1 00:00:03,050 --> 00:00:06,350 Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. What a pleasure to see you all here this evening. 2 00:00:06,350 --> 00:00:14,600 Welcome to the 2024 Lecture on Human Values at Oxford University, hosted by Linacre College. 3 00:00:15,770 --> 00:00:19,190 The Tanner lectures are now in their 46th year. 4 00:00:20,410 --> 00:00:28,629 They were established by an American scholar, industrialist and philanthropist, Hubert Clark Tanner, and in creating the lectures, 5 00:00:28,630 --> 00:00:36,070 professor Tanner said, I hope these lectures will contribute to the intellectual and moral life of mankind. 6 00:00:36,100 --> 00:00:41,680 I see them simply as a search for a better understanding of human behaviour and human values. 7 00:00:42,890 --> 00:00:47,570 Appointment as a Tanner lecturer is a recognition of exceptional. 8 00:00:47,570 --> 00:00:53,750 Distinguished. Of exceptional the distinguished and important scholarship in the field of human values. 9 00:00:53,960 --> 00:01:00,230 And that description is fully justified in the case of tonight's lecture, professor Jean-Marie grey. 10 00:01:00,230 --> 00:01:10,730 I know he has held many senior positions during his long and distinguished career spanning peacekeeping, international security and defence policy. 11 00:01:11,660 --> 00:01:20,750 He is a graduate of the École Normale Supérieure, and the Institute visited politique and the École Nacional de d'Administration, 12 00:01:21,740 --> 00:01:29,810 and after illustrious postings as a French civil servant and diplomat, uh diplomat, both for France as well as within the UN, 13 00:01:30,380 --> 00:01:38,930 um, he served as a United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations from the year 2000 until the year 2008, 14 00:01:39,500 --> 00:01:47,030 leading those operations at a time of the greatest expansion of peacekeeping in the history of the United Nations. 15 00:01:48,590 --> 00:01:58,520 In 2012, Professor Equiano took on the role of Deputy Joint Special Envoy at the United Nations and the League of Arab States in Syria with Nasser, 16 00:01:58,520 --> 00:02:03,979 Al Qaeda, and Kofi Annan. In 2021, 17 00:02:03,980 --> 00:02:08,780 Professor Reno was appointed as the inaugural Kent Visiting Professor of Conflict 18 00:02:08,780 --> 00:02:13,520 Resolution at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. 19 00:02:14,450 --> 00:02:18,080 He's also a senior fellow of the Brookings Institution. 20 00:02:20,360 --> 00:02:25,939 The subject of Professor Gwynn, whose lecture tonight is The Future of War and Peace. 21 00:02:25,940 --> 00:02:29,780 And this is a subject, of course, of outstanding importance. 22 00:02:31,190 --> 00:02:39,139 This, the second decade of the 21st century, has a dismal record, with seemingly permanent wars now in several parts of our world, 23 00:02:39,140 --> 00:02:44,570 particularly Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan, and new wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. 24 00:02:45,460 --> 00:02:51,490 Last year's saw 59 countries involved in war, the highest total since World War two. 25 00:02:52,510 --> 00:02:58,569 Since the 21st century began. War has cost humanity never so much as in this. 26 00:02:58,570 --> 00:03:10,300 This last 21 years. The number of conflicts deaths almost doubled in 2022 compared to the previous year, and war cost in excess of $17 trillion. 27 00:03:12,160 --> 00:03:19,690 War shatters the very foundation of human values, eroding empathy, compassion, and respect for life. 28 00:03:20,720 --> 00:03:28,970 In its wake. It leaves not just physical destruction, but a deep moral and emotional void that challenges the essence of our shared humanity. 29 00:03:29,960 --> 00:03:35,000 I am sure that Professor Robert Tanner would have shared my view that the subject of 30 00:03:35,000 --> 00:03:40,610 tonight's lecture on human values is one of the most important that we could have chosen. 31 00:03:41,270 --> 00:03:44,270 Please join me in welcoming professor Jean-Marie Guion. Who? 32 00:03:59,610 --> 00:04:01,260 Well, thank you for your kind words. 33 00:04:02,010 --> 00:04:14,010 The topic am about to address the future of war and peace is very much linked to my experience as head of Peacekeeping at the United Nations. 34 00:04:14,580 --> 00:04:24,690 That is when I became acutely aware that peaceful societies are fragile flowers that need and that peace needs to be nurtured. 35 00:04:25,380 --> 00:04:31,890 Today, from Ukraine to Palestine, from Myanmar to Sudan. 36 00:04:33,010 --> 00:04:36,909 The world seems to be unravelling. International law. 37 00:04:36,910 --> 00:04:42,760 International humanitarian law. Basic principles of humanity are being torn apart. 38 00:04:44,260 --> 00:04:53,370 I'm not going to address the specificities of any of those conflicts, but I would like to explore the broader, 39 00:04:53,380 --> 00:05:02,350 some of the broader forces that shape war and peace in the coming decades and that shape them today. 40 00:05:03,220 --> 00:05:08,530 There are times when we are not aware that big societal changes are brewing. 41 00:05:09,160 --> 00:05:17,080 Often, it is only in hindsight that we realise the importance of a transformative event. 42 00:05:17,740 --> 00:05:25,930 That is not the case today. There is a widespread perception that we are on the cusp of immense changes, 43 00:05:26,410 --> 00:05:33,550 and as if that were not enough changes that are happening on three interconnected fronts. 44 00:05:34,540 --> 00:05:44,140 The first front is technology and the data revolution that is taking place to understand the importance of the present moment. 45 00:05:44,800 --> 00:05:53,170 We should think of the impact of two past revolutionary moments the invention of the printing press and the industrial revolution. 46 00:05:53,830 --> 00:05:58,000 What is happening today combines aspects of both. 47 00:05:58,750 --> 00:06:03,820 But while the impact of past revolutions unfolded over several centuries, 48 00:06:04,390 --> 00:06:14,020 the pace of the ongoing revolution is faster by orders of magnitude, and we have to think in terms of decades rather than centuries. 49 00:06:14,740 --> 00:06:27,370 This acceleration is all the more important, as the consequences of the consequences of this revolution are filled throughout societies, 50 00:06:27,850 --> 00:06:36,310 the foundations of authority and legitimacy, and, crucially, the very fabric of societies are all being profoundly affected. 51 00:06:36,910 --> 00:06:40,390 And the speed of these transformations matters. 52 00:06:40,810 --> 00:06:49,750 Political institutions are always slow moving constructs, and they are unlikely to adapt at the same pace. 53 00:06:50,320 --> 00:06:59,350 And that gap between a fast changing world and institution that inevitably evolve at a slow pace as strategic implications. 54 00:07:00,330 --> 00:07:03,360 The second front is the geopolitical front. 55 00:07:04,140 --> 00:07:09,540 The technological revolution born in the West is transforming the world, 56 00:07:10,260 --> 00:07:17,970 but it is happening at the very moment when the West is losing the capacity to shape the global narrative. 57 00:07:18,690 --> 00:07:27,690 What happens when the rest of the world no longer acknowledges the pre-eminence of the Western democracies, are seen to be in crisis? 58 00:07:28,530 --> 00:07:41,010 The Third front is the global crisis of politics, a crisis in which globalisation, technology and the demise of ideologies all play a part. 59 00:07:41,550 --> 00:07:48,120 How do individuals who feel deprived of collective agencies regain that agency? 60 00:07:49,020 --> 00:07:52,800 These questions are relevant for the future of war and peace. 61 00:07:53,580 --> 00:08:01,020 Half a century ago, the great Oxford historian Michael Howard wrote a little book, War in European History. 62 00:08:01,740 --> 00:08:08,190 His key insight was that war is always a reflection of the societies that wage it. 63 00:08:08,700 --> 00:08:13,560 From the ninth of the Middle Ages to the mass conscription of the 20th century. 64 00:08:14,130 --> 00:08:20,520 War has been a magnifier through which we can better understand the transformations of society. 65 00:08:21,360 --> 00:08:25,050 Michael Howard wrote his book in the Middle of the Cold War, 66 00:08:25,560 --> 00:08:30,270 when nuclear deterrence both concentrated power in the hands of the heads of state who could push the 67 00:08:30,270 --> 00:08:37,710 button and impacted whole societies as each of us became the potential victim of a nuclear holocaust. 68 00:08:38,580 --> 00:08:43,590 The epilogue of his book, written a quarter of a century after its first edition, 69 00:08:44,220 --> 00:08:50,010 reflected on the intrastate wars that characterised the immediate post-Cold War period. 70 00:08:50,550 --> 00:08:57,450 But it could not anticipate what has happened since. And the new chapter definitely needs to be written. 71 00:08:58,590 --> 00:09:02,430 I don't have the ambition to write that new chapter today, 72 00:09:02,910 --> 00:09:14,790 but only to analyse the possible effects on societies resulting from the transform from the transformative events now occurring. 