One of the difficulties that those of us who dedicate ourselves to community work have is bringing together people with different values, worldviews and political opinions and inviting them to think and implement actions together for the benefit of all.
Engaging with “future thinking” can make this work more challenging today. Thinking about the future can be a terrifying experience: the consequences of climate change, pollution, ocean acidification, the uncontrolled power of large corporations, the weakening of human rights, wars and the advance of totalitarian regimes can darken our perception of the future that awaits us will be bright or at least stable.
The consequence of this pessimism is that we lose hope that the future can bring us something good. If we lack this hope, why would we want to change society? What is the point of organising to fight for a better world if we know it will never come? Why join my efforts with others when spending as much time as possible in distractions seems more comforting?
This weakness puts us in a situation in which the present is highly valued: what we have today is everything, what we have today is the best we can have, and we must take advantage of it at any cost. Tomorrow, we don’t know.
The short-term vision is the ideal with which market economies keep people consuming: the fear of an uncertain future and immediate consumption—a Paradise of anxiety and offers. But there is another consequence: this immediacy of the present is the breeding ground for developing totalitarian regimes. Faced with future uncertainty, we seek a strong figure capable of promising protection and security. It is curious, but in exchange for this security against the future, we can give up our autonomy and ability to think critically or openly say what we believe.
The problem for community workers persists: How can a vision of change be sustained if the future is so uncertain? Who can invite people to identify with a positive vision of the future without losing sight of the uncertain and challenging reality of the future? There are no easy answers to these questions. Nor for community work: there have always been community initiatives to maintain the status quo or promote cosmetic reforms that benefit the institutions and not the people affected.
The only way to get closer to an answer in this climate of demobilising pessimism is to fight against these short-term visions and try to politicise the future through political imagination.
Social movements have always been laboratories of creativity and inspiration when things seemed less favourable. The civil rights movements, the workers’ movements and recently, the movements started by UBER and DELIVEROO workers are there to remind us.
The real problem arises when we voluntarily refuse to dream and accept that the given reality of the present is everything. Thinking about the future is difficult when we accept presenteeism as the only way to deal with anxiety and challenges. Still, it is more challenging to live in an eternal present where we are treated like children.
Photo Sebastian Silva:
invisible borders 
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