{"id":4995,"date":"2026-01-07T03:38:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T03:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peykmagazine.com\/en\/?p=4995"},"modified":"2026-01-07T03:38:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T03:38:21","slug":"a-century-like-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/peykmagazine.com\/en\/2026\/01\/07\/a-century-like-others\/","title":{"rendered":"A Century Like Others"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Century Like Others<\/span><\/h3>\n

Ali Sahebalzamani<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

A quarter of the way into this century and already I find myself more and more inclined to just wash my hands of it altogether. In his memoir, Every Man for Himself and God Against All,<\/i> German filmmaker and madman Werner Herzog asserts that the twentieth century was all one big mistake from start to finish. He makes this assertion after taking a rather mischievous jab at psychoanalysis and the genesis of scientific psychology, then expands it to cover the entire century. He makes no such indictment about the twenty-first though.<\/p>\n

There is a very specific type of optimism that only comes to those advanced in age; the optimism of those who believe themselves to have made every mistake there was to make and who thereby think they see wisdom in the generations that come after them because they seem not to be making those very same mistakes. This is a fallacy; the best case scenario is that the next generation finds new mistakes to make or, more realistically, invents new ways to make the same mistakes again. This type of optimism does not pervade Herzog’s memoir; even if it did, I would not dream of calling him naive. Perhaps I am disinclined, generally, to call out naivet\u00e9 as if it is some grievous injury to society. It is not; naivet\u00e9 is the veil that yesterday’s creators of today’s abattoirs and funeral pyres and endless trains of refugees use to hide their shame. I do not begrudge them their bashfulness. This optimism, however, does tend to turn into a particular brand of sermonizing that I find especially difficult to stomach: that of \u201cour kids will save the world.\u201d How can a father or a mother not only be so eager to strip themselves of agency in the creation of the apocalyptic world they are leaving their children, but also entitle themselves to pride in their children\u2019s cleaning up of their mess?<\/p>\n

On the other hand, there are a lot of younger folks who fall into the all too familiar\u2014and juvenile\u2014trap of blaming their forebears. The end result of this mentality is an empty sort of performative responsibility-taking ritual that does nothing for nobody. Admitting that one enjoys privilege at the expense of others without actively denying oneself those benefits is, of course, an empty gesture. I will use three examples to illustrate this point:<\/p>\n

The housing crisis that is currently ravaging the U.S. started not simply because members of the baby boomer generation, as individuals, made the decision to buy up all the property for cheap; no, the starting point was that society looked\u2014still looks\u2014at land ownership as a form of investment rather than something that is a basic necessity that every person should be entitled to. Had homeownership been viewed as a human right then, maybe, as a society we would have made sure that everyone got their first helping before anyone got seconds.<\/p>\n

My second example is a crisis that, at the time of writing, is still ongoing: that of the fire devouring the Hyrcanian forests. Forests that survived whatever destroyed the dinosaurs are having a rough time of it with humans. The Iranian government has zero capabilities to combat this calamity, so for the most part it is local volunteers beating back the flames. And the government of Turkey sent a few planes to drop water on the site. To enumerate, this disaster would not have started were it not for poachers. All evidence points to the fire starting from one of their camps. This fire would also not have gotten so out of hand if environmental mismanagement had not made this year the driest one in the last fifty years, with a drought that has been in the making since 2020, leaving dry vegetation on the forest floor. And lastly, this fire would have been contained in days had resources been set aside for combating forest fires.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another example that is currently in the making is the creation of A.I. data centers that has brought about the deregulation and rejuvenation of old, almost decommissioned coal plants to power them and the use of enormous quantities of water for cooling. I will not further belabor the point by expounding on how burning coal contributes to our ongoing climate catastrophe or how we have a limited supply of clean water on this planet that we should not<\/i> be using to cool down our computers.<\/p>\n

We cannot talk about the horror of today as if it is the result of the actions of individuals. In the scope of history, the individual might as well not exist. The lazy theatrics of individual responsibility have accomplished nothing in the betterment of the world, but holding society responsible as a whole\u2014what few times it has been done successfully\u2014has changed lives for the better. If you have children, then you must want to be a better parent than your parents. If you have children, you cannot see yourself as an individual, but as a mechanism. This mechanism inevitably functions inside a broken system that is functioning as intended, yet it can be a corrective mechanism.<\/p>\n

I suppose this is my long, roundabout way of trying to avoid saying happy new year. Instead of that, perhaps I\u2019ll give it another year or two before I cast my verdict on our century.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Century Like Others Ali Sahebalzamani A quarter of the way into this century and already I find myself more and more inclined to just wash my hands of it altogether. 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