Our world is changing and many forces operate in it simultaneously.
The various trends often contradict each other – but they all reflect the decline of the old world and the first steps in the establishment of a new world: a world that is different from the one we knew. This world is being shaped by humanity via global and local processes that are intertwined.
In many places, democracy is fading. This happens in a gradual process, where a numb and blind public allows more and more democratic rights and values to be eaten away, piece by piece. This is until democracy will disappear in thin silence, due to the absence of gatekeepers or public consciousness that can back it up.
This is an interesting trend, as it reflects the human tendency to treat what exists, and is present in our lives, as something that is taken for granted. Yes, yes, I am talking about democracy, which many people do not cherish or appreciate, and most importantly: are not wise to defend.
Our world is in a tremendous cultural transition that will change the face of humanity. Everything is dynamic, changing, and being reshaped while we gallop into the 21st century.
In many countries democracies are dying and fighting for their lives in a process of continuous decay.
Capitalism, based on distorted economic concepts, greedily gnaws away at the earth’s resources and leads humanity to collective suicide and the destruction of the planet.
Social networks that connect all parts of the world and allow information to flow to every corner of the globe, are, at the same time, also poisoning the human mind with irrelevant information that overloads the mind and clouds the senses – until humanity will get tired of it. Until the increased mental and sensory stimulation will lead to numbness followed by a desire for something else, which connects to the beyond.
As part of the trend I am describing to you, countries in which the public enjoys the benefits of democracy without cultivating it in the public consciousness, are currently experiencing regression and a shift towards extreme areas. The social, economic, and cultural meanings of this shift will become clear to the public later when this process will lead to more and more extremism. This, until the public will be fed up with this trend, shake it off and will ask to return to the embrace of democracy when it is reconciled, appreciated loved and above all enables a completely new level of social and cultural consciousness.
Defending democracy does not involve war or struggle, but rather requires action in the spirit of democracy.
This is an action that involves giving, and dignity. This will be achieved by initiation to the understanding of democracy and its values, and by constant cultivation of the democratic consciousness among the public, so that the public spirit will support the democratic conduct, which represents high and pure values of respect for each human being, progress, peace, freedom, and equality before the law.
But as mentioned, at the moment we see that there are opposite trends in the world: the rise of fascism, nationalism, religious conservatism, and the like, all of which trample on the values of democracy and gradually abolish it.
The extreme right is established as mainstream in democratic countries such as Italy where an extreme right party recently won the elections.
And many more trends around the world, as well as here in Israel, which represent a continuous erosion of democratic values, populism, deterioration of values, and the pursuit of a conservative worldview that undermines the foundations of democracy.
This being said – we can see that in countries that already know what an anti-democratic, conservative, religious, nationalist regime is – protests, such as the protest in Iran, arise. These protests are a product of the awakening of public awareness and a desire for equality before the law, freedom of speech, and the ability to govern oneself openly and fairly.
Cuba is experiencing a fascinating social process in which a progressive Family Code was passed in a national referendum, bringing to the forefront the concept of equality and freedom for members of the LGBTQ community, alongside a broad definition of what a family is and the regulation of the social rights of diverse family structures.
The Russian public is beginning to feel firsthand the consequences of the war in Ukraine and is beginning to wake up due to Putin’s decision of mass recruitment, which affects the Russian public daily lives.
And more examples around the world that describe many forces that work simultaneously and express a wave of change that has many and varied faces: some of which express regression (from which growth will come), and some express progress towards new stages in the cultural-social evolution.
These are processes that will take their time and during which we will see areas of the world that will enter a period of darkness, a “Medieval Age” of the modern era, alongside areas of the world that are experiencing a renaissance.
In many parts of the world, development will happen while ‘being pushed against a wall’. This means that the awakening will take its time and be painful, but in the future to come, it will lead to conclusions that will give birth to a cultural renaissance and a change in the perception of the world.
Alongside this, we will meet regions across the globe that are experiencing a cultural acceleration that is generating profound changes in the perception of the world and the infrastructures of human society.
This is a fascinating period, in which we must understand that there are no absolute forces – but a mixture of trends, all of which, both the positive and the negative ones, represent a tremendous wave of change that cannot be avoided and that will shape humanity in the future to come.
What will the new world look like?
Things come into being, and what we create shall become.
