now, will take a more cynical view.
It is possible this is an anecdotal perspective, and if that is the fatal
weakness of this piece, so be it. But I believe it speaks to the human
condition that we see progress as more challenging than preservation. I am not
an evolutionary scientist, but I would hypothesis there is something primal
about this condition, for if one can eat tonight, why risk it on the hope of
eating tomorrow too?
As a means of
function
If we wish to explore this phenomenon, and perhaps to
discuss solutions to the problem this creates, it is useful to understand the
paradigms in which the phenomenon exists. Almost all debates in the Western
world are phrased as opportunities, with – I’ve often found – most dichotomised
debates ultimately offering, regardless of outcome, the pathway to the same
opportunity. Education is framed as an opportunity, and so is business, with risk
existing not just as a hazard, but as an opportunity prime for exploit. Even disaster
is an opportunity for some. The phrase, “when
life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” could quite easily be, “when Earth gives you earthquakes, make
infrastructure improvements.”
Opportunity, on a basic level, must exist to keep the
average person content with their place in the world. For we are often not
content creatures for very long, and so opportunity, even in the form of
change, must linger within our social zeitgeist constantly, or else peculiar
things will happen. Furthermore, opportunity as an ambiguous concept (though if
I had to describe it I would suggest the word is meant to conjure visions of
rolling green pastures and warm bathing sunlight) is useful as a product for
universal agreement. It is a product in the sense that it can be bought and
sold, often bought at the ballot box and sold in a catalogue one might call a
manifesto published several weeks prior.
In fact, I suggest the packaging of the idea of opportunity
in such a way has not just been politically useful, it’s been politically
revolutionary, moving politics away from trivial issues (triviality, often I’ve
found, being proportionally higher the more local the issue, but that is an
issue for another day) and towards much more personality-based, grandstanding,
universal ideas (whether these ideas, which are often long-lasting, national
and legacy building policies, are actually any of these things is, as always,
debatable).
John Kay in his book, Other
People’s Money suggests the idea of financialisaton; similarly Sandal in
his book What Money Can’t Buy and the
authors Earle, Moran and Ward-Perkins in their book The Econocracy. Financialisaton, as an idea, speaks to the
ever-increasing quantification of previously unquantifiable (or previously
dubiously quantifiable) entities/products/concepts, often with little thought
given to the human and/or environmental narrative behind that which is being
quantified. I believe the same is true for opportunity.
But opportunity is different in that it doesn’t necessarily suffer because of being quantified, but
rather can advance society when given prominence, which quantification does do.
Let me be clear: it is good that politicians regularly, almost to the point of
annoyance, phrase their arguments in such a way as to emphasise the return to You, the voter. It is only right that,
on a certain level, the democratic ritual of voting can be viewed as a
transaction between the electorate and the elected.
Of course, it can also be argued (and it has been) that it
reduces politics down to personality competitions and soundbites – perhaps
called slogans – as politicians peddle their opportunity-cum-wares, but that is
a wider discussion for another day. No, the issue with opportunity as a
quantified and sold idea is the same as is experienced by any product – it is
an economic one of supply and demand.
As a means of preservation
It would take a fool to argue against universal opportunity,
if for one reason it will (on average) benefit the fool, but, for a second
reason, it benefits society too, provided of course it works. Machiavelli
pointed out, in much more exemplary terms than I, that if you must wrong
anyone, you should ensure you do not wrong the largest group, or, failing that,
the most powerful. Opportunity, as a means of advancement (which I would argue
is how politicians will almost always phrase opportunistic ideas) is a policy
idea that wrongs the fewest number (but arguably the most powerful) of people,
namely those at the top, and even here, the wrong is more a lack of perceived
benefit rather than an actual ill being committed. But this is a short-term
perspective. However, when we accept the promise of opportunity being made by a
politician, and pay for it with our vote, we create an expectation of eventual delivery.
Here we observe a second advantage of opportunity –
ambiguity in timing. The politician that promised to make the entire electorate
rich overnight would be a politician that succeeded only in making the
electorate poor in a day. People accept, quite obviously, that change
(particularly substantiated change, and particularly change for the better)
takes time, if for no other reason than we, as a collective and under the guise
of the elected few, must encourage our societal caveman to step out of our
comfortable, safe cave. But just as a caveman would curse the alluring horizon
if he found, upon arriving there, that the land was harsh and barren, so too
will the electorate curse the elected if, after forming a sacred bond at the
ballot box and perhaps suffering hardships since then until now, they find
themselves stuck and stagnant and above all without opportunity.
As an aside, one should remember that once the promised benefit that
comes with promised opportunity is met, that does not eliminate one’s
obligation to those they have provided said benefit too. Citizens, rightly or
wrongly, will always seek more, and as such will always demand ever present
opportunity. Therefore, one cannot rest on one’s laurels; you must add rungs to
the ladder and offer those below you a hand to reach ever growing heights, as
opposed to being satisfied when touching the ceiling.
As a second rule of political practice, any idea that is
powerful in moving the people in your direction can be just as powerful in
moving them against you. And it is a most fatal error of the politician to be
deemed unable to provide promised, substantiated opportunity to their masters.
Let’s return to the idea of supply and demand to articulate this point. A
society might function, though be dissatisfied and in famine, leading to
co-ordination such to ensure the small amount of resource the society does have
is shared equally. In this hypothetical, whilst the baker will never have
queues of expectant customers outside
their door, they will never be longing for willing
customers.
