Beginning of the end? Reject the politics of fear and embrace hope and cooperation instead
- Buying into the doomsday narratives on Covid-19, climate change, civil wars or humanitarian crises only breeds fatalism and authoritarianism, when what the world needs is creative solutions and global cooperation
Yes, 2020 has not been particularly pleasant and the aforementioned problems are individually and collectively difficult to solve. But we should also not lose perspective. There is a human tendency to exaggerate the pertinence of the here and now. And, to an extent, that is what has occurred with the increasingly popular sentiment that 2020 is the beginning of the end of the world.
The contagiousness of the virus is seemingly greater than the quarantining capabilities of states – even ones such as China, which can effectively shut down whole cities – and it seems a certainty that it will end up spreading right across the globe.
The Spanish flu is increasingly used as a potential analogue for Covid-19, but there are important differences between the two viruses. Covid-19 appears to mostly affect the frail but Spanish flu deaths were far less skewed towards the elderly (and also included the very young, who have been affected very little by Covid-19).
Covid-19 could turn out to be a nasty pandemic with massive costs. Taking precautionary measures is important. At the same time, it remains an extreme long shot that it will have the same impact as the Spanish flu, which killed as many as 50 million people.
China’s continued rise to becoming a challenger to the US position of global dominance will undeniably raise tensions and paranoia both regionally and globally. But the idea that this will automatically lead to war is far too deterministic and is mostly based on shoddy historical analogising.
However, climate change policies touted by many environmental groups are noticeably pessimistic and often entail a kind of primitivist logic – that we should go backwards rather than forwards. Infinite growth on a finite planet is obviously impossible and, certainly, human development and ingenuity has accelerated climate change.
Blind optimism is not the answer and we should look at the terrible events of 2020 and worry. But our worry has to be contextualised and put in perspective. Buying the doomsday narratives that the mainstream media (and, increasingly, our governments) are trying to sell us, has serious negative implications for the international community.
The world needs China to cut its coal emissions, or all hope may be lost
To this end, it is the response to the threats, rather than the threats themselves, that is most concerning right now.
The overarching narrative risks pushing citizens worldwide into a politics of fear when what is required to tackle the pressing issues is a politics of hope, supplemented by increased political cooperation and creativity.
Nicholas Ross Smith is an assistant professor of international studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China. Nicolas Pirsoul is a recent PhD graduate from the University of Auckland