40 41 Carpite diem What is Latin for? To understand Horace and Robin Williams, to put carpe diem in the plural form, because hyper-agency must be collective. «Consumer capitalism, representative democracy, are not designed to solve the problems of today's world. They're overly short-term paradigms, they're too profit-driven. So, we're in a moment of questioning everything, in many ways, and that means it's a moment of human agency. A moment that could go in many directions, of course. Sideways. What do we know about the 1930s in Europe? The Wall Street Crash and the Depression brought some countries closer to social democracy, other countries closer to fascism, but I think what I'm gradually beginning to understand – and I can't really say it well, because I'm only just starting to grasp it – is a sense that this kind of moment of crisis is a moment of hyper-agency. Hyper-possibility. A hyper-questioning of assumptions». «Thirty or forty years ago, the only idea of questioning economic growth… you couldn’t have done that, people would have just said you were crazy, or dangerous [Krznaric starts laughing again, Editors’ Note]. Now, it's still difficult to question economic growth, but because of the failure of the system, we have this obsession with GDP growth, which basically delivers growing inequality in terms of climate catastrophe and technological risks. If only we all could try the Doughnut Economics, come on!, we would realise that there are over a hundred cities around the world that are putting it already into practice. This is a moment of agency, and Doughnut Economics represents just one example of that, while citizens’ assemblies is another one. But we need revolutions of Responsibility in many more areas – particularly around technology, AI, genetic engineering, biotech. I recently tried to find out how many cooperatives there are in the biotech industry. Cooperatives or steward-owned companies that aren't just shareholder driven, or venture capital driven; I found almost nothing. I mean, it's not that surprising, but you’d think there would have been at least one». «I think there are two fundamental ways of thinking about agency. When we normally think about it, people often think about themselves as an individual – what can I do? – but I'm much more interested in collective agency, and my new book History for Tomorrow is all about what we have done together. The power of social movements, the campaign for independence in India, the right to vote for women in the early 20th century, or the civil rights movement in the US. You know, when we think of the individual, we think of carpe diem, seize the day, but we should think of the plural of that: carpite diem, let's seize the day together. That's what I'm saying about this moment of agency. It's a moment of collective agency. Carpite diem. So, let's take Horace and let’s bring him into the 21st century, into an age of collective change. Let's rethink Horace. Let's adapt his philosophy». From marshmallow to acorn Examples and metaphors, one of which is wonderfully effective. When we question him about it, Roman Krznaric pauses for a moment, smiles and shows us a marshmallow and an acorn, with his hands spread wide apart. «Here is my marshmallow and an acorn. I always have them ready. I think of the brain as if it consisted of these two parts. The marshmallow brain, which is shortterm, driven by instant gratification, immediate rewards, named of course after the famous Stanford marshmallow experiment in the 1970s, where children were put in front of a marshmallow and if they could resist eating it, they were rewarded with two marshmallows. Most of the children couldn't resist: they snatched the snack. But we also have this other part, the acorn brain, which is focused on long-term thinking, and planning, and strategising. And it's a reasonably recent part of the brain. It's only two million years old. We share it with rats. On the other side, the marshmallow brain is eighty million years old. But if you look at human history, or if you actually compare us to other animals, we're pretty good at long-term thinking, using our acorn brain». «Chimpanzees might plan a bit ahead: they can take a stick, take the leaves off it and use it as a tool to put in a termite hole or an anthill, but they'll never make a dozen of those tools and put them aside for next week. That's what human beings do. We're pretty good at it. It's the acorn brain that has enabled us to build the Great Wall of China, to build the aqueducts of the Roman Empire, to create the Future Library, to send a satellite to the Psyche asteroid – I've just read about that today. There's this satellite that was sent up last year, it's going towards this asteroid. It's going to take about seven years to get there. It's between Mars and Jupiter. We can do this, and throughout history there have always been people who have had this kind of acorn vision». «For instance: in British history, in the 19th century, there was this guy called Sir Joseph Bazalgette, kind of obscure. He was an engineer in 1858. When raw sewage was being dumped into the Thames, tens of thousands of people were dying every year from cholera and other diseases. In 1858 there was an event, known as The Great Stink, where the smell from the river was so bad that MPs couldn't even breathe, and they soon passed emergency legislation to build sewers under London. Joseph Bazalgette was the engineer, and he built the sewers twice as big as they needed to be for the population at the time. And that's why those sewers are still in use today. This is the acorn brain in action. I really love these figures – people like the man who founded Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard – as acorn brain thinkers, good ancestors who sort of think: “Let's take the long view!”. Or even Jonas Salk, the great virologist, who developed the first polio vaccine in the 1950s. He said, “I'm not going to patent my vaccine, it is a gift to future generations”. And he was the man who famously said: “Are we being good ancestors?”. I see it in the radical climate activists, whether it's Greta Thunberg in Sweden, or Luisa Neubauer in Germany, or Anuna De Wever in Belgium. These amazing young activists, often women, are teaching us about moral Responsibility. Acting intergenerationally. Their acorn brains pulsate with energy and, in a way, with fear».
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