We are witnessing just how fragile liberal democracy is – it’s up to us to strengthen its foundations
Unless we want to slip into a world where force and coercion drive politics, then we all must invest in reinforcing the institutions that keep liberal democracy working.
For most of human history, politics was — and in many parts of the world today, still is — a wilderness. Political victories were won at the point of a spear or the barrel of a gun, rather than at the ballot box. When there was a dispute about whose interests ought to take priority, how to distribute resources, or even who gets to have a say in how people live their lives, it was those who wielded the greatest force who typically got to choose. And, unsurprisingly, they often chose in favour of themselves.
This makes liberal democracy an historical anomaly. Within liberal democracy, we fully expect there to be disagreements about how best to run society — not least because the “liberal” part allows each person to define their own vision of a good life rather than having one imposed on us by others. But in liberal democracy, these disagreements are not won through coercive force but through persuasion, or as the German liberal philosopher Jürgen Habermas puts it, “the unforced force of the better argument”.
But the wall of civility surrounding the garden of liberal democracy is not impregnable. Coercive force lingers just outside, threatening to burst in and bypass the messy process of persuasion — as it did on 13 July 2024, when a would-be assassin attempted to silence former President Donald Trump with an assault rifle rather than words.
The good news is that the near universal expressions of shock and condemnation at the attempted assassination show that most people in the United States, and in other liberal democracies, still prefer to resolve their disputes within the norms of the liberal democratic garden rather than returning to the wilderness. Still, this episode serves as a potent reminder of just how fragile and important the norms that preserve liberal democracy are, and that the institutions that enable peaceful political debate require constant reinforcement.
The grand bargain
The problem is that, in recent years, liberal democracy has been failing itself. One of the “unforced forces” that keeps the system operating is a tacit buy-in on behalf of every individual within the system. We need to believe that the system is working for us, that it’s fair, and that our voice matters, otherwise we have little incentive to work within it. If we feel powerless, disenfranchised, embattled or feel our livelihood or safety is threatened, we have more reason to step outside the walls of civility.
But liberal democracies, such as the United States — and to a lesser but nonetheless significant extent, Australia — have often failed to give us good reason to believe the system is working.
For many of us, the “grand bargain” of liberal democratic society is breaking down. This bargain states that if we work hard, get a good education, and play by the rules, then we’ll have every opportunity to live a fulfilled and fulfilling life. But that’s just not the reality for a large proportion of the population. Many liberal democracies are facing an omni-crisis — combining housing, inflation, wealth inequality, climate change, mental health, loneliness, childcare, aging, the erosion of traditional jobs, the fragmentation of communities, as well as racism, sexism and other forms of systemic discrimination, and more besides.
If people feel powerless or disenfranchised, they’ll reject the constraints the system places on them to engage in peaceful debate.
Or if they feel that the stakes are so high that they can’t afford to let the other side win, then they’ll reject the ballot box and turn to other means to achieve their political ends.
How to restore faith in liberal democracy
Of course, those in power must not neglect their responsibility to protect and strengthen the system, and restore the grand bargain, even if they might forego short-term political or financial advantage in doing so.
Although it’s up to us to hold them to account. We should demand more of our elected representatives. But we must demand more of ourselves as well. We must lower the temperature of popular discourse: tune out the hyperbole, avoid partisan media, carefully curate our social media, don’t engage with those promoting conspiracy theories, and refuse to feed the trolls. Listen and ask questions of people who have different opinions. Advance our views with conviction, but also with humility. Acknowledge that there is probably not one right answer to many of the challenges we face, and that compromise is inevitable.
Just as important is building the social foundations that enable civil but spirited discourse. That means investing in our local communities to build “social capital” — the trust, respect, and norms of reciprocity that keep society functioning. Talking to your neighbour over the fence, taking your dog to the park, participating in a class at your local community centre, volunteering for a local organisation, joining an activist group — these are the grassroots of the liberal democratic garden, and they’re just as important as the larger institutions. They reinforce our common humanity; our neighbour might vote differently to us, but we still share the same human concerns.
As American political commentator Yuval Levin has stated, those we disagree with aren’t just going to disappear if we coerce them into silence or bully our way into power. Their views will persist, and if we give them no voice, they will be motivated to find other ways to be heard. We must practice tolerance and compromise, because the alternative is a return to the wilderness.
Catch Democracy is Not Worth Dying For at The Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Sunday 25 August at Carriageworks, Sydney. Tickets on sale now.
This article was originally published by ABC religion and Ethics.
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BY Tim Dean
Dr Tim Dean is a public philosopher, speaker and writer. He is Senior Philosopher and Manos Chair in Ethics at The Ethics Centre.
Trump and tyrannicide: Can political violence ever be justified?
It is remarkable that Donald Trump, former US President and presumptive Republican nominee, is alive today.
He survived an assassination attempt at relatively close range, which killed one bystander and serious injured two more. Trump himself was lightly wounded. The photograph of Trump bloodied and bellowing defiance as he is dragged from the stage by Secret Service agents has become the defining picture of this election — and perhaps the state of American democracy. It is a portrait of a demagogue who conjured violence and malice for nearly a decade in American politics only, like the sorcerer’s apprentice, to have these same forces turn against him. It is a portrait of a fracturing republic.
In the aftermath of the assassination attempt there has been universal condemnation of the attack. President Joe Biden addressed the nation declaring in no uncertain terms that there was no place for violence in American politics and that the attack was “sick”.
The condemnations seem platitudinous and empty, however — a slightly more refined form of the “thoughts and prayers” ritually offered in the wake of mass shootings. It also seems to run counter to reality.
Political violence is part of American culture. It birthed the republic in the Revolutionary War. The founding fathers all recognised that, under certain conditions, political violence was both just and necessary.
Many Americans still agree. Just last month, Richard Pape from the University of Chicago found that some 10 per cent of Americans support the use of force to stop Trump from regaining the White House, while 6.9 per cent of Americans would support the use of force to install him. That is some 44 million Americans. Simple attempts to wave political violence away is not sufficient to deal with this problem. There needs to be a serious discussion about when political violence is justifiable.
Is Trump a tyrant?
Blanket condemnations of political violence are frequently unconvincing. This would condemn us to doing nothing in the face of evil. The real discussion is about when such things are permissible. I want to address one particular act of political violence: tyrannicide.
We can distinguish tyrannicide from assassination by saying the former is justifiable political killing and the latter is not. You might say there is no such thing. When I ask my students about whether deliberate killing is justifiable, often most of them do not think it is. The intuition that deliberately taking another person’s life is deeply ingrained, and rightly so, but it does need to be critically examined.
Consider a test case. Reinhard Heydrich was a high-ranking officer in the SS, a chief lieutenant of Adolf Hitler, and one of the prime movers of the Holocaust. On 27 May 1942, Czech and Slovak partisans assassinated him with an improvised bomb. It is difficult to argue that the killing of a man deeply implicated in the coercive imposition of a racist totalitarian regime and industrialised murder of innocent persons is wrong.
