We shouldn’t look forward to 2022. 2021 is probably past the point of no return for hoping that things will get better from here.
I don’t actually mean that. I think, in a year where the world ingeniously managed to protect swathes of its population from viral danger with scientifically miraculous vaccines, we may have earned a pat on the back. No one is celebrating, however. 2021 was the year that tried to “one up” 2020.
How we decide to discuss a completed year should probably be a complex assessment of its various trials, tribulations, successes and failures, and yet this does not seem to happen. Our perspectives shift by default to sensational negativity.
According to the prevailing narratives, we haven’t had a good year for years. Every year, without fail, since I can remember flicking through yearly roundup magazine articles on my kitchen table, things have not been going well. In 2006, we were wiping sweat off our brows after surviving bird flu, and again in 2009 for swine flu. Negative reflections on the recession years are to be expected. At the end of 2013, 2014 and 2015 we obsessed over Islamophobia in Europe, the failure to deal with the migrant crisis and a worsening climate emergency.
How we discuss a completed year should probably be a complex assessment of its various trials, tribulations, successes and failures
I remember discussing in school whether or not 2016 had been a bad year, as Trump, Brexit and a remarkable amount of celebrity deaths stained front pages and feeds. It probably was, but as teenagers growing up in the age of social media, we were constantly told how bad the year was every December.
2017 was never hailed as a year where things got better. Trump wreaked havoc as US president, Brexit fallout was escalating and the #MeToo movement begun, highlighting the scourge of sexual assault and harassment in Hollywood and elsewhere. 2018 was characterised by crisis reports on climate change by the UN and a tragic slew of bombings and school shootings.
This is not to say these things are not worth attention from the media – of course they are. But we seem to have commercialised negativity. Bad news headlines sell better than the opposite ilk. Facebook’s algorithms actively fuel and prioritise hateful, anger-inducing content.
In terms of annual roundups or retrospectives, its no suprise they skew negative. The negative outlooks don’t remain frozen as abstract thought however. Their characterisations seep into the way people genuinely begin to view their contemporary history. With the narratives of recent history being defined in pop culture by mega-successful satire like Death to 2020 and Death to 2021, we may have begun to normalise living in emergency situations. People’s disdain for quips like “unprecedented times” isn’t coincidental.
In terms of annual roundups or retrospectives, its no suprise they skew negative
What if these outlooks survive, propagate and resonate with its audience in part because they provide some truth? Maybe the world is genuinely just getting worse with every passing year: Climate change is undeniable, inflation is targeting the poorest among us and thousands are losing their lives daily due to a virus which, two years on, shows little sign of going away.
Even if that’s the case, focusing on that in any way other than doing so with practical aims doesn’t bode well for the future. The coronavirus, the environmental crisis and the problems that come with global inequality aren’t going to vanish by a hoorah of hope at midnight on any January 1st. Times are hard, but they will only get better if we can free ourselves from the idea that they won’t – that our crises are just part and parcel of our modern existence.
They shouldn’t be, and they don’t need to be. At the end of 2021, we have at least some proof that feelings of urgency can successfully mobilise the world’s scientists to vaccinate billions. That urgency doesn’t exist for the other issues of our time, and it needs to. Meaningful mass mobilisation for climate change or exploitation in the global south might not be far down the line, but only if we acknowledge them as emergencies that we can address and solve, rather than seeing them as the inevitable.
