Never before in history have we woken up in the same situation knowing everybody is feeling the same about their immediate future. I guess we all thought about the meaning of our lives, locked in our homes and wandered what would be our individual and collective future. We all looked back at our lives, as wonderful with joyful memories.
The way we live tomorrow will only be the result of what we decide to accomplish today. The global pandemic has proved how much humanity has globalised in the last few decades. Once again, geopolitical issues have turned international and we are facing one of the biggest challenges of our lives and our century. How can connected societies remain strong in the years to come ?
Think tanks must be a success
History will remember this generation as the one who kept trying to build peace and bridges all around the globe in the name of human rights. Since the end of World War II, the creation of the United Nations and the birth of Israel, governments have learned how to converse more, how to negotiate before going to war and how to make deals instead of invading.
Research World magazine embodies our new norm to meet collectively as a global community whatever our ethnicity, political or religious beliefs. On this platform we can express and communicate, our values by writing, transforming our thoughts into messages, amplifying our individual voices and sharing insights.
Most of the teachers I’ve listened to refer to the past – antiquity, middle age and Quattrocento as the main sources of knowledge. They seem to consider the new or modern irrelevant. A teacher of Greek and Latin recently said to me that the Coronavirus existed at the time of Cornelius…
The new can be different
I believe what is current can be unprecedented, impacting the future of humanity. Not necessarily the coronavirus itself but what it means for our system and our societies. In the past few centuries, humanity has extended their powers, now they are working on change using new technologies as Yuval Noah Harari explains it in Homo Deus.
Before the Digital Age, we revered the Golden Age as a glorious melancholic time later generations weren’t able to rebuild. What if we reversed this thinking to create an age for which future generations and civilizations would be grateful for? What if the best is yet to come ? What if we were at the beginning of this journey?
Let’s have faith in all efforts which have been made, let’s make years to come a chance to renew. Now that societes have come together agreeing Sustainable Goals of development for 2050 with the United Nations and our industry continues to adopt and strengthen the ICC / ESOMAR International Code on Market, Opinion and Social Research and Data Analytics, there is light at the end of the tunnel.
The future is now
Let’s focus on improving the quality of life for everyone. Being globalized also means being engaged and feeling concerned. Twenty years ago, the 21st century started with a terrorist attack killing thousands of people in New York and traumatizing humanity. Ten years later, the Fukushima catastrophe relaunched the debate around nuclear energy. These horrific historical landmarks encouraged us to think collaboratively about our future.
The global pandemic has left us terrified of losing all we worked for due to something out of our control and deadly, leaving us reduced to humble humans. But this experience gives us the opportunity to become a stronger version of ourselves. We won’t miss much about the COVID-19 crisis except perhaps our chance to question and reflect on where we are and where we want to go in the future. This reflection will hopefully bring a better understanding of ourselves and help us understand the next step as a global community
