Page 15 - Summer 24

Imagining the Future – Ilse Pedler, UK
The world today can seem a hopeless and depressing place with wars, climate change, natural and man-made disasters, famine, disease, and corruption in political processes. Our narratives of power, accumulation and self-aggrandisement have brought us to the edge of extinction, and we urgently need to find new ways of doing things, new heroes, new ways of living.
Most of us know we need new systems, but it can be hard to imagine a different way of living, it’s like we’re locked into a false sense of inevitability. In literature there is a tendency to write dystopias and disaster movies, because it’s easy to imagine how bad things could be. Or we create utopias, because we can leap forward and imagine something better as long as it’s somewhere else or somewhen distant.
A concept I’ve been learning more about recently is Thrutopias. Thrutopias are clear, engaging routes through the world we live in, to a to a world we’d all be proud to leave to future generations. The concept of thrutopia says:
“Don't defer your dreams. We need those dreams now”
We can get stuck in thinking that change doesn’t happen but if you look at modern history, change can happen surprisingly quickly. It only took 10 years from Rosa Parks, refusing to give up her seat on the bus to the
“you cannot build what you cannot imagine
passing of the Civil Rights Legislation in the US, 10 years
from the first sanctions on South Africa to a new ”
constitution, 10 years from the first iPhone to half the people in the world having a phone. With the internet and social media, information and ideas can be disseminated at a faster and faster pace. We need to allow ourselves to imagine a different world and then work towards it. This has been shown to work with ideas such as the Transition movement, which I’m sure many of you know about already. Transition is a movement that has been growing since 2005. It involves community-led groups firstly imagining the changes that are needed in a community then working towards them. Projects involve setting up renewable energy projects, re-localising food systems, and creating community and green spaces among many others. The aim is to work towards a low-carbon, socially just future with resilient caring communities.
There is an increasing recognition that top-down approaches are not sufficient alone to affect change and need to be combined with community-level responses.
Another example is the One Health initiative, which recognises that the health of humans, domestic and wild animals, plants, and the wider environment and interdependent and that we need an approach that balances the health of all of these connected parts and that management and care should be integrated. The imagining of this approach took a great deal of insight and courage to put into action, but it is a clear way forward to a better world and a great example of Thrutopian principles. Another fundamental quote for me is:
As homeopaths we are ideally placed to be at the forefront of changes such as these. We already see humans, animals, and the environment as connected and interdependent. We understand the concept of balanced and integrated healthcare and I believe we also have that ability to imagine our future. Small communities such as ours should never be underestimated, they have huge potential to influence change, so let’s keep on doing what we are doing, treating our patients, spreading the word and I for one am imagining a future where homeopathy becomes an integral part of our healthcare system.
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