There has been significant discourse around the threat Trump poses to American democracy. As president he showed little knowledge or interest in the guardrails against his power, he relentlessly demonised his opponents, and instigated a violent mob to prevent the peaceful transition of power. In the lead up to the 2024 presidential election, little seems to have changed. The poisonous rhetoric continues, he threatens to jail his political opponents, and he has indicated his desire to reshape America into a more authoritarian and theocratic state with his ties to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.
Here, then, is the crux of the problem: Trump seems like a figure bent on hollowing out republican institutions and accumulating arbitrary power in the office of the president, to wield as he pleases. He looks a lot like a Julius Caesar. But does this legitimise a modern Brutus?
The answer is no, but we need to know why.
“An enemy of all humanity”
The bar for tyrannicide must be high and clear. This is for two reasons. The first is simply the categorical value of human life: if murder is not wrong then what is? People like Heydrich forfeit their immunity from violence by committing terrible acts that shock the conscience of humanity. In the past, they would be described as hostis humani generis, an enemy of all humanity. This term was used to describe pirates and those who violated the basic terms of human social cooperation. They were outlaws — quite literally, beyond the protection of the law. People like Heydrich and his master were legitimate targets for tyrannicide because they committed crimes against humanity and in doing so made themselves a threat to all persons. To kill a Heydrich or a Hitler is akin to killing in self-defence or the defence of others. It is justifiable.
There might be some push back. This bar requires crimes against humanity to be committed before an act of tyrannicide — but what if they could be prevented by removing criminals before they act. The problem with this stance is that it creates an almost impossible burden of judgement. Think of John Wilkes Booth. After shooting Abraham Lincoln, he shouted sic semper tyrannis, “thus ever for tyrants”, the call used by the assassins of Julius Caesar. Yet, the judgement of history is that Lincoln, far from being a tyrant, was one of America’s greatest leaders and his murder one of its most profound tragedies. There is no such ambiguity when it comes to the likes of Heydrich or Hitler.
The further reason for having a high bar for tyrannicide is the consequences. One of the reasons Jeremy Bentham was critical of the right to resist oppression was that it left too much to the judgement of individuals and could lead to anarchy if anyone who felt oppressed could turn a knife on the judge who condemns them or the politician who advocates a policy with which they disagree. Those who would use this sort of violence run a terrible risk of breaking democratic systems.
Democracy is almost alchemical in its operation. It can transmute violent dissent into peaceful disagreement. The enemy becomes the rival. How? Because of the “losers’ consent”. The defeated side in a democracy does not resort to violence as they recognise that they may win the next contest. The legitimacy of the system survives electoral defeat. Political violence and assassinations erode this fundamental norm; they signify a withdrawal of consent.
Under these conditions, violence can produce the very outcome it seeks to prevent: a total collapse and a spiral into authoritarianism.
Again, think of those who killed Julius Caesar. They acted to preserve the Roman Republic, but instead they sparked a brutal civil war that eventually produced the Roman Empire.
Political violence of this sort can only be justifiable under the worse conditions. We may find Donald Trump repugnant, but he has not committed crimes against humanity. He is not hostis humani generis. This does not mean, however, that Trump is beyond reproach. His outriders — including his vice-presidential running mate, J.D. Vance — have claimed that democratic rhetoric about the risk Trump poses to American democracy are responsible for the assassination. They are attempting to elevate him the paradoxical state of a living martyr who cannot be criticised.
Setting aside the fact that we still have no notion of what motivated the would-be assassin, this evolution in the Trump cult of personality must be resisted for the sake of democracy. The sad fact is that no one has done more to erode the norms of democracy than the man who was almost killed on that stage in rural Pennsylvania. This cannot be ignored. He must be held to account — but with ballots, not bullets.
Is democracy worth dying for? Find out more at The Festival of Dangerous Ideas, 24-25 August at Carriageworks, Sydney.
David Blunt also chairs The Pitchforks are Coming at The Festival of Dangerous Ideas. Tickets on sale now.
This article was originally published by ABC Religion and Ethics.
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BY Dr. Gwilym David Blunt
Dr. Gwilym David Blunt is a Fellow of the Ethics Centre, Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Sydney, and Senior Research Fellow of the Centre for International Policy Studies. He has held appointments at the University of Cambridge and City, University of London. His research focuses on theories of justice, global inequality, and ethics in a non-ideal world.
Ethics Explainer: Cancel Culture
When mass outrage is weaponised and encouraged, it can become more of a threat to the powerless than to those it’s intended to hold to account.
In 2017, comedian Louis C.K. was accused of several instances of sexual misconduct, to which he later admitted in full. This was followed by a few cancelled movies, shows and appearances before he stepped away from public life for a few years.
In 2022, lecturer Ilya Shapiro was put on leave following a tweet he posted a few days before he was employed. Shapiro contended that the university failed in its commitment to free expression by investigating his actions for four months, before reinstating him under the reason that he was not accountable to the university for actions taken before his employment started.
These are both instances of what some people would call “cancel culture”, yet they involve very different issues. To unpack them, we first need to define what we mean by cancel culture.
From around 2015 onwards, the term started gaining mainstream traction, eventually being named Word of the Year by Macquarie Dictionary in 2019:
“The attitudes within a community which call for or bring about the withdrawal of support from a public figure, such as cancellation of an acting role, a ban on playing an artist’s music, removal from social media, etc., usually in response to an accusation of a socially unacceptable action or comment by the figure.”
The quintessential examples of cancel culture are calls from groups of people online for various public figures to be stripped of support, their work boycotted, or their positions removed following perceived moral transgressions. These transgressions can be anything from a rogue tweet to sexual assault allegations, but the common theme is that they are deemed to be harmful and warrant some kind of reaction.
A notoriously contentious concept, cancel culture is defined, or at least perceived, differently based on the social, cultural and political influences of whom you ask. Though its roots are in social justice, some believe that it lacks the nuance needed to meet the ends it claims to serve, and it has been politicised to such an extent that it has become almost meaningless.
Defenders of accountability
The ethical dimensions of this phenomenon become clear when we look at the various ways that cancel culture is understood and perceived by different groups of people. Where some people see accountability, others see punishment.
Defenders of cancel culture, or even those who argue that it doesn’t exist, say that what this culture really promotes is accountability. While there are examples of celebrities being shamed for what might be conceived as a simple faux pas, they say that the intent of most people who engage in this action is for powerful to be held accountable for words and actions that are deemed seriously harmful.
This usually involves calls to boycott, like the ongoing attempts to boycott J.K. Rowling’s books, movies and derivative games and shows because of her vocal criticism of transgender politics since 2019, or like the many attempts to discourage people from supporting various comedians because of issues ranging from discriminatory sets to sexual misconduct and harassment.
