In high school, I was pretty optimistic. "I want to make a difference", I said. I wrote essay after essay criticizing society and human nature. "Compassion is disappearing," I argued, and received top marks for my reflections.
The purpose of Norwegian education, as stated in the law, is to "open doors to the world and the future" and "promote democracy, equal rights and scientific thought". Perhaps most importantly: "students will learn to think critically and act ethically and environmentally aware".
Wonderful words.
At the university fair, that's not what they're talking about. "This degree leads to a good salary" or "You only need basic maths!". And if I want to be ambitious, my best options are doing some economy and technology leadership and becoming a… consultant. I'm sorry, but I don't really see how that contributes to democracy and equality?
I started looking for more meaningful careers. I could become a doctor, nurse, teacher or engineer and make green technology. Perfect. Just do that then.
Then my little corner of the world would be pretty decent. It already is – but it doesn't represent the rest of the world.
I was born in the top 3% of the world (by income), and I really haven't seen much else. Everyone I've met has been among the richest, luckiest in history and in the world now. However, 840 million people still live in extreme poverty. The world is far too big and unevenly distributed – how am I supposed to grasp that?
After hours of history, philosophy and ethics, I thought I'd figured it out. Norwegian poet Arnulf Øverland was correct: We tolerate injustice with remarkable ease, as long as it doesn't affect us. As long as we post about it on our instagram story and say "That's real bad", then we are okay to move on. I was happy criticizing this – but I couldn't come up with any better plan.
All my ideas felt like desperate attempts at changing an impossible problem. I fought with my dad about electric cars and money. He told me "You can't save the world on your own" – it didn't help.
Hans Rosling, a Swedish doctor, writes about this in Factfulness. He was working at the only hospital in a district in Mozambique. When a Swedish colleague came to visit, they argued about a sick baby. The colleague wanted to give the baby an IV, which would increase its survival rate. He argued that as a doctor, one had to give every patient the best care feasible – and stayed at the hospital through the evening to help the baby.
Rosling looked at the bigger picture. 52 children had died at the hospital the past year. In the district, 3900 children died. In order to prevent more children from dying, they switched focus to vaccination programs and training health workers in the district. Even if Rosling had worked 24 hours a day at the hospital, that wouldn't help the 3900 children that didn't make it to the hospital. He refers to this as the cruel calculus of extreme poverty.
When executing first aid, it's more obvious. Airways, breathing, circulation – you start CPR before you plaster a scraped knee. When you arrive at a car accident, check the backseat, get an overview before you start doing anything.
However, if you were the size of an ant, you might stop at a broken toe.
They try to teach us to think critically. I'm wondering when they'll teach us to look a bit further than our own noses. If I want to follow the ambitious path, I could probably be a brilliant consultant – but then I might as well be an ant.