Crises and Hope – Is the world out of control? -News


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Wars, climate change, pandemics: How do you not lose hope in the face of the crises of recent years?

“In view of the various theaters of war, one asks oneself: Where is this all leading, how is our world and our society developing?” – This is how Stefani Zemp from St. Gallen sums up the gut feeling that concerns many people. Your statement comes from a street survey that SRF television correspondents conducted in various regions of Switzerland for the “Club” program. The basic tenor: There is uncertainty, the negative headlines of the last few months and years have left their mark.

Legend:

In Thuringia, days of rain and thaw in the mountains around Christmas led to flooding in rivers and streams.

KEYSTONE/DPA/Heiko Rebsch

Also numbers of the Federal Statistical Office show: psychological stress is increasing. Almost one in five people in Switzerland is considered to be moderately or severely mentally stressed. In Germany, the Society for the German Language has chosen the word “crisis mode” as the word of the year for 2023.

Is the world really out of control? There are numerous facts that contradict this uneasy gut feeling, for example when it comes to the decline in extreme poverty or child mortality. Globally, wars also claim significantly fewer victims than before.

Facts about global development


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There are several books that compile and discuss scientific findings about global trends such as the decline in extreme poverty or child mortality. The best known is “Factfulness” by the Swedish doctor Hans Rosling. It was published in 2018, was translated into numerous languages ​​and became an international bestseller. Rosling died before the book was published; it was finished by his son Ola Rosling and his daughter-in-law Anna Rosling Rönnlund. Barack Obama called it a “hopeful book about the potential for human progress if we are willing to rely on facts rather than our distorted perceptions.”

These statistics are correct, says former ICRC President Peter Maurer: “But it is also true that there are more and more places in the world where people are worse off than before.” This simultaneity of positive and negative developments is very difficult to convey.

Poverty and hardship in Switzerland

These contrasts are also clearly noticeable in this country: On the one hand, Switzerland is one of the richest countries in the world, but on the other hand, street kitchens are increasingly coming under attack.

The 50-year-old nun and street worker Sister Ariane sees this every day. She founded the association “incontro”, which distributes food and provides emergency aid on Zurich’s Langstrasse. “We are noticing an increase in poverty and homelessness,” she says. People who are already at their limit financially would immediately feel it if inflation increased or rent and health care costs rose. “Just a bill that costs 50 or 100 francs more puts these people in existential distress.”

So how can you deal with these contrasts? How do you find orientation in these developments? The media played an important role here, says psychoanalyst Peter Schneider in the “Club”: “The more complex and detailed the reporting, the more it protects against falling into this generalized image that everything will only get worse.” If you become aware that the world is not black and white, but that you see the nuances, then it helps against this paralyzing feeling of powerlessness.

Katja Gentinetta, herself a political philosopher, is convinced that philosophy can also contribute to this: “Thinking through something and understanding it can in itself be incredibly satisfying.” And it is the first step to contribute something to solving a problem yourself.

Is the world out of control? Join the discussion on the SRG platform “dialog”!

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