73 00:09:15,420 --> 00:09:23,190 In doing so, I will assume here that humanity will manage to avoid catastrophic outcomes like 74 00:09:23,190 --> 00:09:27,570 survival threats due to the acceleration of climate change or nuclear war. 75 00:09:28,830 --> 00:09:35,700 So I will first address the revolution of the internet and data in the data age. 76 00:09:36,330 --> 00:09:42,000 I will then analyse the malaise of the West and what is unprecedented in it. 77 00:09:42,540 --> 00:09:50,280 And third, I would explore beyond the West what in my view, is a more global crisis of politics. 78 00:09:50,700 --> 00:09:59,620 Lastly. While I will not have the audacity to anticipate our future because I believe we have agency and that nothing is preordained. 79 00:10:00,250 --> 00:10:06,670 I will look at various possible futures, each with their own types of war and peace. 80 00:10:08,320 --> 00:10:15,220 Let me first analyse what the internet revolution means for our societies and focus on two 81 00:10:15,250 --> 00:10:23,200 major transformation the reorganisation of societies and the redistribution of power, 82 00:10:23,950 --> 00:10:28,420 both of which contribute to the current democratic crisis. 83 00:10:29,560 --> 00:10:33,940 We are people of flesh and blood, and as I was, space. 84 00:10:34,890 --> 00:10:37,950 Is the physical space. We have neighbours. 85 00:10:38,610 --> 00:10:40,860 Our reason is a physical horizon. 86 00:10:41,460 --> 00:10:52,350 And for centuries, the history, uh, and the history of international politics has been the history of how we structure that physical space. 87 00:10:52,920 --> 00:11:01,500 Gradually, as nomad hunter gatherers were replaced by send entry, farmers and villages and cities began to structure the space. 88 00:11:02,190 --> 00:11:11,490 The delimitation of territory became more important, and the struggle for control of a particular piece of land led to innumerable wars. 89 00:11:12,270 --> 00:11:15,870 That process was spread over millennia. 90 00:11:16,530 --> 00:11:21,710 And for many centuries, the correlation between the. 91 00:11:22,750 --> 00:11:27,430 People and territory was much fuzzier than it is now. 92 00:11:28,300 --> 00:11:32,080 The world of nation states with precise border, 93 00:11:32,080 --> 00:11:40,540 clearly defining the extent of a political authority and determining citizenship is actually quite recent. 94 00:11:41,140 --> 00:11:45,250 But it structures the international system as we know it, 95 00:11:45,250 --> 00:11:50,920 and it has become an essential dimension of our societies that may be about to 96 00:11:50,920 --> 00:11:56,620 change the world of territorially defined communities with which we are familiar. 97 00:11:57,190 --> 00:12:03,460 It's not going to disappear, but it has to face the competition of the virtual space, 98 00:12:04,150 --> 00:12:16,090 which decisively threatens territorial entities and amplifies trends that preceded the internet and were already weakening territorial communities. 99 00:12:16,540 --> 00:12:19,720 Those trends are well known, and I will not dwell on them. 100 00:12:19,900 --> 00:12:27,280 Economic globalisation has created a level of inter interdependence that limits the capacity of nation states, 101 00:12:27,280 --> 00:12:33,460 even the most powerful ones, to shape their own future independently while migrating migrations. 102 00:12:33,940 --> 00:12:42,310 Even though states try to erect barriers to movement of population, making societies less homogeneous and more diverse, 103 00:12:42,640 --> 00:12:47,470 weakening the connections between human communities and the territory where they live. 104 00:12:48,040 --> 00:12:52,600 Nations are less and less bound by a shared past. 105 00:12:53,350 --> 00:13:00,270 In that context, where citizens have reason to question the agency of national politics and where 106 00:13:00,280 --> 00:13:05,470 national identity is based on the shared history are becoming less relevant. 107 00:13:06,340 --> 00:13:15,940 The virtual communities of the internet are becoming formidable competitors of the old territorial communities. 108 00:13:17,290 --> 00:13:28,059 This has far reaching consequences on the way human communities are for the possibility of connecting and meeting, 109 00:13:28,060 --> 00:13:32,500 regardless of proximity, is a remarkable progress. 110 00:13:33,370 --> 00:13:41,320 It allows small groups interested in a small topic to compensate for their smallness with their global reach, 111 00:13:41,830 --> 00:13:45,820 which helps them reach a critical size that would otherwise be unattainable. 112 00:13:46,510 --> 00:13:55,000 It allows for valuable dialogues between people who otherwise would not even know about their respective existences. 113 00:13:55,450 --> 00:13:58,120 That is good for the progress of knowledge, 114 00:13:58,810 --> 00:14:07,750 and also for small groups who keep alive a dialect or an interest that would otherwise die for lack of critical support. 115 00:14:08,860 --> 00:14:13,930 Emotionally, such communities of choice are reassuring. 116 00:14:14,530 --> 00:14:20,470 They provide psychological comfort to people who otherwise might feel very lonely. 117 00:14:21,490 --> 00:14:31,450 Virtual communities are communities in which you meet people who resemble you, who have the same interests and the same passions. 118 00:14:32,260 --> 00:14:38,380 That is a pleasant feeling, and it is innocuous when it brings together people who have an innocuous passion. 119 00:14:39,760 --> 00:14:47,740 But it can also be dangerous, as it avoids the anxiety of the unexpected and the discomfort of disagreement. 120 00:14:48,490 --> 00:14:59,920 It carries the risk of creating a feedback loop in which you are continuously reinforced in your own views, not to say your prejudices. 121 00:15:01,180 --> 00:15:09,190 Another major difference between the communities of the virtual world and the communities that exist in the 122 00:15:09,190 --> 00:15:15,280 traditional three dimensional world is that they can grow without much interaction with other communities, 123 00:15:15,940 --> 00:15:27,820 further increasing the risk of radicalisation. Launching a political party or a movement in the physical space requires organising meetings, 124 00:15:28,120 --> 00:15:32,920 public demonstrations, events where you will be challenged by contractors. 125 00:15:33,550 --> 00:15:39,820 It is a painfully slow process where you caught ridicule when you speak in front of an empty room, 126 00:15:40,390 --> 00:15:47,950 and the few show up to speak may then be discouraged by their lack of success, making further progress even more difficult. 127 00:15:48,820 --> 00:15:54,520 The virtual world works in a different way because it escapes the constraints of space. 128 00:15:55,390 --> 00:15:58,510 Small numbers initially matter much less. 129 00:15:59,290 --> 00:16:07,900 You may be a handful, a handful of militants in your own town, but you commune with another handful of militants a few hundred miles away, 130 00:16:08,650 --> 00:16:12,670 and it is much easier to exclude the voices of those who disagree. 131 00:16:13,570 --> 00:16:21,160 A special kind of intimacy and virtual closeness develops among Like-minded participants. 132 00:16:22,770 --> 00:16:25,260 Which allows for the growth of the groups, 133 00:16:26,370 --> 00:16:34,050 like an underground river that gathers subterranean waters and burst to the surface only once it has reached a certain size. 134 00:16:34,860 --> 00:16:37,889 Virtual communities, like secret societies, 135 00:16:37,890 --> 00:16:45,420 can grow and prosper in the virtual world before bursting out in the open once they have achieved the critical mass. 136 00:16:46,200 --> 00:16:55,980 That is why we keep being surprised by movements that seem to come from nowhere, but have in fact, quietly gathered strength away from the public eye. 137 00:16:57,000 --> 00:17:05,310 Being almost invisible has facilitated their growth because they are marginality which could have hurt. 138 00:17:05,640 --> 00:17:09,990 Recruitment was also invisible until it was not. 139 00:17:11,010 --> 00:17:17,370 That makes societies more brittle, more unpredictable, and less resilient. 140 00:17:18,120 --> 00:17:26,640 Transnational or subnational solidarities can become stronger than a weakening, inherited sense of territorial belonging. 141 00:17:27,420 --> 00:17:31,920 The proximity of emotions begins to matter more than the proximity of geography, 142 00:17:32,850 --> 00:17:38,400 and insulting a virtual adversary is easier than insulting a neighbour. 143 00:17:39,360 --> 00:17:48,120 But before you know it, the brutal harshness of the virtual world contaminates the physical world. 144 00:17:48,120 --> 00:17:50,160 And we have example of that every day. 145 00:17:51,030 --> 00:17:58,440 At the same time as the internet revolutionises the way communities define themselves and interact with each other, 146 00:17:59,220 --> 00:18:01,590 it also redistributes wealth and power. 147 00:18:02,530 --> 00:18:13,540 That second revolution is as important as the first, and maybe comparable in its economic and political impact to the Industrial Revolution. 