The Big Picture

(Note: this text was originally published in Metastructure, where you can find my fictions and a little more)

“Dad, what was that ‘big picture’ you were talking about earlier?”
“The one that many people missed just before everything fell apart.”
“Could you be more precise?”
“Are you recording now?”
“Yes.”

The old man cleared his throat, took a sip of water, and prepared to share another chapter of his story, as they had been doing every few days in recent months.

“So, I’m speaking specifically about the 2020s. You were a kid back then. I’m sure you remember many of the main events, but probably not the whys and hows of what happened.

When I say people missed the big picture, I mean most people who cared about what was happening focused too much on one issue they cared about more than the others, ignoring the rest or considering them secondary. Anti-capitalists saw everything through the prism of the economy. Feminists reduced everything to gender issues. Anti-racists focused only on race, and so on. Most of them also had a vision limited to their own country, barely extending beyond it.
Consequently, too few people grasped the scale of what was unfolding on a global or even civilizational level.

Why was that?

Honestly, I’m not too sure, but at the time, I felt like everyone involved in militantism had tunnel vision. Maybe it’s part of being militant. When you care about a cause so much that you want to join with others and devote most of your time and energy to it, you tend to have less time, energy, and attention for everything else. Maybe?”

“Can you be more specific?”

“Sure, but don’t expect anything structured from me on this issue. I tried before, but it was just too vast, and I failed. You’ll have to make do with the ramblings of your old man.
If you want to organize those thoughts afterward, be my guest.

The worst thing about this big picture is that… Well, sometimes I felt like shaming all those people with their militant tunnel vision and general lack of understanding of what was really happening. I blamed their lack of useful action on that approach. But that’s not true. Most did try their best.
Even worse, the few of us who had a good grasp of the situation felt overwhelmed by it, which froze many of us into inaction.

You know that feeling when you’re faced with something so big that you think there’s nothing you can do and wonder, “What’s the point?” That’s how many of us felt. Maybe that’s why the militants decided to focus on their cause and ignore everything else. Did it help them fight that feeling of helplessness? Maybe they didn’t feel powerless this way? I don’t know; I wasn’t one of them…

But you want specifics. I’m getting there.

The climate breakdown was the alpha and omega of everything that happened, so let’s start there.

By the 2020s, the climate crisis was no longer hypothetical. Only fools pretended it wasn’t happening. Fools, and… Powerful sociopaths who wanted as many people as possible to ignore or minimize it.

By then, it was clear that our societies would have to change and adapt. When a society drastically changes, power structures get turned upside down. Obviously, those in power didn’t want to lose it. It’s as simple as that.
People often wondered why the political and economic powers—in short, the oligarchy—didn’t seem to care about global warming. Oh, they cared very much! They quickly realized that effectively fighting climate change meant changing society in a way that would cost them their spot at the top of the power pyramid. I’m not sure a single one of them was ready to make this sacrifice. You don’t reach that position through empathy.
So, they decided that other sacrifices would have to be made instead of changing their way of life.

Years before, something that shocked me but also helped me understand the big picture was how far most people would go to keep their lives “normal.”

I remember having a specific conversation with someone I was close to in 2019, just before the first pandemic. When I listed all the things that needed to be done to stop global warming, they became very defensive and said, “But we can’t change everything in society just to fight global warming!” as if I were suggesting the most ludicrous thing.
The “just” in their sentence really struck me. For them, as with most people, “normal” was the most important aspect of their worldview. Anything that would challenge this “normality” was unacceptable. The trade-off wasn’t worth it to them.
That wasn’t anything new. This is the traditional understanding of the term “conservatism,” beyond its twisted, narrow electoral meaning.

This state of mind affected too many people in Western countries at the beginning of the century. The last major attack on “normalcy” in the West was World War II. By that point, the people who remembered it were almost all gone. Was this the first time in history that societies so dominant that they dictated the main paradigm to much of the rest of the world hadn’t experienced any drastic change in their “normality” in almost a century? I don’t know. One thing is certain, though: the fact that it had lasted that long was a major reason for this “cult of normality.”
This “cult” played a significant role in the inability to see the big picture and the lack of adaptability demanded by the upheavals of the last few decades.

