How do you recognize a truly advanced civilization?
Perhaps you are familiar with the old greek proverb:
“Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”
I sincerely hope that — as a civilization — we can learn to embrace this kind of intergenerational stewardship at a planetary level. Today, we are in a situation where “old” men and women would literally have to plant a trillion trees, in combination with establishing bold climate policies, in order to facilitate a desirable future that they know they may never see. But doing so requires a belief in something higher than individual and tribal self interest, such as the abstract idea of a humanity worth caring for, stretching across time and space far beyond the confines of one’s own lifetime. While establishing such a belief is certainly not a trivial task in today’s postmodern era of general confusion and short-termism, I believe that succeeding at it is what fulfilling mankind’s dreams of perpetual global peace and deep environmental sustainability requires. It is what characterizes a truly advanced and enlightened civilization in my view, more so than any technological achievement.