Those who view cancel culture practices as modes of justice feel that these are legitimate responses to wrongdoings that help to hold people with power accountable and discourage further abuses of power.
In the case of Louis C.K., it was widely viewed that his sexual misconduct warranted his shunning and removal from upcoming media productions.
Public figures are not owed unconditional support.
While it’s not clear that this kind of boycotting does anything significant to remove any power from these people (they all usually go on to profit even further from the controversy), it’s difficult to argue that this sort of action is unethical. Public figures are in their positions because of the support of the public and it could be considered a violation of the autonomy we expect as human beings to say that people should not be allowed to withdraw that support when they choose.
Where this gets sticky, even for supporters of cancel culture, is when people with relatively little power become the targets of mass social pressure. This can lead to employers distancing themselves from the person, sometimes ending in job loss, to protect the organisation’s reputation. This is disproportionately harmful for disadvantaged people who don’t have the power or resources to ignore, fight, or capitalise on the attention.
This is an even further problem when we consider how it can cause a sense of fear to creep into our everyday relationships. While people in power might be able to shrug off or shield themselves from mass criticism, it’s more difficult for the average person to ignore the effects of closed or uncharitable social climates.
When people perceive a threat of being ostracised by friends, family or strangers because of one wrong step they begin to censor themselves, which leads to insular bubbles of thoughts and ideas and resistance to learning through discussion.
Whether this is a significant active concern is still unclear, though there is some evidence that it is an increasing phenomenon.
Defenders of free speech
Given this, it’s no surprise that the prevailing opposition to cancel culture is framed as a free speech and censorship issue, viewed by detractors as an affront to liberty, constructive debate, social and even scientific progress
Combined with this is a contention that cancelling someone is often a disproportionate punishment and therefore unjust – with people sometimes arguing that punishment wasn’t warranted at all. As we saw earlier, this is particularly a problem when the punishments are directed at disadvantaged, non-public figures, though this position often overstates the effect the punishments have on celebrities and others in significant power.
A problem with the claim that cancel culture is inherently anti-free speech is that, especially when applied to celebrities, it relies on a misconception that a right to free speech entails a right to speak uncontested or entitlement to be platformed.
In fact, similar to boycotting people we disagree with, publicly voicing concerns with the intention of putting pressure on public figures is an exercise in free speech itself.
Accountable free speech
An important way forward for both sides of issue is the recognition that while free speech is important, the limits of it are equally so.
One way we can do this is by emphasising the difference between bad faith and good faith discussion. As philosopher Dr Tim Dean has said, not all speech can or should be treated equally. Sometimes it is logical and ethical to be intolerant of intolerance, especially the types of intolerance that use obfuscating and bad faith rhetoric, to ensure that free speech maintains the power to seek truth.
Focusing on whether a discussion is being had in bad faith or good faith can differentiate public and private discourse in a way that protects the much-needed charitability of conversations between friends and acquaintances.
While this raises questions, like whether public figures should be held to a higher standard, it does seem intuitive and ethical to at least assume the best of our friends and family when having a discussion. We are in the best place to be charitable with our interpretations of their opinions by virtue of our relationships with them, so if we can’t hold space for understanding, respectful disagreement and learning, then who can?
Another method for easing the pressures that public censures can have on private discourse is by providing and practicing clear ways to publicly forgive. This provides a blueprint for people to understand that while there will be consequences for consistent or shameless moral transgressions, there is also room for mistakes and learning.
For a deeper dive on Cancel Culture, David Baddiel, Roxane Gay, Andy Mills, Megan Phelps-Roper and Tim Dean present Uncancelled Culture as part of Festival of Dangerous Ideas 2024. Tickets on sale now.
BY The Ethics Centre
The Ethics Centre is a not-for-profit organisation developing innovative programs, services and experiences, designed to bring ethics to the centre of professional and personal life.
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How The Festival of Dangerous Ideas helps us have difficult conversations
We have probably never been good at having difficult conversations about controversial topics. But today these conversations are more important than ever.
In a world of explosive complexity, escalating diversity and accelerating change, there’s a risk that our old ideas have already become stale, and we desperately need to replace them with new ideas built to handle the monumental challenges we face today.
That’s why the Festival of Dangerous Ideas (FODI) exists. FODI’s purpose is to challenge conventional wisdom, because sometimes our ideas and assumptions need to be tested, even if to just make sure they still hold up. And should we find them wanting, FODI offers new ideas to improve upon and replace the old.
But challenging what we assume to be true, questioning what is “known,” or raising radical new ideas can be confronting, even offensive, to many ears. It can lead to difficult conversations, even if they’re precisely the ones we need to have.
The problem is that today’s world is particularly hostile towards having difficult and challenging conversations. Some cling to their old ideas and refuse to move with a changing world. Others vigorously defend their particular new ideas, preventing them from being tested to ensure they’re the best ones for our times. Both camps act like they have their backs against the wall, and the stakes feel so high that they’re unwilling to allow conversation that might challenge their beliefs – or their identity.
This is why FODI is dangerous.
FODI’s remit puts it at odds with a growing culture of outrage, cancellation and self-censoring. Yet FODI is as committed as ever to its mission, even if that means facing the fact that some people will react badly to having their beliefs challenged or recoil from radical new ideas.
To achieve its mission, FODI has a commitment to principle and transparency. One of FODI’s core principles is that not every dangerous idea is worth promoting. FODI only offers ideas that are backed by robust reasoning and evidence, and which are delivered in good faith – meaning they’re spoken with authenticity, integrity and with an intention to make the world a better place.
And while some ideas offered at FODI might be sensational, FODI rejects sensationalism. It doesn’t promote a speaker simply because they will cause a stir, but acknowledges that some challenging ideas will grab attention or trigger a backlash.
Another core principle is that FODI doesn’t preach. There is no particular belief, political ideology or ethical viewpoint that FODI seeks to promote – except its meta-commitment to good ideas supported by reason, evidence and good faith.
FODI chooses its speakers carefully. First, they must be qualified. Some are experts in their field, with qualifications and publications that demonstrate their mastery of the subject. Others have a more personal kind of expertise, with direct lived experience of the subject matter they’re invited to share. Second, they must be speaking in good faith rather than seeking to feed platitudes to the public in order to elevate their status.
But there are red lines that FODI will not cross. FODI is committed to respecting the inherent dignity of all people, meaning there might be some subjects that are inherently degrading or dehumanising to a particular population, or which are impossible to appropriately address in a public forum. FODI will not platform such ideas.
However, FODI is tolerant of minor indiscretions – because it acknowledges each of us is flawed – but only to the degree that speakers are willing to own their actions and take appropriate measures to rectify any harm they have caused.
The final hurdle that FODI speakers must clear is perhaps the most difficult to judge. Occasionally there will be a dangerous idea that has merit, and the speaker has the qualifications to express it, but which is so far outside of acceptable discourse that there is little or no chance that the idea will be received by the audience in good faith. Some ideas simply require more space or charity on behalf of the audience than FODI is able to provide, so they are not the kinds of ideas that will be platformed at the festival.
