The word "vision" that has come to be used to lay out what needs to be done in the future is not so useful. Likely it gets used to avoid recourse to the word "plan". The latter has lost much of its appeal following long years during which we all gave homage to the virtues of the "free" market, which through economic competition between firms delivers the best results possible. No plan could reach similar outcomes, so goes the common belief.

However, there still remained the need for all entities to prepare for the future, at least in order to maintain and increase what would already have been achieved. Private firms continued to do so, under the cover of what they would call strategy, business plan or policy, apart from other labels. In the public sector, instead of plan the word "vision" made its appearance... although lately the Eurppean Commission has also been using the word "compass".

A plan does not cover only the setting of targets and a listing of the projects with wihich to reach them. It requires as well the identification of the financial and other means which will be used - from where these would come and how they would be deployed, while maintaining a full coherence with other plans and projects that would be in the pipeline.  Is this how it goes with a vision/compass?

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SOCIAL CHANGES

Social change has always been the game in human communities as a response to developments in relationships, economic and technological abilities, population growth, among others. And over the centuries, most humans have shown a remarkable ability to adapt and to accomodate their lifestyle to social change as it progresses.

What is now apparent is that over the last decades, the rate of change has accellerated to a level never seen before. The arrival of the internet with the multiple new ranges of social interaction that it made possible likely was the major determinant of the changes, but for sure not only. So that now, the question does arise as to whether human communities are losing the ability to adapt to the big and fast social changes they are experiencing.

At the least, it is difficult to agree that adaptation is still as easy as it used to be.

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ENDS AND MEANS

I always remember this dispute surfacing time after time: is it right to use questionable means in order to attain worthy ends? Not least it was raised by Catholics, when I always got confused by what was being said. At one end, one heard that one can never justify the use of debatable means to secure noble aims. And at the other end the opposite would be claimed and the Jesuits (perhaps incorrectly) would be referred to as exponents of this appproach.

One couldn't but remember all this as one noted how in the recent US presidential election, Catholics were encouraged to vote for Trump when right through his life he showed little to no respect towards norms of behaviour that Catholics consider as worthy. Still in their majority they voted for him, the reason being that he backed positions taken by the Catholic church, especially on abortion. In this case certainly, the means were less important, being justified by the ends