“A revival of the good old future — a belief that progress will take us to a better place. And not just a world of hologram hamburgers. How nice would it be if we could reverse the trend of culture feeling like it’s prepping everybody to expect the worst possible future as an inevitability? Living is hard enough already. Maybe we shouldn’t be going out of our way to ‘Mad Max’ our minds.”
-Jeff Tweedy, (from NYT “What We’ll Be Obsessing Over in 2024“)
(He also had a nice quote about everyone dresing like “lumberjacks going to a rave”, but I digress…)
This thought resonated with me. I have a tendency to ruminate on worst-case scenarios, and he’s right that the entertainment industry tends to lean into dystopian futures, underscoring my own worst tendencies. Of course those dystopian futures are a real possibility – we’re seeing the worst of humanity’s impacts in conflict areas, in the climate, in wealth inequality – but it would be nice to have just a glimmer of hope reflected in our entertainment.