FODI is about dangerous ideas. It’s in the name. FODI’s line-up won’t please everybody. It never does. Nor does it aim to. But FODI is a space for curious minds to challenge ideas that need to be tested, and offer new ideas that the world desperately needs.
The Festival of Dangerous Ideas returns to Carriageworks, Sydney from 24-25 August 2024. Tickets on sale now at festivalofdangerousideas.com.
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BY Danielle Harvey
Danielle Harvey is Festival Director of the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. A curator, creative producer and director, Harvey works across live performance, talks, installation, and digital spaces, creating layered programs that connect deeply with audiences.
The ethical price of political solidarity
Which takes ethical precedence: keeping a promise to remain loyal to your group or sticking to your principles?
This is a question that has faced first-term Western Australian senator, Fatima Payman, repeatedly over the past few weeks. Ultimately, she chose her principles, crossing the floor to vote for a Greens bill calling to recognise Palestinian statehood, and now she’s paying the price for breaking her pledge of caucus solidarity with the Australian Labor Party (ALP).
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, faced a different dilemma. Even though his party’s National Platform ostensibly supported Payman’s principled position, the fact remains that she broke caucus solidarity by crossing the floor, an act that he was obliged by party rules to punish with a one-week suspension from caucus.
But then Payman doubled down on her principled stance by stating on national television that she would be willing to cross the floor again should another vote arise on Palestinian statehood. Again, Albanese felt his hand was forced, with him issuing her with an indefinite suspension.
Payman’s suspension has proven divisive, with many Labor members and supporters expressing outrage that she would violate her sacred pledge of caucus solidarity and draw media attention away from key Labor initiatives, such as the revised stage 3 tax cuts.
Others, such as the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, have seen events through a different lens, saying it was “disturbed by the suggestion that towing the Labor Party’s line is more important than standing up for the rights and lives of Palestinians as they are slaughtered in Gaza.”
Ultimately, both Payman and Albanese were placed in an ethical dilemma, with competing obligations pulling them in different directions. However, the episode raises deeper questions about whether politicians should be allowed to vote on matters of conscience or principle, and whether it is justified for a political party to punish them for doing so.
Ethical tension
When we vote for a politician based on their stated values and principles, we might expect they stand by them and vote accordingly when they’re in parliament. However, that’s often not the case.
Members of parliament are typically bound to vote for – and publicly support – their party’s agreed position, even if that position contradicts their own. In fact, since its inception in 1891, Labor has maintained a strict policy of caucus solidarity, with members pledging to uphold it as sacrosanct.
This means Labor members are free to argue forcefully for their views inside caucus meetings, but once the caucus has decided on a position, they are bound to vote for it. This has sometimes put Labor members in a difficult position, such as when Labor Senator Penny Wong was obliged to vote against same-sex marriage in 2008, despite her deep commitment to marriage equality.
In keeping with its traditional liberal roots, and the notion that it’s a “broad church”, the Liberal Party takes a relatively softer stance, ostensibly allowing members to cross the floor on matters of principle. However, even though the Liberal Party doesn’t require its members to make a pledge of caucus solidarity, they are still strongly encouraged to vote with the party, and often suffer punishment if they go against the party line.
The exception is when the leadership of a political party announces a “free” or “conscience” vote. These are rare, and are typically related to bills with a strong ethical element, such as abortion, euthanasia or embryonic stem cell research. In these cases, members are released from their obligations to vote with the party. However, over the last few decades the ALP has been less likely to allow a conscience vote than the Liberal Party, and the bill on Palestinian statehood that Payman crossed the floor on was not declared as a conscience vote by Labor.
Caucus solidarity is often justified in terms of the party being more stable – and more effective in governing – if it works as a collective rather than a group of individuals with diverse views. If every member of parliament were free to vote on any issue, then parties would have to work harder to curry favour with each representative, possibly watering down bills in order to get them on board. That could result in weaker legislation and prevent a party from genuinely being able to enact the policy platform that it presented to the electorate. It would also make it harder to vote for a party platform, knowing that any member might vote against it at any time.
Still, party solidarity could be seen as a political solution that involves an ethical compromise, not only preventing politicians from voting according to their deeply held views – which might be the very views that got them elected – but also requiring them to act inauthentically by publicly supporting a view they don’t personally hold.
Ultimately, political leaders – Anthony Albanese included – have a choice to make when faced with the dilemma of a sitting member crossing the floor: which is more important, solidarity or principle? And voters have a choice of whether to vote for a candidate, knowing that they might be prevented from voting in accordance with their values and principles.
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BY Tim Dean
Dr Tim Dean is a public philosopher, speaker and writer. He is Senior Philosopher and Manos Chair in Ethics at The Ethics Centre.
Let’s cure the cause of society’s ills, and not just treat the symptoms
The lead up to June 30th, is critically important for organisations, like The Ethics Centre, that depend on tax-deductible donations in order to make ends meet. Every organisation has a compelling claim to make for why their cause is deserving of support.
Some have ‘natural constituencies’ defined by the specific nature of the issue to be addressed. For example, medical research institutes will focus on those touched by the various diseases they work to treat and to cure. Other charities have a clear focus on solving one clearly defined problem, like homelessness, and can point to the specific impact that every dollar of charitable giving can have.
And then there are organisations like The Ethics Centre – where the work ranges across the whole span of human affairs with an impact that may take decades, if ever, to register. Consider this … How do you capture the significance of the countless bad things that did not happen as a direct result of good ethics leading to good decision making?
Yet, ours is a story that needs to be told – again and again. It’s not just a matter of ‘rattling the tin’ in the hope of securing a few more donations. Please believe me when I say we need them – as never before. However, there is also real and growing sense in which the need for ‘ethics’ is growing greater with each passing day.
Poverty, inequality and disadvantage are not ‘natural’ aspects of the human condition. Nor is it inevitable that the earth should be ravaged by our species. Rather, the root cause of social and environmental degradation lies in the character and quality of human choice – the most powerful force on this planet. Knowing this to be so, philosophers have spent millennia working to understand the underlying structure of human choice and how it might be harnessed for good rather than ill. Ethics is the branch of practical philosophy that addresses this question.
Australia stands on the cusp of a brilliant future. It has everything any society could need: vast natural resources, abundant clean energy and an unrivalled repository of wisdom held in trust by the world’s oldest continuous culture supplemented by a richly diverse people drawn from every corner of the planet.
As such, Australia could become the most prosperous and just society the world has ever known. However, whether or not this future can be grasped depends not on our natural resources, our financial capital or our technical nous. The ultimate determinant lies in the public’s willingness to trust those who will lead the process of translating the vision into reality.
Thus, we see the effects of ethical failure not only in its most obvious symptoms. Its corrosive effects can also be seen in the loss of public trust in nearly all of our major public and private institutions. This loss of trust has come at precisely the time when it is most needed – when we should be able to rely on those institutions to help guide society as it navigates a landscape of increasing complexity.