148 00:18:14,540 --> 00:18:17,059 It is as momentous as the Industrial Revolution, 149 00:18:17,060 --> 00:18:23,000 but it is happening much faster and is already visible in the market value of the five biggest data company Apple, 150 00:18:23,000 --> 00:18:31,760 Microsoft, alphabet, Amazon and meta, which has more than $7 trillion, represent close to one fifth of the American stock market. 151 00:18:32,630 --> 00:18:42,260 What is the source of their wealth? At a superficial level, the giant data companies which harvest data on us all, suspected of owning us, 152 00:18:42,710 --> 00:18:47,780 of dispossessing us, of our identities and secrets which we unwittingly share with them. 153 00:18:48,290 --> 00:18:53,930 Their wealth is us. The giant data companies harvest the data which we unwittingly shared. 154 00:18:54,290 --> 00:19:05,090 Then we are like the industrial workers of the 19th century, who, for lack of collective organisation, were exploited by their capitalist masters. 155 00:19:06,110 --> 00:19:09,800 The new data masters exploit, so to speak, our data. 156 00:19:10,340 --> 00:19:18,719 As the industrial of the 90 of the industrialists of the 19th century extracted the value of their workers to increase their wealth, 157 00:19:18,720 --> 00:19:27,290 set in an imbalance relationship of power. And indeed, as we impatiently tick the boxes authorising that capture. 158 00:19:27,860 --> 00:19:35,300 We are the victims of a somewhat unequal exchange in which privacy is traded for convenience. 159 00:19:36,260 --> 00:19:41,719 We have learned from the Industrial Revolution that the dissemination of a technology that generates 160 00:19:41,720 --> 00:19:46,970 more wealth and power does not guarantee that the new wealth will be equitably distributed. 161 00:19:47,900 --> 00:19:55,580 On the contrary, the 19th century was characterised by concentration of wealth within countries and between countries. 162 00:19:56,360 --> 00:20:02,360 Will the data revolution follow a similar path in the past? 163 00:20:03,080 --> 00:20:11,660 Organised labour helped create a less imbalanced relationship between the owners of capital and the workforce. 164 00:20:12,470 --> 00:20:15,740 The problem we face today is very different. 165 00:20:16,520 --> 00:20:25,400 The imbalance is not primarily between the data companies and their workers, but between on the one and us, the data generators. 166 00:20:25,970 --> 00:20:30,260 And on the other hand, two categories of data collectors corporations. 167 00:20:31,190 --> 00:20:34,670 But also states that collect and manage data. 168 00:20:35,720 --> 00:20:45,290 These two categories of data collectors are equally formidable, but we have greater fear of state control than of corporate control. 169 00:20:46,100 --> 00:20:55,760 Our mindset is shaped by the experience of police states opening letters and snooping on our phone calls, and indeed states and public institutions, 170 00:20:56,510 --> 00:20:59,870 if they are capable, if they are able, uh, 171 00:20:59,870 --> 00:21:08,080 to consolidate the multiple sources of data they directly collect on citizens, from tax records to health information. 172 00:21:08,270 --> 00:21:16,490 In a position of great power, if, in addition, they have the legal authority to access data collected by private actors. 173 00:21:17,180 --> 00:21:20,390 Then their power control becomes truly formidable. 174 00:21:20,900 --> 00:21:25,220 In a world where every action live leaves an indelible trace. 175 00:21:26,420 --> 00:21:36,050 That concentration power has a very different impact in democracies and in authoritarian regimes, in authoritarian regimes. 176 00:21:36,590 --> 00:21:45,620 It increases the capacity of the state not only to repress its people, but also its capacity to shape hearts and minds. 177 00:21:46,310 --> 00:21:55,700 Autocratic regimes not only can control their population more efficiently through digital surveillance, but they can also manipulate them, 178 00:21:56,300 --> 00:22:05,240 eventually moving from repression to a form of preventative mind control that would make repression redundant. 179 00:22:06,190 --> 00:22:14,770 In those regimes. The brave new world of Aldous Huxley would replace the terrifying world of George Orwell. 180 00:22:15,850 --> 00:22:22,450 The potential power that corporations may derive from the management of data is no less threatening. 181 00:22:23,170 --> 00:22:35,200 A growing share of the value of major data corporations lies in their capacity to attract data generators, and then to manage the data they generate. 182 00:22:35,800 --> 00:22:42,100 What they monetise is actually their newfound power, the power to reach and keep an ever growing base of data generators, 183 00:22:42,640 --> 00:22:50,800 the power to sort them, and eventually the power to control and eventually to shape their thoughts and choices. 184 00:22:51,580 --> 00:22:57,850 The response of regulators is to protect the individual whose free choice must be safeguarded. 185 00:22:58,540 --> 00:23:07,300 Requesting the consent of the data generators and strengthening competition policy are, at this stage, the two main tools of Western democracies. 186 00:23:07,780 --> 00:23:20,830 They both have serious limitations. In democracies, the age of data is not, for the moment, ushering and ushering in a new age of libertarian freedom. 187 00:23:21,490 --> 00:23:28,899 It shrinks this shared public space and fractured fractures the polity as ever 188 00:23:28,900 --> 00:23:35,620 more sophisticated algorithms consolidate increasingly homogeneous groups, 189 00:23:35,920 --> 00:23:43,390 where the amplification of one's own opinions replaces the civil confrontation of different ideas. 190 00:23:44,140 --> 00:23:54,940 It also creates an illusion of permanent, direct democracy, as every individual can now be editor of his own news like, 191 00:23:54,940 --> 00:24:04,300 as they say, a post expressive view on a product or an opinion in a way voting at every instant of life. 192 00:24:05,590 --> 00:24:12,430 But it is a democracy where adjudication replaces deliberation. 193 00:24:13,300 --> 00:24:19,360 Lastly, at the very moment when democratic institutions appear, because of that antiquated, 194 00:24:19,960 --> 00:24:26,440 these enormous imbalances of power generate increased demand for some sort of accountability. 195 00:24:27,220 --> 00:24:29,740 That is where the growing gap that I mentioned, 196 00:24:29,740 --> 00:24:38,260 between the pace of technological progress and the pace of political transformation, has devastating consequences for democracies. 197 00:24:38,860 --> 00:24:46,510 In the end, the individual of the 21st century, far from being the powerful agent of his life. 198 00:24:47,420 --> 00:24:52,940 May discover too late that he has been turned into a data point. 199 00:24:53,660 --> 00:25:01,070 He has lost control, and democratic institutions seem incapable of giving it back. 200 00:25:03,030 --> 00:25:07,410 Let me now turn to the geopolitical front. 201 00:25:08,340 --> 00:25:18,660 And describe how the geopolitical shifts that we are observing amplify the impact of the data revolution on democracies. 202 00:25:19,170 --> 00:25:24,840 And let me immediately clarify that the geopolitical shift that we are witnessing is, 203 00:25:24,840 --> 00:25:29,400 in my view, of a much more radical nature than what is usually discussed. 204 00:25:30,420 --> 00:25:41,640 It has become almost a cliché to describe the phase of history that we are entering as a transition from the American century to the Asian century. 205 00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:51,480 And today, the discussion focussed primarily on the evolution of China and the evolving balance of power between China and the West. 206 00:25:52,020 --> 00:25:58,049 That question is indeed legitimate and important, but it misses what is, in my view, 207 00:25:58,050 --> 00:26:02,790 a more radical question than distinguishes our world from the past period. 208 00:26:03,790 --> 00:26:14,110 The West no longer shapes the narrative of the world, and there is no cohesive narrative today to replace it. 209 00:26:14,980 --> 00:26:27,730 The world as we know it has been shaped by a very small number of European countries that 500 years ago embarked on a global conquest. 210 00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:30,730 Their motivations were multiple. 211 00:26:31,390 --> 00:26:39,070 There was greed, the dream of accessing the spices of India, which gave way to the feverish mining of the gold and silver of the Americas, 212 00:26:39,610 --> 00:26:43,030 and then the plantations economy, which grew thanks to the slave trade. 213 00:26:43,750 --> 00:26:53,320 There was also human curiosity, the insatiable appetite to map every corner of our planet, to catalogue every plant, every form of life. 214 00:26:53,890 --> 00:27:03,790 And while some ships transported slaves from Africa to the Americas, exploratory expeditions of Mugabe the cook included naturalists and geometers. 215 00:27:04,510 --> 00:27:14,380 The spirit of individualism generated competition and produced rapacious colonialists eager to enrich themselves, 216 00:27:15,010 --> 00:27:22,330 but also enlightened scientists who invented the idea of means of encyclopaedic knowledge. 