However, I think that day I made my friend understand that everything was going to change, whether we liked it or not. In 2019, we still had the choice of whether humans would change their societies on their own terms or if an out-of-control climate would decide those changes for them. If they wanted their grandchildren to have a future, it wasn’t a choice at all.

Yet, that easy choice wasn’t made. It was just too at odds with that stupid “normal.” Was it because I never truly had a normal life that it was obvious to me that this “normal” was a hurdle, and why I never fully understood people wanted to hold on to that illusion at all costs?

What I didn’t see at the time, but quickly realized later, was that there was a third way.

Society could change on people’s terms. It could be changed by a broken climate or… It could be changed by the oligarchy, who would face the climatic challenges to come not alongside the rest of the population but at their expense.

At first, it was hard to imagine. People thought that everyone was equal in the face of the climate crisis.

Of course, that wasn’t true. Those who thought we were all in the same boat should remember that most first-class passengers survived the Titanic. Most third-class passengers sank with the ship. More than a century later, it’s interesting to see how the Titanic is still famous and relevant as a metaphor.

It was naive to think that all of humanity was in the same boat, facing the same challenges.
This was never the case, and it’s nothing new.
How self-centered of Westerners was it, with their fantasies of equality, while dismissing the majority of humanity at the same time!
How many of them, fully aware of the systems of oppression within their own cultures, were also willfully ignorant of their own oppression?

Rich countries never cease exploiting poor countries. But most Westerners didn’t want to see it. When they did, they always absolved themselves of individual responsibility for that oppression.
It’s similar to how the bourgeoisie in those countries reject individual responsibility for oppressing their lower classes. Even discussing social classes in those terms, “lower class” and “upper class,” was considered outdated in the 21st century. It wasn’t politically correct enough. Some Western societies even denied having social classes. What naïveté or hypocrisy!

So, yeah, most people in rich countries usually totally ignored—in both senses of the term—what life was like for much of humanity.

I was living here at the time and was always dumbfounded by how Westerners considered Asia a vague afterthought of little interest, a place where not much important happened. It was only on their radar for tourism or exoticism. At that time, Asia was home to more than 50% of the world’s population, yet it was negligible to Westerners.

The worst symptom of this total disregard for the rest of the world was when Westerners called themselves “humanity” or “the world” when discussing societal issues or current events.

This dehumanization of non-Westerners was pervasive and constant. Most of the time, Westerners weren’t even aware that they were guilty of this vile habit, which made it even worse. Their defensiveness when I pointed it out always led to laughable situations, or rather very sad and shameful situations.

Had they cared just a little more about the rest of the world, perhaps they would have realized that they, too, were disregarded and ignored in similar ways by the wealthiest members of their own societies. Maybe.

I realized the oligarchy didn’t care about us when the first great pandemic hit in the early 2020s . In Japan, we were initially fortunate; most people did the right things, and we were largely spared from the first wave that killed so many people in Europe and North America. In the West, however, things reached levels of inanity that were difficult to believe.

Governments seemed to compete to see who could mismanage the situation the worst. The pandemic became politicized in utterly ridiculous ways right when it was at its worst. Science was ignored in a way that I didn’t think was possible in the 21st century. As you know, it got much worse after that. People on all sides of the political spectrum rejected facts and the latest medical findings if they didn’t align with their ideologies or wishes. Conspiracy theories about the virus ran rampant.
Soon—too soon—the desire for a quick return to normalcy became paramount for most people. They refused to admit that the world before the pandemic was gone forever, never to return. It didn’t matter, they just played pretend that it was back.
Facts were disregarded time and again. The more medical research learned about the virus, the clearer it became that repeated infections and their long-term effects were debilitating and damaging. Meanwhile, the general population convinced themselves that the virus had become no worse than a cold. And their leaders were more than happy about that.