As an aside, if there is another lesson to be learnt here, it’s that
dissatisfaction is not necessarily unsustainable, provided an alternative to
dissatisfaction is never proposed. See above: one does not have to break
through the ceiling if one does not help another climb the ladder in the first
place.
But suppose one day a new baker opens shop, and this baker,
keen to maximise their sales, professes to have enough bread to feed the whole starved
society. Well, what would we expect other than all residents to queue for as
long as is necessary to receive the food they have been promised (implied by
their being part of the society)? This baker may well have found a solution to
the society’s famine, and if so they will most certainly be the most popular
baker in that society for a long time (subjectively). But if it transpires
that, after a lengthy wait (of which the starving populous were initially quite
happy to part take in), that the baker is all out of bread, or is perhaps so
overwhelmed by demand they cannot bake the bread quick enough, and in that time
those already starving have now starved and fallen to the ground immobile or
worst, well that baker will be destroyed in reputation (if not worst) and that
idea they promised will die.
Obviously, the bread is opportunity.
As I have said above, without society believing that
opportunity is always present, peculiar things will happen. In the baker
analogy, the bakery shuts, and people fall ill, and cynicism re: a solution to
the famine spreads as fast as the hunger and the anger. Now one could argue
that the fault of the baker is not in their aspiration to feed all the people,
nor in their secondary aim of benefitting themselves, but in their execution of
their ambition – in their marketing their proposal as an immediate panacea. And
this is a valid argument, though, I would suggest, only in a meritocracy, where
the honour of advancement (opportunity) may only be bestowed at the whim of
those already powerful and following a set of criteria only few can complete
without prior (often inherited) advancement. So, whilst panaceas are dangerous,
we cannot escape the need for them, as for a democracy to have opportunity, it
must be universally attainable, or else that society is not a democracy.
(Maybe?) Understanding
the problem
Hollywood will often tout the phrase, “nothing left to lose.” The same phrase can be applied to a society
without opportunity.
On one level, one could argue adherence to the laws or
social norms of a land is through the basic good of humanity, for we often do
not seek to wrong those for whom wronging would not benefit ourselves. On
another level, adherence is through fear of the consequences. But a fine bears
little threat when one is already indebted; prison bears little threat when one
is already trapped; death bears little threat when one already sees little
worth living for. On an extreme level, opportunity keeps societies together,
and its lack of tears them apart.
It is here then we understand the ground on which the
Western paradox stands. In the wake of financial crisis and growing inequality,
as well as perhaps cultural changes and automation, previously held notions of
advancement, and in turn notions of opportunity, are being strained and
challenged, if not abolished.
In Alec Ash’s book Wish
Lanterns, there is a brief discussion of the materiality of modern day
China versus the implied more developed West, the notion being that when the
material is provided for, as it is in the West, people will focus more on
personal development, identity and spirituality. This makes sense if we
consider the caveman analogy again: once the caveman has food, he has time to
ponder much more intricate ideas. I bring the idea of materiality up as a means
of explaining my belief that Westerners in the 21st century (again,
I concede this is very general, and a flaw within this piece) are, in the
short-term, rather optimistic about their lives, but in the long-term are not.
Materiality explains the short-term because the Western
world is very good at supplying what its citizens need, and as such those
short-term desires such as food and water (and, I would suggest, technology, or
at least electricity) are readily met. In the short-term, we have it pretty
good. But greater materiality, in part due to decreased income (which I argue
is directly related to opportunity) suggests materiality is being used as a
supplement for a lack of quote unquote hope for the future – the long-term
spiritual desires (if not needs). Aspiration is the word that comes to mind
here, and the lack of opportunity proceeds the lack of aspiration, which in
turn demands short-term reward over long-term gain.
Forgive me for not providing an exact reference, but if we
accept the idea that humanity exists as two pillars, one spiritual and one
material, then we must accept that when one is falling to support the structure
the other must grow to carry the weight. Spirituality is vague, and purposely
so. But materiality is immediately obvious and so very tangible. It is so much
easier to grasp (literally). Opportunity should facilitate the short-term
materiality and the long-term
spirituality that make us fulfilled, but in its absence, the material suffers
less than the spiritual.
As an aside, I dislike using the word ‘spiritual,’ because it conjures
up doctrines I do not wish to bring into this discussion. Alas, I find myself
without an appropriate alternative, or perhaps just without a thesaurus.
This thesis may explain other phenomena. The rise in
nationalism across the Western world in the mid-2010s is explained by many
pundits and political sciences drawing on data and observation. I rely only on
observation. For if the State serves any purpose other than protection and
governance it is to provide individuals with an identity larger than
themselves. To bolster the individual by making them part of a collective.
However, the need for this bolstering seems to only exist when one cannot find
something deeper in themselves on their own, or one is not enabled by others to
find this. In other words, when opportunity is not provided by society to the
individual.
I have spoken in broad terms, and this is not helpful. But
this is a problem we must tackle, or at least acknowledge honestly. Short-term
consumerism will do little but leave a great many dissatisfied from what is
ultimately a nihilistic endeavour. It will breed apathy in some and radicalism
in others, as well as mistrust and distain between all of us. Universal
opportunity betters all our lives; a lack of opportunity degrades all our
lives. Let us not be cavemen frightened to pursue the horizon for fear of being
left in the cold.