Australia lacks a peak organisation with a mandate to address the major ethical questions of our age. Significant legal questions can be referred to the Australian Law Reform Commission. The Productivity Commission performs a similar function in relation to questions of economic significance. No such body exists to consider ethical questions – such as are encountered on a daily basis. For example: should we deploy lethal autonomous weapons systems? What are the implications of embracing modern manufacturing techniques that will make many existing jobs redundant? Should we be moving to tax consumption and/or the means of production rather than labour so as to preserve the capacity to offer a social ‘safety net’? Is access to a ‘home’ (as opposed to ‘shelter’) a basic human right? And so on …
The Ethics Centre has spent 35 years building the foundations upon which to build a world-first, national Ethics Institute. But, as of today, that still remains a dream. Meanwhile, we have the work of the moment. It includes offering our Ethi-call service, the world’s only free national helpline for people with ethical issues. Its greatest impact is when it helps to prevent the kind of ‘moral injury’ that does so much harm to mental health. And then there are events like the Festival of Dangerous Ideas (FODI) one of the few places left where reasonable people can gather together and engage in the civilising art of ‘principled disagreement’. These are just some of the things we do in order to help bring ethics to the centre of everyday life.
I come back to one central point. If you’d like to address causes over symptoms then please consider supporting ethics. It’s simple: better ethics make for a better world. Even a few dollars can help that to be as true in reality as it is in principle.
With your support, The Ethics Centre can continue to be the leading, independent advocate for bringing ethics to the centre of everyday life in Australia. Click here to make a tax deductible donation today.
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BY Simon Longstaff
After studying law in Sydney and teaching in Tasmania, Simon pursued postgraduate studies in philosophy as a Member of Magdalene College, Cambridge. In 1991, Simon commenced his work as the first Executive Director of The Ethics Centre. In 2013, he was made an officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for “distinguished service to the community through the promotion of ethical standards in governance and business, to improving corporate responsibility, and to philosophy.”
Critical thinking in the digital age
It’s a usual Friday night; you’re at a friend’s place. A hush falls over the group as one of the boys pipes up: “Yeah nah but Andrew Tate has some good ideas too”.
Hopefully, you’ve never found yourself in this position, but you might know someone who has. Figures like Andrew Tate, known for his proud advocacy of misogyny among young men, aren’t uncommon on social media and their followings are microcosms of a much larger issue: a deficit of critical thinking in online education and spaces.
Unfortunately, social media platforms aren’t adequately removing hate speech or radicalising figures, nor can we expect filters and rules to ever be enough. With this in mind, we need ways of educating (often young) viewers on how to decide what and who to trust.
I recently attended a live recording of the Principle of Charity podcast at Sydney Writers’ Festival where this idea was raised with comparisons between non-fiction books and videos. Philosopher A.C. Grayling and art historian and content creator Mary McGillivray spoke at length about the various limitations of each medium. While both were reluctant to take polarising positions, eventually a sticking point did arise.
Grayling argued that the relative accessibility and ease of creating social media content makes it more dangerous, given its ability to platform those with little-to-no credibility or expertise. This echoes an interesting evolutionary theory called “costly signalling”, which says the more someone invests in sending a message – i.e. the more “costly” it is for them – the more likely it is to be trustworthy. On the other hand, the less someone invests in sending a message – the “cheaper” it is – the more likely it is to be untrustworthy or noisy. This is one reason why handwritten letters tend to be more thoughtful than fleeting social media posts. McGillivray’s response was two-fold.
Firstly, she noted that there are plenty of questionable published books out there by charlatans and the like – books that prey on insecurities to make sales, or simply peddle well-disguised misinformation. So, this isn’t a problem unique to social media.
Secondly, to which Grayling conceded, traditional avenues of information dissemination are often gatekept behind propriety, things like formal educational status or money. This is the flip side to costly signalling when applied to humans: only those who can “afford” to make costly communications will be heard and believed, so the wealthy and powerful will often dominate public discourse.
There are significant benefits, then, to having a medium that’s accessible to those who have never been afforded the circumstances to engage in these systems. There is still a trade-off: low-cost communication means potential for an oversaturation of inaccurate or useless information, but that is something we must contend with if we want to avoid restricting these things to the already-rich-and-powerful.
McGillivray herself is in the middle of a PhD, not yet an expert in the eyes of academia, yet she has amassed a huge following for her historical art analysis and edutainment (educational entertainment). Using her MPhil in History of Art and Architecture, she is able to produce well-researched and engaging videos that educate an audience that might not otherwise have been introduced to the topic at all.
Unfortunately, it’s especially easy for poor video information to also garner audiences because of its reliance on charisma above all else. We can be easily swayed by charisma as we passively consume it, because passive consumption leaves us more open to suggestion.
We can be prone to dismissing legitimate information and being overly charitable towards frauds based almost entirely on aesthetics.
Whom should we listen to?
Who qualifies as an expert, and when is being an expert relevant?
To figure this out, we have to talk about the combination of trust and critical thinking. Regardless of whether we’re picking up a book or scrolling on our phones, we need to know whether we can trust what we’re consuming and who we’re consuming it from, else we become yet another cog in machines of misinformation.
Unfortunately, there are many forces in the world that try to deceive us every day, from advertisers to influencers to corporations to politicians. To gain a good sense for what to trust, we need to know what to distrust by developing our critical thinking skills. This process isn’t simple, yet anyone can do it.
The first step is acknowledging that we are sometimes gullible and generally easy to convince with rhetoric. Speaking quickly, using jargon, seeming confident, having a high production quality are all things we intuitively associate with intelligence or expertise and yet they can often act as a distraction from the incoherence of the information being presented to us. This isn’t our fault – they’re designed and used specifically to lower our intellectual guards – but it is something we can learn to recognise and counter.
On top of this, even when we are capable of being critical of what we consume, we’re often bombarded with so much information that it makes it almost impossible anyway. In these situations, we rely on heuristics and biases to varying degrees of success. These mental shortcuts let us make faster decisions, but that speed often comes at a cost of accuracy.
Being discerning of sources
One clear thing to look for is the source of the information.
Check if the information comes from a generally trusted source, like a government website, a university, a peer-reviewed study or a reputable news outlet. While it’s dangerous to be overly sceptical, it is important to note that critical thinking should also extend to sources you trust. Just like anything else, governments, universities or other sources can be biased in certain ways, and being aware of those biases can help you understand the motivations behind different ways of presenting otherwise accurate information.
For example, news with a repeated focus on or omittance of a certain group of people can imply to viewers a false sense of significance. Without context, even accurate information can be used to misrepresent a wider picture.
There are many organisations dedicated to fact-checking and bias-checking news and politics, so using them alongside your broader consumption of information can give you a more comprehensive perspective on different issues. For fact-checking of global news trends, there is the International Fact Checking Network, or in Australia there is the Australian Associated Press Fact Check. These resources can help us identify common misinformation trends.
