GW69 Feature
On future people
Our
consideration for others can extend even to those
who do not yet exist, says Rupert
Read.
It’s no
longer socially acceptable to exhibit
prejudice against ethnic minority people on
grounds of their ethnicity, women on
grounds of their gender, or working-class
people on grounds of their class. The last
bastions of discrimination are being
overcome: such as prejudice against gay and
lesbian people, and against disabled
people.
…Or, is there one more crucial bastion of discrimination still strongly in place?
Consider this kind of statement, that we have probably all heard on the doorstep at some point: “No-one is going to infringe on my rights! I can drive or fly as much as I like. That’s freedom!” This kind of sentiment is a product of the extreme individualism of our times. Now think what it implies: Because of an unwillingness to tolerate ‘infringements’ on one’s own ‘liberty’, one is willing to take many things that future people might need. We don’t any longer tolerate stamping on the life-chances of black people, working-class people, disabled people…
But we haven’t fully thought through yet that future people too quite simply deserve to be well treated and simply must be decently provided for, just as children and severely disabled people (and so on and so forth) must be. Just because we can’t hear the cries of anguish of our descendants yet to come, doesn’t mean that they don’t count… On the contrary – it just makes it all the more urgent that we make the effort to think and care about them…
We have got somewhat better about caring about people who are spatially distant from us – people in the ‘developing’ world. The increased power of broadcast media technology has been helpful here. But: there just ain’t any such thing as beaming pictures back to us from the future. That has to be left up to films such as ‘The Age of Stupid’ or ‘Children of Men’. We are still just not good enough about caring about people who are temporally distant from us. Future people.
Nor is this even just a failure of the political right. Many ‘socialists’ too seem markedly more interested in the poor of the ‘developing’ world and in the working class (and in enriching them materially) than in future people. But if equality – the central value of socialism – is to mean anything at all, then it must apply to future people too. Industrial-growthism is no good, if it means by implication that we fail to take the rights and needs of future people seriously. We should treat them as our equals. So it is now clear: any real socialism must be an eco-socialism.
I think that the considerations above explain some of the current epidemic of man-made-climate-change denialism, which is a striking phenomenon now, especially on the political right (e.g. in Britain: in UKIP, the BNP, the DUP, and across swathes of the Tory Party), and in the right-wing media (e.g. the Mail, the Express, the Telegraph). The debate over man-made climate change is a proxy for a debate over differing visions of society: for the green movement, of a better, more localised world; for the ‘conservative’ right, of unabated ‘freedom’ now. But note that the ‘conservative’ vision is rarely honest with us: few ‘conservative’ politicians dare openly to acknowledge that the consequences of unmitigated uncaring ‘freedom’ (to burn, to consume, to fly, etc) now are highly likely to be mass disaster later. And so they hide behind a tragic refusal to acknowledge the climate science that greens (and most of the left), by contrast, can and do honestly embrace.
…Or, is there one more crucial bastion of discrimination still strongly in place?
Consider this kind of statement, that we have probably all heard on the doorstep at some point: “No-one is going to infringe on my rights! I can drive or fly as much as I like. That’s freedom!” This kind of sentiment is a product of the extreme individualism of our times. Now think what it implies: Because of an unwillingness to tolerate ‘infringements’ on one’s own ‘liberty’, one is willing to take many things that future people might need. We don’t any longer tolerate stamping on the life-chances of black people, working-class people, disabled people…
But we haven’t fully thought through yet that future people too quite simply deserve to be well treated and simply must be decently provided for, just as children and severely disabled people (and so on and so forth) must be. Just because we can’t hear the cries of anguish of our descendants yet to come, doesn’t mean that they don’t count… On the contrary – it just makes it all the more urgent that we make the effort to think and care about them…
We have got somewhat better about caring about people who are spatially distant from us – people in the ‘developing’ world. The increased power of broadcast media technology has been helpful here. But: there just ain’t any such thing as beaming pictures back to us from the future. That has to be left up to films such as ‘The Age of Stupid’ or ‘Children of Men’. We are still just not good enough about caring about people who are temporally distant from us. Future people.