217 00:27:23,620 --> 00:27:29,020 What they all shared was a universalist understanding of the world. 218 00:27:29,740 --> 00:27:36,900 They started roaming the oceans at the very moment when the Chinese empire was abandoning its naval ambition, 219 00:27:36,910 --> 00:27:40,450 content with collecting the tributes of its neighbours. 220 00:27:41,140 --> 00:27:49,210 The rivalries between European powers. None had the dominant position comparable to China precluded such retreats. 221 00:27:49,750 --> 00:27:52,930 A single European empire was never an option. 222 00:27:53,650 --> 00:28:00,490 The horizon of European power had to be the world, and they were in competition to take possession of it. 223 00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:11,050 That competition tells a story of violence and immense brutality, extermination of local populations, slavery, colonialism. 224 00:28:11,710 --> 00:28:18,790 For centuries, the Europeans could hide the dark side of their past and impose their narrative. 225 00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:23,920 The Western world was at the vanguard of progress, and the rest of the world just had to follow. 226 00:28:24,910 --> 00:28:33,910 Europeans could promote the ninth story of the civilising mission of the white man, and the rest of the world did not have enough power to reject it. 227 00:28:34,600 --> 00:28:42,220 That story has died, and the history of the last half millennium is being thoroughly re-evaluated. 228 00:28:42,970 --> 00:28:51,670 Does Europe, oh, its early entry in the industrial age to India through its ingenuity or to its ruthless exploitation of the world? 229 00:28:52,330 --> 00:29:01,930 We used to believe, and most of the world accepted that story, that the inquisitive spirit of the individual was what brought us all so far. 230 00:29:02,830 --> 00:29:12,400 That is no longer accepted, and the rest of the world now has enough self-confidence to promote another story. 231 00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:19,240 The story in which Europe and the Western world owe their success to their crimes, not their ingenuity. 232 00:29:20,230 --> 00:29:25,810 The light that the Western world was supposed to shine is flickering. 233 00:29:26,680 --> 00:29:37,690 That has geopolitical consequences, because it destroys the self-respect and confidence that were an indispensable component, 234 00:29:39,060 --> 00:29:47,800 component, and part of the dynamism of the West. The West was proud, not always for the right reasons of its path. 235 00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:51,670 It is increasingly embarrassed by it. 236 00:29:52,570 --> 00:29:56,200 It used to talk patronisingly about fragile states. 237 00:29:57,040 --> 00:30:05,500 Those states, usually products of decolonisation that had not yet graduated to the stability of mature states, 238 00:30:05,830 --> 00:30:08,440 consolidated by centuries of a shared history. 239 00:30:08,890 --> 00:30:15,430 It commiserated with countries that had inherited artificial borders imposed by their former colonial masters, 240 00:30:15,430 --> 00:30:21,130 and was struggling to bring together people divided by conflicting tribal allegiances. 241 00:30:21,700 --> 00:30:23,020 As for the Europeans, 242 00:30:23,740 --> 00:30:30,730 they proudly asserted that they had enough self-confidence in their in their own subtle national identities to look beyond their borders, 243 00:30:31,330 --> 00:30:37,960 embracing a larger European identity, that identity that did not erase their national identities. 244 00:30:38,500 --> 00:30:48,640 That is no longer always the case. The West is unsure of its own identity and questions its own relationship with the rest of the world. 245 00:30:49,090 --> 00:30:55,540 What does it bring to it? What are the ideas beliefs for which it is willing to fight? 246 00:30:56,170 --> 00:31:02,860 The fact is that the West has increasing difficulties in telling a convincing story. 247 00:31:03,010 --> 00:31:08,720 Of the world, in part because it is not convinced by its own story the West. 248 00:31:08,740 --> 00:31:12,850 The rest of the world senses that malaise and reinforces it. 249 00:31:13,390 --> 00:31:22,960 What a revenge to be in a position to accuse instead of being accused to celebrate one's past, instead of having one's history written by others. 250 00:31:23,590 --> 00:31:32,350 Billions of people who were in the dominated part of the world kind can't avoid an an exhilarating schadenfreude 251 00:31:32,350 --> 00:31:38,910 when they see their former masters falling from their pedestal and no longer in a position to shape the narrative. 252 00:31:38,930 --> 00:31:47,530 The world of the world. That schadenfreude manifests itself in many ways which keeps surprising the West the lukewarm, 253 00:31:47,770 --> 00:31:50,800 the lukewarm condemnation of the Russian aggression in Ukraine, 254 00:31:51,460 --> 00:31:53,890 or of the terrorist attacks against Israel, 255 00:31:54,280 --> 00:32:00,550 which contrasts with the global outcry generated by the devastating Israeli response unleashed against the Palestinians. 256 00:32:01,330 --> 00:32:10,180 That does not mean that the majority of the world is not supportive of naked aggression or of the atrocities of terrorism, 257 00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:19,330 but many are not unhappy that the powerful West is eventually having to face the violence 258 00:32:19,870 --> 00:32:24,910 that for many centuries it could inflict on other without having to suffer the consequences. 259 00:32:25,720 --> 00:32:32,530 This goes much deeper than the familiar and often justified accusation of double standards. 260 00:32:33,340 --> 00:32:41,380 Much of the world is metaphorically singing the ballad that was composed after the to the death of George Floyd in the United States. 261 00:32:41,410 --> 00:32:47,680 Let me breathe. That cry is not going to end any time soon, 262 00:32:48,310 --> 00:32:55,990 because its origins are not in any contemporary event over which the West has any control, but in the memories of the past. 263 00:32:56,590 --> 00:33:04,120 A past that was unfair, as unfair as a resentment that will target the West for years to come. 264 00:33:04,840 --> 00:33:07,260 The rest of the world complains about the demos. 265 00:33:07,360 --> 00:33:15,220 The double standards of the West and the West is equally frustrated by what it sees as the double standards of the rest of the world. 266 00:33:15,910 --> 00:33:20,050 Double standards and contradictions are not new, and in international affairs, 267 00:33:20,500 --> 00:33:25,900 it's not so long ago that the leader of the free world was a friend of Pinochet, another dictators. 268 00:33:26,230 --> 00:33:30,820 What is new is that self-righteousness has changed camp. 269 00:33:31,330 --> 00:33:37,720 The West painfully discovers that it has lost the capacity to shape the story that the world tells itself. 270 00:33:38,350 --> 00:33:48,820 The debate on reparations that is now emerging in the United States with slavery, in Europe, with colonialism, is an illustration of that rebalancing. 271 00:33:49,510 --> 00:33:58,120 The black political leaders who, like the prime minister of Barbados, demand reparations for the centuries of slavery that their ancestors endured. 272 00:33:58,780 --> 00:34:05,079 Believe they are on solid historical ground, as are those who claim that the present degradation of our planet is the ultimate 273 00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:10,780 consequence of the reckless past exploitation of natural resources by rich countries. 274 00:34:11,530 --> 00:34:21,910 A lively historical debate is taking place to determine how much of the present wealth of the developed world is built on the abuse of past centuries. 275 00:34:22,330 --> 00:34:27,010 How much derives from the technological technological revolution that transformed Europe? 276 00:34:27,580 --> 00:34:33,309 That debate is necessary and helpful if it contributes to a better understanding of the past, 277 00:34:33,310 --> 00:34:39,100 and leads the richer countries to show more humility in their relationship with the rest of the world. 278 00:34:39,820 --> 00:34:46,480 But it leads to a political dead end. If it you if it is used as the foundation for a more just order. 279 00:34:47,110 --> 00:34:55,150 Victimhood and guilt cannot be a reliable foundation for a society, let alone for a world order. 280 00:34:55,930 --> 00:35:05,320 The soft power of democracies is thus eroded not only by the data age, but also by the demise of the Western narrative. 281 00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:13,270 But while the so-called Global South may have more self-confidence that the West than a West full of doubts, 282 00:35:14,020 --> 00:35:17,920 no alternative global narrative is really emerging. 283 00:35:18,670 --> 00:35:23,200 The world is connected by processes rather than by vision. 284 00:35:23,710 --> 00:35:33,280 Why is that? Let me now turn to my third point and analyse the crisis that, in my view, is more global than the crisis of the West. 285 00:35:34,210 --> 00:35:44,080 The paradox of our time may be that those who celebrate the demise of the West are more influenced by it then they would care to admit. 