“What we have before us are breathtaking opportunities disguised as insoluble problems.”1
Sounding a note of optimism in the Preamble to our 2021 report, the Bank of England’s Andy Haldane argued that, for all the collateral damage they cause, crises like the covid pandemic allow for, “a re-evaluation, a rethink and a refresh in many of our behaviours and practices, whether as individuals, businesses, communities, or nation states.” This reset and re-evaluation, he suggested, has prompted a reorientation of our working, business, and policy practices, and provided a nudge towards putting co-operation, trusting relationships, and well-being at the center of our discussions, decision-making, and deeds. Our badly frayed “social fabric,” Haldane suggested, was being, “rewoven from the bottom-up.”
What is this “fraying” of the social fabric? Perhaps the best discussion of this we have seen was offered by Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist and professor of ethical leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business.2 Haidt looks to the fall of the Tower of Babel, recounted in the Book of Genesis, and marshals it brilliantly as a metaphor for the social and civic rancor of the last decade. In the aftermath of the tower’s destruction, the people of Babel were left “wandering amid the ruins, unable to communicate, condemned to mutual incomprehension.” Though Haidt takes the United States as his focus, the metaphor serves well to describe a broadly distributed sense of disorientation that has been experienced globally — or at least in ‘the West’ — in recent years. During that time, we’ve ceased to view one another as brethren: discord, disregard and distrust have come to characterize our interactions. “We are cut off from one another and from the past,” Haidt laments, collapsing into ever smaller, like-minded tribes, ensconced in pervasive and corrosive social media ‘filter-bubbles’ that render us further entrenched in our hostile stance towards ‘others.’
But Haidt also notes that, historically, “civilizations have relied on shared blood, gods, and enemies to counteract the tendency to split apart.” As we go to print, the unconscionable Russian aggression in Ukraine is perhaps serving to pull some of us back together. To further abuse a term overworked since the start of the covid pandemic, the international sanctions regime imposed against Russia — by governments in every major financial center — is truly ‘unprecedented.’
And perhaps that affords some room to join in Haldane’s optimism? While it may be that a ‘shared enemy’ precipitated current collective endeavors to choke off war through economic means, that action itself evidences shared aspirations. “During this difficult time,” wrote JP Morgan chief Jamie Dimon in his most recent letter to shareholders, “we have a moment to put aside our differences, offer solutions and work with others in the Western world to come together in defense of democracy and essential freedoms.”3 As we join in collaboration towards these common goods, perhaps this will help us to reweave our social fabric at an accelerated pace?
Related Articles in the Comments & Contributions Series:
Introduction
“I do not think that there is any evidence that man ever existed as a non-social animal.”
Trust & Total Factor Productivity
Who Delivers the Post to the Postman?
A Social License, Common Prosperity, and Society 5.0
Meaning, Agency, Purpose - and Belonging
Join The Discussion