Author: Corneliu Bodea Opinion article written for Forbes
We are in the summer of 2020 in the Northern Hemisphere and, together with all of you, I am experiencing a very strange feeling. Obviously, especially for a holiday period.
Our habits suffer greatly, whether it’s going to a cinema, a festival or organizing a great trip. You choose destinations based on how “green” the area is, or the means of transport and you watch worriedly as the area you live in turns red and restrictions upon restrictions apply. The buzz of political and civic debate gains intensity and as in the case of any rare event, opinions are extreme and supported with aplomb. We don’t know if we are in the prelude to a long-term crisis, we don’t understand how it unfolds and the mechanisms that will unfold and sustain it. Unpredictability, insecurity – we live in a vulnerable, unsafe, complex and ambiguous world.
On the other hand, I sit and think, on the weekend in which I write these lines, of a lot of realities of our life today, which go unnoticed and are served by centuries of progress or struggle, imperceptibly, without giving them any more importance. Things that we have become accustomed to, that seem normal and natural, but that have not always been so… The 8-hour workday was introduced at the initiative of Robert Owen (businessman and philanthropist) in 1817 in Great Britain. Today, after centuries of “light-day” work, we enjoy as something normal, a gain that is only 200 years old. And the 5-day workweek was an innovation of Henry Ford only in 1926, confirmed by law about 10 years later by Franklin Roosevelt. We, those over 50 years old, probably remember the 6-day-a-week school and the LLCs (Reduced Working Week) during the communist regime. Only 100 years have passed since Roosevelt’s initiative and 30 years since the communist period when we had only one Saturday off in the month…
We travel at unimaginable speed 100 years ago and visit places that we didn’t even have on the map 200 years ago. We connect cultures and meet people, we eat tapioca as if it grows in grandma’s yard and we write in a second to a friend thousands of kilometers away.
Although there is still inequality and poverty that we must fight continuously, we cannot fail to mention that extreme poverty has fallen from about 94% of the population in 1820 to about 10-11% today. Life expectancy has increased in the last 200 years from about 40 years to about 62 today, and infant mortality has fallen from 45% to below 2-3% today.
Perhaps it is precisely such progress that leads us to the conclusion that we cannot progress at this rate any longer, and that there will inevitably come a time when everything will fall apart. However, we cannot stop realizing that this is what others before us thought, and behold, progress has continued as Thomas Macauley prophetically observed in 1830.
Perhaps we should realize that in the end no one has guaranteed us either perpetual progress or lack of risks, and even if we were to make an ultimatum appeal to religion, we would not find that we necessarily deserve unfettered protection. No one has given us exemption from either the lesson of the evolution of life or the lesson of violence that has accompanied this universe since the beginning. If we were to inventory the risks in a scientific way, we would reach the surprising conclusion, confirmed by all specialists on the subject, namely that the greatest risks of the coming centuries have anthropological causes, including that of pandemics. So this is how we have nothing guaranteed and how we do not have reasons to consider ourselves cautious and wise enough to defend ourselves from evil, we only have faith, intelligence and our strong souls that keep us together.
These thoughts came to me while I was enjoying a quiet weekend in the comfort of my home, full and healthy. The anguish and confusion must be shaken, replaced with confidence and action. But let’s start by learning what there is to learn from this experience. Arrogance is not helpful and perishes on the bed in any hospital, the lack of respect for the environment melts in the face of a simple summer storm and the lack of cooperation brings conflict and hatred. We are facing a reasonably risky attempt and I see how we deny the evidence of science and defy the power of association. Of course, this makes the trial harder and the risk greater. At the same time, I see how the majority reacts naturally and how the determination to overcome the situation can be read on the faces of everyone and those who deny and those who believe, and this is important. We are probably heading towards the hardest period of the health crisis and I feel that we have learned enough to overcome it decisively. An economic crisis awaits us, neglected by most politicians and some experts, but which will hit hard the end of 2020 and a good part of 2021. However, we are a resilient species and this is demonstrated by the more than 200,000 years of history and over 100 billion specimens that dreamed and loved, that knew how to value the future at its true importance.
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