PROPERTY &
from the horror of war determined to build a ‘better’ world, and they
could only imagine one with more stuff, more labour-saving devices,
and more energy consumption. Never mind – to quote a well-worn
US election campaign slogan – a chicken in every pot; that pot was
on a brand-new electric stove in a newly built house with a fridge to
store the extra chickens, and a garage to house the car to fetch the
chickens from the supermarket.
In the USA, the Boomer generation that was born out of that
prosperity rebelled against the materialism of it, but most of them
are now very comfortably retiring from a life in the corporate world.
Closer to home, the Struggle Generation, many of whom missed
out on an education, a childhood, or even seeing their 20th birthday,
laid the foundation for the freedom we enjoy today – but it’s not the
‘better’ they had hoped for.
It is better, it’s just not the best ‘better’.
So, will we learn our lesson?
When the virus has run its course, and is beaten into submission
by herd immunity, or even – unlikely but possible – is completely
annihilated by our superior technology, will we go back to business
as usual? Crowded trains, traffic-snarled streets, and intensive
factory farming with its associated regular (but rarely reported on)
outbreaks of novel pathogens?