Transparency Sadness

There is a lot of talk about how we are living in the end of times, the fall of mankind, some flavor of armageddon.  I feel it deeply and very much understand how that perception has come about; so much of the darkness in societies all over the world is being revealed at once.  Overt fascists are elected willingly. We are learning that pretty much all of our heroes have skeletons in their closets and do dark things when no one is looking.  Even Ghandi was a misogynist, Martin Luther King Jr. cheated on his wife, and just about every man we know has used his penis inappropriately.  Most of our religious organizations have abused their power in one horrifying way or another.  We know the details of how we are damaging our planetary home.  The computer age has brought about the ability to empirically and tangibly track and share statistics that we vaguely suspected to be true, but never had to face this way, and not all at once.  More sadistic activities of the world’s governments are becoming known, as well as the intentionally wrong activities of individuals we trusted for years, and generally bad habits of the collective at large.  And though we always knew there was a dark underbelly to the world in which we live, seeing its faces all at once is overwhelming enough to give an overall impression that we cannot recover from these things and still have trusting relationships and essentially forward-moving governments. 

Though it definitely feels like we are in a dark era, I posit that this era of transparency is the darkest point before the dawn.  We couldn’t repair that upon which we couldn’t put our finger. Behavior patterns and information are coming to light that we can use as a collective to steer our societies in a more positive direction if we do not give up hope.  Yes, we still deal with misinformation and contrived disinformation, but I can’t help but feel that the court of public opinion is rapidly growing more informed than it once was.  99% of the violence in the world is inflicted by men.  99% of the world’s wealth and resources are in the hands of men.  Only 2% of all charitable giving makes it into the hands of women and girls. These are devastatingly depressing statistics, but didn’t we always feel it happening on some level?  Isn’t it better to have traceable facts to reference in a discussion rather than a personal experience or a feeling which is often dismissed out of hand? 

I think that in twenty or thirty years, we will have greatly improved many of the problems that now seem intractable, and we will look back and attribute a lot of that change to the new transparency of our mistakes.  How can we evolve if we can’t see what we are doing wrong?  Younger generations of politicians will grow up watching the devastating mistakes their elders made and search for new solutions.  Some of those solutions will be better.  Perhaps growing up in a more transparent world will make it less tempting to deceive and behave unfairly.  It won’t be perfect, I know, but I suspect it also won’t be as dark as it feels now with this flood of recent revelations. 

What I am seeing is that in the past it was easier to abstain from having an opinion on the critical issues the world faces.  You used to be able to be on the fence about something, and that is no longer the case.  While recent polarization of opinion has made social interactions much rougher, what we are seeing is that it is less and less possible to stand by and do nothing with all the information we now have.  Everyone is engaged in the discussion for once.  While, at present, we live in an intense crucible, it is paving the way for a more accountable society and governments.  Is change coming as fast as we would like—of course not.  Some people haven’t learned these lessons yet. But is it coming at the speed the world can handle without truly exploding—yes.  Crucible times do not last forever and are often followed by periods of relative peace and stability.  I’m not saying the streets will be paved with gold, but humanity does have a great capacity to learn and grow, and this intense discomfort the human collective is feeling now is the imperative for change.  We are not ending—that discomfort is the eggshell around the old ways cracking and breaking—so something new can emerge.  We won’t get to the new and improved if we lose hope and give up in the darkest times.  It helps, on the way through the dark forest, to focus on the solutions instead of the problems—the light that leads out, instead of the darkness around us. Survive, and carry my perfume among the perishing.