RSAnimate
www.theRSA.org
Matthew Taylor
The RSA has a new strapline
and that strapline is 21st Century Enlightenment.
The original Enlightenment in the 18th century
was not, of course, a single cohesive movement.
It didn't have a simple start and finish.
So when we think about the core ideals of the Enlightenment
it is not simply a kind of historical process.
It's in a way when we think about how those ideals
shaped modern values, norms and lifestyles.
It is a kind of process of cultural psychotherapy.
We are delving into what has shaped
the collective consciousness of modern people.
And that enables us to explore critically whether those values
and what they have come to mean to us, still work for us
and whether they meet the challenges that we now face.
So, whereas I don't underestimate
the ability of human beings to invent and to adapt
in the end, on balance, I do favor the view
that we do need to live differently in the 21st Century.
And as the architects of the Enlightenment understood
to live differently involves thinking differently,
involves seeing the world and ourselves from a new perspective.
In critically examining
what Enlightenment values have come to mean to us
what we can now bring to bear is
powerful new insights into human nature
insights that have emerged from a variety of scientific disciplines
social sciences over the last 20 or 30 years.
Copernicus, Galileo and Newton
helped to lay the ground for the Enlightenment
by revealing that the laws of nature
not only failed to conform to religious doctrine,
but also they failed to conform to intuition.
So, the Pope might have said the sun went round the earth.
It might have felt like the sun went round the earth,
but science showed otherwise.
And I think that insights into human nature have a similar double impact,
also unsettling our intuitive sense of ourselves in the world.
Most of our behavior, including social interaction
is the result of us responding automatically to the world around us
rather than the outcome of conscious decision-making
and in this sense, it's more realistic to see ourselves
as integrally connected to the social and natural world
rather than as a separate, wholly autonomous entity.
The research is clear, if you want to be a happier person
don't read a self-help book. Just have happier friends.
And, there are other lessons that we can learn
from the more subtle and holistic model of human nature now emerging.
You know, we're not very good at making long-term decisions.
We're much better at understanding relative than absolute values
and as we found out in the credit crunch
we are enthralled to what Keynes called "animal spirits".
Perhaps even more startlingly
we are very, very bad at predicting what's going to make us happy
and we're even bad at describing what made us happy in the past.
So, I would argue that the moral and political critique of individualism
now has an evidence base
and it's with this in mind that I argue
the 21st Century Enlightenment should champion
a more self-aware, socially-embedded model of autonomy
that recognises our frailties and limitations.
Now this does not mean repudiating the rights of the individual
and nor does it underestimate our unique ability
to shape our own destinies.
Indeed, it's actually by understanding that conscious thought
is only a part of what drives our behaviour
that we become better able to exercise self-control.
All of this can enable us to distinguish our needs from our appetites
and our amazing human potential from the hubris of individualism.
It's the basis for self-aware autonomy.
The developmental psychologist Robert Kegan argues
that successfully functioning in a society
with diverse values, traditions and lifestyles
requires us, in his words, to have a relationship to our own reactions
rather than be captive of them.
I quote "To resist our tendencies to make right or true
that which is nearly familiar
and wrong or false, that which is only strange."
Now, the good news, and it is really good news, is that there is
every reason to believe that we can expand empathy's reach.
Despite major departures from the trend, most terribly in the 20th Century
the history of the human race
has been one of diminishing person-to-person violence.
Since the advent of modern civil rights
we've seen a revolution in social attitudes based on race, gender, sexuality.
Furthermore, real-time global media
brought the suffering of distant people into our living rooms
and immigration, emigration and foreign travel
all provide us with opportunities to put ourselves in other people's shoes.
There are reasons to ask whether the process of widening human empathy
has stalled, and at just the time when we need it to accelerate.
After 4 decades of post-war progress
levels of inequality have risen in the rich world.
Tensions between different ethnic groups persist
and have taken on new dimensions. Anti-immigrant sentiment has grown
arguably reflecting a failure by policy makers
to balance the imparities of globalisation and the idea of universalism
with the empathic capacity of the communities most affected by change.
