Prof. Sam Lehman-Wilzig – Israel: Bringing the Future into Now
Here’s a very important question related to the upcoming elections in Israel and the U.S. However, it’s a question that’s hardly ever asked: should we be voting for candidates that focus on the “here and now” – or on the future?
The operative word for this question is “should,” because in fact very few candidates actually promote policymaking that is future-oriented. There are two main reasons for this. First, every elected official has one central goal: to get reelected in four years or two years (or in Israel lately, every year at least!). To have a good chance at that, our representatives must show that they did something. True, such “doing” could be legislation impacting the country over the long term, but almost always it’s something with more immediate impact. Why? That brings us to the second factor…
We the People. (That means you, and you, and me…) Human beings are notoriously now-oriented. It’s baked into human nature. After all, for tens of thousands of years our ancestors lived lives that were (in the words of Thomas Hobbes) “nasty, brutish and short.” You didn’t worry about next year’s yield because you had to first get through this year’s harvest.
Fortunately, the modern world is quite different. Unfortunately, our most basic instincts haven’t much changed (if at all). Or to put it another way, our goals are out of sync with our needs (as individuals and as a species). Of course, one might ask: if this shortsighted approach has gotten us here after millennia, what’s the problem? The answer is that as opposed to our forebearers whose “footprint” was close to nil, we in the modern world have immense power to change almost everything around us (physically and socially), for better or for worse. In the past, each generation lived much the same way, eking out an existence from Nature without much affecting it or the world in general. Today – not only because of advanced technologies but also due to the sheer quantity of humanity – every activity has significant consequences not only for our contemporary world, but certainly no less for our progeny in the future.
This explains some otherwise confounding political decisions. For instance, we now know for a fact that global warming will make desert areas virtually uninhabitable in a few decades. So why is every Israeli government pouring huge resources into building up the Negev?? (https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/global-warming-and-the-negev/) Indeed, this Israeli government cluelessness has been foregrounded in the U.S. with millions of Americans over the past several decades moving to the “Sun Belt,” despite rising temperatures (1200F in Arizona!) and worsening storms (Level 5 hurricanes in Florida and Louisiana; massive tornados throughout the Deep South).
And it’s not merely the “government” or “private citizens.” Our entire capitalist system is geared to “now.” The stock market cares almost exclusively for the “next quarterly revenue report”; CEOs are compensated for how much their company profited the past year – and if they were at the helm when the company made profits illegally and that’s discovered years later, good luck trying to “claw back” their exorbitant salary. Indeed, the exceptions to this rule stand in stark contrast to the general market e.g., for about 60 years Warren Buffet has invested only in long-term companies; we know how spectacularly well that’s turned out. But how many Buffets are there?
It is probably only a coincidence that the one Israeli political party with the word “Future” in its name (Yesh Atid: “There is a Future”) has been the only one to grow in strength this past decade (that’s not a promo; only an observation). At least some Israelis seem to have overcome their short-termism….
Finally, the media are just as “guilty” as the rest of society. Watch, listen to, or read the news – it’s one murder or political insult or the latest inflation number after another; the really important news that will affect us today and our grandchildren in the future are almost nowhere to be seen or heard. One recent egregious example: Netanyahu has promised the haredim that if he forms the next government, he won’t apply the Ministry of Education regulations that all publicly funded schools must teach “core subjects” (especially math and English). Given the very high haredi birthrate, if carried out such a “promise” will do more to harm Israel’s future strength (economically, from which almost everything else flows) than almost anything else one can think of. Did you see that as a major headline in the media? I thought so. Was there a major public outcry? Hardly.
So, as we all go to the election booth in two or three weeks, think not of “where will I be tomorrow?” but rather “who deserves to determine the world of my grandchildren?” If “the future isn’t now,” let’s try to bring it here through our vote.
