Alain de Botton and Ayishat Akanbi | Studio B: Unscripted

[Music] one of the things I think is hard about social media considering it's called social media it's more like monologue media what do you think of the word evil there is such a thing it is a useful word I don't think even as a useful word I think we've seized al-jazeera now you and I just saw the cult of love for sure meaning charity towards what is broken in us I'm Alain de Botton a philosopher and author [Music] I'm Alicia I can be a stylist and a writer we do a lot with philosophy here I founded the School of Life to fill a void in our current education systems for teaching of emotional intelligence [Music] I explore ideas we often call problematic to me they're the most revealing the most interesting [Music] I want people to look comfortably I don't want people to have to rely on names to say anything I'm curious about questions like should art have a purpose our expectations of happiness making us unhappy do we need more compassion how can we be more thoughtful after all we are all human imperfect and maybe also a little bit weird [Music] it's great so finally it's great to be here and I gather we can just chat about so this is the chance to start the revolution that I think you and I need to start I think we I think we believe in what do we believe in kindness love love goodness goodness and compassion and empathy and that's actually where I wanted to start because I've always been drawn to your work because I find it quite refreshing I find that most things can be quite divisive and there's an enemy but I've always liked your take it seems like you're more willing to understand than you are to judge and condemn but recently I've seen a lot more studies about how empathy is actually tearing us apart having too much empathy can create more aggression towards out-groups so I just wondered what you thought about that do you think empathy can be quite dangerous look I think ultimately behind your question it's like how can we create a kinder more compassionate world we get inside the minds of other people and respond optimally and I think the the root of kindness is knowing that you are sinful if you can accept that you are not a totally good person then you can start to accept that others are not going to be totally good either you can learn to forgive them to expect forgiveness of the things you've done wrong and to forgive in turn so it's a virtuous cycle of charity we get so much stuff wrong with steering blind and I think it's amazing how we build a world where nowadays we're really kind to children but we're still not very good at being kind to the childlike parts of one another and we all have a three-year-old insiders I mean think of the way right you you've got a kid and let's imagine you come home from work you're tired you're hungry you prepare the kids some dinner and it's two years old and you say look darling I've cooked you some dinner and they could go and throw the whole thing on the floor what are you gonna do to that kid hit it yeah condemn it judge it no you're gonna try and think of reasons why that kid has not behaved optimally and you would think maybe the kids tired maybe the kids feeling jealousy is confused you're gonna try and find an explanation which takes the edge off the dark interpretation then your partner comes home and they're a little bit short with you and you go alright why is that person short with me and you think because they're out to get me because they no longer love me because they're stupid because they're arrogant why actually are they short because they're tired and we should extend some of the similar kind of charity right I mean don't you agree that in some ways we condemn too much and we understand so little I think we find it hard to believe that other people are going through what we are I think we think that we live in our own unique suffering and the nature of our suffering and our hardships might be you know slightly more nuanced than different but for the most part people are all going through their own personal hell that's a beautiful sentence that everybody's going through their own personal hell I remember once a psychoanalyst saying to me I said to him what was what's the thing that most people miss about other people he said how anxious everybody is and you know part of the problem is that we know ourselves from the inside but we only know other people from what they choose to tell us effect and they tell us such an edited range of things so all of us end up thinking that we're very weird and I think like a good society is one in which more and more of the reality of what it is to be human which is it's kind of chaotic and no one knows what on earth's going on can bubble up to the surface right and you can be more honest about what it's like I've always talked about the imposter syndrome and like we all think that you know we're imposters and everybody else everybody feels like an impostor I don't think anyone knows what they're doing right I think we're all sort of winging it yeah and I think if we were a lot more honest about that we would take a lot more comfort and not judge people or sort of feel a bitterness towards other people for what we perceived to be them having all of this privilege where they don't feel anything negative you know so I think if we all realize that we're going through this impostor syndrome and there's situations that make us all anxious and fearful and a lot of the things that we condemn and the things that people do that we perceive to be horrible and maybe are horrible are rooted in fear more to me I think a