A Vision for Human Flourishing

“Just like we would not accept the transportation technology of the 1800’s, we should not compulsorily accept archaic attitudes toward work, education, possessions, and leisure.”

I am forever amazed by the lack of conversation around the concept of human flourishing. If this concept is ever mentioned, it is only in the context of flourishing as an individual. For example, Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program focuses on improving individual happiness and well-being. This is important work; however, in the meantime, it does nothing to address the structural issues that hold us back on a species level. And despite the wide-ranging political debates that play out every day online and in the media, there is almost no high-level conversation explicitly focused on achieving radical, society-wide transformations designed to supercharge human flourishing.

As a result, day-to-day life is stuck in a rut. Technology continues to advance, and humanist values continue to spread. But on a societal level, we all still experience the same general life-plan as our grandparents: Go to school to learn a trade, work 40 or more hours per week until our knees and nerves give out, fantasize about a retirement we know we will never quite settle into, and, then, regrettably settle into it. Along the way—just like our grandparents—we hope for nothing more than to become landowners, cementing ourselves to a community we rarely leave, whether or not we happen to like our neighbors. In all aspects of life, we are defined by archaic systems that do more to trap us than they allow us to unlock our potential as beings inherently driven to explore the world and experience life to the fullest.

People often look to politicians for a better vision of the future. But politicians rarely seek to change the underlying cultural values that lock us all into the soul-sucking work week and the basic lifestyle that has not changed much in the past century. This is, of course, to say that politicians generally are not concerned with achieving a human-flourishing-focused vision of the future. Politicians are not properly incentivized to seek real change. With few exceptions, they lack the imagination required to think about restructuring society from first principles. So, forget politicians for inspiration.