- Click to share on Facebook (Opens in a new window)
- Click to share on Twitter (Opens in a new window)
- Click here to share on LinkedIn (Opens in a new window)
- Click to email a friend (Opens in a new window)
Editor's Note: Roberto Rave is a political scientist with a specialization and postgraduate degree in international business and foreign trade from the Externado University of Colombia and Columbia University of New York. With studies in Management from the IESE University of Spain and an MBA candidate from the University of Miami. He is a columnist for the Colombian economic newspaper La República.
(CNN Spanish) - This phrase, lapidary and acute, that invites so many reflections, I heard it from my good friend, the business leader Fernando Pardo, during one of our stimulating cultural gatherings, in which the Colombian sculptor teacher was also Gustavo Vélez and the renowned poet and art curator Luis Fernando Molina.
In the conversation we discussed how to make the world a better place to live. This is something that has always intrigued me, especially during this year. I have reflected, with increasing interest and intensity, on how to make my city, my country, the world in general, something better. Even though the passing of days and their monotony try to tear these hopes up through frustration and harsh reality, my coarseness and my obsession, or perhaps vanity, lead me to persist in the idea of changing the world towards something better. .
In this search, I have found some positive data, but also others that touch the deepest and most painful fibers of the human being. According to the Brooking Institution, for this year 2019 the poor ceased to be a majority in the world and every second a person comes out of extreme poverty. That is, in recent years millions of people have been able to meet their basic needs and have come to shape the middle classes, have better quality of life and greater access to basic goods. However, in the midst of this progress, figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) indicate that “around 800,000 people commit suicide each year, which represents one death every 40 seconds. Suicide has become the second cause of death in the age group of 15 to 29 years. ”
- READ: How to get help for someone who could kill himself
- MORE FROM ROBERTO RAVE: The unpopularity that Latin America needs
Something happens in the depths of our young generations, which, despite having greater opportunities and better economic income, access to basic goods and countless comforts, experience an intense nonconformity that translates into sadness and unfortunately ends in events. tragic and painful, such as suicide or constant frustration and unhappiness.
The digitalization of today's society has a part of responsibility in this painful reality, since it has dehumanized a large part of interpersonal relationships and deepened the indifference between citizens who dine together without being together, who live together or who are neighbors but who do not know each other nor are they interested in each other, and that, in addition, they believe that by clicking on an image they can save Africa from malnutrition or put out the tragic fire of the Amazon.
Human closeness is already a paradox, and we have found a way to spend more time on cell phones and social networks than to contemplate the wonderful beauty of nature, poetry or art. Sometimes a pet is more important than the brother or friend.
Now, this does not mean that the technology is intrinsically bad or undesirable. On the contrary, it gives us more and more solutions and benefits that greatly improve our lives. However, reality reflects some social and psychological effects of the use of new digital technologies that deserve attention and care. After all, the ultimate purpose of human development should be the expansion and generalization of opportunities to be happy and live better and better.
Technological developments are advancing at great speed and the fourth industrial revolution is already a fact in much of the world. We are going, in a few years, towards the almost complete systematization of the daily work of humans. According to PWC, "the fourth industrial revolution is already underway and it is expected that by 2025, the number of jobs that will be replaced by computer agents amounts to 140 million jobs." The World Economic Forum indicates that "by 2025, machines will do more current work tasks than people, compared to 71% of tasks that people do today." Consequently, our environment will be increasingly digital and our interactions with robots will increase considerably. We must seek, then, the way to humanize people more, because that is how we guarantee the sustainability of humanity in the new industrial revolution that is beginning.
The psychiatrist and novelist Augusto Cury says that “according to international studies, one in two people will have a psychiatric disorder sooner or later at some point in their lives. We talk about more than three billion people. Eighty percent of the world's youth suffer insecurity and shyness. More than one thousand four hundred million human beings will develop some type of depression. Towards where humanity is headed?".
- READ: Younger girls, especially girls, try to commit suicide by poisoning
In his exciting novel "The meaning of life", Cury presents an imaginary story of time travel by a professor of the 21st century, who, in the midst of a great existential crisis, decides to travel to the past to change history. Its main purpose, with the best intentions, was to avoid World War II. First, he tried to kill Hitler, but his values and his humanitarian principles prevented him. However, studying the biography of the tyrant, he observed that in his youth he had competed to enter, as a painter, the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, but they had rejected him. Then, the professor traveled to the past to try to get Hitler accepted in the academy. In the end, he accomplished his goal and Adolf Hitler managed to continue his career as an artist. In this way he avoided the greatest massacre in the history of mankind. The lesson is that art changed Hitler's life and also the history of the world.
In this sense, says Nuccio Ordine in his book "The utility of the useless", which: "In the universe of utilitarianism, in effect, a hammer is worth more than a symphony, a knife more than a poetry, a wrench more than a picture: because it is easy to take charge of the effectiveness of a utensil while it is increasingly difficult to understand what music, literature or art can serve (...). If we let the gratuitous die, if we renounce the generating force of the useless, if we only listen to the deadly siren song that impels us to pursue the benefit, we will only be able to produce a sick and memoryless collective that, lost, will eventually lose the sense of itself and of life. And at that moment, when the desertification of the spirit has already beset us, it will be really difficult to imagine that the ignorant homo sapiens can still play a role in the task of making humanity more human. ”
In short, artists have, to a large extent, the key to saving the world, because they humanize it, they make it more sensitive, more beautiful, less indifferent, they bring it closer to perfection, to nature. Art serves to walk, to transcend, to live.
Post Scriptum:
I: “A person is only really happy when he tries to nurture the happiness of others, when he promotes his well-being. The individualists and the egocentric are worthy of compassion, because they made their emotions a desert wasteland. ” August Cury
II: The Orange Economy, during these very fashionable days, must transcend and consolidate itself as a public policy throughout Latin America, in order to highlight the important role that art plays in society. In this sense, it is important that the first Orange Economy Summit is being held in Medellín, Colombia. In addition, I take this opportunity to underline the importance of events such as “Create, connect and coffee”, which will take place in Colombia on September 21, with the purpose of gathering creativity, talent and art around the development of the country.
Suicide