lot of things are more rooted in fear than hatred I think that's so true isn't it that basically most of bad behavior is coming out of fear and anxiety yes the behavior may be bad right we're not saying like don't condemn the behavior yeah but you can look at the origins of it and you can think okay fact if that came from fear and anxiety then it is you are dealing with something different I mean what do you think of the word evil there is such a thing is a useful word I don't think evil as a useful world and and recently actually I was reading a book by a psychologist called dr. Julia Shaw and she made this book called the science behind evil and one of the great things that she said is that we need to do away with the word evil because it stops conversation where it should begin and that's what happens we say something it's evil and then we no longer think about it anymore that's just what it is that's the diagnosis they're evil therefore we don't have to think about what they're doing yeah but I think things take a very different picture when we start thinking about well actually you know what led to this kind of behavior I know I've gone through a lot of things in my own personal life you know tragedy even where things happened you know like someone in my own family was killed and of course you know you feel her and you feel a lot of anger and you feel aggression but one of the main things that I thought about was well how does this young person get to a place in their life where they can take someone's life and for stuff because you know that is what it was about it was for you know material things that will lose their value in a year or maybe lesson and so I think when we start to ask ourselves that question maybe the uncomfortable thing for people is that we might see remnants of ourselves in them you mentioned tragedy I mean if you think of the media the media every day is dealing with stories and it's in it's putting an interpretation on those stories basically who's a goodie and who's a bad kind of culture and but in our culture we also have this example of tragic art right like you know the ancient Greeks invented this really weird thing called tragedy and you know the great tragedies of the Greek tradition but also then of literature more broadly what they often do is they take somebody who the media might say that's just a loser or that's a baddie and they show us how that person got there so you know think of Dostoevsky you'll take a murderer and like you basically make us feel something really unusual which is they're ending up murdering somebody it doesn't just make you a weirdo or a mad person you can be human that's a terrifying yeah also fascinating that's what makes someone like the CFT such a lesson for our times because what he's saying is you could be a murderer and still human I think we're afraid of the gray sometimes because we're a bit too eager to label things good or bad whenever I'm thinking about things I think about helpful and unhelpful I think that might be an easier way and they're less judgmental way to think about people's behavior so even if I don't like something I won't allow myself to not like something because I think it's bad and so like I said this story that happened in my family with you know someone passing away from murder you know and it was very close to me that really that really taught me something because you know you I saw a choice in that situation I could either you know respond through coldness and and maybe developing developing prejudices against the type of person who fits the description of the culprit in this situation you know and but who would that serve right you know it wouldn't serve me very well it would make me quite a fearful person and so it was from there where I was just kind of like yeah there has to be another way you are somebody who greets the world with love and I think love is such a misunderstood word we've associated it so narrowly with romantic love with finding somebody beautiful and impressive yeah and being amazed by them that's not really love I mean there's another version of love which is really showing charity and imagination towards another person so when you see bad behavior your first thought is how did that person get there what's the child inside that person right that person who's now gnarled and angry and and and whatever was once a vulnerable infant what happened to that person yeah I think we're given much encouragement to love here we are in London and lots of big buildings I remember when someone was saying if you want to know what a society values look at the tallest buildings in that society what are they devoted to yeah well most of our big towers are devoted to banking yes and that's interesting but it's far from love yeah you know we used to have some skylines where the largest most impressive building was devoted to love we need a bit of glamour yeah around the act of loving right so I think we've seized aljazeera now you and I just saw the cult of love yeah sure meaning charity towards what is broken in us an imagination yeah and I think we just lock everybody up and just like take over the airway go for it start the religion of love it's very glamorous as you say and it's not a very sexy idea to think of love beyond the remit of romance you know we often think that if we understand something then we're condoning it you know so and I and they think that's quite dangerous or may be unhelpful should I say we do that love is an emotion all you feel in the presence of someone wonderful rather than a skill that you have to practice in order to get better at it