h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Our Duty to Future Generations

What do we owe to future generations? Strictly speaking we owe them nothing; they owe us. They’ve done nothing for us, after all, but inherit everything we bequeath to them. But we must think about that. Everything we do, does have an effect upon what we can bequeath to those generations to come. From my own standpoint: I say we should do as much as we can, to bequeath as much good as possible to the people who will come after us.

For that we must think about what we are doing. We must think about where we’re coming from. Each of us is situated in history. If things had gone differently in the past, then for each of us the present would have been different – better, or worse. I honestly believe we should critically think about how the things done by our own ancestors have affected us, up to the present moment. The idea is not to be ungrateful for what they did. It is to learn from their mistakes so that we don’t repeat them. And our ancestors did make plenty of mistakes – they were merely human! So are we. But we can learn, we can do better – and we should. We do owe a debt … we can’t pay it to the generations that have passed, who are now in the grave, but we can pay it forward to the generations yet to come. The human world right now is the way it is because of what all generations of humans have done to make it that way. In many cases, present problems could not have been foreseen by earlier generations. But in some cases, they might have been. We are in a position right now to see how our past actions are affecting the present … and I really hope we could learn something from that.

My own greatest concerns when I look at the present are environmental destruction, and injustice in the human sphere. Our ancestors mostly lived in a time when they took the environment of Earth for granted; its resources appeared inexhaustible. Up until quite recently, we had no idea that species could become extinct, or that we could have anything to do with that. We still don’t even know how many species there are, or how exactly to quantify or understand the biodiversity of Earth … but we do know now that we are destroying it. As humans, we have been destroying biodiversity pretty much from the start. We’re now starting to see all the harm we have been causing … and it’s not a pretty picture. If we continue this, then we’re bequeathing a vastly impoverished planet to the people coming after us. Imagine them inheriting a world without elephants, rhinos, lions, tigers, bears and so much more … I’m mentioning the spectacular species but the small ones are no less vital, and their loss no less real. We must come to an understanding and appreciation of the natural riches of our planet. They don’t belong to the present generation only. They should by rights belong to all future generations … if we destroy them now, we have no way of getting them back; future generations will be left permanently without them. And it’s more than a matter of resources. We are linked with Nature, with wildness; it is our own cradle. We’re linked with the other living things of this planet. When we destroy other creatures, we are harming our own relationship with nature, we are severing the links that bind us into the entire living system of this planet. We still don’t fully appreciate what that is worth, but if we go on like this, future generations may learn to appreciate it by losing it … and then it will be too late.

Let us look at the matter of injustice in the human sphere now. We right now have a world of huge inequalities. Again since we arrived on this planet, we’ve been acting selfishly and short-sightedly. Those with the opportunities to do so, enriched themselves, empowered themselves, and used their power against the others. We’ve had oppression and exploitation. We still have it. There are still many arguments either to deny it, or to excuse it. Many of us excuse it because we feel threatened by the ideas of ending oppression or inequality – we are threatened by the idea of social revolution. We don’t want to lose our advantages – in many cases we don’t want to acknowledge our advantages because then it might seem we have benefited unfairly – but also we are afraid that revolution will not bring justice and equality, but only destruction, and a new system where oppression will continue or even be worse. Much of history bears this out. But should we not try and rectify injustice and gross inequality, then? Should we not learn from failed attempts … could we not do better?

Think in this sense of what we’re bequeathing to future generations. The ideal is that we should bequeath a human world to those who come after us, where they have a chance to realize their aspirations. They should have opportunities to learn, to grow, to achieve. Those opportunities are there today, but there is also so much constraint that we can’t say they’re there equally for everybody. Imagine a child in a country ravaged by famine, who dies before the age of three. Or in a country at war, dying in a bombing. Or growing up in a country with serious economic problems, so that the child can’t attend a decent school, a decent university, cannot learn for a decent job, or get a job – sometimes not even any job. Social circumstances constrain what humans can make of themselves. There are individuals who can rise above almost any circumstances … but we can’t use their success to deny that circumstances actually constrain people. Imagine a prison in which a thousand people are imprisoned … imagine they’re all imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit. Imagine a single man succeeds in escaping from that prison. You can’t then point to that person and say because he escaped, proving that escape is possible, the situation of imprisonment is fair. Only one in a thousand managed to escape, and the other nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine are still unfairly in there, and now security is likely to be tightened so that escape is even less likely.

By now we know that there are social situations in which people can thrive. We know that if children are born healthy and to parents who love them, who properly care for them and raise them, they have a good start in life. We know that if they have good schools and are taught by expert, caring teachers, they can learn much and can therefore realise what potentials they have inside them. We know if they are in a society with a strong economy, fair laws and many opportunities, they are likely to find good and rewarding jobs, by which they can develop their own talents while also contributing as much as possible to society itself. This is an ideal, but we could in practice come close to realising it. Or we could utterly fail to get anywhere near it.

The converse of course is a condition of complete social corruption, misery and decrepitude. A society ravaged by disease, both physical as well as psychological and social. We can all imagine that … some of us don’t have to imagine it, but can only look around. If we are not careful, that is indeed what we shall bequeath to the generations of the future. Imagine a world where only a handful of people can ever escape the general misery, and only by corruption, by exploiting and oppressing the others, by stepping on their backs, on their heads, to rise above them. We can so easily end up with a world entirely like that. In such a world everybody will have to be brainwashed to keep them compliant; the masses will not know what is going on, will be kept in the dark to weaken and confuse them so they won’t be a threat to the corrupt elite. Starving and sick people will at any rate be too weak to do much. Those who are strong enough to seem a threat could be turned against each other; little wars could be fomented, to forestall larger wars that might upset the status quo. The illusion of opportunity could be created and exaggerated so it might seem to people that they can escape; a few might even be allowed to escape to maintain the illusion. But most will not ever escape. Still by ways and means they will be encouraged to keep thinking of escape, keep imagining themselves in better circumstances, like the elite … identifying with the elite, aspiring to that, to the very thing that oppresses them. Anyone who does escape from the misery and makes it into the elite, is immediately co-opted; no longer oppressed, but now an oppressor … the system as a whole remains safe. But over time, over the long term, things will get worse and worse … for everybody, including the elite. They, too, ultimately are trapped in the unfairness of the system.

If we are not careful, that is indeed what we will bequeath to the future. Some people believe we are heading that way; some believe we are already there. Some think there’s nothing that can be done to avoid that. That’s the problem … we end up surrendering without a fight. Back to the point I started with: we do end up bequeathing a certain situation, a certain set-up to the generations of the future. If that is what we give them, if that is what we leave them … is that good? Is that fair? What does that say about us? Are we really powerless right now to prevent that? I say ‘we’ and I mean all of humanity … but in particular I mean every single person right now in a position to make a difference. There are still a lot of us. We haven’t yet lost all freedom, power or opportunity. We still have some room in which to manoeuver. All is not lost yet. The generations to come are our own children, our own descendants, and for those of us who never have children, they are still our future, representatives, carriers of the humanity of which we are all part. They are our own hope. What we do now is what will affect them. So … for their sakes, and also for ours, what are we going to do?

Okay so what do I do? As regards point one, I try to encourage people to appreciate and protect animals, plants and the wilderness with my art and writing and cultivation. As regards point two, I try to be helpful and encouraging to people, to never try to raise myself up by grinding someone else down. And I will keep speaking and writing about these issues … which I hope will be like seeds planted that might sprout into big trees.