In the name of their beloved “normalcy,” people had become blind to facts. It’s sad, but I suppose it was a coping mechanism of sorts.
But why didn’t governments do any better?
For one thing, most elected officials in the waning years of Western democracies didn’t rise to power based on their leadership skills—most lacked them—or their wisdom, but rather thanks to their charisma and good old propaganda. The purpose of most mass media back then was no longer to inform the population, but rather to manipulate it to advance the agendas of their oligarch owners.

If none of the world’s leaders were able or willing to manage such an ordeal because it was inconvenient and they willingly accepted letting older and weaker members of society die and letting large parts of the population become chronically ill and disabled in the name of the “economy,” what would the future be like?

What else were they willing to do—or not do—at the expense of the general population? Especially when it became clearer and clearer that the future would be difficult for most people.

Sacrificing part of the population for political or economic gain was nothing new—it was the goal of most wars, after all. However, the specifics—the very risk of societal collapse—and the scale—worldwide—were unprecedented.

For me, the 2020 pandemic was a turning point in history for that reason. The powers that be considering parts of their population expendable was nothing new, but it was a first in the lifetimes of most Westerners. However, the population considering itself expendable because the contrary was inconvenient was truly eye-opening to me.
I already knew that “democratically” elected leaders were puppets of the real oligarchic powers, but I had hoped that the population would eventually wake up and realize that sociopaths had taken them hostage.

Not only did that not happen, but most of the population went so far as to treat their own health and well-being as secondary. Not only did the hijacking of democracy not bother them, but democracy itself became an inconvenience.
A healthy, functioning democracy requires an educated population that can think beyond the self. Sometimes it requires personal sacrifice or at least the ability to put your own interests aside for the greater good. This had become very inconvenient for most people. Facts, knowledge, critical thinking, and a civic sense of self had become undesirable.

Oh, that didn’t happen overnight. It was the result of decades of hard work by the oligarchy: decades of destroying education and critical thinking; decades of attacking the idea that being intelligent and knowledgeable was a desirable thing. They made sure that distractions became prevalent in most parts of every day life. Add to that some old-school propaganda and a never-ending focus on debates in the public discourse, which led to wider and wider rifts in the population. There was also a constant conflation of opinions with facts, rendering the latter unworthy of consideration in people’s minds. It was an attack on the very idea of truth. Everything became an opinion. Every opinion became equal and worthy of consideration.
The result was a population ripe for accepting anything and supporting systems and leaders who didn’t have their best interests in mind. Of course, there were some variations from country to country and from society to society, but those variations were minimal in the West. At that moment in history, and for a few more years, the West was still the dominant force directing the rest of the world, and despite from differences, the West was unified under one unique ideology: neoliberalism.

This direction was further and further from preparing for the biggest challenge humanity faced since the dawn of civilization: climate change. Even the term “climate change” was coined and popularized to minimize the severity of the catastrophe in public discourse.
By the 2020s, the catastrophe had already begun in poorer countries. This led to more immigration to countries that were still safe—or rather, that still appeared safe.
At that stage, the populations of rich and “safe” countries valued their “convenient normalcy” above all else and didn’t want it disturbed by poor, brown-skinned foreigners. This led to more xenophobia and more people embracing fascism, a much more convenient political system than messy, complicated democracy.

Once again, Westerners focused on the wrong things and ignored what mattered.

Some people were not blind to what was unfolding: They saw the approaching climate collapse, the destruction of public health, and the growth of economic inequalities to gigantic proportions. They saw facts being thrown out the window to make room for baseless, uneducated opinions. They saw democracy slowly dying and fascism returning.
Some people saw all of this.
Yet most didn’t see it—or rather, didn’t want to see it. Maybe it was too big, too unbelievable, or too “unrealistic.”
So, most people who knew something was very wrong decided to focus their energy on one issue only. Perhaps because it felt impossible to do more. Or maybe it was because even intelligent people had been trained to be “specialists” and suffered from that tunnel vision. Not sure.