in order to make the world a more livable place that love actually needs to be exercised not in front of something wonderful but in some front of something difficult that's when you need the love resort of love exactly I mean any way anyone can love something that's terrific but can you love something that's not terrific exactly I think these are the reasons why I think things like kindness and compassion and empathy I think they're fairly radical acts and I think they're radical acts because they're quite hard to do you know if these things were easy then they wouldn't be virgins you know there just be things that would be a given everybody's got strengths and tied to those strengths or weaknesses so let's imagine somebody who's very punctual that's a really good strength and that's fantastic it will have some weaknesses associated with it someone who's very punctual might also be sometimes quite rigid sometimes quite over anxious or something like that but if you only ever see the rigidity and over anxiety you'll think that why did this person even come into my life but if you pause and say to yourself what is the good quality of which this bad piece of behavior is connected so always think take the bad behavior and try and build a bridge the nearest possible good quality agree well maybe we should use this moment to check what the audience thinks that'd be great about love and all these ideas that we're talking about hi guys my question is for them you've been quite critical about romantic comedies and the disproportionate focus on falling in love and finding the one if you had the chance to produce a film about love what will you focus on and who would star in it the real challenge of love is not how to get together with somebody though that's the most exciting thing we always want to know how people get together that's the fun thing but the thing we really struggle with is how do you keep love going over the long-term I think in no Hollywood film over the last 30 years has anyone ever done the laundry just people don't do laundry in in movies but I think we need to show that a lot of life is bound up in issues of domesticity and I think people become very ill tempered with one another very often when they live together because they keep thinking something very dangerous they keep thinking this is true trivial to have an argument about to discuss I don't want to talk about the Sox because like I've never seen anybody else discussing Sox but actually these things should be made glamorous and interesting and and legitimate subjects conversation so that we will be patient when we go climbing a mountain we practice for ages we get all the gear we know it's not going to be easy to climb Mount Everest when we start living together we think that certain things are going to be really easy so for example people are reluctant to talk about money their breakfast habits how to arrange a cutlery draw how to feel about the in-laws etc and then these things become enormous flashpoints because there aren't given the dignity of the seriousness which does actually underlie these topics so I think that weenies works of art that will prepare us for what life is actually like and I think the most works of art do something completely different I think most of us in this audience probably feel that the way that our love lives unfold seems so strange compared to what we know that they should unfold if we're listening to the movies and that suggests we're making the wrong movies not that we're weird but that the movie industry is very weird as a teacher I'm quite interested in thinking about how we could bring about a sea change in education about love about these deeper and more complicated and organic versions of love but I think the roots of that and there needs to be a deeper discussion about how to encourage vulnerability in the classroom and I wondered what both of you had to say about that I think we often think that vulnerability is a weakness but again vulnerability is hard you know which would actually suggest it's quite a strength you know if you can be vulnerable in public and to say what you want because a lot of what we want we've been taught somewhere maybe by caregivers by parents by the media that we take in that what we want is shameful and what we want should induce guilt and and maybe what we want may not be the best thing for us but to be able to voice whatever those things are I think are really important I think it's important for creativity I think it's important in terms of knowing yourself and I think the more that we get to know ourselves and the more we allow ourselves to be vulnerable and so I think if we want to build a culture that has a lot less shame and a lot less guilt and those things can lead to some really awful things I think maybe we should start thinking about what the alternative is if we're not vulnerable which may encourage us to be more vulnerable it's so ironic that we think that what's going to win us friends and make us impressive is invulnerability yeah but actually invulnerability maybe gets you grudging admiration yeah but it never really wins you what I think we all want which is connection right honest connection with other people you cannot connect with someone if you just want to be strong good luck to you but you'll be very very lonely friendship begins when you can depart from the script of what it means to be normal and and you say actually I'm scared I'm weak I have an odd desire I've thought things that you're not supposed to think that's the beginning of of connection and building a more humane world surely that's why we read