Confidence and despair as existential indicators

Engendering 2052 through Re-imagining the Present: Review of a report to the Club of Rome (Part #5)

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Popular confidence and beliefs: The 2052 Report notably omits the manner in which confidence and coherence are offered by "beliefs" of every kind -- however much these may be deprecated by the "science" which is purportedly the basis of the credibility of that report. The importance of this intangible has proven to be only too evident in the case of the confidence in the financial system in the light of the ongoing crisis.

Specifically missing therefore is any scientific reflection on the credibility of the 2052 Report and popular engagement with the issues it highlights -- as potentially contrasted with other sources of credibility, however much they may be deprecated by "science". The need for greater understanding of this dimension has been argued separately (Mathematical Theology: Future Science of Confidence in Belief, 2011). This extends "theology" to include the "deities" and "dogma" of any belief system -- including science.

The importance of this dimension is highlighted at the time of writing by the lead editorial of The Economist (The euro crisis: Europe's Achilles heel, 12 May 2012):

The worry is that, just at the moment when hardheaded realpolitik is needed, politics has fallen prey to self-delusion, with leaders in all the main countries peddling seductive half-truths that promise Europe's citizens an easier way out. The euro zone needs to do a lot of hard things.... but earlier this year, with the Italians, Spanish and Greeks all making some hard choices and ECB money flushing through, the politics seemed possible. Now they have lurched into dreamland. France is the most obvious example....

Across Europe the pattern repeats itself. In Italy the half-truth is that the country can escape its dysfunctional politics by entrusting hard choices to a technocrat...The German half-truth is that the euro zone's problems can be solved merely by the indebted countries slashing their way to prosperity.... Like some dreadful joke, the euro needs French reform, German extravagance and Italian political maturity. Explore our interactive guide to Europe's troubled economies It is worst of all in Greece. The half-truth in Athens is that bigoted northern Europeans give Greeks no credit for the hardship they have borne.... Whatever the make-up of its next government, the idea that Greece can repay this is the biggest fantasy of all.

The Economist might be recognized by many as the journal which could be held to have been most complicit in reinforcing the lack of vigilance enabling the ongoing financial crisis. That crisis arose from the manipulation of confidence and belief, most notably in relation to the subprime mortgage crisis which triggered it, together with the misleading packaging of questionable derivatives -- the fantasy of an unrestricted supply of cheap credit.

At the time of writing, the negative Greek popular reaction to the carefully constructed bail out plan is currently an indication of factors that need to be integrated into any forecast -- rather than excluded from it

The question is how radical shifts in belief and confidence should be taken into account in relation to the 40-year forecast of the 2052 Report -- irrespective of whether they are held to be a fantasy from a scientific perspective. The articulation of strategic options can be fruitfully explored as fantasies in their own right (Cultivating Global Strategic Fantasies of Choice: learnings from Islamic Al-Qaida and the Republican Tea Party movement, 2010; Globallooning -- Strategic Inflation of Expectations and Inconsequential Drift, 2009).

Confidence and its Surrogates indicative configuration of the variety of expressions and tokens of confidence (Reproduced from  Varieties of Confidence Essential to Sustainability: Surrogates and tokens obscuring the existential "gold standard" , 2009)

Imaginative engagement with despair: The concern with respect to the crises foreseen by the 2052 Report is how people engage imaginatively with both their tangible aspects and the intangible hopes and fears with which they may be associated. This goes far beyond the implied adequacy of the "rationality" of the 2052 Report or its contribution to the overarching action framework of the Club of Rome. This dimension is given focus by the existential despair -- already evident in countries where the young are significantly exposed to unemployment and where all, including the elderly, are faced with the challenge of adequate access to social security

How might the preoccupations of the 2052 Report have been informed by  psychosocial development and the increasing incidence of despair, depression and reactions to that condition through the emergence of extraordinary beliefs? These are readily characterized and conveniently condemned as "subjectivity" and "extremism" (Norms in the Global Struggle against Extremism "rooting for" normalization vs. "rooting out" extremism? 2005). One example is the 2012 phenomenon, another is the (associated) anticipation of a Second Coming and the prophesied "end times" scenarios of various faiths which politicians dismiss at their peril (Spontaneous Initiation of Armageddon -- a heartfelt response to systemic negligence, 2004).

How might such radical beliefs reframe a variety of distinct collective responses to those conditions (Implication of Personal Despair in Planetary Despair: avoiding entrapment in hopeful anticipation, 2010)? Those constituencies will react vigorously to the 2052 Report -- if they do not dismiss it as irrelevant.

How can any collective exploration at this time "go to that place of despair" which will so profoundly affect the uptake of the "rational" recommendations in response to the 2052 Report, and others yet to come? The constrained uptake of the 2052 Report will be further restricted by exponentially increasing degrees of information overload and limited attention span, presaging a form of "memetic singularity" (Emerging Memetic Singularity in the Global Knowledge Society, 2009). Comprehension will be increasingly partial at best, undermining any coherence offered by the 2052 Report as a keystone to an overarching framework (Living with Incomprehension and Uncertainty Re-cognizing the varieties of non-comprehension and misunderstanding, 2012; Towards the Dynamic Art of Partial Comprehension, 2012).

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