286 00:35:44,770 --> 00:35:52,570 The geopolitical stage cannot be understood as a mere shift from the West to the East, or to what now people call the rest. 287 00:35:53,200 --> 00:35:59,890 The rest. Indeed, increasingly challenges Western universalism, but it is largely shaped by it. 288 00:36:00,670 --> 00:36:10,370 The enduring legacy of the Western tradition. The world is the celebration of the individual, and individualism is a marvellous and powerful force. 289 00:36:11,000 --> 00:36:17,090 The unshakeable pursuit of truth and the entrepreneurial spirit are rooted in it. 290 00:36:17,690 --> 00:36:20,990 But today, in following the example of the West, 291 00:36:21,590 --> 00:36:29,600 the rest of the world often embraces a caricature of that spirit in the form of neoliberal capitalism. 292 00:36:30,260 --> 00:36:35,870 As Branko Milanovic has written in a brilliant book. Capitalism alone rules the world. 293 00:36:36,470 --> 00:36:44,720 Capitalist can be found in New York, but also in Beijing or Moscow, even if their relationship with the state is not the same. 294 00:36:45,500 --> 00:36:51,260 The relentless pursuit of wealth has become everywhere the dominant force, 295 00:36:51,860 --> 00:36:59,150 but it is a force that actually contributes to the fragmentation of societies as each individual. 296 00:37:00,030 --> 00:37:07,230 Fends for himself, and the collective values of solidarity and equality vanish. 297 00:37:07,830 --> 00:37:17,280 It is a harsh world of winners and losers, where the losers not only have to face the hardship of poverty, 298 00:37:18,150 --> 00:37:24,720 but also the disdain of a society that only respects success. 299 00:37:26,490 --> 00:37:36,480 We were led to believe that our own individual sense of agency was our most precious asset, asset, and the most powerful force in the world. 300 00:37:37,080 --> 00:37:41,280 But for many, that promise proves to be an illusion. 301 00:37:41,730 --> 00:37:48,240 And this and that disenchantment is not compensated by a sense of collective agency. 302 00:37:48,600 --> 00:37:52,380 In the desiccated neoliberal version of individualism. 303 00:37:53,260 --> 00:37:57,220 Western individualism was balanced by Western universalism, 304 00:37:57,880 --> 00:38:02,950 but that universalism is lost and the balance between the celebration of individual 305 00:38:02,950 --> 00:38:10,360 agency and a sense of collective purpose that binds us as human beings has been broken. 306 00:38:11,080 --> 00:38:19,780 Globalisation, technology and the crisis of ideologies converged to create a sense of importance among many individuals. 307 00:38:20,500 --> 00:38:29,140 For many of us, rich and poor, from the South or the North, that loss is very painful. 308 00:38:29,860 --> 00:38:41,230 And we dream of collective entrances, of borders, of a confined space, of a cosy shell in which we can feel at home and control our future. 309 00:38:42,010 --> 00:38:51,460 But the world of imagine communities the internet has created today is a much more unpredictable world than a world driven by collective interests. 310 00:38:52,180 --> 00:38:57,010 That is what makes political communities of the 21st century so brittle. 311 00:38:57,910 --> 00:39:01,360 We are saying that countries have the politics of their geography. 312 00:39:02,260 --> 00:39:03,790 If that was still true. 313 00:39:03,820 --> 00:39:13,450 Geopolitics would be very predictable indeed because oceans and mountains ranges don't move, and interest should therefore always be the same. 314 00:39:14,140 --> 00:39:22,450 But the connected world, but a more connected world in which the virtual and the territorial are intertwined, 315 00:39:22,930 --> 00:39:34,270 spreads and amplifies fleeting emotions that make political communities less stable and more volatile, and sometimes more aggressive. 316 00:39:34,870 --> 00:39:41,970 The crisis of political institutions is most visible in Western democracies, but the crisis of politics is global. 317 00:39:41,980 --> 00:39:47,500 We are all becoming, in a way, fragile states across all continents. 318 00:39:47,920 --> 00:39:56,830 The self-evident of every nation is therefore challenged, and political leaders have to find new ways of shoring up their legitimacy. 319 00:39:57,490 --> 00:40:01,630 Different political systems and different regions of the world have different responses. 320 00:40:02,320 --> 00:40:08,620 But what is remarkable is that nowhere is a big ideological system, the driving force. 321 00:40:09,190 --> 00:40:15,610 The 21st century is, in that respect, very different from the last three quarters of the 20th century, 322 00:40:16,180 --> 00:40:23,260 when ideologies, nationalist, National socialism, communism were the critical mobilising to. 323 00:40:24,330 --> 00:40:28,530 Each system claimed to provide a comprehensive answer to the needs of society. 324 00:40:29,100 --> 00:40:32,910 But today, no one is prepared to venture such a claim. 325 00:40:33,870 --> 00:40:47,310 In our post ideological world, roll nationalism from Russia to the United States, from China to India is, so to speak, the ideology of last resort, 326 00:40:47,940 --> 00:41:00,180 a powerful rallying force with a nostalgic tinge that makes it different from the self-confident nationalism that preceded the First World War. 327 00:41:00,930 --> 00:41:07,740 When Trump first came to speak at the General Assembly of the United Nations, and I listened and I was there to listen to him, 328 00:41:08,370 --> 00:41:15,690 he told the audience, to great applause, that every leader wants to make his or her country great again. 329 00:41:16,260 --> 00:41:26,160 That nostalgic slogan, which underplays the capacity to shape a new future and idealise the past in the case of Modi and India, 330 00:41:26,190 --> 00:41:32,430 redefines the past, has global appeal. The more market forces become the dominant driver, 331 00:41:33,150 --> 00:41:42,630 the more transactional the world gets than the more nationalism based on an idealist past becomes a useful counterweight. 332 00:41:43,110 --> 00:41:49,710 In a world in which human communities are losing their sense of direction and community, 333 00:41:50,430 --> 00:41:55,380 that is what makes anticipation of peace and war so difficult. 334 00:41:55,920 --> 00:42:01,410 The world is more connected than it has ever been and at the same time more fragmented. 335 00:42:02,040 --> 00:42:09,150 There is no shared narrative. The universal reach of capitalism is not the triumph of Western universalism and Western values, 336 00:42:09,630 --> 00:42:15,630 as demonstrated by the backlash of nationalism that makes any world order more difficult to achieve. 337 00:42:16,530 --> 00:42:25,470 International organisation embodying the global world order are in crisis, and the new powers have no universalist claim. 338 00:42:26,190 --> 00:42:33,630 China is actually careful not to present itself as an alternative model of a universalist international order. 339 00:42:33,660 --> 00:42:34,350 On the contrary, 340 00:42:35,040 --> 00:42:44,070 it keeps insisting that each country has to follow its own ways and that the world order has to be based on the sovereignty of nation states, 341 00:42:44,700 --> 00:42:51,210 the so-called international community. But also the political communities that are its component parts are brittle. 342 00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:55,560 They are not sure what they stand for, and they have no universal goal. 343 00:42:56,010 --> 00:42:58,500 Their first priority is now to hold on. 344 00:42:59,670 --> 00:43:09,480 Let me now, as a conclusion, try not to anticipate the future, but rather to describe several possible futures. 345 00:43:10,140 --> 00:43:12,660 I say futures in the plural for two reasons. 346 00:43:13,170 --> 00:43:20,400 First, because as connected as the world may be, several futures can coexist on our planet interacting with each other. 347 00:43:20,970 --> 00:43:30,720 Second, because, as I have said, human beings have agency, and anticipating the future should always be about identifying those tipping points. 348 00:43:31,140 --> 00:43:34,980 Those forks in the road where a choice can make a difference. 349 00:43:35,930 --> 00:43:41,239 Let me start with a future which is already a part of our present world, 350 00:43:41,240 --> 00:43:48,500 in which the dissemination of technology and the brittleness of contemporary societies empowers 351 00:43:48,500 --> 00:43:55,280 a multiplicity of actors not only to sow discord through disinformation and manipulation, 352 00:43:55,850 --> 00:44:02,059 but also to acquire the means to generate massive and lethal disruption through hacking of 353 00:44:02,060 --> 00:44:08,150 major infrastructures or proliferation of weaponry individually produced through 3D printing. 354 00:44:08,750 --> 00:44:14,960 In that scenario, politically motivated terrorist group as well as criminal organisation are everywhere, 355 00:44:15,800 --> 00:44:21,860 threatening the authority of states and creating a general climate of instability and violence. 