it's in reading when peoples and other people's vulnerability that we find parts of ourselves you know I think the eye the whole appeal of reading is that people are being vulnerable on a page you know their devil's advocate may be you know the ideal world that one would build would be one in which art was less necessary all those stories of like the teenager who is in a prejudice narrow - society picks up a book and in the book finds things that are being said about life that no one's saying in the area wouldn't it be great if we could just throw that book away because everyone had realized that you know the lessons in the books were going to be not just in the books but in the wider society we were gonna take those lessons out of works of art and and make them live and breathe that that spirit of acceptance of complexity of compassion shouldn't just exist in libraries they should exist in in the kitchen when it comes to looking at a case like Ted Bundy who was this area killer who had killed quite a few women that he encountered psychologists said that he was somebody who lacked empathy is empathy something that can be taught when somebody is classed as somebody who's bad to the bone and just generally really evil look III would say that there is such a thing as somebody who undergoes such trauma that their mind shuts down and they are then beyond the reach of some of the ordinary lessons that you might want to teach them and I think if we if we look at it many so-called pathologically aggressive or dangerous types you'll often find in their past experiences which have shut their mind down so they are not amenable to the standard lessons you've been given them a sermon about brotherly love but they couldn't listen because their mind has been essentially broken and I don't know enough about that this murderer in particular but I think that if you look at the the childhoods of many and possibly all cruel dictators people who've lacked you know the capacity to understand the suffering of others almost always it's because they've been a victim of unbelievable cruelty themselves which they then play out and repeat and exercise on the world in various ways I don't I'm not an expert in mass murder but I I don't believe that this kind of behavior comes from nothing and I really appreciate what you guys were saying in terms of bridging the divide between someone's negative and going towards their positive but for me personally when it comes to say someone who's racist he refuses to see my humanity I do not want to spend the time to think about okay how can I see the positive in them well I think on that note obviously I definitely experienced racism and I think that anybody who is a minority within a majority well on however that side works but for me I'm really interested in removing some of racism power at least in my own life and what I mean by that is I've tried to understand what is racism is it evil is it this hatred is it you know is it all of these things is it someone who's just completely without any morality and I'm not sure that it is and what I think it might be and what so many negative things might be we've touched on it is fear I think what a lot of us call white supremacy is white insecurity you know and I think it is white fear for me I like to call supremest attitudes by their name and which i think is inferiority complexes I don't think you can be a supremacist and still fear people taking you over one of them are striking ideas for it for a child for example who goes to school and encounters a bully and you know the parent will say the bully is actually afraid that's such a weird idea how can the bully be afraid the bully seems null and angry and and and strong and powerful but actually genuinely it's not just making it up as a convenient story by some kind of cosmic justice actually you're not a bully unless you're very very small and weak inside that is actually the truth it's not just a convenient myth how inadequate must you be to try and project your inadequacy to make other groups feel inadequate I think that's what it is a lot of people always want someone to blame something on they can't take responsibility for their life so it has to be the so-called immigrants there it has to be the black people it has to be the gays it's not in so much as like I am saying that you know I want to sit down with KKK members but what I am saying is that I won't allow them the privilege of making me think that they're evil you know because that's not something yeah that's that's not I just don't believe that to be true I think it's I think it's their own sadness within them [Applause] [Music] when we first met you were like most people like ours the weather etc and you I you didn't do any small talk you were like let's get to the tragedy of exists pretending we don't care it's always called neighborhood say do you think the Internet has exacerbated unhappiness or as it may be revealed something that may have always been working the United States sincerely believes in the right of everybody's happiness and this is a punishing ideal you [Music] if you want to know what a society values look at the tallest buildings in that society what are they devoted to yeah well most of our big towers are devoted to banking things like kindness and compassion and empathy I think they're fairly radical acts and I think they're radical acts because they're quite hard to do yeah if you just want to be strong good luck to you but you'll be very very lonely less happy then we were say before the Internet do you think the Internet has exacerbated unhappiness or as it may be revealed