Tales of the Future:Human obsolescence or transformation?

Richard Eckersley

National Centre for Epidemiology

and Population Health, ANU

nceph.anu.edu.au

Australia 21 fellow and director

www.australia21.org.au

Linear vs systemic optimism

Linear optimism: humanity ‘on track’ to a better future; problems are mere ‘glitches’ we can iron out of system.

Systemic optimism: humanity straying ever further off the track; problems are symptoms of deeper level condition; need whole-system change.

Two views of progress

Material progress:• Economic growth is paramount.• Seeks greater wealth to increase freedom and choice,

create resources to meet social and environmental goals.

Sustainable development:• Economic growth is not paramount. • Seeks balance and integration of social, economic and

environmental goals to create high, equitable, lasting quality of life.

Key themes

• Our lives and our health, individually and collectively, are shaped by a complex interplay between social conditions, personal circumstances and individual states of mind.

• Cultures bring order and meaning to our lives: of all species, we alone require a culture to make life worth living.

• Ultimately, we need a deep social shift from material progress to sustainable development, where better health, not more wealth, becomes the bottom line of progress.

• Hope for this shift lies in: an increasing convergence between science and religion; greater moral autonomy; and evidence of cultural change.

Going for Growth

‘The overriding aim of our agenda is to deliver Australia an annual (economic) growth rate of over four per cent on average during the decade to 2010.’

John Howard

World Economic Forum Dinner, Melbourne, 16 March 1998

‘If we can sustain our overall growth rates…we will be a $1 trillion economy in around seven years time [compared to more than ten years at previous rates]…By 2015, the difference in national income would be about $135 billion a year in today’s dollars. That’s a difference of an extra $12 billion a year for health and more than $8 billion for education at current spending patterns…’

John Howard‘Getting the big things right’8 July 2004

The human condition: then and now

Many more people are living much richer, longer lives than ever before:

• 1000 years ago: 270 million people could expect , on average, to live about 24 years and earn about US$400 a year.• Today: 6.3 billion people can expect, on average, to live about 67 years and earn almost US$6,000.

Gains in human and civil rights.

Progress and health:some qualifications

Gains unevenly distributed• Widening gap between rich and poor nations.• Recent reversals in some nations.

Diminishing returns with rising income• Thresholds beyond which benefits cease.

Health gains due to more than growth• Increasing knowledge, education, institutional reforms.• Biomedical advances, changed behaviour.

Progress and health:costs of growth

Environment: disruption on planetary scale.• Questions of sustainability.

Social costs: increased inequality and deeper divisions within society.• Questions of opportunity.

Psychic losses: identity, belonging, purpose, certainty.• Questions of meaning.

Life expectancy by income

Source: Inglehart, 2000

Subjective wellbeing by income

Source: Inglehart, 2000

Income and happinessUSA, 1956-98

Source: Myers and Diener, 1996

Male suicide rates by age and birth cohort, Australia

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0-4 10-14 20-24 30-34 40-44 50-54 60-64Age group

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Research Centre for Injury Studies, August 2000

Lifetime prevalence of depression,by birth cohort, USA

Source: Kessler et al 2003

Growing generation gap in malaiseUSA, 1975-1999

Source: Putnam 2000

Deaths, all causes, males 15-24, by SES, 1985-87 and 1995-97

Source: Turrell & Mathers, 2001

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Deaths, all causes, females15-24, by SES, ‘85-87 and ‘95-97

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Source: Turrell & Mathers, 2001

Although children of the very affluent are typically seen as low risk, they may manifest more disturbance than others, particularly substance abuse, anxiety and depression.

Possible causes are: excessive pressures to achieve, and isolation from parents (both physical and emotional).

Suniya S. LutharChild Development, 2003

Perceptions of QoL - 1

‘Against (a) background of general anxiety about ‘the state of the world’ and the relentlessness of ‘bad news’…we are disturbed by the many signs of ‘degeneration’ in the Australian way of life.’

‘…We are “tending our own patch” and becoming absorbed in our own concerns….our focus has narrowed to an extent that allows us to exclude some of the “nasty stuff” which has become too unpalatable to think about.’

Hugh MackayMind & Mood, 1998, 2003

Perceptions of QoL - 2

‘Personal aspirations and aspirations for the nation appeared to be largely unrelated….Few participants believed that Australia would become their ideal society (and) they had distanced themselves from this goal….they manage, or control, their reactions to social issues so they can maintain a comfortable and self-focused life.’

Values and Civic Behaviour in Australia Brotherhood of St Laurence, 2002.

Declining quality of life

In surveys, twice as many think QoL is getting worse as think it is getting better.

Reasons for decline (in order): • Too much greed and consumerism• Breakdown in community and social life• Too much pressure on families, parents and marriages• Falling living standards• Employers demanding too much

Source: Eckersley, 2000; Pusey, 1998

The future?

‘If the mood is a bit depressed at present, then it turns even bleaker when Australians contemplate the future. They fear further degradation in our quality of life – through excessive development, excessive materialism, excessive reliance on technology, excessive speed.’

Hugh MackayMind & Mood, 2001

Materialism and wellbeing

Materialism:• correlated with dissatisfaction, depression, anxiety,

anger, social alienation and poorer personal relationships.

• ‘extrinsic goals’ such as fame, fortune and glamour associated with lower overall wellbeing, compared to ‘intrinsic goals’ of intimacy, self-acceptance and understanding, contributing to community.

• The more materialistic our values, the poorer our quality of life.

