MERRIMAN SUMMER SCHOOL:OPTIMISM IS a key determinant of economic success, the Merriman Summer School has heard. Psychologist and writer Dr Maureen Gaffney, while making a plea for people to be optimistic in the current economic climate, said that historically optimism was singled out as a key attitude for success.
The other determinant was society’s attitude towards science and technology. Issues like national competitiveness, an unsustainable tax base and public accountability had suddenly become real in the most personal and painful way for Irish society.
“To make matters worse, our past has caught up with us in the form of the Ryan report. At a feeling level, it seems like Ireland is currently suffering from a traumatic end to a very protracted adolescence.”
Ireland in the Celtic Tiger years had become the quintessential golden adolescent, she pointed out. “We displayed the usual ambivalence of adolescence: grandiosity countered by sporadic deep insecurity, egocentricity countered by bouts of idealism, struggling for autonomy countered by over-dependence on others to solve our problems, living for now without too much thought for the future.
“We went on a gigantic spending spree. We rejected the overtures of the cousins in Europe and thought we did not need them and their strange ways anymore.”
The economic and banking crisis, the collapse in public finances and the unstable partnership process had raised profoundly worrying questions about the future of the economy, society and governance. “And the scale is such that we can no longer feel confident that what worked for us in the past will work now or in the future.” There were worries that the social capital and common values built up over previous decades had become depleted by the materialism and rampant self-interest of the Celtic Tiger years.
“New and potentially bitter divisions are appearing between different sectors of Irish society, most notably between the public and private sectors.”
But she said that while there would be no easy solution to the challenges, Ireland could face them successfully by maintaining a wider historical perspective.
Ireland had experienced spectacular and unexpected national success in three key projects – the move to the euro, the smoking ban and the plastic bag ban – which were never fully analysed and celebrated. “Somehow we managed to face down vested interests and persuade individuals that this was a meaningful exercise, to energetically engage with the issue and to confound the sceptics and to look beyond themselves and commit to larger national purpose.”
The magnitude of the current problems called for big thinking and bold action, she added, but Ireland had faced significant challenges and turning points before and succeeded.
“In the late 1950s and again in the 1980s, we faced significant economic and social challenge. Not to overstate the case, but it would be nothing short of a national disaster in the response to the present crisis were we to retreat to a narrow and pessimistic view of ourselves. It will be no less a disaster if we fracture and turn on each other.”