something that may have always been lurking if we said in this room you know is anybody expecting to get married and actually be happy with their spouse be like yeah for most of the history of humanity the idea that you would not just tolerate your partner but actually love them and not just one year but through your whole life would have been thought insane of course you didn't love your partner they were just like a business associate you try and raise some children and you know last a brief interval of time before you know cholera or some horrible thing got you you know think about work for most of the history of humanity the thought that you would try and enjoy your job was crazy you did your job just to survive you didn't want to love it you didn't want to enjoy so both in the romantic and in the professional sphere we have set ourselves a daunting challenge we're supposed to get together with someone that we actually love and have you know fulfilled life with them and we're supposed to be doing a job that doesn't just earn money but also gives us deeper fulfillment oh my goodness these are beautiful ideas but no wonder with sometimes confused indeed everyday confused you no wonder there's a lot of anger in society because at the root of anger is optimism that's been frustrated so it can be one of the most generous things you can do to another person to say your life's going to be fundamentally miserable and and not just you but all of us that all of us are in a really difficult circle is because we're human beings the Buddhists had it right right what's the first truth of the Buddha life is suffering that's a really good starting point it doesn't every day is gonna be awful but it's a good starting point yeah no I I do agree and interestingly like Buddhism and a lot of its teachings resonates with me because I do think it has this sort of war troops to tell troops that we seem to shield ourselves from I'm thinking that the reason why we don't acknowledge these things in Western society is because it's beneficial to to work if we think that I'm you know through working we're going to be fulfilled and that we are going to have children and this is going to fill a certain void you know we all keep the natural order of things we'll keep doing things and we won't complain but I think if we do keep in mind that life is a lot of suffering I think that we won't have such high expectations of ourselves and of other people here's a question are you somebody who's able to take joy in small things like simple like moments of you know simple beauty or delay are you able to do gratitude yes I think so yeah more so than I can do the big things big things just gives me anxiety yeah the things that I said to be great and like when when good things happen in my career I acknowledge that they are good I'm grateful for them but I also acknowledge that this is a lot mark and you've been through all you know really difficult periods of your life do you think that that capacity to be grateful has increased or decreased as you've journeyed through these quite difficult experiences I think it's increased but I think the things that I'm grateful for now aren't the same as before I had these experiences in my life so they are now more the simple things I'm I'm grateful for a day where nothing pressing is on my mind nothing terrible's happened it's bedtime and nothing terrible practically right the really most depressing thing is denial the most depressing person is someone who goes are we cheerful today is like no why are you that's a are you having a nice day I mean you know bless the United States and its produce some wonderful things but the United States sincerely believes in the right of everybody's happiness and this is a punishing ideal it's you know are you having a nice day as though you know if you said no you know you would be admitting a terrible truth imagine two people on a date it's like and you're in you know you're in Palo Alto and you're you know with you you're doing well in the internet it's like well how are you I'm great and how's your CV fantastic and how's your health great you know this person is insufferable two insufferable but if you were able to go like I'm broken how are you broken like I'm nuts how you know need to invent a new dating ritual how in which way is he particularly crazy these are the things that we need to us how are you crazy people are sitting at home and I think like who's this really distinguished authoritative poised and calm person like she can't have any of my problems she crazy you know it's so funny because every time you know I'm one of these people who's a bit weird and I'm always looking at like I find a new problem with myself and I'll research it on the internet like oh I have that I've seen on the inside I can kind of identify with all of these things but maybe a particular way that I'm crazy is that I'm I'm really quite intense I'm not very good at like conversation I like to know the worst things about everything so I'd like to know the worst thing that you've ever done oh when I realize when we first met yeah you were like most people like ours the weather etc and you I you didn't do any small talk you were like let's get to the tragedy of exists because we're pretending we don't care it's always called in England I want to talk to you about is is a word that I think we really all of us long for but it's a word we know what to do with which is the word community do you feel like I want more of a community feeling is that something no I think it's probably one of the fundamental things I feel I think when I think about