356 00:44:22,340 --> 00:44:31,879 This is a world in which the fragility of states as building blocks of an international order undermines interstate institutions, 357 00:44:31,880 --> 00:44:38,090 in particularly the one which to which I gave the best years of my life, the United Nations. 358 00:44:38,780 --> 00:44:46,700 This is a world in which the separation between state and non-state actors, between politics and crime, 359 00:44:47,390 --> 00:44:53,240 between combatants and non-combatants, and eventually between war and peace, 360 00:44:53,270 --> 00:45:04,550 is blurred, with devastating consequences for the legal frameworks that we have built to contain the use of force within states and between states. 361 00:45:05,150 --> 00:45:11,810 That world is a product of the trends. I have described technological progress that lowers the bar for many technologies, 362 00:45:12,290 --> 00:45:18,530 empowering individuals of subnational groups with capacities that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago. 363 00:45:19,160 --> 00:45:26,870 When that dissemination happens in a context of weaker political communities and stronger virtual communities. 364 00:45:27,170 --> 00:45:34,490 It can lead to widespread intrastate insecurity and also to and transformation of inter-state conflict, 365 00:45:35,120 --> 00:45:42,760 as it offers more opportunities to exploit the weaknesses of the adversary and for states to disguise their actions. 366 00:45:42,770 --> 00:45:48,800 And we have plenty of examples of that at the cost of some technology goes down. 367 00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:58,040 Criminal. Non-state actors are likely to have increased access to disruptive technologies in rich as well as in poor countries, 368 00:45:58,520 --> 00:46:06,230 and the risk of severe disruption will grow as societies become more dependent on digital technologies. 369 00:46:06,650 --> 00:46:15,440 The possibility of catastrophic consequences will increase unless a massive effort is made to improve security of critical infrastructures. 370 00:46:16,100 --> 00:46:22,160 That leads me to a second possible future. That is the eventual outcome of what I've just described. 371 00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:27,860 There's a debate whether technology will lead to more or less concentration of power, 372 00:46:27,860 --> 00:46:33,290 will empower individuals or big organisation, be they stateside or corporations. 373 00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:42,680 The growing chaos that we observe in many non autocratic states makes it increasingly likely that the second hypothesis, 374 00:46:42,680 --> 00:46:46,280 concentration of power, will eventually come to pass. 375 00:46:46,850 --> 00:46:52,700 I've already noted the backlash against the neoliberal individualism that is fuelling a new nationalism. 376 00:46:53,300 --> 00:46:56,000 The demand for order is growing in power. 377 00:46:56,660 --> 00:47:05,330 It is the result of the dissemination of power to malignant actors described above, that increases the risk of catastrophic events, 378 00:47:05,750 --> 00:47:09,320 from bio warfare to massive disruption of critical infrastructure, 379 00:47:09,800 --> 00:47:18,200 but also of the polarised fragmentation of societies that makes our daily life increasingly unbearable and difficult. 380 00:47:18,890 --> 00:47:29,870 The trade off between security and individual freedom will more and more be weighted in favour of security and conformity. 381 00:47:30,530 --> 00:47:35,120 If we fear for our life, we will eventually give more control to the state. 382 00:47:35,660 --> 00:47:42,380 The progression of artificial intelligence and large language model will also put a premium on well-established knowledge. 383 00:47:42,830 --> 00:47:51,559 That will be a progress if crackpot theories are ignored and the dissemination of mainstream thinking is strengthened. 384 00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:57,590 But it may also marginalise original and independent thinking by fear of disruption. 385 00:47:58,310 --> 00:48:07,310 It may lead to what one might call a Chinese scenario, in which states have acquired enough power to nip in the bud any dissent, 386 00:48:07,940 --> 00:48:14,270 suppressing internal conflict and managing debate in a very controlled way. 387 00:48:14,840 --> 00:48:19,160 No country at this stage is close to achieving that, 388 00:48:19,550 --> 00:48:28,790 but one can imagine how more concentration of digital and technological power could lead to internally peaceful in our societies. 389 00:48:29,240 --> 00:48:36,110 Intrastate peace would have been achieved by putting all societies asleep to sleep. 390 00:48:37,430 --> 00:48:43,310 The question then arises whether that kind of intrastate peace could lead to inter-state peace. 391 00:48:44,060 --> 00:48:48,920 That may not be the case because, as controlling states may eventually become over their own citizens, 392 00:48:49,460 --> 00:48:57,710 they are unlikely to be able to eliminate the connectivity that makes them dependent on the actions of other entities which they have no control. 393 00:48:58,190 --> 00:49:03,739 They will have to manage uncertainties that will undermine their control, from economic crises to migration, 394 00:49:03,740 --> 00:49:11,270 and they may react to that risk by weekend, whipping up the flames of nationalism to maintain the cohesion of their societies. 395 00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:15,080 That risk suggests a third possible future, 396 00:49:15,770 --> 00:49:21,499 in which states harness the formidable powers of the digital age to mobilise collective 397 00:49:21,500 --> 00:49:27,140 passions beyond the wildest ambitions of the territory and regimes of the 20th century. 398 00:49:27,830 --> 00:49:35,570 That is, the world which could lead to a massive conflagration of inter-state conflict, and it is the worst scenario that can be imagined. 399 00:49:35,960 --> 00:49:42,320 It aptly described the possibility of the China-US war resulting from a perception of weakness in both countries, 400 00:49:42,770 --> 00:49:45,980 leading to exacerbated and extremely dangerous nationalism. 401 00:49:47,270 --> 00:49:53,780 None of the three scenarios I have described presents an appealing view of our possible futures. 402 00:49:54,860 --> 00:50:04,220 The first evokes a world of chaotic and fragmented violence, in which the consolidation of gated communities looks like the least bad option. 403 00:50:05,090 --> 00:50:08,870 The second promises peace, but it is a peace built on conformity, 404 00:50:09,440 --> 00:50:15,739 which in the end can lead to stagnation and risks sacrificing what has made the 405 00:50:15,740 --> 00:50:20,180 greatness of the human condition an insatiable urge to look beyond the horizon. 406 00:50:21,020 --> 00:50:25,370 The 3rd May have an apocalyptic ending and is just too awful to contemplate. 407 00:50:26,030 --> 00:50:36,620 So is there a fourth scenario, a future that acknowledges the diversity of responses that human beings imagine when they build a human community, 408 00:50:37,310 --> 00:50:43,220 and yet creates a measure of harmonious concord and cooperation that ensures peace? 409 00:50:43,940 --> 00:50:49,430 This is the most important question of our time as we struggle to maintain. 410 00:50:49,530 --> 00:50:53,490 A universalist vision of the world and not succumb to relativism. 411 00:50:54,300 --> 00:51:00,840 The triumphalist Western vision of universalism has been discredited by its arrogant 412 00:51:00,840 --> 00:51:04,410 claim that there is only one end to history the Western liberal democracy. 413 00:51:05,130 --> 00:51:11,790 But as I have illustrated, no positive alternative narrative to replace, it has emerged, 414 00:51:12,420 --> 00:51:19,770 and instead that this credit is used today by all sorts of autocrats to legitimise their own abuses of power. 415 00:51:20,820 --> 00:51:28,410 I would like to think that another great Oxford scholar, Isaiah Berlin, provides part of the answer. 416 00:51:29,250 --> 00:51:35,700 He made the simple but fundamental point that good universal values often clash with each other. 417 00:51:36,510 --> 00:51:40,860 Solidarity is a laudable value, and so are individualism and independence of mind. 418 00:51:41,520 --> 00:51:48,000 Different societies may share universal values, but striking a very different balance between them. 419 00:51:48,960 --> 00:51:55,320 Isaiah Berlin wrote before the earthquake of the ongoing technological revolution, 420 00:51:56,070 --> 00:52:06,690 is his vision implementable in a connected world where virtual communities abolish physical borders while virtual gated communities flourish? 421 00:52:07,410 --> 00:52:13,319 Can universalism be revived when it is understood that the expression of Western 422 00:52:13,320 --> 00:52:19,290 dominance cannot resist the nationalist backlash generated by neo liberal individualism? 423 00:52:20,010 --> 00:52:24,540 Much will depend on how the technological revolution turns out, 424 00:52:25,230 --> 00:52:30,780 and how the governance of the data economy and of artificial intelligence is organised. 