A good ancestor

Abstract

In The Good Ancestor, Roman Krznaric presents a compelling argument about our responsibility to future generations. He highlights that in order to be good ancestors to the future generations we need to make a shift from short-term thinking, shorttermism, to long-term thinking, long-termism. He notes that most of our decisions have been usurped by short-termism without any regard for their effect in the long term, a term whose horizon is centuries, millennia or even multiple generations in the future. There is also a six-pronged prescription of how we can overcome the grip of short-termism and begin to think long-term. These six aspects of the prescription are: deep-time humility, legacy mindset, intergenerational justice, cathedral thinking, holistic forecasting, and transcendent goal (242).