things that can make me sad it is the fact that I don't often believe I have a community is something I yearn for and I think it is why I've taken to reading so much sometimes because it's in reading and this is why I agree with you when you say in an ideal society you wouldn't need to read so much because we would have these things available to us you wouldn't need to rely on the dead to give us you know what we should be able to get from the living I don't know okay here's a question are you lonely yes in many ways yeah I would say that I am you are yeah you know I think that's interesting because like I'm not married and I don't have children but I would have imagined you know and I'm sure many people do which is these misconceptions that we really need to to get rid of is that you know your marriage you have children and you have a social group and I imagine you have friends that you know you're not going to be lonely that's that sentence I would have imagined that dog yeah yeah all carry yes that thing I would have imagined that and and and it's never the case I mean let's just take it as read right you know when I mean you've worked a lot with celebrities or famous people etc and when you get to know these people it's always the same story it's like this wonderful facade is like reveals a human being who suffers who's stupid and walks into doors if doubts themselves who's just like an idiot like everybody at the school of life and doing you know we often get people who come to us with low confidence now the standard kind of bless the United States Californian answer to look like of confidence is to say it say to people you're beautiful you're strong believe in yourself like you know everything's terrific we haven't given people counterintuitive advice we say to them look you know how you suspect your bit of an idiot you know you suspect like out of the corner of your eye that maybe like you don't know stuff there's good news and bad news you know the bad news is yes you're an idiot you are actually anything but you know you thought you were an idiot and you are the good news is that there are 7 billion idiots with you that's what it means to be human and whether you're famous or not famous etc you're gonna be stupid you're gonna be lonely you're gonna be lost you're gonna make terrible errors that's the human condition right and it's funny that you say that because I always find the people that I resonate with the most you know if I ask someone how they are and they really tell me how they are they don't just say fine because you know that's sort of like our automatic response but if they say something like you know I'm alive but they're hinting delicately and beautifully add greater complexity exactly and I appreciate that because it immediately lets me know that this is someone I don't have to pretend with yeah but where would you find community that where do you mean I know that you have you know the school of life and that's cultivating something I find very interesting your team were our social media type of app was social media wrap it was yeah yeah and I thought that was really cool because one of the things that I think is hard about social media considering it's called social media it's more like monologue media you know you kind of just you kind of just pour you know like from your stream of consciousness but you you're not really allowed to be that social with people you know I might be Emma's open because I think it's probably a lot better to have conversations in private than in front of an audience because when you're doing in front of an audience you don't want to be seen to be silly you don't want to get things wrong and it can make people more defensive so I think if we talk in our inboxes we can just forget about all of that but I often get people saying I know it's probably weird that I'm messaging you but you know I think you're a nice person or I think you're cool and I get people saying complimentary things and saying I hope you don't find this weird and you would think in the one place which is a social media app you know it would be quite so k to be social with other people yeah but it's not so but I think you feel optimistic about social media you know we often hear that sort of terrible stories of you know awkward encounters etcetera but but there must be so many friendships that have been started unlikely friendships people would never have recognized and honored each other's humanity over divisions of politics over divisions of you know nationalities and-and-and conflicts around the world people have reached out and and discovered you met the humanity that common humanity we live in these giant cities you know behind us is this giant city it's a lonely city out there yes there are bars and clubs and cinemas but how often do you show up in a in a bar and reveal your humanity to straight you don't it's all like it's all posture it's all you know it's it's it's it's pretending that you're someone that you're not so we've lost the art I mean maybe we never really used to be more we grew up in very little groups we grew up in groups of 20 or 30 or 40 and and we now subsist in in groupings of 8 10 20 30 million and we simply know each other through the media and the media reflects back to us an image of mad people in the worst sense aggression etc you're used to thinking the stranger is a mad person to Peter file a murderer or an axe thing you know like you can't imagine that 99.9999% of human beings are really quite nice they just forget that you don't have any experience of that and we think that everybody's you know out to get us and