Those Consequences

Have you ever thought of how your life will be once you graduate from college? Nowadays, our university is crowded with new students, and I bet many of them have something resembling a life plan. But you who think of future days to come, have you stopped for a moment to analyze the conditions and the consequences that this plan could have for you and for all the people and things that surround you?

Married with children, a house, a big backyard, a maid, a succesful job, a dog and vacations in exotic places. Clearly, all of this will have consequences in the future. Even the smallest things we do, which we consider absolutely normal, have strong consequences and are based on previous decisions. How many members will your future family have? How much will it cost to society a big and inneficient house plus the pool and the backyard? How many people have to fail so that one person can be considered succesful? How many people will be buried under the effects of the World Climate Change that affects all countries, whether rich or poor, and that are caused by the same airplanes that take us to our holiday destinations?

Do you think, even for one second, that all of this has nothing to do with politics? Do you consider yourself a person who doesn’t care about politics, or do you simply declare yourself apolitical? Even though for many people it may appear impossible, politics organizes and will continue organizing the more basic elements of our life to a great extent. And because we are talking about life, our environment and all the future ecosystems have and will continue playing a key role in the politics of this century.

Because worrying about the environment is not only about reciclyng or buying organic food. Taking care of our environment demands a concrete political action. It demands realizing that the economic model, to which we have given so much space and merit, is very detrimental to our environment, and consequently, very detrimental to us. To realize this we need to ponder. We need to look at our mistakes in order to correct them and thus, change our own lives. This change doesn’t neccesarily mean to diminish the quality of our lives. It means to question the current model of life quality, the desperate competition for success and possesion. A change that means to renewing the concepts of life and direction themselves. This may seem ambitious or imaginary, but what it really means is to fall out of love with power and keep on being political at the same time.

The new politics leads us to consider many things. First we must consider others and ourselves. We must think in different levels of consequences and we must be able to reach the goals we have in mind, leading an ethical life in the meantime. A life where what is best for me is also good for everybody else. Here is the key of the game, because we have to turn the board over and shake the normative interpretation of economists that say that we all look for the increase of our individual benefit in a game zero sum game; meaning that many people will have to lose so that I can suceed, in the best of all worlds possible.

We can’t be disillusioned young people, blaming heaven and earth  because we can’t find absolute truths. It is high time to update our everyday fights and understand how human we are through reflection and kindness. It is high time to give space to the green, to that which is alive, and to put an end on that race for fast and destroying development, whose only future leads us to the impotence of finding ourselves in a dead-end street.

Leonardo Valenzuela

Sociologist

Translated by Pablo Saavedra

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