Transcriber: Nguyen Truong Giang Reviewer: Tarek Mamdouh
I was 15 years old when I had to choose my special subjects for school.
“The best thing is to choose a natural sciences or health profile”
my teachers told me
“Beta sciences will prove to be the most useful for a successful career”
Moreover,
the cultural and social subjects were often referred to as relatively easy
or fun profiles.
So for years, I worked hard to pull off these beta-oriented subjects.
Beta sciences do not come naturally to me,
but I believed in the necessity of these subjects.
Currently, I'm a student. I'm a student at a conservatory in The Hague,
and I can assure you that I could have done that
without ever looking at science in my final years in high school.
Looking back, I think it’s a shame
that people always talk condescendingly about social
and cultural subjects.
In my opinion, they're at least equally important.
Today, I will talk about how important social and cultural sciences are.
I will start with a bit of history.
It’s the year 1986
and the Kenyan president Moi has read a novel.
In this novel, a certain Matigari returns back from the mountains
and wants to have a conversation with the president about whether or not
the ideas of independence of Kenya have actually been put into practice.
After reading this, president Moi
immediately instructed his national police force to hunt Matigari down.
However, the search fails,
it turns out Matigari was a fictional character from a novel written by
the novelist Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o.
Could still happen today? Could a fictional character have
so much effect in the real world?
I don't think so because we don't believe in the power of imagination anymore.
Today, I will argue why that is a dangerous development.
First, imagination can save the world.
There must be a reason to do the things we do,
and that reason is an imagined future,
not a future predicted by statistics or measurable data.
There cannot be future-proof decision making on the basis of
what we already know.
One needs to be able to imagine what might happen next.
Second. Imagination is the key to empathy.
And empathy is necessary to shape a sustainable future.
A novel about climate change or a documentary
which uses narrative techniques like ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ by Al Gore
are far more persuasive than statistics with abstract data.
Graphs can only change the world if there is someone who shows what they mean
in a convincing and an imaginative matter.
Imagination is powerful. Art and novels can start wars
or overthrow regimes by using a different kind of force.
Look, for instance, at the novel Max Havelaar by Multatuli.
This novel concludes with a letter to the Dutch King William III.
It’s a novel about the Dutch colonies, the Dutch East Indies.
In this letter, Multatuli requests a different attitude toward these colonies.
This was the start of a discussion about Dutch behavior in the Dutch East Indies.
Or consider the influence of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel
‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ had on the abolition of slavery in the United States.
During the Holocaust, between five and six million
Jewish people were murdered.
And although that number is shocking, it’s also inconceivable.
However, when we read a book or watch a movie that tells a story of one person
or one family in, for instance, Auschwitz, we can imagine the horror more intensely.
By telling you this, I want you to realize that when society is focused
on nothing but statistics and measurable data, the future becomes theoretical.
And what happens then is dangerous.
The discussion about immigration focuses on the number of people and the costs
instead of thinking about what possibilities people
might bring into society.
When we talk about climate,
the main issue is the financial burden on the short term as policy-makers
seem incapable to imagine a long-term future.
It’s like the famous quote of Kurt Tucholsky in an essay.
He talks about how the death of one man is a catastrophe,
and the death of millions is a statistic.
Biologist and philosopher E. O. Wilson calls for an equal significance of
the alpha, beta and gamma sciences.
He takes climate change as an example as well.
He believes that politicians can’t come to a solution
because these sciences are opposite to each other,
instead of in line with each other.
The recent Dutch election of
the Dutch parliament has once again shown how important the arts are.
The victory of the right wing populism cannot be separated from
the inhospitality in the world for renewal and development of the arts.
Art needs to be able to hold up a mirror to review and display society,
but also to criticize it.
Art needs to be able to force you to contemplate and to open your eyes.
Right wing politics tend to use mantra with everything in the past was better
and thus revert to ancient or classical art.
They might even say that human nature simply fits this old art better than
modern art does.
However, that kind of nostalgia leads to a standstill,
mythologizing an absolutization.
It's a painful proof of the lack of imagination that might open people's eyes
to the possibilities that something new is interesting and hopeful,
instead of threatening and expensive.
So we need to educate people into thinking from a different perspective
where art, culture and empathy are integral in society,
instead of a luxury, something easier and fun than sciences.
This process should begin at a very young age,
but especially plays an important role in secondary school.
I reckon that schools still have a long way to go in this area.
When we look, for instance, at a reading list for the subject of Dutch literature,
we almost always see the dominance of the traditional canon,
where the white male author is the most prominent.
I highly value this canon,
and I think it’s of great importance to become familiar with these traditions.
But tradition means “what do we know?”
And developing imagination means accepting what we do not yet know.
We need to go along with our time.
Obviously, novels by Elsholtz or plays by Shakespeare are of great importance.
But it's also important to create diversity when compiling reading lists.
Why is reading Antoine de Caunes or Toni Morrison not mandatory?
We need to go along with our time and give a broader perspective.
These developments are not limited to literature.
For instance, History,
we cannot only talk about a thriving economy during
the golden era of the Dutch republic.
We need to talk about slavery and institutional racism.
Social sciences,
we shouldn’t only need to know how many seats there are in parliament,
we should need to know how many of them are taken by women or people of colour.
Philosophy, of course, we need to learn about Plato,
but at a certain point his allegory of the cave is clear and we need
to shift focus to, for instance, philosophers from Asia or Africa
to give a broad perspective of the world and comparative philosophy.
And to become familiar with a different sort of imagination.
So, to current 15 years olds,
on the verge of making important decisions about school,
I would like to say:
consider studying something in the field of humanities.
Because to make future-proof decisions,
there's one thing that cannot be forgotten. Imagination.
With that being said, educational institutions still have a long way to go.
Educational institutions need to offer pupils several perspectives.
and provide equal representation.
In this way, we will pave the way towards a more empathetic society.
A society where imagination has power.
A world where our dictatorial presidents can be scared of a fictional character.
So I invite you to realize the power of imagination
because imagination is the key to empathy.
And empathy is necessary to shape a sustainable future.
Thank you.