and it leads us to be so timid with our humanity as we as we navigate the big cities right yeah no I agree I've often found that some of my best conversations have come in the back of a new book with a new bow driver that I have no idea about we don't know each other but there's something quite freeing in being able to speak to someone who doesn't know you just find it's much easier to be open with strangers sometimes and I think we should change that I think we should be able to to be more open with our friends about who we are and are more peculiar parts of ourselves and things like that because as you say it is a lonely place and even working as someone with celebrities I know I'm a fashion stylist and I tend to work with people in music and I've had people I've worked with you have 5 million followers who are upset because someone else has seven and a half million you know they feel somewhere hard done but I know we'll be doing so much about about compassion and celebrity I mean the fascinating thing of course is that you know no one no one starts out wanting to be very famous without a wound right it's almost like in order to want to be so visible you've got to feel somehow so invisible right and that's people never get that about celebrities I mean someone said that but acting was not a profession it's a diagnosis but you know maybe celebrity is not how it's not a profession it's a diagnosis you know that's how we should look at it no I think there's something in there I'd be interested to know what the audience thinks about that Elaine I have a question for you so you asked Aisha how is she crazy I want to know oh well how you well I'm very anxious and I'm very I'm really insecure on all fronts I'm just like I'm ready to sort of despair of myself very quickly I'm I I don't have great self belief they expect that I'm quite confident because I might come across as like quite confident but really most the time I want to start crying and curl up in a ball and and pull the blanket over me it's just it's amazing I get through the day so I'm just I'm just very ridiculous indeed of ways how do you get how do you push through that because I would say I'm pretty insecure on many fronts and like I said most of the things that are meant to be good that happening to me I'm like this is terrifying so what makes you push through like how do you get through you know all of the insecurities and anxieties I think you have to believe that what you're experiencing has got an echo in other people even if you can't see it even it even it's like a leap of faith so think about shyness right the shy person takes other people at face value and things how can I possibly get through to them because they looks like they know everything but if you take a leap of faith like even though this person is presenting as a bit of a know wall and as a bit of a you know authority on things like I know there's like a lost frightened child in them so even though they're not giving me any hint I'm just gonna leap over the barrier and I'm just gonna say I know there's that lost kid in you and we're gonna go and have a party you know my lost kid and your lost kid are gonna like get together and like have some fun to go so often we need a little bit of confidence you just break through that barrier not believe in the barrier so I recently came across a new term to me at least called antinatalism this idea of being opposed to being born the first place because life is suffering so I'm very curious to hear how you would have like a conversation between a person who's an antenatal as' and yourselves um you know funnily enough I know antinatalism and I don't know if it's my job to convince them that having children is going to be a worthwhile endeavor for them but you know very sort of believe that having children is immoral and that we don't deserve to have children and and and to that I would say well just because life is suffering doesn't mean that there isn't something to gain from it you know just because things are difficult it doesn't mean that we don't have enormous amounts of beauty in between those hardships and so I think the idea that we shouldn't have children because we're all gonna die and because they'll be suffering is act as if there is no value in some suffering which isn't to over glorify and romanticize suffering but these things make us so that's what I would say I think antinatalism is a typically exaggerated position of a very important truth which is that it's completely possible to have a very good life and never have children and I think the antinatalism gets a lot of its energy from the humiliation that people who decide or can't have children often feel at the hands of a world which is still very focused on raising families and that shame and humiliation is not deserved but I don't think you need to then go and shame and humiliate people who are having children it's it it should be totally allowed to lead a very respectable life with children or without children and I think my hope is that slowly we'll be waking up to seeing the childless state as a equally legitimate state reflecting back on community and the importance of community when I think of community I think of collaboration and the importance of collaboration for those of us with forward-facing platforms how will we maintain transparent conversations with collaborators on sensitive issues I'm thinking it goes back to the idea of being vulnerable and not shaming people I think right now there is a particular energy around this idea that if someone says something wrong or if someone may have the wrong opinion then