Do you think the world is changing? Is that change you're seeing better or worse, and how does that make you feel? If someone asks you right now, at this exact second, to name the biggest issue at hand—not in your house, town, city, or country, but globally—the single biggest issue GLOBALLY, and how YOU perceive it, what would you say?
This is a great question. It says a lot about who you are, the scope of your thought, and your beliefs. Don't just say, ' [insert issue here] is a problem, we should fix it'. If it was that clear cut, we would have fixed it already. What must change prior to the fix—hold that thought.
Here's my take. The biggest issue, that affects the most people, is a difficult question to answer. I promise, I’m not copping out. I struggled with this question for a while. While drafting this up, I initially thought the answer would be relatively straightforward. An ‘end world hunger’ type of response. I reckoned it would be easy to point the finger at a villain. 'Hey, stop doing what you're doing, villain, you're unquestionably wrong.' A few politicians here, an ideology there, a global shadow cabal of adrenochrome-absorbing lizard elites lurking on the horizon. The good stuff.
A few years ago, I could have pointed out the lizard elites in the crowd, but time marches on, and my ability to go, 'Hey, that person over there is a baddie, for sure' has waned.
But as I get a little older (scary) and a little wiser (debatable), everything that made me really angry, those baddies of days yore—and not the lizard elites—are considerably more nuanced. Issues that were easy and simple are now shades of grey. People whose views differ from mine become more understandable by the day. We share more in common than I would like to admit. The fact book with which we interpret the world may be different but generally, a good faith discussion can be had.
These discussions are never planned and my memory is dreadful. Honestly, it’s horrific. I read a lot, which informs my world view, and then I forget a lot too. But what I read persists in terms of my view, a subtle subconscious influence. It's a dangerous combination that makes me a shaky sieve in a fact-driven conversation; it makes me doubt myself. More people should doubt themselves.
These doubts leave me more open to people that are insidious actors, biased to a deep degree, overly confident, irrationally reactive, and a whole host of other ”positive“ traits. The internet means we are bombarded with a mishmash of “people” with these traits, and taking a tempered approach to sticky conversation is difficult. I rarely outright refute a statement, because quite frankly, I don’t trust my own mind. So, I compensated for these gaps with a framework of the world that is flexible enough to allow me to navigate this madness.
As I filled in this framework, I met my enemy. The timeless Dunning-Kruger trap. The more you know, the less you know; that’s literally what it means. I leaned on this shaky framework of mine but Dunning-Kruger was not a fan. The more I realised I didn't know, the more I learnt. As I learnt more the knowledge gaps exponentially increased. This sucked, and was pretty draining. I had to bring it back to basics.
I had to define an axiomatic theory and roll with it. Like religion, or those people that swear by drinking apple cider vinegar for weight loss. The thing with axiomatic worldviews is that they are perspective defining. Incorporating one will define you as a person, and how you engage others when worldviews misalign.
Things to aim for: The axiom isn't harmful, dehumanising, or drastically disruptive. A little conflict is fine. Unfortunately, very regularly, this isn't the case. So, to answer my earlier question, I had to summarise it into a theory/statement. It must be spectrum-like in nature to account for the muted greys of reality. What I deemed as the answer to ‘The Biggest Issue of the 21st Century’…
"Institutionalised Solidarity versus Individual Liberalism"
Even this phrase alone invites diverse interpretations. Let me break it down from my perspective. The concept of ‘Institutionalised Solidarity’ suggests that an institution should function as a cohesive unit. It should prioritise the best interests of those who maintain the system and those affected by it. For a relatively bipartisan example, consider primary education.
In this context, primary education, which involves teaching children in schools, should prioritise the interests of those who keep the system running: teachers, board members, government bodies, and also those external to the system, such as parents, guardians, and children. I'm intentionally choosing an example like primary education to ‘Keep It Easy?™’, as truly bipartisan institutions are hard to find. Perhaps public libraries comes close? Everyone loves the library.
A lack of solidarity among within-institution actors often results in subpar output. There is no real willingness to align and therefore no will to commit to any action. When internal conflicts arise—due to profit motives, religious beliefs, morality and ethics—eventually they reach a high enough level of dissonance that institutional effectiveness plummets. This affects those external to the system's levers (guardians, students) disproportionately due to the leverage afforded by the fact that institutions are just frickin huge. One bad teacher can ruin a class, one bad government body can ruin a nation.
And as the dysfunctional system continues, the subpar output begins to perpetuate, and so begins an unvirtuous cycle of ever degrading quality. The quality of the system remains poor, so the output remains poor. Actors within the institution increasingly diverge as a byproduct of the output, and the quality—you guessed it—becomes worse, and the people that suffer: the children.
Within this microcosm, the individual liberalism of aforementioned stakeholders are in direct conflict with institutional solidarity. This results in dissonance and a breakdown of the Overton window—as defined in a previous piece—which leads to further outrage. These things go hand in hand and will continue until an absolute breaking or turning point.
Breaking out of this cycle requires an intermediary or a shock event. Typically due to a sudden change in political headwinds. A few that immediately spring to mind are the Great Depression, world wars, a regime change, a 9/11, or maybe an individual that crops up that changes the culture of an institution. Somewhat unsurprisingly these occurrences are more likely to appear in fractured landscapes. There’s nothing to unify when you’re already united. These shocks can also do the opposite and further fracture a mono-culture into a micro-culture.
This shock event is parallel to a sort of spiritual witch hunt, where the ‘boogeyman’ is exalted from the system. The boogeyman, being the conflicting ideals of said institution, is either destroyed or irrevocably altered. This alteration is caused by an external actor, event or even the implosion of the institution itself.
In the case of primary schools, we won't necessarily see an implosion. But what we will see is a rise in homeschooling, different kinds of primary schools, and greater variance in academic attainment. A relatively liberated primary landscape. Aligning institutional solidarity vs individual liberalism across a number of socio-political institutions is key. So how will we stop slashing at each other with the shards of the smashed Overton window? Fuck knows, but it was entertaining to think about.
Public libraries should be something easily agreed upon. But, we don't live in those times. Apple Cider Vinegar is a hard yes.
Minarchism is a concept you may be interested in.