Americans are pessimistic about the future.  They also view past decades more favorably than they do the present one.  The "land of opportunity" is gone.  The "American dream" is gone.  What remains is a fading memory of what America used to be without an underlying promise that its erstwhile preeminence can be restored.

This pessimism is not peculiar to those living inside the United States.  A growing body of research shows that national populations around the world are depressed about the future.  Billions of smartphones, exponentially multiplying digital entertainments, and social media platforms connecting millions each minute are evidently not creating sufficient conditions for human optimism or happiness.

Diagnosing why eight billion people are miserable is no easy task, but there is an obvious culprit that has surely contributed to our global malaise.  Globalism, as the increasingly dominant governing philosophy — if not pseudo-religion — of the planet, is inherently antagonistic to both individual self-determination and the natural bonds formed within families and tribes.  When every human is encouraged — if not mandated — to act strictly for the "common good" of the global population, then those preferences that advance an individual's, family's, or nation's unique interests must be undermined.  

Powerful institutions as varied as the United Nations, World Economic Forum, BlackRock, and even the Vatican all demand an essentially borderless world, in which the peoples of any nation are encouraged to migrate freely into others.  Decades of mass migration, primarily in the West, have resulted in not only an explosion of ethnic enclaves existing somewhat autonomously inside host nation-states, but also the fracturing of common civic bonds that once loosely united those nations' native peoples.  When citizens or political parties have fought back against policies of uncontrolled immigration, globalist-minded authorities have been quick to demonize their own citizens as racists; xenophobes; or, more recently, purveyors of "hate."  Even more devastating for afflicted populations, assimilation is now scorned.  Rather than encouraging new residents to adopt the language, customs, and traditions of their adoptive land, governments have chosen to prioritize the cultural identities of recent transplants over the historic identities of the nation states they now call home.

Nationalism is derisively equated with the worst atrocities of last century's German Nazism or Italian fascism, while its Enlightenment Age achievements in organizing similar peoples into self-sustaining regions peaceful enough to encourage technological innovation, economic growth, and relative political stability are entirely ignored.  Westerners are browbeaten with globalism's sister philosophies of "multiculturalism" and "diversity for diversity's sake" to the point that even declaring oneself a proud Englishman, Dutchman, German, or — Heaven forefend! — Russian can quickly lead to the "offender" being branded a "racist" who must be "retrained" to reject "hate."  Is it any wonder, then, why the Olympic Games are waning in popularity, when Westerners are regularly conditioned to believe that love for one's nation must be expunged from the human race?

Even more fundamental than membership in national tribes that foster meaning and identity, it is the familial tribe that gives humans a natural support network for dealing with the dangers of the outside world.  Parents, siblings, and immediate relatives provide young family members with the skills and knowledge to navigate life's wilderness.  The bonds of kinship reinforce instinctual drives to protect and strengthen the group.  Families maintain organic divisions of labor and a shared sense of duty that instill innate purpose within each member.  

Globalism and State supremacy, on the other hand, are diametrically opposed to the family.  By elevating a loyalty to the "common good" and the State's "expertise" over the private decision-making of families, the State has weakened the most natural engine for creating and sustaining a human being's identity and purpose.  Government agents now insert themselves between parents and their children in matters as personal as religious conviction, sexual morality, and psychological well-being.  Should parents reject any of the State's radical ideologies — such as "transgenderism" — their natural rights as parents are threatened.  Just as during China's Cultural Revolution, Western governments now dominate the family's private sphere.  

It is this form of government superiority — intolerant of kinship traditions and hostile to personal agency — that actually birthed last century's totalitarian regimes.  What distinguishes our present era is that globalist authorities seek citizens' absolute obedience not only to their national governments but also to the pantheon of globalist gods to whom those governments claim to pray.  People are ordered to obey in the name of COVID, "climate change," "democracy," "fighting hate," or any other deity that the State produces for the public's supplication.  People who worship these false gods are rewarded with government-sanctioned atonement; those who refuse are punished as heretics.  No matter how faithfully the converts publicly devote themselves to the globalist theology, though, they truly serve only the small class of oligarchs who use their quasi-divine authority to amass greater wealth and power for themselves.

Good parents will sacrifice themselves for their children; they are not inclined to watch their children be butchered and brainwashed.  Warriors will sacrifice themselves when their communities come under attack; they are not inclined to die for pretentious pronouns and carbon emissions.  As relentless as the State's propaganda continues to be, no centered person sees the government as family or wants to fight a war for globalism.  The more the State insists that people act against their natures, the more people become aware that they must reject the authority of the State.  The prospect of imminent conflict breeds deep pessimism about the future.

In my experience, human suffering arises when people feel that they have no control over their own lives.  That suffering can often be stemmed when they seek some kind of relationship with God, take personal responsibility for their own actions, use their labor to create something of their own, and openly express their thoughts.  This journey toward happiness requires the individual to do the heavy lifting, but it also empowers the mind to create and think freely.  Humans who confidently accept their own agency inside a world not of their making eventually find peace.  How do you create happy societies?  Encourage citizens to embrace God, private property, and free speech.

Globalism does just the opposite.  It requires total dependency on government.  When COVID struck, the State closed churches, bankrupted small businesses, and silenced dissent.  The cult of "climate change" insists that you own nothing, produce nothing, and pray to Mother Earth.  The State's preposterous "War on Disinformation and Hate" seeks to enslave the mind and criminalize thoughts.  And the individual is expected to make all these sacrifices for the glory of the "multicultural," "inclusive," "equitable," "green"-energy-obsessed, globalist State.  Unsurprisingly, most humans have no interest in praying at the church of the United Nations or obeying the World Health Organization's coercive mandates as if they were the Ten Commandments.

Globalism can succeed only in a terribly pessimistic world.  It thrives on racism.  It depends upon an apocalyptic vision of a dying planet.  It needs to divide people against one another, so that they are too busy to unite and resist those who cause them actual harm.  Under globalist government, happiness is smothered with misery, fear, and hate.

Even in humanity's darkest hours, optimism has prevailed.  After WWI, Americans fell in love with the automobile.  After WWII, Americans bought homes and televisions.  During the Vietnam War, Americans put a man on the moon.  Now globalists push public transportation and small apartments.  Televisions are just instruments for State propaganda.  And American astronauts have spent the last fifty years orbiting Earth.

After two decades of war, this generation's warriors return home to find the PATRIOT Act used against them, the government claiming ownership over their children, unaffordable gasoline, and the prospect of renting for life.  Globalism is where optimism goes to die.  Happiness will require its demolition.

Image: Klaus Schwab.  Credit: World Economic Forum via Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.