However, there are other ways to train ourselves to be aware of our own biases when we consume media and especially news. For example, Ground News is an organisation that collates news stories from thousands of sources and demonstrates how the same stories are presented differently depending on the general political slant of the publication. This is an effective way of learning about how even subtle differences in language can have a drastic impact on our interpretation of news. Using resources like this is a good way to develop media literacy by training yourself to recognise patterns in media coverage.
Critical reflection
Many people aren’t going to get their information straight from the source, though. Let’s say you have found an author or a creator that you like. Maybe your friend even told you about it. How do you know if you should trust them?
Again, the first thing to check is where they’re getting their information from. If they’re presenting evidence, then check that that evidence is coming from a place that you know to be trustworthy. This isn’t a check that you need to do all the time but putting this effort in at least at the beginning will give you a foundation for trusting this person in the future.
If they aren’t presenting empirical evidence, you can check their credentials and history. Do they have reputable qualifications in a relevant field? Do they have a relevant lived experience to speak from? Do they have a history of presenting accurate information? Is what they’re saying consistent with their own points and with what you know from trusted sources?
While not all necessary, these are all different ways of making sure that you critically reflect on the news and media you consume.
Other useful ways to engage critically with media are to challenge yourself to identify different aspects of it. The intended audience can tell you a lot about a publication, like what their motivations or affiliations might be. You can identify this by looking at the language used and asking yourself how it reflects who it is trying to speak to. You can also find potential bias by imagining how the information might sound different if it was written with another kind of audience in mind.
Another method of testing your understanding of a piece of news is to try to identify what the intended message is by summarising it in 1-2 sentences. Doing this is a good way to practice understanding the implications of lots of bits of information as a whole. It will also help you to ascertain underlying assumptions that are made without the viewer’s comprehension. Identifying these assumptions will help prevent you from being misled.
For example, there is a general implicit assumption that if something is in the news, then it is important. But you might not agree with that. Sometimes things are reported on or spoken about to cause them to seem important, so by questioning that foundational assumption we can begin to critique the content and motivations behind certain information.
Identifying these can help you determine how to process the information being presented to you and whether you need to scrutinise it further. Developing critical thinking skills to increase your media literacy is an important part of ethical consumption because it helps us navigate systems of power and slowly prevents the spread of harmful information and ideas.
The Principle of Charity is a podcast that injects curiosity and generosity back into difficult conversations, bringing together two expert guests with opposing views on big social issues.
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BY Daniel Finlay
Daniel is a philosopher, writer and editor. He works at The Ethics Centre as Youth Engagement Coordinator, supporting and developing the futures of young Australians through exposure to ethics.
Self-presentation with the collapse of the back and front stage
The digital revolution has ushered us into a theatre where the stage extends into our living rooms, and the audience is always watching. Nowhere has this been more evident than in the context of work.
In the pandemic-driven shift from office to home (and back again), the curtains between personal and professional lives have not just been pulled back but torn down. This has changed not only where we work, but how we work, and crucially, how we are seen by our colleagues. It also has radical implications for what it means to be ‘authentic’ in the workplace.
Where the pre-2020 professional may have meticulously managed their work persona, the pandemic era has introduced authenticity by default, for better or worse. This collision of worlds invites us to question: In the blur between ‘onstage’ and ‘offstage’, which parts of ourselves do we bring to the virtual office table?
Presenting our authentic selves
David Hume, a prominent Scottish philosopher of the 18th century, radically destabilised our notions of a consistent, singular self. In A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume argued that our perceptions are the only real things about us and that these perceptions are constantly changing.
He famously stated, “When I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception.”
In essence, Hume’s view of the self as a ‘bundle’ of perceptions challenges the idea of a singular, unchanging and enduring entity. Instead, our sense of self is more like a series of fluid, dynamic experiences that are related but distinct, with no unifying core or essence. This perspective has had a significant influence on later philosophical thought, particularly in discussions about personal identity and the nature of the self.
Given that for Hume, the self is a collection of changing perceptions, it might follow that our self-presentation is inherently fluid and adaptable. This adaptability might imply a level of control, as different situations or contexts bring different perceptions to the forefront, thus altering our self-presentation.
Rather than managing a stable, singular identity, self-presentation for Hume may be more about managing perceptions, both internal (how we perceive ourselves) and external (how others perceive us).
Hume also acknowledges the influence of external factors like social context and relationships on our perceptions. This indicates that while individuals might have some control over their self-presentation, it is also shaped by external circumstances beyond their complete control.
Self-presentation on the new office ‘stage’
In 1959, the influential sociologist Erving Goffman explained self-presentation as how we try to control how others see us. Drawing on theatrical metaphor, Goffman, noted the different roles we play in front of different audiences. He also highlighted the importance of ‘backstage’ spaces – private areas in which we are free to drop any act without spoiling the performance.
Current workplace paradigms, however, often involve catching glimpses of life behind the scenes. We increasingly perform our work roles immersed in the geography of our non-work selves while trying to create some separation between the two. Self-presentation in these new liminal spaces is therefore less straightforward than it might first appear and, again, poses questions about authenticity.
Pre-2020, jokes about pairing waist-up office wear with below-desk pyjamas were largely targeted at newsreaders. However, the pandemic-driven move from office to home sent many of us hurtling into colleagues’ worlds like never before.
The abrupt pivot to online meetings flung open virtual doors into our colleagues’ sanctuaries – spaces that were once off-limits to our professional personas. The sanctity and intimacy of the home, traditionally a retreat from the public gaze, became a shared space, albeit digitally, and often reluctantly.
The unexpected cameo of a pet, the soft murmur of children playing in the background, or the occasional appearance of a spouse served as reminders of the complex lives beyond the professional facades we maintain. These moments, while humanising, also signalled a tectonic shift in our understanding of authenticity.
As we continue to navigate this uncharted territory, it’s clear that our pre-pandemic understanding of privacy needs re-evaluating. The distinctions between work and private life must be redefined to protect the sanctity of both.
Employers and employees alike must collaboratively develop new norms and etiquettes that respect personal boundaries while accommodating the realities of our interconnected digital lives.
Examining authenticity
Identity curation is a core part of self-presentation, and we do it constantly. It is this curation that radically undermines claims of self-authenticity. In many workplaces, the move online merely highlighted ambiguities or inconsistencies in thinking about authenticity that were always there.
The language of authenticity is pervasive in the workplace; it features in mission statements, company values and even competency frameworks yet is rarely defined by organisations in any meaningful way.
The idea of an authentic self underpins the relatively recent introduction of the notion of ‘bringing your whole self to work.’ We have witnessed a radical shift from earlier 20th-century conceptions of workplace conformity and strict adherence to a professional persona that often required suppressing personal identities and emotions, to a workplace culture that rhetorically valorises the uniqueness of individual’s ‘lived experience’ and the expression of people’s unique perspectives and backgrounds in the workplace.