Individualism and wellbeing

Individualism:• Increased risk, uncertainty, insecurity.• Lack of clear frames of reference.• Higher expectations.• Onus of success rests with individual.• ‘Tyranny’ of excessive choice.• Reduced social support and personal control

Virtues and vices

Virtues:• encourage strong, harmonious personal relationships

and social attachments.• and the strength to endure adversity.

Vices:• Are about unrestrained satisfaction of individual wants

and desires.• and the capitulation to human weaknesses.

St Thomas Aquinas13th century

The Virtues Faith

CharityHope

PrudenceReligionFortitude

Temperance

The Capital Sins

The Capital SinsPride

Gluttony

Lust

Avarice

Sloth

Envy

Anger

The VirtuesThe Consumer Society

20th CenturySource: Funkhouser

Rules of happiness: sage advice

Happiness is not a goal but a consequence:• it is not to be sought or pursued, but is a result of how

we live.• it is not found by focusing on the self, but on others.

Happiness comes from balancing wants and means:• from being content with what we have.

The power of the market

‘Big businesses in the United States now spend well over a trillion dollars a year on marketing. This is double Americans’ spending on all public and private education, from kindergartens through graduate schools.’

Michael DawsonThe Consumer Trap: Big Business Marketing in American Life, 2003

Even the brightest and best of us can be recruited or seduced by social situations and conditions to behave in ways contrary to our values and dispositions, to engage in actions that are immoral, illegal, irrational and self-destructive.

….many agents of mind control ‘ply their trade daily on all of us behind many faces and fronts’.

Philip ZimbardoPresident, APA

Mind control

The problem with material progress

…if, in creating wealth, we do more damage to the fabric of society and the state of the natural environment than we can repair with the extra wealth, it means we are going backwards in terms of quality of life, even while we grow richer… … material progress depends on the pursuit of individual and material self-interest that, morally, cannot be quarantined from other areas of our personal and social lives.

Sociocultural change and wellbeing

‘Cultural fraud’: promotion of images and ideals at odds with psychological needs and social realities.

Media-marketing complex creating an ‘artificial’ or ‘alternative’ reality that is increasingly influential.

Several aspects that introduce a powerful (anti)-social dynamic:• Fractured, ephemeral images (fads and fashions).• A focus on personal, often material, goals.• A view of a ‘mean world’.

Sustainability and health:a new bottom line?

…understanding the social basis of health and wellbeing contributes to working towards sustainability. It allows us to integrate different priorities by measuring them against a common goal or benchmark – improving human health and wellbeing.

…making health, not wealth, the bottom line of progress takes us deeper into questions of quality of life: how well societies provide the conditions that are conducive to total wellbeing – physical, mental, social, spiritual.

Winds of change?

‘The gap between “what I believe in” and “how I live” is uncomfortably wide for many of us and we are looking for ways to narrow it….We want to express our values more clearly and live in ways that make us feel better about ourselves….to feel that our lives express who we are and that we are living in harmony with the values we claim to espouse.’

Hugh MackayThe Wrap: Understanding where we are now and where we’ve come from, 2003

A shift in our worldview?

At least 25% of people in Western nations are ‘cultural creatives’:• up from less than 5% in 1960s.• disenchanted with consumerism, status displays, glaring

social inequalities, hedonism and cynicism.• care about the environment, relationships, peace, social

justice, spirituality and self-expression.• a coalescence of social movements that is changing how

people understand the world .

Source: Ray and Anderson, 2000

Moral autonomy

‘The denizens of the postmodern era are, so to speak, forced to stand face-to-face with their moral autonomy, and so also with their moral responsibility. This is the cause of moral agony. This is also the chance the moral selves never confronted before.’

Zygmunt BaumanLife in Fragments: Essays in postmodern morality, 1995

Altruistic individualism

‘…these new orientations towards the “we” create something like a cooperative or altruistic individualism. Thinking of oneself and living for others at the same time, once considered a contradiction in terms, is revealed as an internal, substantive connection. Living alone means living socially.’

Ulrich & Elizabeth BeckIndividualization, 2002

Taking control of our future

‘We are all now faced with a radical moral choice. We can step confidently into a new realm of creative freedom and take full, democratic responsibility for that future, or, alternatively, retreat into a blind and irresponsible dependence on moral authorities who…will confidently claim that they have a mandate from God, nature, history or the market to define that future for us.’

Denis Kenny, moral philosopher

Implications for Church

Faces choice between new, ‘transformational’ faith and old, fundamentalist religion.

New:• Uses metaphysical metaphors attuned to times, scientific

understanding of the world.• Transcends, not confronts, individualisation.• Too spiritually and morally abstract?

Old:• Offers certainty in uncertain world.• Mistakes religious metaphor for spiritual truth.• Cedes too much power to those who speak for God.

Redirecting choice to improve health and wellbeing – from this:

Weak families, communities

Self-interested,competitive

individualism

Shallowdemocracy

Materialprogress

Illbeing

A viciouscycle

– to this:

Strong families, communities

Altruistic,cooperative

individualism

Deepdemocracy

Sustainabledevelopment

Wellbeing

A virtuouscycle

• Nourish your heart, mind and soul, not just your body.

• Cherish intimacy, participate socially, engage politically and believe spiritually.

• Apply ‘grandchildren test’.• Be discerning in use of media.• Consume modestly.• Obey the golden rule. • Beware of simple solutions.• Think for yourself.

Beyond being a bystander

Fairshare’s 5.10.5.10 formula for taking actions that matter:• Give 5 per cent of gross income to charities,

environmental groups etc.• Reduce resource use to 10 per cent below national

averages.• Spend 5 per cent of leisure time in voluntary work.• Take democratic action 10 times a year.

Source: www.fairshareinternational.org