From gangs to the impact of violent video games
there are worries about young people.
Globalisation and public deficits
may mean that future generations in the West
face tougher challenges than their parents.
So the stalk of global empathy upon which democratic leaders can draw
has to grow, if we are to reach agreements
which put the long-term needs of the whole planet
and all its people ahead of short term national concerns.
But the chain linking inter-personal, communal
and global scale empathy is complex.
Intellectuals, politicians and interest groups and think tanks
spend an enormous amount of time
debating what should be the content of universalism.
Which rights? Which entitlements? Which capabilities?
But shouldn't we perhaps just spend a little more time
exploring the foundation of universalist sentiment?
What is it that enhances, and what is it that diminishes
our empathic capacity?
Policy implications range from a
continued emphasis on the earliest child-rearing
to developing schools as intelligent communities
to exploring the way popular culture inclines us to think of other people.
For example, a culture which prized empathy
would be one which distinguished the healthy activity
of public disagreement from the unhealthy habit of public disparagement.
It's become a cliche that education
is the most valuable resource in a global knowledge economy.
I would argue that fostering empathic capacity is just as important
to achieving a world of citizens at peace with each other
and with themselves. But
even were we to have more self-aware and more empathic citizens
they would still face dilemmas and differences of opinion.
I want to encourage us to recognise that the question
"What is progress?" raises substantive and ethical questions
which we should be more willing to acknowledge
to honour and to debate how are we to make those decisions.
Of course, the utilitarian answer lies in maximizing human happiness
and if the progress is measured in those terms
we have done well since the Enlightenment. There is little doubt.
The poorest citizens of the developed world now have better health
longer life spans and many more resources and opportunities
than those who would have been considered well-off a century ago.
But sometimes
sometimes it feels as though the idea that
progress should be designed to increase happiness
has turned into the assumption that pursuing progress
is the same as improving human welfare.
The success of the Western post-Enlightenment project
has resulted in a society like ours being dominated by 3 logics:
The logic of science and technological progress
the logic of markets and the logic of bureaucracy
And the limits of the logic of science and of markets
lie in their indifference to a substantive concern for the general good.
If something can be discovered and developed, it should be discovered and developed.
If something can be solved, then it should be solved.
And the problem for bureaucracy is the tendency
to put the rationality of rules above the rationality of ends.
And so, it is in this context
that the 21st century Enlightenment project demands a re-assertion
of the fundamentally ethical dimension of humanism.
How can we make it easier to ask "Is this right?"
Is it to be a world where so many of us feel that the shape of our lives
is dictated not by the idea of a life fully lived
but by social convention and economic circumstances?
Why should we cram education into the first quarter of our lives
desperately balance work and caring in the 2nd and 3rd quarter
and then feel that we're going to suffer second class status
and the fear of neglect in the final quarter?
You see, rationality can tell us how best to get from A to Z
but without ethical reasoning, we cannot discuss where Z should be?
So what we aim for
can be as important to our well-being
as what we achieve.
As Michel Foucault says of Kant's own description of the Enlightenment
"It has to be conceived as an attitude, an ethos
a philosophical life in which the critique of what we are
is at one and the same time the historical analysis
of the limits that are imposed on us
and an experiment of the possibility of going beyond them.
To be responsible, to create a big society, to live sustainably
this not simply a matter of will.
The 21st Century Enlightenment calls for us to see past
simplistic and inadequate ideas of freedom, of justice, and of progress.
Perhaps it's time to stop chasing those myths
to stop being transfixed by abstractions
and instead to reconnect a concrete understanding
of who we are as human beings
to political debates about who we need to be
and philosophical and even spiritual exploration of
whom we might aspire to be.
Creative people who want to make a difference
have a million and one opportunities and distractions.
To engage them means an ethic which is intolerant to negativity
rigid thinking and self-promotion
and instead keeps people constantly in touch
with the words of the anthropologist Margaret Mead
true to the spirit which created the Enlightenment
true to the spirit which moved the founders of the RSA, 256 years ago.
Margaret Mead said simply this:
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens
can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."