How "natural" is modern society?

Yesterday I went for a walk in the forest nearby. It was already getting quite dark, and very few other people were still around. Even though I had some music on my headphones, I felt closer to experiencing the forest as it is. I assume this is because I couldn't hear the noise of the large Autobahn nearby (big busy German highway with three lanes in each direction). Therefore, I was left with my visual impressions. In a way, it was a bit eerie, with all those leafless trees reaching upwards to the grey, fading sky. Because my eyes could just make out enough of the ground to walk safely, I didn't use a flashlight. I wondered how people some centuries ago would have thought in such a situation. What if they still had an hour of walking ahead before they got back home, or another place of rest? How much were they dependent on getting things done before nightfall? Lanterns surely existed, but if you've ever read a book by candlelight, you know they would hardly light an outdoor area properly.

When I left the forest, all daylight was gone. The remaining orange-grey gloom was light pollution from the city. I crossed the Autobahn via a small bridge (again), and watched the cars fly by in both directions. Especially on the left lanes, they often go really fast. 160 km/h (100 mph) and up. The drivers probably think of it as a very normal thing to do - natural even - to use their machines at this pace, on a purpose-built grid of asphalt, spanning the entire continent. I am not sure if I can convey my impression here properly, but standing on that bridge, watching all those cars whizzing by, felt incredibly alien and unnatural.

All the technology and infrastructure we have is taken as granted, as if things could not possibly be different, even though they were vastly different just 100 years ago. The mind's ability to adjust and adapt is truly impressive. It also seems that our sense of "self" and "identity" makes us feel separate from the world, like outside observers to nature, opposed to the human realm. I don't remember who coined the phrase that "progress means not having to experience nature anymore", but there is certainly some truth to it.

Two natures

It may seem contradictory to call something human-made "unnatural" and at the same time claim that we are part of nature. This is because of the different meanings of the word. In some sense, everything in existence can be called "nature". The entire reality surrounding us, including ourselves. Every emotion, every sensory impression, every thought. But here I make a distinction: Because we are aware of all of this, because we can think and talk *about* nature, we are different. And the further the awareness develops, the further we move from the "unaware" nature, which I see as the second meaning of the word.

The future challenge within us

All of this "modern society is unnatural!" rambling might sound very pessimistic and rejecting. But that is not my intention. I simply feel dizzy and aimless when thinking about the society I live in; not because I think of it as inherently bad, but because I'm really confused as to where to go next. Technology, science and art as we have it today all make living very comfortable and interesting, but they come at a high price: Large natural resource consumption and environmental impact. And I think that such a grave impact on all life on this planet needs some good justification, a collective goal or ideology. With power comes the responsibility to use it wisely. And as long as I have no goal, no direction to go, I'd rather be humble and keep my resource consumption low.

I think the great challenges of future decades will not be technological, but psychological. Science has clarified lot of things in the past few hundred years, to a point that nearly everything we can observe has got a scientific explanation. But mentally, we're still hunter-gatherers for the most part. And while we've reached a point where learning about almost every subject of the "outside world" is a mere Wikipedia search away, learning about our "inner world" is still hard work, since - to me it seems - our brains aren't really suited for deep and ongoing introspection.

Many psychological studies have found that once our basic material and social needs are fulfilled, percieved "happiness" or "life enjoyment" saturates. This means that it makes no sense to increase our living standard beyond that point. A more luxurious car will only temporarily make us more happy. Even worse, it will then increase our percieved "default" for car luxury, and we will be unhappy with anything less in the future. Also, a high living standard typically binds a lot of our time and energy (and money) to be sustained; resources which are unavailable for other tasks.

Combined with the quite trivial realization that our planet is limited, this means that the ideology of endless growth is pointless and empty. We already know that it won't make us more happy in the long term. Further, the more we increase our living standard, the more difficult it will be to go back to a sustainable level (which industrial nations have passed a few decades ago).

Criteria for a collective life goal

I think there is an urgent need for a long-term life goal or ideology (whatever term you prefer), both for individuals and for society as a whole. So far, I cannot give an elaborate prototype for it, but only an outline.

A long-term sustainable life goal should...

be compatible with the scientific state of knowledge

consider that we are part of and bound to nature, not an outside alien species

be compatible with the psychological structure of our brains

withstand and answer the infinite questions "But what then? Why? What next?"

I also see a big challenge in establishing any new collective life goal: The brain's power to adapt so well, which enabled our modern world in the first place, also makes it hard to change perspective on everyday life - something which is at the heart of any meaningful change in life goals.