New World Same Humans #48
NWSH is back! And in 2021, there are ghosts to be slayed 👻
Welcome to New World Same Humans, a weekly newsletter on trends, technology, and society by David Mattin.
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And we’re back!
It’s only ten days old, but 2021 has already proved tumultuous. Meanwhile, here in London we’ve returned to full-scale lockdown. Still, there’s one big Reason to be Cheerful.
The vaccines are coming. Soon the world will start to reopen. In the deranged video game that is The Pandemic, we’re about to play Level 2.
It’s going to be an amazing year; one unlike any other in living memory. The losses – of loved ones, health, livelihoods – have been all too real, and many need support. But I couldn’t be more excited about what lies ahead. And it feels a huge privilege that I get to share my first reflections on these times, and where they’re taking us, with you.
The NWSH mission remains as it ever was. To examine the trends, ideas, and innovations reshaping the decades ahead. And to supercharge your mission – in whatever form it takes – to help build a future that’s better for us all.
So this week, reflections on what that means in 2021.
Banishing the ghosts
I read a lot of Mark Fisher over the break.
Fisher was a prolific British blogger, philosopher, and cultural theorist; since his death in 2017, aged 48, his ideas have spread. He believed that we inhabitants of the early 21st-century are, in some deep sense, stuck: trapped inside a socio-economic system that is broken but that we’ve become unable to change. The result is a kind of collective grief, in which we’re haunted by the ghosts of a utopian future that we were promised, but which never arrived.
Even if you’ve never heard of Fisher, you’ve probably heard the quote he’s often associated with: that it’s become ‘easier to imagine the end of the world than it is the end of capitalism’.
You may not share Fisher’s politics. But that doesn’t preclude you from sympathising with his critique of the form of capitalism that we’ve practised over the last four decades. Most people would accept that neoliberalism now stands on shaky ground; remember that gargantuan financial crisis back in 2008? Despite that, it has seemed impossible to develop even the outlines of an alternative system.
But now, something has changed. Because in 2021, that feels a whole lot less true.
The pandemic was a system-wide shock. We’ll be living with its consequences for years to come. But the shock has opened up a space in which we can play. A space in which, suddenly, it does feel possible to imagine the new.
Our job in 2021 is to occupy that space. To seize the chance it offers us. There will never be another like it.
In 2020, many of saw the power of sudden interruption to spur creativity and innovation in our own lives. For me, part of that story was the emergence and development of New World Same Humans. No doubt many of you can give your own examples.
Now, we need to capture that creative energy and channel it into a project to rebuild. Collectively, we face huge challenges. Economies that have flamed out. A climate crisis that we still haven’t fully conceptualised. A technology revolution that’s just getting started, but has already tested liberal democracy to near breaking point.
How to begin? There’s no map; we must feel our way forward. But amid action, we also need to reflect. Because in the end the possibility of new answers rests on something deeper: a new understanding of ourselves, what we are, and how we should live in the world. For too long we’ve lived with a narrow, reductive vision of a human being as little more than a kind of rational choice machine; the default consumer of mainstream political and economic theory. If we are to meet the challenges ahead, then in the 2020s we must develop a new model: one that grounds human beings in the wider society, their own bodies, and the Earth environment.
And we must recover faith in our own agency: the agency of the human collective. That will mean banishing, finally, the ghosts that have held us in stasis for so long, and coming to realise that there is nothing inevitable about the systems we live inside. Together, if we’re willing to travel a hard road, we can change them.
No one is coming to rescue us from what Fisher called the boring dystopia of neoliberal capitalism– though admittedly it’s been a little less boring lately. If we want the brighter future we were promised, then that’s on us. It’s up to us to build it. And the way forward first points inwards; to a reimagining of what we are.
I hope the NWSH can play its own small role in this great drama. So what do we have planned?
NWSHÂ in 2021
Our community is founded on the idea that we don’t have to leave our shared future to the powers that be. Instead, each of us can play a role in building a new world. And if we share the journey, we can supercharge our contribution.
So in 2021, NWSH will continue to examine the trends, ideas, and innovations shaping the 21st-century. The Sunday note and Wednesday news update will continue, and the Slack group remains the heart of our community.
But this year also expect:
A guest post series that will showcase some of the writers and creators I admire most
Live events inside the audio social network Clubhouse. Watch out for the launch announcement!
An interview podcast featuring the thinkers and innovators who must be on your radar in 2021.
New formats for the Sunday instalment, including shorter notes amid the longform essays.
Two further quick thoughts:
Last year NWSH sometimes felt torn between practical, business-focused content and more philosophical concerns. Now, that tension is resolved. At the end of the year I launched a new futures consultancy, SFRU. The SFRU list will now host my writing on business strategy, consumer trends, and practical innovation or foresight methods: if that sounds up your street then check out our first free trend report, Five Trends for the 2020s. NWSH is left free, then, to roam over the broad terrain that it covered last year.
Finally, the New World Manifesto project will play a big part in our first quarter. It’s a call for us to come together and articulate a set of core principles that should guide us all – founders, innovators, policymakers and more – as we rebuild in the coming decade.
What unites our community is a determination to define, and help build, a better shared future. The New World Manifesto gives us the chance to put that ideal into practice for the first time. I can’t wait to start.
Don’t cross the streams
So much is happening. And there is so much work to do. Stand by for further announcements on the Manifesto project. And if you’re keen to join the conversation now, just jump into the NWSH Slack group.
Together, we can slay Fisher’s ghosts in 2021.
In the meantime, if you know someone – a friend, relative, or colleague – who’d make a great addition to our community, why not forward this email and encourage them to sign up? Alternatively, share New World Same Humans across your social networks with a note on what makes it valuable. Remember: the larger and more diverse our community becomes, the better for all of us. Just hit the share button!
Your membership of our community is valued. I’ll be back on Wednesday with the first New Week Same Humans of 2021. Until then, be well.
David.