However, it still begs the question as to what precisely constitutes an individual’s authentic self? And which modes of authenticity are valued over others?
Expecting employees to somehow just be authentic – a complex and debated concept in an era of multiple states of self-presentation – is therefore an unreasonable ask, whether offline, online or moving between the two.
Recent discussions on authenticity in the workplace highlight a complex landscape where the concept is both lauded for its potential to enhance individual well-being and critiqued for its unintended consequences. Hamilton and Almeida at the LSE Business Review point out that an authentic work environment can be beneficial to psychological health and performance outcomes, yet the narrow social norms of professionalism often limit who can genuinely express themselves without repercussions, leading to assimilation and code-switching.
Furthermore, Hamilton and Almeida also found that authenticity can become a source of cognitive strain and alienation when individuals feel compelled to align with dominant group norms, which may conflict with their innate values and personal identities. This is particularly challenging for minority groups within organisations, as the pressure to conform can lead to psychological distress and inhibit genuine self-expression.
Critiques also focus on the potential for a culture of authenticity to inadvertently perpetuate social inequalities, as those who cannot or choose not to conform to the dominant narrative of authenticity might self-segregate or face negative work-related consequences. Additionally, the pursuit of authenticity can stifle dissent and innovation, as uniformity of thought undermines the benefits of a diverse workforce.
The call for authentic self-expression in the workplace must be balanced with a conscious effort to foster an inclusive environment where diverse voices are not just heard but valued. This requires leadership that understands and actively manages the dynamics of group identity, as well as a collective effort among employees to embrace and respect differences.
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BY Beth Anderson
Beth has spent over 15 years in leadership and ethical consultancy roles across the UK non-profit and public sectors. Much of her career has involved identifying ‘what works’ in a way that synthesises knowledge from research, policy and practice.
BY John Neil
John leads the Centre’s major consulting projects, leadership and culture programs and product development. Drawing on 20 years of experience, John has worked with Australia’s largest organisations in developing and delivering solutions to bring ethics to the centre of business design, culture development, and organisational decision making. Before joining us, John worked in the business school at the University of Technology Sydney. During his time there, he inspired students and colleagues alike through his research and teaching, and chaired the Ethics Working Group to develop an approach to embed ethics in the Bachelor of Business curriculum.
In defence of platonic romance
When I was young and like many little girls, I was bewitched by all things magical and had a keen sense of romantic sensitivity.
I would regularly claim to spot mermaids in the froth of breaking waves and would meticulously construct fairy circles in my grandmother’s garden. These tendencies would lead me to weave fanciful and elaborate dreams about my future, mainly about love. In all the rituals, potions and stories I concocted as a young girl, there’s one that sticks out in my mind.
One particular holiday in the Blue Mountains, my cousin and I were around twelve – the age when many children start to fully understand what awaits them in teenagerhood – namely, romance. One night, under a full moon, I proposed a plan – we would cast a spell to summon our future partners and design our prince charmings. Petals were gathered from the flowering bushes that surrounded our accommodation and a large plastic salad bowl was stolen from the kitchenette and filled with water. With great reverence and solemnity, we sat on the deck and threw petals into the bowl. As each one hit the surface, we would say aloud a quality that we wanted in a future partner.
“Tall!”
“Nice!”
“Dark hair!”
When the ritual was over and the bushes were bare of their flowers, we threw the contents of the bowl out onto the lawn quite matter-of-factly. Completed with confidence, we did not doubt that what had transpired between us that night had set us up very nicely for when we were grown women. Now, as a young woman with aspirations for a career as a writer and a bachelor’s degree under my belt, I look back and question, with the opportunity of a full moon and a ritual, why did I only wish for a romantic relationship with a man?
In my developing mind, I had an understanding that women found their identity in being the object of romantic love. To be loved by a man was equated to being accomplished – one day when I was clever enough and pretty enough, I would be chosen. However, there’s little personal autonomy as an object.
Many pioneers of third-wave feminism have fought against the objectification of women and for their greater value in society. Much of their activism has focused on the role of women in social and political spaces. At twenty-two years old I’m still learning how to navigate my position in the world as a young woman. My sense of accomplishment with my career and my education has not always been constant. Upon reflection, there’s a source of value and abundance in my life that is disconnected from any metric measure of success – my friendships. Throughout the dawn of my adult years, my most impactful, and intimate relationships have been with my close female friends. If our platonic relationships were treated as reverently as our romantic ones, what would be possible?
Philosopher Simone de Beauvoir described the desire to love and be loved as part of the structure of human existence. Her 1949 work The Second Sex explores women as the ‘other’ in society and how men and women often develop asymmetrical expectations of love. De Beauvoir discusses heterosexual love as being either ‘authentic’ or ‘inauthentic’. Within her framework, to achieve authentic love, both lovers need to maintain their individuality. But in the context of heterosexual monogamy and the biological family unit, is this even possible for women?
Many women are often first and foremost identified as wives and mothers, essentially, they have relational autonomy. Relational autonomy proposes that as the ‘Self’ is related to those around us in various ways, the way we identify ourselves cannot be a practice that is achieved alone. While an explanation such as this may relate positively to ideas of community and comradery, many women experience a loss of self as wives and mothers.
Many women in heterosexual relationships must, to some degree, be experiencing inauthentic love – described by De Beauvoir as being based on inequality between the sexes:
“[Men] never abandon themselves completely […] they remain sovereign subjects; the woman they love is merely one value among others; they want to integrate her into their existence, not submerge their entire existence in her. By contrast, love for the woman is a total abdication for the benefit of a master.”
If our support systems and our identity are entangled with relationships that have an inherent power imbalance, is there space for authentic love? While De Beauvoir’s outlook may appear characteristically existential, there is a faint yet unmistakable silver lining. If heterosexual relationships leave women devoid of true identity and autonomy, what is left? Our female friendships.
Within my female friendships, I’ve rediscovered something from my childhood that’s been lacking in my romantic relationships with men – magic. There’s something about friendships between women that makes pagan behaviour seem reasonable. I can understand why medieval witches were often accused of dancing naked around bonfires; I would do that too for my best friends.
To be clear, I’m not saying that people don’t need romance or romantic relationships, nor am I saying that all heterosexual relationships cause harm to the women in them. Romantic relationships can be a source of unique joy and adventure. Where they become problematic is when they are the centre of our personal universes. As for romance, there’s space and, arguably, a necessity for it in our platonic relationships too. I implore you to buy a bouquet of flowers for your dearest female friend and see what good it does.
With platonic relationships at the centre of our worlds, there’s a web of support and intimacy without the power imbalance inherent in some heterosexual relationships.
By decentralising the role of romantic love in our lives and valuing other relationships just as equally, there’s an opportunity for community building, deep understanding, and cultivation of our own personal identity.