Nor is this even just a failure of the political right. Many ‘socialists’ too seem markedly more interested in the poor of the ‘developing’ world and in the working class (and in enriching them materially) than in future people. But if equality – the central value of socialism – is to mean anything at all, then it must apply to future people too. Industrial-growthism is no good, if it means by implication that we fail to take the rights and needs of future people seriously. We should treat them as our equals. So it is now clear: any real socialism must be an eco-socialism.
I think that the considerations above explain some of the current epidemic of man-made-climate-change denialism, which is a striking phenomenon now, especially on the political right (e.g. in Britain: in UKIP, the BNP, the DUP, and across swathes of the Tory Party), and in the right-wing media (e.g. the Mail, the Express, the Telegraph). The debate over man-made climate change is a proxy for a debate over differing visions of society: for the green movement, of a better, more localised world; for the ‘conservative’ right, of unabated ‘freedom’ now. But note that the ‘conservative’ vision is rarely honest with us: few ‘conservative’ politicians dare openly to acknowledge that the consequences of unmitigated uncaring ‘freedom’ (to burn, to consume, to fly, etc) now are highly likely to be mass disaster later. And so they hide behind a tragic refusal to acknowledge the climate science that greens (and most of the left), by contrast, can and do honestly embrace.
The next
great leap forward in seeking justice in
this world, and seeking to put in place an
ethic of real responsibility and care, will
be to take seriously the claims of the
future ones. It is no longer possible in
the courts to treat other human beings as
property, to ignore their rights: slavery
has been decisively outlawed.
We will not flourish as a species unless our ecosystems flourish. I believe that it is high time for future people to be given the kinds of rights and protections that present people – black or white, gay or straight, abled or disabled – already take for granted. Our human descendants need to be granted legal standing. This will protect them, and will offer some significant protection – probably, much better protection than any we currently have in place – for ecosystems.
A tentative start has been made, for instance in Hungary with their bringing in a Commissioner for Future Generations, a sort of ombudsman with the interests of future people in mind. But this is only the most tentative of starts… This is why a group of us in Britain are getting involved in a campaign that has been launched by the Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development (www.fdsd.org) for something similar, but (I hope) something stronger: perhaps Guardians for Future Generations, who could exercise veto power over policy proposals which could be demonstrated to harm the interests of future people?
For, if you are against prejudice against ethnic minority people, women, etc. – and you certainly are – then it is time to get behind the idea of being unprejudiced against future people. Let us not take refuge, tacitly or explicitly, in this prejudice, ever again. Ending this prejudice will mean a revolution in our practices. It will save our civilisation.
And better still: this might just be the most powerful rhetorical tool at our disposal yet to have emerged… For when you talk this through with ordinary voters, they get it. No one wants any more to be prejudiced. If we can get folk to see that to be the unprejudiced ‘liberal-minded’ people they want to think of themselves as being, they have to start treating the future – future people – very differently. Then another world really may be possible…
We will not flourish as a species unless our ecosystems flourish. I believe that it is high time for future people to be given the kinds of rights and protections that present people – black or white, gay or straight, abled or disabled – already take for granted. Our human descendants need to be granted legal standing. This will protect them, and will offer some significant protection – probably, much better protection than any we currently have in place – for ecosystems.
A tentative start has been made, for instance in Hungary with their bringing in a Commissioner for Future Generations, a sort of ombudsman with the interests of future people in mind. But this is only the most tentative of starts… This is why a group of us in Britain are getting involved in a campaign that has been launched by the Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development (www.fdsd.org) for something similar, but (I hope) something stronger: perhaps Guardians for Future Generations, who could exercise veto power over policy proposals which could be demonstrated to harm the interests of future people?
For, if you are against prejudice against ethnic minority people, women, etc. – and you certainly are – then it is time to get behind the idea of being unprejudiced against future people. Let us not take refuge, tacitly or explicitly, in this prejudice, ever again. Ending this prejudice will mean a revolution in our practices. It will save our civilisation.
And better still: this might just be the most powerful rhetorical tool at our disposal yet to have emerged… For when you talk this through with ordinary voters, they get it. No one wants any more to be prejudiced. If we can get folk to see that to be the unprejudiced ‘liberal-minded’ people they want to think of themselves as being, they have to start treating the future – future people – very differently. Then another world really may be possible…
Rupert Read
is a lecturer in philosophy at the
University of East Anglia and Green Party
Councillor in Norwich
norwich.greenparty.org.uk
norwich.greenparty.org.uk
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