„It’s the end of the world as we know it (I had some time alone)“ – this
R.E.M. hit song seems more than appropriate in view of the worldwide wave
of social isolation and lockdowns as preventive measures in the fight
against the coronavirus. The chorus ends in “and I feel fine” and that is
what trend forecasters are currently predicting: That the world as we know
it is dissolving. Instead of returning to normality, our lives and thinking
will change, to a time before and after corona, but that’s okay. “Could it
be that the virus has changed our lives in a direction that we wanted to
change anyway?,” asks German trend and future forecaster Matthias Horx.
The Dutch founder of New York City forecasting agency Edelkoort Inc., Li
Edelkoort, regarded as one of the world’s most influential trend
forecasters, believes that the coronavirus offers “a blank page for a new
beginning”. She also speaks of an eventual resetting of values and expects
the virus to cause a “quarantine of consumption”. Part of that will be that
people get used to owning fewer things and travelling less.
Resetting values because of corona
“The impact of the outbreak will force us into slowing down the pace,
refusing to take planes, working from our homes, entertaining only amongst
close friends or family, learning to become self-sufficient and mindful.
Suddenly the fashion shows look bizarre and out of place, the travel ads
that enter our computer space seem invasive and ridiculous, the thought of
future projects is vague and inconclusive: will it even matter? Every new
day we question each system we have known since birth, and are obliged to
consider their possible demise,” says Edelkoort in a recent interview with
architecture and design magazine Dezeen.
Horx uses the technique of RE-gnosis (instead of prognosis), coping with
the present through a loop into the future. “RE-gnosis, on the other hand,
forms a loop of knowledge in which we include ourselves and our inner
change in the future,” states Horx. Looking ahead instead of being stiff
with fear. Coping is the magic word.
„Coping means overcoming. Neuro-biologically, fear adrenaline is
replaced by dopamine, a type of endogenous drug of the future. While
adrenaline leads us to flight or fight (which is not really productive in
the dentist’s chair, and just as useless in the fight against corona),
dopamine opens our brain synapses: we are excited about what is to come,
curious, foresighted. When we have a healthy dopamine level, we make plans,
we have visions that lead us to the forward-looking action”, explains
Horx.
Coping, not fear
“Surprisingly, many people experience exactly this in the corona
crisis. A massive loss of control suddenly turns into a veritable
intoxication of the positive. After a period of bewilderment and fear, an
inner strength arises. The world ‘ends,’ but with the experience that we
are still there, a kind of new being arises from inside us,” says Horx.
Edelkoort too hopes for “a better system to be put in place with more
respect for human labour and conditions.”
Among the positive realisations, according to Horx’ RE-gnosis, is the
one that “a malicious, divisive policy does not fit into a corona world.
The corona crisis made it clear that those who want to incite people
against each other have nothing to contribute to real questions about the
future. When things get serious, the destructiveness that lives in populism
becomes clear.” That includes fake news and conspiracy theories, which will
turn out not to be future proof.
Shrinking but no collapse of the economy
In regards to the economy, Horx re-gnosticates: “We will be amazed at
how far the economy could shrink, without actually collapsing, something
that was predicted during every pre-corona tax increase and every
government intervention. Although there was a “Black April,” a deep
economic downturn and a 50 percent drop in the stock market, although many
companies went bankrupt, shrank or mutated into something completely
different, it never came to zero. As if the economy was a breathing being
that can also nap or sleep and even dream.”
This means for manufacturing that the “global, just-in-time production,
with huge branched value chains, in which millions of individual parts are
carted across the planet,” will not survive. Instead, there will be
interim storage facilities, depots and reserves; local production will be
booming, networks will be localised and crafts will experience a
renaissance according to Horx. “The global system is drifting towards
GloCalisation: the localisation of the global.”
Local, not global
Edelkoort agrees: “The endless Chinese exports of synthetic sarees to
India and plastic household objects to Africa, which have severely
disrupted local economies there and created a lot of joblessness (and
pollution) over the years might also come to a halt, possibly bringing new
opportunities for making locally.”
“The true cost of the shut down in Italy and Japan, as well as Korea
and China, will lead to a global recession of a magnitude that has not been
experienced before. This is not a financial crisis but a disruption crisis.
People stop moving around, stop going out, stop spending, stop going on
holiday, stop going to cultural events, even to church,” says Edelkoort
about the repercussions for the fashion and design industries. What exactly
the future will bring remains to be seen.
“Every deep crisis leaves a story, a narrative that points far into the
future,” concludes Horx, pointing to the strongest images of the corona
crisis: Italians making music on their balconies and the environment
getting a breather and slowly recovering. When after just a few weeks of a
complete halt of production, industrial areas in China and Italy are
suddenly free of smog and the sky can be blue again, the air clean and
dolphins are spotted in a mega metropolis like Mumbai after only one day of
complete lockdown, then there is hope indeed that this time, the human race
will learn something from this crisis.
Photo: Wandersmann / pixelio.de