425 00:52:31,500 --> 00:52:37,440 Will the next generation of artificial intelligence, going beyond large language model, 426 00:52:38,280 --> 00:52:44,790 trained on different sets of data and capturing multiple but diverse experiences, 427 00:52:45,360 --> 00:52:54,750 help us acquire a better understanding of those legitimate differences and how to manage rather than abolish them. 428 00:52:55,410 --> 00:53:00,660 Will power be further concentrated or disseminated for the benefit of humankind? 429 00:53:01,380 --> 00:53:11,190 My hope is for a world of peaceful dissemination of power, in which we move away from uniformity without succumbing to destructive fragmentation. 430 00:53:11,910 --> 00:53:24,000 Our ambition should be to embrace diversity precisely because it keeps the human quest alive, with no end of history in sight. 431 00:53:24,360 --> 00:53:42,180 Thank you. Well, colleagues, I'm sure there have any questions. 432 00:53:42,350 --> 00:53:49,860 Um. With running. So, uh, perhaps if you want a few questions, you might try to make them as a secret as possible. 433 00:53:50,680 --> 00:53:57,690 So, any questions from the chat? Okay? 434 00:53:58,070 --> 00:54:03,030 Please. This was a brilliant and stimulating lecture. 435 00:54:03,180 --> 00:54:11,630 Reminds me a bit of, um, Morgan Thatcher's politics of all nations in the later chapters where he talks about the disintegration and, 436 00:54:11,670 --> 00:54:22,830 uh, the force of nationalism. But what I wanted to ask you is you you in the beginning, took both climate change and nuclear war off the table. 437 00:54:22,860 --> 00:54:35,250 An interesting choice. I'd like to hear you expand on that, and I, I, um, I would argue that the trends that you highlighted. 438 00:54:35,520 --> 00:54:43,820 And I want to hear your reaction to this, uh, uh, you know, for instance, uh, technological progress, nationalism and so on. 439 00:54:43,830 --> 00:54:53,490 The disintegration of the West dominance. As are actually exacerbated by war, driven by war. 440 00:54:54,120 --> 00:54:58,230 That war is the independent variable here. 441 00:54:59,200 --> 00:55:06,880 And um, indeed the as the United States tries to maintain it to Germany, it's not given up. 442 00:55:08,250 --> 00:55:15,170 It spends itself. And drives the rest of the world to spend itself into, uh. 443 00:55:15,760 --> 00:55:23,169 Uh, what Jervis called the spiral. Hmm. So those are just provocations that I hope you'll take. 444 00:55:23,170 --> 00:55:27,010 Um. Now, I think I think you're right. 445 00:55:27,010 --> 00:55:29,680 And if we want to be very concrete, for instance, 446 00:55:30,280 --> 00:55:41,490 the governance of artificial intelligence and and the competition between China and the United States, they may clash with each other. 447 00:55:41,500 --> 00:55:49,580 Because I would think that for the United States to begin to limit the power of its, uh, 448 00:55:49,600 --> 00:55:57,310 technological giants, there's a concern that it might weaken its hand when it looks at, at China. 449 00:55:57,880 --> 00:56:06,820 And so negotiating a comprehensive framework between the two powers is very difficult, 450 00:56:06,850 --> 00:56:12,729 because the two powers think that they can gain the upper hand in those two, uh, technologies. 451 00:56:12,730 --> 00:56:25,140 And so that that's where the combination of the internet, the data revolution and the geopolitical, uh, competition makes it very difficult. 452 00:56:25,150 --> 00:56:33,220 And you could say the same for, uh, for climate change, which at the same time creates should create a sense of urgency. 453 00:56:33,730 --> 00:56:44,590 But again, uh, is, uh, there is a sense of, uh, zero sum game that if I begin to limit my strength, 454 00:56:45,160 --> 00:56:49,540 for instance, the United States has now a net exporter of energy. 455 00:56:49,930 --> 00:56:54,969 Uh, although Biden has done a number of things to which go in the right direction. 456 00:56:54,970 --> 00:57:03,640 But there are limits to that, because, again, there is a shadow of the geopolitical competition between, uh, behind that, I think. 457 00:57:13,590 --> 00:57:24,440 Uh, so I'm curious about. So sometimes there's like a tension between, uh, a narrative of ourselves being accurate and it being sort of fake. 458 00:57:24,510 --> 00:57:29,760 Good for us to, to rally around, uh, like in, uh, in the book Sapiens by you. 459 00:57:29,760 --> 00:57:34,770 Well, Noah Harari, he argues that what enabled us all to cooperate is that we can share these ideas. 460 00:57:34,770 --> 00:57:38,550 And if we can't, then everything falls apart. But I'm just curious about what do you like? 461 00:57:39,710 --> 00:57:48,560 If we develop a narrative of the West that's accurate but has its but actually we can't we can't rally around that anymore. 462 00:57:48,980 --> 00:57:56,389 Should the should we then just give up on having accurate narratives and then just find a simple narrative that we can all, 463 00:57:56,390 --> 00:58:00,350 all cooperate, even if it's historically inaccurate? No, I don't think so. 464 00:58:01,400 --> 00:58:11,629 I don't think we can afford the big lie today. I think some will try, but I don't think that works because a number of things speak for themselves. 465 00:58:11,630 --> 00:58:16,640 And, uh, uh, I think when, uh, for instance, President Biden, with good intentions, 466 00:58:16,670 --> 00:58:23,000 uh, uh, tried to bring to this summit of democracies against autocracies, 467 00:58:23,030 --> 00:58:30,260 uh, this didn't really work first, because exhibit A of the crisis of democracies is the United States itself. 468 00:58:30,770 --> 00:58:37,370 Uh, and so that creates a measure of scepticism on, uh, on the whole concept. 469 00:58:37,370 --> 00:58:47,240 And then because you want to rally the maximum number of people and so you exclude some, you include some who might not be included. 470 00:58:47,750 --> 00:58:59,450 And so it it detracts from the real focus, which should be on how ourselves we stand together, not on the basis of lies, but on recognition, 471 00:58:59,450 --> 00:59:07,099 on the basis of recognising that there are some values that we care about and and those values, 472 00:59:07,100 --> 00:59:10,999 they vary, as I said, from one country to the other, from one continent to the other. 473 00:59:11,000 --> 00:59:17,360 When I, I live in the United States, but I'm a frequent, um, but I'm a European and sort of shuttled between the two continent. 474 00:59:17,360 --> 00:59:24,410 And it's clear that as close as the United States and Europe are the balance between, let's say, 475 00:59:24,890 --> 00:59:29,930 collective values, the welfare state is not the same in Europe, in the United States. 476 00:59:29,930 --> 00:59:34,339 And I am not saying that one is superior to the other, although I think a little bit. 477 00:59:34,340 --> 00:59:42,709 But, uh, but, uh, I think it's it's fair to accept that there are different responses in. 478 00:59:42,710 --> 00:59:48,560 But what we have to do is think through what are the values that we really care for. 479 00:59:49,100 --> 01:00:01,580 Uh, and I think that's what sadly, at the moment, it's mostly the extreme right that, uh, occupies the terrain of values. 480 01:00:01,640 --> 01:00:12,200 Uh, uh, because and the values but values which are sort of mythical, the values as if nationalism was in itself a value. 481 01:00:12,500 --> 01:00:22,760 But, uh, it, it owes its success precisely to giving people a sense of identity and belonging. 482 01:00:22,760 --> 01:00:30,140 And I think to counter that, you really need to, to, to be on the terrain of values. 483 01:00:30,170 --> 01:00:33,770 Is that is that narrow nationalism, xenophobia? 484 01:00:33,770 --> 01:00:36,800 Is it is it us or is it not? 485 01:00:37,250 --> 01:00:42,530 And if we if we just equivocate on that, uh, I don't think we will win today. 486 01:00:49,620 --> 01:00:56,190 Was a. The quandaries were in, uh, clear. 487 01:00:56,790 --> 01:01:00,750 And I think it's a story of narrative and behind story of narrative is power. 488 01:01:01,750 --> 01:01:09,549 The the I was a discussion with. I've been quoted the PM of crossover two weeks ago and he was asked about the decline of the West, 489 01:01:09,550 --> 01:01:12,940 and he was enthusiastic about the opportunity it provides. 490 01:01:13,810 --> 01:01:19,750 Um, his argument was Russia wants to beat the West, China wants to become the West. 491 01:01:20,050 --> 01:01:26,830 And for Kosovo, this is a marketplace. This opens up a space where finally we get to negotiate and we get to buy. 492 01:01:26,830 --> 01:01:32,620 We get to engage. And his point actually aligning with yours was we agree with the values of the West. 493 01:01:32,860 --> 01:01:35,920 We just want the freedom to compete openly in the market. 494 01:01:36,550 --> 01:01:40,970 So in your narrative, where does this put the smaller countries and non-Western countries? 495 01:01:40,990 --> 01:01:47,980 Is this a moment of liberation for them, of freedom from the shackles, or is it a moment of chaos? 