We can choose to live differently

Like all animals we have genetic instincts and tendencies. What makes us unique is that we can choose to act differently.

We can self-govern. We can imagine different ways of being. We can experiment and learn. We can share what we learn, and choose what ideas we take from others.

We are not "naturally" anything. We are not naturally good or evil, neither inherently competitive nor cooperative.

The only laws of history are the ones we make--and enforce--ourselves.

Humans have lived very differently

There's not much actual evidence of what was going on for our first 3 million years as a species. Distant times serve as a canvas for working out our fantasies.

We tend to reduce our ancestors and Indigenous cultures to a homogenous primordial soup. We pretend they're all simple bands of hunter gatherers.

Humans with brains like ours have existed for at least 40,000 years. These historical humans were just as intelligent, playful, and flawed as we are now. They didn't all live in the same way.

Our sense of history is too short

When we focus on only the last 500 or even 3,000 years, we mistake a brief historical moment for a universal truth.

Over the last 500 years, European colonization has spread a global monoculture. From inside this monoculture, we struggle to imagine meaningfully different ways of organizing ourselves.

We're like medieval Europeans who believed the Divine Right of Kings was an eternal fact of the universe. Which, not coincidentally, they only stopped believing shortly after meeting indigenous Americans.

More: Indigenous American criticism sparked the European Enlightenment

When we do look outside of our monocultural bubble, we tend to project its assumptions onto our ancestors and Indigenous peers.

This all contributes to a feeling of being stuck. That there is no alternative.

Perhaps a broader and clearer-eyed look could help us rediscover our sense of imagination and possibility.

Kairos

Kairos, from ancient Greek, is the times of the metamorphosis of the gods.

In "The Undiscovered Self" (1958), Jung describes the Kairos as a time when fundamental principles and symbols can change. Jung believed, rightly, that his time was a time of Kairos. Our time might be another Kairos, or maybe we're still in the Kairos of the 1960s?

Free Will

Whether you believe in free will or determinism is largely a matter of perspective.

Looking backwards, its easy to believe in determinism. In retrospect, everything that happened seems inevitable.

Looking forward, its easy to believe in free will. Prospectively, we have no idea what's going to happen.

Both extremes inhibit political change. They both keep us stuck.

Free will is too optimistic. Free willers overestimate our capacity to make change. They post to twitter and think the world will be improved.

Determinism is too pessimistic. Determinists underestimate our ability to make change. They say: why bother.

Marx offers one potential balance:

We make our own history, but not under conditions of our own choosing.