Season 49: The End of Illusions

It turns out that many of the achievements that we considered to be an integral part of modern democratic society are connected only with financial prosperity and conjuncture. But where does the money go when we work harder and harder? The logic of the growth of the economy seems to be the greatest value in itself, for which it is worth sacrificing everything else in difficult times. Culture, education, caring for the environment, social justice — all these must be modest and forget about dreams of self-development. A solidary, cultural and educated society must wait again.

The climate crisis is not ending, and our ideas about a satisfactory solution have been hacked by the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. States do not act quickly enough, and their institutions — in the face of the gradual breakdown of democracy, diluted by capital and the effective PR strategies of those in charge — are failing on the air. Russia's increasingly bloody war against Ukraine plays a role, which, despite all the human, environmental and material sacrifices, continues to play a role. Our local dreams of post-revolutionary catching up with the West and an open Europe are taking their toll. Instead, in the Czech Republic, an increasing proportion of the population is formulating their life strategies well below the level of the minimum decent wage, which was estimated at 41 thousand for 2022. Material insecurity deepens frustration and distrust in democratic institutions, which also strengthens the position of those who hold anti-European, racist and extreme attitudes, and who are bent on aggression and extremism. The trenches of opinion among once close people in families, school collectives or workplaces are getting deeper and deeper. Our society is breaking up into several companies impervious to each other. In modern “culture wars”, instead of inspiring dialogue, the boundaries of identities and worldviews are strengthened, which then feed the search for the enemy and the effort to “erase” it. So where do boundaries in our concepts and thinking serve as a good starting point for grasping an increasingly fluid world, and where, on the contrary, do they create artificial barriers between groups of people that should now form alliances?

Uncertainty accompanies us even in a new test, which undergoes a sense of human exceptionality and irreplaceability. The possibilities of artificial intelligence are expanding rapidly. Robotic bees pollinate flowers, algorithms design cars, ChatGPT writes creative texts. However, question marks hang in the background of all those useful features. AI is growing as a helper, but also as a competitor in almost any job. But who does this progress serve? Which elements of “humanity” does artificial intelligence reproduce, and who (if any) is in control of its evolution?

Hints of utopia are replaced by the language of pragmatism and, for the umpteenth time in the history of modernity, the repeated feeling of “no future”. But isn't this oligarch-stolen society ours too? How do you take it back? Is it worth going back to it at all? Is it time for the ideals of an intrinsically rich and just society to sober up for all? What are the other illusions we need to grow out of?

But big shocks are not only destructive — they often reveal fundamental questions that we had no need to answer in the comfort of relative stability. The idea of the family as a patriarchal and monogamous standard for all, in which we know our roles and know what is expected of us, is undergoing an unprecedented upheaval. We find that no universal true life There is no such thing and we have to work hard to find out for ourselves. In addition to learning, unlearning also becomes important. The energy hitherto destined to fulfill external preconceptions of what is right and desirable is shifting to discussion and a permanent process of self-knowledge. Understanding one's own identity is accompanied by therapy with experts, drug, spiritual or sexual experiments, going into the wild, but also ordinary homecoming — to the roots.

The question of being healthy, the availability of psychological and psychiatric care, the destigmatization of mental problems, all form the hopeful horizons of our imagination, which seeks an environment for its a new sincerity. In an unhealthy society, psychological fitness is no longer merely a matter of personal success or failure, but is much more related to the fitness of society as a whole. And it is this experience of interconnectedness that is perhaps also a new hope from which we can draw strength.

But the question arises, who can actually afford this self-reflection and who is able to think about it all? Are they just the variously “privileged” or even the ones drowning in debt and waking up from execution nightmares? Where to take the time?

Is the era of the end of illusions coming? And what to do with illusions that we don't want to give up?