The End of the World (Again)

I have some disturbing news. We are in crisis.

Actually, several crises. There's the housing crisis, the cost-of-living crisis, the climate crisis, the health crisis, the energy crisis and the political crisis. There's probably a crisis in the crisis management industry, although nobody has reported it yet.

I recently discovered we were having a lettuce crisis. This was particularly alarming because I hadn't realised lettuce was sufficiently important to warrant one.

Apparently, we're all doomed. Again.

Of course, this isn't the first time humanity has found itself staring into the abyss. We've been doing it for thousands of years, and so far the abyss has shown remarkable patience.

Socrates worried that the invention of writing would destroy people's memories and undermine education. Fortunately, Plato wrote this down, or we'd have forgotten all about it.

In 1066, Halley's Comet appeared in the skies above England, heralding impending catastrophe. The catastrophe duly arrived in the form of William the Conqueror, an event subsequently recorded in the Bayeux Tapestry. Thus, the Norman invasion gave us both a national crisis and possibly the world's longest comic strip. King Harold never saw the ending.

When railways arrived, some medical authorities warned that travelling at such extraordinary speeds might damage passengers' health and disturb their minds. Fortunately, the invention of the railway timetable soon provided passengers with something more substantial to worry about.

The world survived, although the comet presumably received some unfavourable press.

My own generation grew up with the Cold War, nuclear annihilation, Vietnam and the prospect of mutually assured destruction. American kids practised hiding under school desks, which apparently offered remarkable protection against thermonuclear weapons. Duck and cover, you’ll be just swell!

Yet here we are. Still.

The difference today isn't necessarily the existence of scary events. It's the relentless manner in which they're delivered.

Once, bad news arrived with the morning newspaper and the evening television bulletin. Remember ‘Sky Hooks’ and the 6:30 News? In between, we could get on with living.

Today, catastrophe follows us everywhere. It sits in our pockets, interrupts our meals and accompanies us to bed. Every development is breaking news, every disagreement a political crisis, every difficulty unprecedented.

There's even a linguistic explanation for this. It's called semantic bleaching. When powerful words are used too frequently, they lose their impact.

A problem becomes an issue, an issue becomes a challenge, and before long everything is a crisis. Eventually, even crisis becomes inadequate, and we must resort to catastrophe, collapse and Armageddon. What a calamity!

I suspect Armageddon will eventually require rebranding.

But there's something rather serious beneath all this.

Consider our young people.

We tell them they're the future, then spend an extraordinary amount of time telling them there isn't one.

They hear that the planet is dying, democracy is collapsing, housing is unaffordable, and the economy is perpetually teetering on the brink. Then we express surprise when they become anxious about their prospects.

I'm not suggesting these problems are imaginary. Climate change is real. Housing affordability matters. Wars kill people. Good journalism has a responsibility to investigate these things.

But surely there's a difference between informing people and frightening them.

There's also a difference between recognising a problem and surrendering to it.

Every generation has inherited a world that appeared, to its elders at least, to be falling apart. Yet, every generation has somehow managed to repair a little of it, change some of it and occasionally make an entirely new mess.

Perhaps we owe our children something more useful than a permanent state of alarm.

Perspective, for example. A little historical memory. And the understanding that human beings are capable of solving problems, not merely broadcasting them.

After all, we're supposed to be preparing young people for the future, not alarming them out of wanting one.

History is littered with predictions of impending catastrophe. Curiously, it is also littered with people who survived long enough to make the next prediction. Of all the disasters and crises, the Bayeux Tapestry is a winner. After all, it has everything a modern news organisation requires: politics, violence, international conflict, a royal scandal, and a sensational headline written by the winning side.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've just discovered we're out of marmalade.

It's a crisis.