Usually at this time victories and defeats are counted, economic figures and ratings, signed agreements and wars that have not ended. But this time I would like to do something different. To think not about what was, but about what would happen if one day what has so far been called impossible began to appear, suddenly and one after another.
What happens when it becomes clear that the great narratives on which decisions were made were not as straightforward as they seemed? When it turns out that the world no longer rests on any single “final certainty of science,” whether related to the true origins of pandemics, the management of major crises, or the real price of solutions proclaimed as saving? Not through malicious exposure, but through documents, quiet acknowledgements and sentences said afterward: we did not know, we did not have the full picture, we followed procedure…
What happens when one day it is no longer possible to pretend that everything was done with the best intentions, while the side effects that lasted for years were simply unavoidable?
What happens when it comes to light that not one shell organization, but entire nationwide and global structures handled enormous sums of money in ways that never reached the people in whose name the money was collected? Not necessarily because of anyone’s personal malice, but because of the systemic dispersion of responsibility…
What happens when the original idea of the green transition — moderation, care and responsibility toward the future living environment — has quietly been replaced by something that looks like a well-oiled mega-business, where profit is concentrated and cost is dispersed? Where the citizen pays more and more, yet does not feel cleaner, safer, or freer?
Most likely nothing dramatic will happen. There will be no mass uprisings or purifying collapse. There will be the familiar response: we did not know. We were only cogs. We followed orders. Responsibility disperses, as it always does, and the system adapts, as it always does.
That is why perhaps there is no point in asking what the new year will bring. New elections or a new narrative. A new crisis or a new rescue plan. Nothing changes, because humanity cannot and does not wish to create anything that would be acceptable to everyone. And perhaps the question is not acceptability at all. Perhaps the question is credibility.
Is what is acceptable what can still be believed? And when looking back at this year, what has been acceptable has not been abundance or development. It has been the deterioration of life. Not in the superficial sense that parking lots are full and shopping centers are busy, nor on the level of symbols and flags.
But in that quieter, harder-to-measure place where faith and hope have frozen. Not disappeared, but stalled. Put on hold. As if we were holding our breath, not knowing whether it is worth taking a deeper breath next time.
Yes, perhaps that is the most accurate summary of the ending year. Not the victory or defeat of lies, but a state. The expectation that something must change and the gnawing uncertainty of whether that change still has anywhere to be born.
-Hannes Võrno, Facebook