If, at twelve years old, under that Blue Mountains moon, I had wished for an ideal best friend – when, as an adult, my romantic relationships fell short of the mark again and again, it wouldn’t have felt like I had as far to fall. Rather than the sun dropping out of my personal solar system, I’d lose a moon or two. Still a knock to the system, just not an earth-shattering one. Perhaps, feminism and gender equality can be aided and progressed by revolutionary love for our friends.
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BY Layla Zak-Volpato
Layla is a 22-year-old writer and poet living and working in and around Eora/Sydney. With an educational background in ecology and wildlife conservation, her work focuses heavily on the ethical and moral dilemmas of the anthropocene. Through a creative lens, Layla examines the intersections between gender, identity, philosophy and environmental issues. She aspires to use these themes as the backbone for a career as a scientific communicator who utilises both creative and informative literary forms.
7 thinkers improving our ethical understanding of the environment
Despite centuries of advocacy urging us to consider our actions, the urgent problem of climate change and conservation of our earth is one that often feels the most insurmountable.
In celebration of World Environmental Day, these seven key thinkers and activists from across history have contributed to our ethical understanding of the environment and how we can lessen our impact.
Aldo Leopold (1887-1948)
Aldo Leopold was a conservationist, forester, philosopher, and educator who dedicated his life to coexisting with nature and learning from it, with many considering him to be the father of American wildlife ecology.
His non-fiction book, A Sand County Almanac, calls for the development of a land ethic, as conservation is unachievable so long as resources are controlled by economic interests. He wrote, “a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it.” By including land in our understanding of community, it no longer is property; instead, it becomes inherently valuable and, in turn, worthy of protection and respect. “We can be ethical only in relation to something we can see, feel, understand, love, or otherwise have faith in,” he wrote.
Leopold additionally stressed the need to evaluate and update the content of our conservation education. He said it’s not enough to join a few organisations, follow the law, and trust the government will do the rest. “In our attempt to make conservation easy, we have made it trivial.”
Seyyed Hossein Nasr (1933-present)
Nasr, an internationally celebrated thinker from Iran, is, at present, a professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University. He looks at the natural world through a religious lens, thus becoming the founder of environmentalism in the Muslim world. He calls Islam a “green religion,” as it’s easy for followers to sympathise with the natural world, since “the Qur’an addresses not only human beings, but also the cosmos. All creatures participate in Islam.” In Islam, all living things are equally valuable, equally deserving of life, equally valid. Nasr highlights how “we human beings cannot be happy without the happiness of the rest of creation. We have killed enough, massacred enough of God’s other creatures.”
He juxtaposes Islamic values with Christian ones, and how the latter’s “most devout followers don’t show much interest in the environment.” In all the verses of the New Testament, he points out, there’s not one mention of nature. “To be modern is to destroy the world of nature. That’s the great tragedy of it, and we should try to find out why.”
Naomi Klein (1970-present)
As a Canadian journalist, filmmaker, New York Times best-selling author and professor of climate justice, Naomi Klein’s commitment to activism spans many mediums, across borders. She sees our world’s current state as one major, interconnected problem: Climate change isn’t separate from medical crises which aren’t separate from political crises, and so on. In her eyes, it’s all connected and it all rests on the initial sin of stealing lands from Indigenous people.
In her Festival of Dangerous Ideas 2015 talk, Capitalism and the Climate, she emphasised the Pope’s idea of a “throwaway culture.” It’s what’s allowed generations of Australians, Canadians, and Americans alike to take from Native people, and it’s the same concept that’s degrading and destroying our planet. “We extract and do not replenish and wonder where the fish have disappeared. And why the soil requires evermore inputs, like phosphates, to stay fertile.” Klein calls for the creation of a “culture of caretaking in which no one and nowhere is thrown away. In which the inherent value of people and all life is foundational.”
Tyson Yunkaporta (present)
Aboriginal people have lived in Australia for over 65,000 years – far longer than any other humans have anywhere else on the planet. Tyson Yunkaporta, an Aboriginal scholar and author, believes that we stand to resolve a lot of our current environmental problems by turning to their ancient practices, or, at the very least, considering them. Aboriginal “patterns still flow with the movement of the earth.” They remain connected to the planet, he said, living in harmony and coexisting with the natural world in ways non-Indigenous people do not.
Yunkaporta thus encourages readers to question Western thinking and approach problems with an Aboriginal lens instead. As he wrote in his book, Sand Talk, we ought “to live and work in accordance with a natural order, rather than against it.”
Pythagoras (570 BC-495 BC)
Though Pythagoras is typically remembered for his contribution to mathematics (you might remember his famed Pythagorean Theorem from high school math class) he was actually better known for his beliefs on reincarnation and diet in his day. In fact, he was the first modern vegetarian in the West and is regarded as the father of ethical vegetarianism.
While the actual impact of cutting out meat from one’s diet is often disputed, individuals can have impact by lessening their own ecological footprint. By cutting out meat, it can be argued that one stands to dramatically reduce the resources – like land, water, and oil – required to sustain their diet. Pythagoras far predated these ecological footprint considerations; instead, he grounded his vegetarian beliefs in reincarnation. By killing animals and eating their meat, he said, we run the risk of eating our companions. “Meat is for beasts to feed on… what a wicked thing it is for flesh to be the tomb of flesh… for one live creature to continue living through one live creature’s death.”
Vandana Shiva (1952-present)
Vandana Shiva is an ecofeminist, physicist, ecologist, activist, editor, and author known for her steadfast commitment to work in environmental conservation, specifically agriculture. Famously, she opposed Asia’s Green Revolution, which, while ramping up food production in less-developed countries, the heavy use of pesticides harmed native seed diversity and traditional agricultural practices.
To try and do her part to give back, in 1982, Shiva founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology to develop sustainable agricultural practices. In her Festival of Dangerous Ideas talk in 2013, Growth = Poverty, she condemns GDP and growth, drawing on experiences from life in India. Gross Domestic Product, she says, doesn’t account for things like pollution in the rivers, and if it did, India and China would have negative scores. Instead, it creates a false standard of living and, in doing so, “it has perpetuated a model of generating non-sustainability, inequality, and a deep violence within society and within the self.”
Kongqiu (551 BC-479 BC)
Better known as Confucius, this ancient Chinese philosopher’s teachings are, to this day, the bedrock of East Asian culture.
Confucius believed that all life has qi, which is essentially life force that nurtures humans and nature alike. In essence, qi supports the idea that humans and nature are isogenous, of the same origin and interconnected. In accordance with this perspective, Confucius stressed that humans ought to be kind to the land to achieve harmony and balance.
Present day scholars look to this ancient Chinese wisdom as a piece to solving the puzzle that is climate change. If humans adopted the idea that we are not separate from nature and instead an extension of it, as Confucius said, then perhaps we’d see this destruction to the land as destruction to ourselves and finally change our unsustainable ways.
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