496 01:01:50,030 --> 01:02:01,370 Well, I think, I mean, I when I think, for instance, of United Nations and how to build coalitions to, to salvage the idea of multilateralism, 497 01:02:02,060 --> 01:02:06,920 I think it very much depends on small and medium sized countries, 498 01:02:07,310 --> 01:02:14,600 actually more the medium sized countries that have some weight because they have an interest in a predictable order. 499 01:02:15,260 --> 01:02:19,940 They don't want a world where just raw power rules supreme. 500 01:02:20,750 --> 01:02:31,340 And so in that sense, I think a number of countries, uh, have an interest in safeguarding an international legal order. 501 01:02:31,730 --> 01:02:37,850 I think when you are the United States or China, you may have you may believe I think it's an illusion, 502 01:02:37,850 --> 01:02:44,540 actually, but you may believe that you can do without, uh, those, uh, rules, that framework. 503 01:02:44,930 --> 01:02:51,650 Uh, but when you, uh, midsize, uh, you feel it's that rules protect you. 504 01:02:52,130 --> 01:03:00,110 Uh, and so I think one of the, of the failures of, uh, diplomacy, 505 01:03:00,110 --> 01:03:11,360 of Western diplomacy to the is that it's it is not capable of building those kinds of coalitions because it's too much. 506 01:03:12,140 --> 01:03:22,580 Again, the rhetoric of democracy rather than the more humble notion that we are we are struggling to maintain an order based on rules and laws. 507 01:03:23,030 --> 01:03:27,620 We are not sure of our own. We are not we. We are open to criticism. 508 01:03:28,070 --> 01:03:31,460 We are not saying we have, uh, the response, 509 01:03:31,850 --> 01:03:41,930 but you can build common ground with all the countries that see that a world without rules is a world where the big fish eats the smaller fish. 510 01:03:42,350 --> 01:03:46,100 And there you have a majority of countries in the United Nations who don't like that world. 511 01:03:47,240 --> 01:03:53,760 Because they are small fish. Please. 512 01:03:57,960 --> 01:04:01,320 Thank you so much. I would like to. Oh, I hear myself. Sorry. 513 01:04:02,480 --> 01:04:04,890 I'd like to come back to the United Nations. 514 01:04:04,950 --> 01:04:10,590 Uh, and maybe if you could tell us a little bit more, how do you see the reforms and the possibilities of the reforms, 515 01:04:10,980 --> 01:04:14,730 even though you said they are slow in terms of change? 516 01:04:15,180 --> 01:04:19,970 I was wondering, how do you see the prospects of that change and the role that. 517 01:04:19,980 --> 01:04:27,750 Sorry. Um, Western countries, for instance, have in changing the very structures that, uh, led them to be powerful in the system. 518 01:04:28,440 --> 01:04:31,920 Well, reform of the United Nations covers many, many things. 519 01:04:32,370 --> 01:04:34,710 Uh, if it's a reform of the charter, 520 01:04:35,700 --> 01:04:42,900 I don't know if you have read the book of Stephen Schlesinger on the negotiation of the, uh, uh, charter in San Francisco. 521 01:04:43,350 --> 01:04:52,589 If you read that book, you see how in a world which was, uh, there were there were not 193 states, there were about, uh, little more than 40, I think. 522 01:04:52,590 --> 01:04:56,820 Uh, uh, I'm looking at some those was agree with the experts. 523 01:04:57,180 --> 01:05:02,940 Uh, 51. Okay. Uh, so it was a much smaller world, and it was a world. 524 01:05:03,300 --> 01:05:09,570 It was a unipolar world by itself, because the United States had a monopoly on nuclear weapons. 525 01:05:09,900 --> 01:05:16,590 It was half the world GDP with the destruction of Europe and not countries not having emerged yet. 526 01:05:17,070 --> 01:05:22,890 And it was a creditor of the world. So if there was ever a unipolar moment, that was it. 527 01:05:23,370 --> 01:05:28,740 And when you look at the history of the negotiation, you see that it was not actually so easy. 528 01:05:29,130 --> 01:05:34,020 Uh, you had to convince Latin American countries you to them and, uh, it was it was very tricky. 529 01:05:34,440 --> 01:05:40,020 So I think today, in the context of geopolitical rivalry, uh, 530 01:05:40,080 --> 01:05:49,380 a reform of the charter and point of the Security Council is, uh, pie in the sky, to be to be blunt. 531 01:05:49,410 --> 01:05:57,120 Uh, it's not going to happen. Uh, but that doesn't mean that reform is impossible, 532 01:05:57,120 --> 01:06:04,800 because there are lots of things that the United Nations can do better within the confines of the charter. 533 01:06:05,370 --> 01:06:08,940 It requires. It requires creativity. 534 01:06:09,510 --> 01:06:16,979 Uh, and it requires occupying spaces that are not, uh, already, uh, completely locked. 535 01:06:16,980 --> 01:06:18,450 So by by states. 536 01:06:18,840 --> 01:06:27,989 So I think, for instance, the whole question that I have discussed of the digital age, this is a space where it's going to be very difficult. 537 01:06:27,990 --> 01:06:39,750 But, uh, I was, uh, the other day, I was having a conversation with, uh, uh, with, uh, who and another one with the, uh, uh, 538 01:06:39,810 --> 01:06:48,210 with, uh, thing when the, uh, the undersecretary for for technology and the United Nations is doing a lot of good things. 539 01:06:48,420 --> 01:06:53,399 Uh, they're, uh, not, uh, very, very visible. 540 01:06:53,400 --> 01:07:02,160 And that's probably why some progress is possible. Precisely because it does not become, uh, high stake, uh, politics. 541 01:07:02,580 --> 01:07:12,090 So I think if you choose the areas you focus on wisely, there is certainly room for improvement. 542 01:07:12,540 --> 01:07:22,230 And I think also reforms that are really not very sexy, but management, uh, uh, of the United Nations, 543 01:07:22,530 --> 01:07:28,469 the human resource, which is managed in a terrible way in the United Nations, which is not managed, 544 01:07:28,470 --> 01:07:39,850 actually, uh, this does not require, uh, this requires being astute, understanding, uh, how to handle, 545 01:07:39,850 --> 01:07:45,890 um, and competing interests of member states, but it's, it's something that could be improved. 546 01:07:45,900 --> 01:07:51,180 So. So I don't I think there is real space for moving things forward. 547 01:07:51,690 --> 01:08:00,630 I think that I would say three things building coalitions of countries that have an interest in the United Nations and they exist, uh, 548 01:08:01,170 --> 01:08:08,100 picking your areas wisely and being, uh, humble in the way you manage it, 549 01:08:08,100 --> 01:08:14,069 but also courageous, uh, because if you if you don't take any risk, nothing happens. 550 01:08:14,070 --> 01:08:19,740 And I think that's the that's the curse of all big organisations is that they are risk averse. 551 01:08:19,900 --> 01:08:26,930 Uh, that's the nature of the beast. Uh, and you need, uh, to move an organisation forward. 552 01:08:26,940 --> 01:08:37,130 You need you need to to impress a sense of courage and initiative from the top, uh, to the bottom. 553 01:08:37,140 --> 01:08:41,340 That's that's essential when you want to to effect change. 554 01:08:41,370 --> 01:08:49,500 I mean, I had the privilege with Sam and a few others, uh, to work and, uh, Kofi Annan and I think that was his greatest strength. 555 01:08:49,950 --> 01:08:56,420 That was, you know, empowering people, giving them a sense that if they took risk, not reckless risk, but if they. 556 01:08:57,260 --> 01:09:00,480 Initiative, they would be rewarded, uh, for it. 557 01:09:00,500 --> 01:09:04,280 That was their role in the organisation. And I think that's fundamental. 558 01:09:07,530 --> 01:09:10,770 Ladies and gentlemen, I think we should bring questions to an end. 559 01:09:10,890 --> 01:09:14,580 You deserve a dinner on that fantastic lecture. 560 01:09:15,960 --> 01:09:19,310 Uh, so thank you for that. And thank you also, uh, 561 01:09:19,320 --> 01:09:25,049 for fulfilling all of our expectations in terms of both the quality and insight 562 01:09:25,050 --> 01:09:28,580 you brought to this and also the centrality of the importance of human values, 563 01:09:29,090 --> 01:09:36,360 uh, which you highlighted in your lecture and in a call to arms for those of us who perhaps until the extreme right to actually begin to identify, 564 01:09:36,360 --> 01:09:40,020 uh, the, uh, key values that should be built to structure in society. 565 01:09:40,570 --> 01:09:47,910 Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, um, I want to say just a very brief thank you to Rhodes House for hosting this evening. 566 01:09:48,330 --> 01:09:52,170 Uh, this wonderful venue. Uh, they provided for the lecture this evening. 567 01:09:52,170 --> 01:09:55,410 Um, in case, uh, an important part of the success. 568 01:09:56,370 --> 01:10:05,490 So big. Thank you to them. And also a big thank you to my colleague who has been responsible for all of the coordination of this evening's event. 569 01:10:05,530 --> 01:10:09,990 So thank you again for doing that. And those of you who are joining us for dinner. 570 01:10:10,300 --> 01:10:14,030 Uh, we're aiming to sit down in about another 15 to 20 minutes. 571 01:10:14,640 --> 01:10:17,760 We'll be heading speedily down South Road. 572 01:10:18,180 --> 01:10:23,010 Uh, I hope the rains as they sit, but I hope you will join me in thanking once for. 573 01:10:35,780 --> 01:10:36,560 Thank you very much.