Looking around at all the failing institutions and organizations that surround us, it is easy to ask the question: Is everything broken?
The government seems broken. The current U.S. administration seems intent on dismantling many departments. However, even before that, the legislative body was so deeply divided that new laws rarely got passed. Additionally, the judicial branch is rife with corruption.
Education seems broken. Teachers’ salaries are not competitive with other, non-teaching jobs. Many schools are underfunded, and are overburdened with numerous requirements. Educational outcomes are declining.
Health care seems broken. A family can go bankrupt if one person gets sick. Medical knowledge and technology has never been better, and yet not everyone has equal access to it.
The media seems broken. Due to mergers and bankruptcies, media outlets are concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. The Internet has disrupted traditional delivery and funding methods, which has left newsrooms slashed. In some cases, misinformation and clickbait have replaced actual reporting.
The climate seems broken. Storms are more powerful, droughts more severe, floods are more frequent, and so on. Events that happened once a century now happen once a decade, leading to greater damage and more deaths.
The list goes on and on. Wealth disparity, racial relations, ecosystem collapse, cultural loneliness, immigration, overdose deaths, housing, and more. Systems are increasingly hard to navigate, expensive, and ineffective.
Or is this merely pessimistic thinking? There have always been difficulties. Every generation has challenges to overcome: world wars, financial depressions, assassinations, disease outbreaks, natural disasters. Are things actually worse today than they were, say, 100 years ago? 500 years ago? 10,000?
What do you think? Is everything broken?
Related questions: What is the greatest problem facing humanity? Will the future be better than the present? Why do we put up with unhappiness? Is it a cruel world?
The context for this question makes things clear: many things are broken, more institutions are likely to be dismantled, and ways of solving problems are becoming outdated.
As an optimist, I want to point out that this is not a new historical phenomenon — except for, quite notably, what we are doing to the planet’s climate and ecosystems. Reading the books Generations or The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe reveals that, on a roughly 80-year cyclical, generational basis, previous institutions and methods for addressing problems have collapsed as older generations that established these ways of meeting their needs pass away. Confidence in and commitment to the old methods of solving issues diminish. Society faces challenging times—like now—when everything seems to fall apart, only to see new institutions and problem-solving approaches emerge.
We will get through this. Pressure from the public, organizers, advocates, and activists will demand that a new social order and government institutions address a substantial number of our problems, likely leading with our environmental challenges.