As I mentioned before, those of us who could see the big picture felt overwhelmed by it. It was as if inaction was the only way to maintain our sanity. Bracing ourselves was all we could do at that stage.

Finally, by the 2030s, enough people understood the big picture — as convenience and normalcy started becoming rare.
But it was too late by then, especially since the second major pandemic hit in 2032 and ushered in the “disaster years.”

So, what exactly do I call the Big Picture?

Well, you’ve certainly figured it out by now, especially since you grew up through it.
The Big Picture was that if our governments mismanaged the first pandemic so badly, let public services (especially education and health) die, embraced AIs that destroyed the internet and more, became xenophobic and fascist, and didn’t seem to care about the climate emergency, it wasn’t just incompetence. Well, the fact that so many democracies elected incompetent leaders during those years was part of the package.

The truth—the Big Picture—was that Western governments didn’t suddenly become terrible at doing their jobs. Quite the contrary. They were quite good at it. It’s just that their job wasn’t to serve the people who elected them anymore. Their job was to weaken these populations by any means necessary so that, when the collapse happened and things became uncontrollable, the oligarchs—those with the real power—could keep their power.

They were not ignoring the impending collapse. They were preparing for it better than anyone else.
The billionaires (and later, the trillionaires), along with their entourages of sycophants and servants—and who knows who else—had known what was in store for the planet if the West didn’t stop plundering it.
At the end of the 20th century, they made a choice. They could use their immense power and resources to change society and prevent collapse and the climate crisis. However, that would have meant establishing a new world order—one that was more egalitarian and less exploitative. This would have required them to relinquish much of their power and wealth.
Instead, they chose to allow global warming to run its course. They changed society in ways that allowed them to concentrate even more power and wealth, ensuring their own survival at the expense of billions of other people.

In this new paradigm they created, the population was not just to be exploited; it had to be physically and mentally weakened. It had to become expendable. The more chaotic the climate became, the more of a nuisance a large population was and the more necessary it was to stamp it out.

In order to preserve the lifestyle of a few thousand people, it was necessary to destroy the lifestyle of billions. It was also necessary to reduce their numbers, turn them against each other, and get rid of most of them by any means necessary: poverty, fascism, “mismanaged” pandemics, and, of course, wars.

As you know, this is exactly what happened.

I don’t know how many people are left on the planet, but it can’t be many.
Around here, we must be about 20 percent of what we were when you were young. If the climate hasn’t always been kind to us, at least our society was more cohesive and peaceful than most.

The last time I heard from North America was a few years ago. It had been ravaged by years of conflict, and the rule of the strongest had become the norm for the few survivors.
What remains of Europe consists of autocratic countries, fiefdoms, and city-states that have uneasy relationships at best.
The former “poor countries,” once called “the South,” are now climatic wastelands where pockets of people barely survive, regularly wiped out by typhoons or a more severe drought than the one before.
I’ve heard rumors of settlements in Antarctica founded by refugees from Australia and South America. I don’t know how much truth these rumors hold.
Perhaps the northernmost regions of the planet have survived? I wouldn’t know. If so, they have either forgotten about us or don’t have any more means of long-distance communication or transportation than we do.

I haven’t seen a foreign ship off the coast since the War with China ended. But I’m digressing. Did you get everything you needed for today’s topic? For the Big Picture?”

The middle-aged man thought for a second and closed his notebook.

“Yes, that will do. Thanks, Dad.”
“Always, son. As long as I have some memories left, we can’t let them go to waste.”
“Your memory is fine, Dad. You’re being over-dramatic.
I have one more question, though. You just mentioned China, but you didn’t say anything about the situation there before the war and the years of turmoil.”
“Let’s just say that for a while, China fared better than the West, until it didn’t anymore. But I’m quite tired now, so that will be a story for another day, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all, Dad. Would you like me to turn the A/C on for your nap? The batteries have enough energy until tomorrow, when it should be sunny.”