Gratitude as a global change agent
Ukraine鈥檚 leader has learned that being grateful for foreign aid helps bring more aid. On other global issues, appreciation of progress has opened windows.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (r) meets with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Kyiv, Ukraine Jan. 22.
Reuters
The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, learned a valuable lesson last July. After he criticized Western allies a bit too much for not offering enough support against Russia, the United States openly advised him to show 鈥渁 degree of gratitude鈥� for the money and other aid already received.
Since then, Ukraine鈥檚 leader has shifted his narrative from one of gloom and grouse to one of tribute and thankfulness.
He鈥檚 recently been on a gratitude tour, noticeably last week at the annual meeting of world leaders in Davos, Switzerland. With a new U.S. aid package pending in Congress, for example, Mr. Zelenskyy told American officials, 鈥淯kraine is grateful to the President of the United States, the Congress and the entire American people for their unflagging and powerful support for our country.鈥� Many European leaders heard similar appreciation.
鈥淯krainian initiatives are gradually becoming global initiatives,鈥� he told Ukrainians in a video address from Davos. 鈥淚 am grateful to everyone who helps us with this.鈥�
His turnaround 鈥� toward relying on gratitude to reinforce the generosity of others 鈥� reflects a shift in several other aspects of world affairs. Many experts working on problems such as war, poverty, and climate change point to the need to emphasize progress as a realistic antidote to what may seem like intractable situations.
鈥淎s appalling as crises in聽Gaza,聽Ukraine, or聽Sudan聽are, the narrative of a world in greater humanitarian need than ever before is misleading and self-defeating,鈥� Elias Sagmeister, a consultant at Ground Truth Solutions, a nongovernmental organization in Austria that shapes humanitarian policy, wrote in the news site The New Humanitarian.
鈥淎 closer look at global data reveals a more nuanced 鈥� and even a more hopeful 鈥� reality,鈥� he stated, citing the fact that famine is in a long-term decline while deaths from disasters are low compared with previous periods.
鈥淭he humanitarian hyperbole might seem helpful for short-term fundraising purposes, but repeating a false narrative comes at a price in the long run,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淭he public will tune out from repetitive messaging.鈥�
鈥淚nstead, humanitarian leaders should point to past successes while making demonstrable progress on the reforms they have rightly committed to.鈥�
Other thinkers, such as Harvard professor Steven Pinker, have made similar arguments about the need to recognize positive trends, such as a centurieslong drop in violence. 鈥淧artly it鈥檚 a negativity bias baked into journalism: things that happen, like wars, are news; things that don鈥檛 happen, like an absence of war, that is to say peace, aren鈥檛,鈥� Dr. Pinker told Quillette, an Australian online magazine.
Charles Kenny, an economist at the Center for Global Development, contends that the 鈥渇act of progress makes us morally bound to make it happen more.鈥� The world can build on recent progress, he told Vox in 2022, citing the examples of lower child mortality, higher literacy, and greater civil rights.
Gratitude for progress can also elicit gratitude, as the president of Latvia, Edgars Rink膿vi膷s, indicated this month. In noting how the Ukrainians are the first line of defense against Russian aggression in Europe, he said, 鈥淲e are grateful to the Ukrainians ... more than perhaps they should be grateful to us.鈥