Government isn’t there just to administer life support to failing markets. Without the government, many of those markets would not even exist.
I’ve been thinking that school, or certainly the traditional English public school model, is like a prison, in that you can’t get out and it is hierarchical. As a result they have a lot of bullying. On the other hand if you mix ages and academic ability this is less of a problem.
The real ‘Lord of the Flies’ is a tale of friendship and loyalty; one that illustrates how much stronger we are if we can lean on each other.
It’s actually more than 700 case studies that show that, especially in times of crisis, we show our best selves. And we get this explosion of altruism and cooperation. This happens again and again after natural disasters, after earthquakes and after floodings.
Our streets are very important for social cohesion, for feelings of safety, and we just surrendered all this to the car. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
We so often tend to think our democracies are ruled by procedures and laws, but they are also governed by implicit rules and assumptions and one of them is the ability to feel shame – that you can be shamed.
So I think that good journalism helps you to zoom out, to focus on the structural forces that govern our lives. And I think that good journalism is also not only about the problems, but also about the solutions, and the people who are working on these solutions.
Believing in the good of humanity is a revolutionary act – it means that we don’t need all those managers and CEO’s, kings and generals. That we can trust people to govern themselves and make their own decisions.
We know from scientific studies that infants as young as six months old can distinguish right from wrong and have a preference for the good over the bad. I think it’s important to design our education and our schools around that insight, to bring out the best in our kids.
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