A new society can be brought about only if a profound change occurs in the human heart.
These words from Eric Fromm’s “To have to to be?” encapsulate what I have been thinking for a while.
The more I look into the future, how we will overcome the challenges of this revolution, the more I go back to a single thought: rationality alone will not save us.
By “rationality” I mean the belief that everything can be explained through facts, through laws of supply and demand, through statistics and economic incentives.
As we debate the rise of ideological movements shaking the foundations of our society, it appears clearly that we lack an alternative ideology. We have taken for granted that material progress was everything we needed. It only takes a sputtering engine to throw us off balance.
I am not talking about nostalgia. Leave all illusions about resetting the clock. We need an ideology for the future.
P.S. Two book I recommend about this:
- E.F. Schumacher, A guide for the perplexed
- E. Fromm, To have or to be?