The other way in which aspirations could be reduced to what is ecologically possible is for the better-off to make considerable sacrifices of life chances. This would, of course, require people in the West to give up their form of identity based on aspirations and increased demands, without being offered an alternative – apart from hardly revivable traditional offers of identity.
In particular, the larger part of the population, which had hitherto hoped for an improvement in its own life chances, even over several generations, would now be suddenly confronted with the fact that the elevator is moving "downward" rather than "upward. It is highly doubtful whether this exchange can be handled without eruptive conflicts; and it is equally doubtful whether political actors would be willing and able to risk bringing about such a situation by making decisions that reject demands, e.g., for the ecologically necessary containment of individual transportation.
If, however, neither the demands of the worse-off majority of mankind can be contained to such an extent nor the demands of the better-off minority in the West can be reduced to such an extent that there is no collision with the Ecological Limits of Growth, there is only one other way to avoid a then threatening Inclusion Crisis: scientific and technological Innovations that push back the ecological limits.
Even before the emergence of ecological problems, the increase in the performance of the aforementioned social subsystems and the resulting ability to overcome distributional conflicts was largely based on scientific and technological innovations. Thus, in the face of the confrontation with ecological problems, the modem would, as it were, "take off" along this path. Accordingly, many established service providers in the economic, health and educational systems, as well as in the political system - and, of course, in the research system - understandably like this path of energetic "Keep it up! They do not have to rethink, can continue established routines, communication and cooperation relationships, and do not need to make conflictual adjustments - not to mention that reflexive interests in growth can be satisfied. In the short term, for example, it is much easier to maintain the established form of individual transport by means of traffic guidance systems and fuel-saving engines than, in view of the serious ecological problems this creates, to make a major shift to local and long-distance public transport - without even considering measures such as strict limits on leisure traffic. The "take-off" is all the more convenient for the population in the West, which can thus avoid painful reductions in aspirations. In line with the tacit agreement of service providers and consumers in the Western countries to rely on scientific and technical innovations, this is the predominant way of dealing with the emerging problems of entitlement satisfaction.
The question is, of course, whether such a short-sighted "muddling through" (Lindblom 1959) will not in the medium term lead to a dead end from which it will be almost impossible to escape. Scientific and technological Innovations have been accompanied by an increasing production of risks for society and have contributed to the ecological problems (Beck 1986; Schimank 1990). In view of this, to rely so unconditionally on this path, as is in fact the case, seems daring to say the least.
Thus, the preferred management of the social distributional conflicts seems to create increasing ecological problems and North-South problems, and any attempt to solve one of these two problems will equally cause the other. If one is forced to moderate for ecological reasons, this means a permanent deprivation of the aspirations of a large part of the world's population to come much closer to the Western standard of living – and this may enormously aggravate the world-wide distribution conflicts with all their consequences in the form of wars and criminality. If, on the other hand, the demands of the "world society" were satisfied even to a rudimentary degree, this could lead to a rapid ruin of the ecological basis of human life.
Thus, one has only the choice between plague and cholera – if anyone can choose here at all and if the corresponding societal dynamics do not anyway develop beyond all possibilities of Intervention.
Since the presented considerations represent a theoretical speculation which is not empirically supported, they by no means immediately impose a pessimism about progress. But because they cannot be empirically rejected without further ado, they at least suffice to justify a scepticism of progress that is clearly more emancipated than the optimism of continuation prevailing in modernity. And this includes that a rigorous pessimism about the future – even if it is a deliberate self-destroying prophecy, i.e. a Warning (Clausen/Dombrowsky 1984) – is no longer taboo in social theory.
For inspiration of the sociological imagination in this regard, scattered essayistic approaches of a radical pessimism of progress could be suggested – in particular Horstmann (1985) and Baladur (1991). See also Pynchon (1973) as perhaps the most important literary treatment of the subject. Science fiction literature is also likely to be a good place to start. Sociologically, there are at least some interesting attempts in this direction in Breuer (1992).
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Horstmann, Ulrich, 1985: Das Untier. Konturen einer Philosophie der Menschenflucht. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp.
Baladur, Rigo, 1991: Grunde warum es uns nicht geben darf: Frontbericht von einem sterbenden Stern mit Motiven des Widerstands. Essen: Die blaue Eule.
Pynchon, Thomas, 1973: Gravity's Rainbow. New York: Viking.
Breuer, Stefan, 1992: Die Gesellschaft des Verschwindens: von der Selbstzerstörung der technischen Zivilisation. Hamburg: Junius.
CLAUSEN, Lars and DOMBROWSKY, Wolf R., 1984. Warnpraxis und Warnlogik. Zeitschrift für Soziologie. Online. 1 August 1984. Vol. 13, no. 4, p. 293–307. [Accessed 19 December 2022]. DOI 10.1515/zfsoz-1984-0402.