Citizen Future: why we need a new story of self and society
“The doom-laden headlines of our times would seem to indicate there are two futures on offer.
In one, an Orwellian authoritarianism prevails. Fearful in the face of compounding crises — climate, plagues, poverty, hunger — people accept the bargain of the “Strong Man”: their leader’s protection in return for unquestioning allegiance as “subjects”. Think Orban, Xi, Putin. What follows is the abdication of personal power, choice, or responsibility.
In the other, everyone is a “consumer” and all faith is placed in economic growth and technological advance to keep humanity ahead of the game. The richest have their boltholes in New Zealand and a ticket for Mars in hand just in case. The rest of us strive to be like them, fending for ourselves as robots take jobs and as the competition for ever-scarcer resources intensifies. The benefits of technology, whether artificial intelligence, bio-, neuro- or agrotechnology, accrue to the wealthiest — as does all the power in society. This is a future shaped by the whims of Silicon Valley billionaires. While it sells itself on personal freedoms, the experience for most is exclusion: a top-heavy world of haves and haves-nots.
And if anything, as the alliance of Donald Trump and Elon Musk evolves, it is beginning to feel like these two futures are becoming one.
Yet despite the bandwidth and airwaves devoted to these dystopias, there is another trajectory: Ariane Conrad and I call it the “Citizen Future”.
In 2022, we published a book called Citizens, in which we propose a narrative for the 21st Century that is both more hopeful and more powerful. In this future, people are citizens, rather than subjects or consumers. With this identity, it becomes easier to see that all of us are smarter than any of us. And that the strategy for navigating difficult times is to tap into the diverse ideas, energy and resources of everyone...”
The challenge is not that the Citizen Future is difficult to find or complicated to articulate. It is simple, rooted in deep truth, and emerging everywhere. But it is hidden because every day people are telling themselves other stories of society, and their role within it. Critically, institutions reinforce these other narratives, taking up the oxygen of imagination, making them seem like the only possibilities.
Written by: JON ALEXANDER, co-author of Citizens - Why the key to fixing everything is all of us.
