Food for Thought: Is there a case for more pessimism?

This Food for Thought is not meant to be negative or dark, it is as always to challenge some of our thinking and behaviors, as we prepare our students for the future. Yesterday at the Grade 12 Graduation I centered my closing remark around the opportunities that COVID 19 will present for the Class of 2020 and that they should be optimistic about the future and become involved in making a better world.

"The last four months have changed our world and the pathway that you, the Class of 2020, will walk. COVID 19 has raised many questions about our future as a species, the way we live our lives, and the future we will face. No-one here knows how it will end up. I believe it is important that when you, the Class of 2020, reflect upon these days it is not only with sadness for the things that you have missed; gratitude for the way you have been kept safe, happiness at not having to take the IB Diploma examinations, but also optimism for the opportunities that will now be presented to you to make this a better world."

But was I right? Should I have talked about a more cautious approach, balancing optimism with the need for pessimism? In these two videos, there is much Food for Thought as we prepare students of all ages for their future.

This first video explains, "Why Good Societies are Pessimistic." “It might be normal to imagine that a good society would be one in which a majority of people held optimistic views about themselves, their fellow citizens, and their prospects for their collective futures.

But, in fact, quite the opposite appears to be true: deep pessimism seems a key ingredient for the maintenance of any good society…”

The second video is given by "Yale World Fellow Alexander Evans OBE is a British diplomat, academic and expert on Pakistan in 2011. He is a counselor in the British diplomatic service and a visiting senior research fellow at King's College London. He is currently working in Washington DC as a senior advisor to Ambassador Marc Grossman, the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (and formerly to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke until his death in December 2010). He has previously served as a British diplomat in Pakistan and India and as a member of the U.K.'s policy planning staff. Before joining the Foreign Office Alexander was research director at Policy Exchange and director of studies at the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation, both London think-tanks. He has contributed to books and periodicals including Foreign Affairs and from 2006-2010 held a fellowship at Nuffield College, Oxford. "

Food for Thought: After COVID 19

This week's Food for Thought is two videos that look at life after COVID. The first is two leading journalists from the Economist answering a few questions that I'm sure you have thought about. The second is a conversation between Yuval Harari and the TV programme Hardtalk that touches on even deeper questions about humanity in the future.

The coronavirus pandemic has presented humanity with an almighty shock. Our evermore interconnected and technologically advanced societies are now in lockdown and we are fearful of our health and economic futures thanks to an invisible virus. HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to the Israeli historian and best-selling author Yuval Noah Harari. What 21st-century lesson can we draw from the spread of Covid-19?

Food for Thought: COVID 19, control or freedom?

Although I don't particularly like the term 'new normal' it is very likely that as the world reopens after COVID19 there will be changes in the way we live our lives that even 6 months ago we may not have expected, or accepted. Many of my Food for Thoughts over the past few years have talked about AI its impact on us, and the next generation. I believe that the rate at which AI will enter our lives will have been accelerated by the COVID pandemic. 

The first video focuses on the different approaches to the pandemic situation taken by Chinese and US society and their acceptance of authority whilst the second discusses the dangers of the erosion of freedom that we are allowing to happen as systems like face recognition become more and more every day in our societies. Hopefully, you are thinking about this and where you will draw the line about allowing AI into your life or perhaps even into your body in the future, as pressure will mount to track us and our health for the 'greater good of society.'

"To combat COVID-19, countries have enforced city-wide shutdowns, stay-at-home orders, and mask mandates -- but the reaction (and adherence) to these rules have differed markedly in the East and West. In conversation with TED's head of curation Helen Walters, writer, and publisher Huang Hung sheds light on how Chinese and American cultural values shaped their responses to the outbreak -- and provides perspective on why everyone needs to come together to end the pandemic. (Recorded April 16, 2020)"

"Privacy isn't dead, but face surveillance technology might kill it, says civil rights advocate Kade Crockford. In an eye-opening talk, Kade outlines the startling reasons why this invasive technology -- powered by often-flawed facial recognition databases that track people without their knowledge -- poses unprecedented threats to your fundamental rights. Learn what can be done to ban government use before it's too late."

Food for Thought: Albert Camus

Last week's food for Thought was deliberately provocative and I hope that those who read it and watched Michael Moore's new documentary film were left with questions that need answering. This week's Food for Thought will I hope, make you think and ask questions but if a different way.

Unfortunately, I have never been a reader of literary classics. I was put off reading early on in my secondary school education by an arrogant English teacher who was sarcastic and very egotistical. He took great pleasure in sarcasm and cynicism when embarrassing students for their mistakes. Hence, following an incident in class when I was picked on by this teacher, in the English equivalent to Grade 6, I stopped reading for almost 30 years. In the last 20 years, I regained an interest in reading about education, school, and today about what great minds think about the future. My interest in understanding through reading has returned. 

,

During this period of lockdown, I had time, as I will have when I retire this summer, and I was introduced to the thinking and work of Albert Camus through a Youtube video and this NY Times article that I was sent. I managed to find a copy of The Plague, and read it. I was amazed at how so many of the events and feelings in this book matched the way we have reacted to COVID 19. Here is the video that made me want to read Camus's book.

Having enjoyed his writing and it's scarily predictive nature, and in many ways accurate insight into human behaviour, I looked for more Camus to read and discovered this work that formed the substance for his lecture tour of the United States, The Human Crisis. Written following the 2ndWW it too contains thoughts that we would be wise to consider as we reshape our present world. Here is this Viggo Mortensen, of Lord of The Rings fame reading Camus's lecture as part of the 70 years celebration of that lecture tour.

As a school, we have focused on positive emotions. Following the crisis of COVID 19, there are many people both here in Vietnam and at home that we need to be grateful for their actions and work. Albert Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957 and his response was to write this to one of his elementary school teachers:

"I don't make too much of this sort of honour” but “at least it gives me the opportunity to tell you what you have been and still are for me, and to assure you that your efforts, your work, and the generous heart you put into it still live in one of your little schoolboys who, despite the years, has never stopped being your grateful pupil.”