Everywhere You Look There’s Discontent

Are we witnessing the end of a civilisation?

There are signs of dissatisfaction and unease wherever you look these days, all over the world and in every part of life. Every nation on the planet is experiencing some form of civil unrest, ranging from peaceful organised protests to total state collapse with everything in between. And even more pervasive is the discontent that is seeping into the fabric of every society across the globe and even infiltrating everyone’s individual psyches. Nobody is happy with the state of the world any more. There’s growing inequality and division, plus the spectre of ecological and climate disaster is now looming large. Indeed, the ecological changes brought about by human activity are now beginning to affect everyone, even the citizens of ‘first world' countries that had previously seemed to imagine themselves immune for some reason. Likewise, the Covid pandemic has brought home the fact that humanity is now a global community that needs to think and behave more collectively and holistically.

Despite this, the global ‘establishment’ remains hell bent on persevering with the capitalist system that has brought us to this point. But this is a system rooted in competition and based on perpetual growth, production and use of resources. Common sense says that nothing can grow forever and that sooner or later the resources will run out. However, this seems to be conveniently ignored and dismissed because the system won’t allow any other way, and we’re all too locked into this system to consider anything else.

But now we must do exactly that. Our current global civilisation, based on the capitalist model, has now passed its ‘golden age' and is careering out of control towards oblivion. If we don’t manage to transition to a new way of being then we are facing probable social collapse in large numbers of societies across the world with environmental disaster following on close behind. It’s no exaggeration to say that the future of our species is now under threat. And if we go down then we’re going to take a huge number of other species with us through no fault of their own.

Something has to change, and this is the subject of my latest single, Discontent, which aims to aims to capture the passion and outrage behind the social uprisings and protests that are currently on the rise all over the planet.

What they want

People everywhere are protesting about climate change; ecological destruction; the overuse of fossil fuels and other natural resources; pollution; inequality; division; prejudice; discrimination; immigration; corporate greed; corruption; human rights and many other common themes that all point towards a dissatisfaction with the globalised capitalist system that is now either controlling or directly impacting every corner of the planet. This system is pushing our social structures and the natural world towards breaking point and these protests are all signs of a creaking civilisation.

There are also common themes to what the protesters are calling for, whether they are campaigning for climate action, ecological sustainability, social justice, systems change or human rights. What they want is more equality; respect for all of humanity; conservation of the natural world and protection of the environments where we all live; sustainability for our long-term futures; less emphasis on competition and division and more focus on connection, cooperation and community; and, consequently, systems and leaders that reflect this new worldview.

Dignity

What everybody ultimately seems to be campaigning for now is life. It’s no longer acceptable for a large proportion of the world’s population to simply exist, working themselves into the ground and struggling to get by so that a tiny global elite can reap the rewards. It’s no longer acceptable for humans to plunder the Earth’s resources and play havoc with the natural balance of our ecosystems for our own selfish means. It’s no longer acceptable for one group of humans to consider themselves better than another due to their own ingrained prejudice, self-interest and fear.

So what should we do? I have previously suggested that we need to reexamine our cultural narratives and rebuild our societies based on the values of balance, respect, cooperation, hope and gratitude. There are many other social and cultural commentators making a similar point at the current time. I was recently particularly struck by these thoughts from Ece Temelkuran on the Accidental Gods podcast: ‘I don’t want to feel the indignity of witnessing that there are people living in worse conditions than me. Because I feel my dignity is damaged as I see them. So a world of dignity where nobody feels their dignity is damaged, this is what I want. Yes, this is what I want. And this is more than being equal. This is even more than justice.’ Her feeling is that it all comes down to dignity: that all living things, both human and non-human, should have the right to live their lives with dignity.

That seems like a beautiful and elegant way of looking at the world that we can all surely relate to if we just allow ourselves to break free of the shackles of prejudice, self-interest and fear. It’s also a view of the world that would lead to radical change if genuinely put into practice by each and every one of us.

Let’s all do our best to transform our discontent into collective dignity.

Discontent is released on 22nd June 2021. You can check it out on my website or Spotify, Apple Music, SoundCloud, YouTube and most other major streaming and download platforms.

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