they're quickly jumped on and that doesn't make anyone want to be vulnerable and this is my biggest worry about conversation taking place in this way is what's meant to give a voice to maybe the most vulnerable people in society I think can actually take away their voice some ways because they're scared to say things that don't correspond maybe to a narrative and so if we want to have transparent conversations I think we need to be able to welcome a diversity of thought even if that thought makes us uncomfortable so as advocates of compassion and in in one case literally a compassion educator how do you avoid simply creating another cultural expectation that we can then fail to live up to good question look I think by precisely admitting that compassion like any other virtue is going to be something that we will find very hard to practice every day and I think you can count as the lover of something without practicing it every day and without necessarily finding it easy so the typical thing is calm so I really believe in being calm but you might spot me you're at the airport fighting with a suitcase like white isn't that you know and you might go charlatan yeah he spoke about calm ridiculous like his own suitcase what an idiot but you could go look I still really believe in the job of being calm it's just like I had a bad day and and I think that we should all cut ourselves some slack what identifies us as people on the right path is that we love and are committed to the right things we might lapse we're not beat might not be compassionate every day but if we if we believe in compassion that's already a huge start so we should feel compassionate towards ourselves for our moments when compassion is beyond us because we are simply under too much pressure so you both point into unrealistic expectations being at the root of disappointment and others and in yourself so it seems like a solution would be to lower your expectations but that seems like it could quickly turn into cynicism so I'm wondering how you all see the difference between cynicism and having realistic expectations about the world and what role hope could play in creating that balance I think cynicism often has a kind of congealed anger within it that the cynic is is actually angry at the state of the world and isn't properly accepting the world I think there's a there's a kind of joyful version of despair you know like maybe you've suffered a great loss and you've been very sad and things you know been very wrong but then sometimes there's a kind of simple joy that comes about when you've been through hell and back and then you know you look at what some remains and you find that good with an energy that may be the sort of embittered person can't find yet so I think there's a way of being in a way quite despairing but at the same time still capable of joy capable of compassion capable of love all those things capable of being silly and light-hearted sometimes but still really in touch with the darkness I think one can do that yeah I think I think you can as well I don't think you can be someone who's quite an advocate and compassion and love and kindness if you are too cynical about the one I think in wanting to speak on those things is for hope you know the understanding that I think we have this within our capacity but we can be so overwhelmed by things are happening in the world and our own minds and and everything that we take in that we forget but I do think we have the capability and and thinking that we have the capability is what makes me hopeful I wanted to hear a bit about your thoughts on duty whether it's something you would encourage or discourage and what would you consider some of its advantages or disadvantages I think Duty can be a good thing I don't know that's something I would recommend that everybody should have to see the value or importance in but I think for me Duty is very bound up with meaning but I think if we feel some form of Duty that's beyond ourselves and some duty to service I think we override some of our insecurities there's also an assumption that people are not dutiful enough nowadays and that in the olden days we were better at duty and that now maybe we're all a bit selfish I'm not quite sure that's true I think there's a lot of evidence that actually there's maybe a bit too much compliance there are many good boys and girls who've been good boys and girls from a young age and they're still ticking the boxes and still doing what society expects of them and that actually what these people need is an ability to discover their own capacities for selfishness and I know that everybody thinks that everybody's so selfish but many people are a little bit too dutiful and get ill from an excess of selflessness and I think that it's a good question to ask yourself if I dared to be a little bit more selfish what would I actually do and I think there are a lot of people out there who have not dared not being given enough love to start to lead the authentic life that they know in their heart of hearts that they deserve but they feel they're not allowed it all right well it's been a pleasure I like thank you so much [Applause] you

Channel: Al Jazeera English

Views: 124,271

Rating: 4.9327903 out of 5

Keywords: youtube, aljazeera.com, racism, al jazeera, race, aljazeera, emotional intelligence, aljazeera english, discussion, media, al jazeera english, arts and culture, society, aljazeera news, alain de botton, ayishat akanbi, studio b unscripted, aljazeera live, social media

Id: NZU7mumpY4U

Length: 47min 53sec (2873 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 20 2019