Enough spirit, creativity and energy to 'reset' our society; things need to change in a fundamental way

Transscript TEDtalk Frans Timmermans: I want to talk to you today about fear. Because you know, fear can be fun! Look at the way captain Jack Sparrow steps in and out of death. And makes a better future for himself. Look at the way the two hyenas in the Lion King enjoy the shivers they along their spines when they pronounce the word ‘Muphasa’. And look at the way your children react when they’re told bedtime stories written by the brothers Grimm with all the horrible elements: They love it! H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe, Steven King, and even the rather less inspired makers of Evil Dead I to X. They all know that fear can be very, very exciting. Fear is also - potentially – a strong political force. If fear is combined with the knowledge that there is a way out, that there is a solution, it can unleash forces unknown to man itself.
A beautiful example of this is President Kennedy’s ‘moon speech’. When he knew that the Soviets had an advantage on the US they were afraid that this would lead to military dominance of the Soviet Union. Kennedy said: “We’ll put a man on the moon.” And this unleashed an incredible force in American society. And he said: “We’re not doing this because it’s easy; we’re doing this because it’s hard. And when you do things that are hard, you can show what your worth. You can show how much force, how much imagination, how much creativity you can unleash in your own society.
At the same time, there is another side to fear. Fear can also suffocate. It can paralyse. It can make you stay in the same spot and not want to move again. Fear is - if it is turned into a political commodity – also something that can paralyse whole societies. You often hear that European culture - European values - could dissolve like a lump of sugar in a cup of tea. Because a foreign element introduced into our society is lost. Today, people like Christopher Caldwell, Mark Stein, Bruce Bauer, they all argue that Europe will disappear, our values will go under. And they only have one solution for this: ‘the Other’ should disappear. Physically, leave. Or should disappear by becoming exactly like us. Those are the only two solutions they see for Europe to survive.
I think that is incredible. Because in Europe we are with so many. Our ideas are so powerful. Our diversity is such a source of strength that one wonders how it is possible that these writings can lead to such a low level of self-confidence. That you would think that a minutely small minority of people who want to impose their ideas on you could do so successfully. But that is what their fear, what the negative side of fear can do to you. In our times, on our continent, we face a huge choice. Because of what fear does. The fear of those who think there’s no way out. The fear of those who think we will disappear.
Jonesy. Do you know who Jonesy is? Lance-Corporal Jack Jones is a great character in a series called Dad’s army. He was a First World War veteran. He was the only true soldier in the band of Dad’s army. He always portrayed himself as a First World War hero. But as soon as something happened that was scary, he would start running around frantically and say: “Don’t panic! Don’t panic! Don’t panic!” And this is what we are doing today. This is what the bad fear is doing to our society.
The choice we face in our society in our time is whether we want to be Captain Jack Sparrow or Lance-Corporal Jack Jones. A pretty clear choice. Why? Because we face a daunting challenge. Perhaps the biggest challenge humanity ever faced. We need to redefine the relationship between man and his natural environment. For the first time in humanity, the presence of the earth and its resources is no longer self-evident and determined. We have to be more careful with how we deal with the earth. We have to take into account an ever-increasing population. A population we need to feed. We need to provide stability. Prosperity and peace. And this is a daunting challenge.
The bad news is: we will have to rethink everything we do, on a very personal level. How we live our lives. But we also have to rethink politics, rethink governance, and rethink our organisational structures. The nation-state can no longer solve all these problems. And governance is needed on continental level, on global level. This means we have to go back to the drawing board and convince people that things need to change in a fundamental way. That’s the bad news.
The good news though, is that it can be done. It is not a scientific challenge. It is not a technological problem. The technology is out there, science has invented the solutions. It is a political problem! Do we have the guts to face this and do the right thing? To apply the knowledge that has been invented to improve. And to make sure that this earth can feed nine billion people. That this earth can create stability and prosperity for all. It is pretty obvious that if we don’t apply the existing technology, if we fail, if we drop the ball, what happens is that humanity will face natural and man-made disasters. And all our efforts, all our efforts, will be directed at managing disasters rather than creating opportunities.
Do you know the Cracken? Jack Sparrow’s enemy, the beast in the sea with all his tentacles. This Cracken has far more than just one tentacle. Our society is affected by the speed of developments worldwide which are brought into your living room instantly. There is no avoiding that. The speed of change also comes to your country very quickly. As societies change rapidly. Far more rapid than ever before in human history. And the speed of this change, the proximity of the problems, the proximity of ‘the Other’, of difference, is another driving force of fear. Sometimes paralysing fear. One can see it all through European history. Fear of the other.
Every time we face change Europeans look at the other. Every time we go back to the drawing board and relations are changed, either in society or between groups or between countries or maps are redrawn, Europeans look at the other, without comprehension. Is he a friend or is he foe? Is he out there - to put it in modern terms – to take away my values? To impose his views? To push me out of my own position? And have we been abandoned by the elites? Where are they? Why don’t they come and help us? Have we seen the threat of different people coming to our society who want to move in a different direction, without the liberty and freedom that has been cherished in this city since the 17th century?
And what about the fear-mongers. Politicians have found that fear is a great political commodity. Perhaps the most successful political commodity in Europe today. These fear-mongers will answer these questions with: “Yes! Yes, this is what’s going to happen”
What they will do is to tell people bed-time stories - after locking their doors and chasing the neighbour away from their backyards - tell them bed-time stories about a past that never was, to seduce them to believe in a future that will never be. That is what is happening a lot in Europe today.
We politicians - but also those people who are dismissed as the elite - we have such an incredibly weak response to this challenge. What you see is that people react by dismissing the fears as irrational, as nonsensical. Which is a force. People see that the threats are real. People know – or feel intuitively – that their position is under threat, that it is not a done deal that we will always prosper. That our wealth will always stay. It is not a done deal that we will have a better future than today’s present. It is not a done deal that we will have peace and prosperity in our society. Look at the dimension of the threats, of the challenges. It is idiotic to dismiss these fears people feel as irrational. Because they’re true, they’re real, be honest about this: it could happen if we don’t act.
The second response is to mimic the fear-mongers. To say: “Okay, they’re popular with the electorate, let’s just adopt their agenda, in part, let’s be ‘fear-mongers light’. That doesn’t work either. The third response - and frankly that is what I see a lot in your circles - is a sort of come together and hold hands and say: “We’re the ones who are right, we’re the ones who understood, they’re all wrong. Yippiyayee.” That doesn’t help either. That does not help. We need to face realities in society. We need to look the Cracken in the eye. We need to do what Jack Sparrow does and say: “Hello beasty!”
Because look at society today and what is the challenge of politics? People have become very eclectic in their choices. They become eclectic in their personal choices. Their fashion is no longer the same all over, is no longer determined by their social group. Their taste in culture is different. And even in certain cities like Amsterdam and other urban areas, you can be eclectic about your identity. You can choose different elements of different identities and construct your own. That’s a wonderful thing! It’s a wonderful element of our liberty.
And people become eclectic in politics as well. They pick and choose from different ideologies and ideas. And they construct their own set of values, set of political ideas. Politics has a problem with that, because political parties - certainly in the Netherlands - are still organised along the lines of the society that was, but is gone. Politicians are still thinking that we have this complete set of values that cater to one group in society or people with one belief.
The end of the European divide had also an enormous influence on this. The end of the European divide meant an end to the ideological dichotomy in the world. It was so easy to have these two poles - capitalism and communism. Groups of people and individuals in political parties could position themselves somewhere is between those two poles. And say, this is our spot. Closer to this, a bit away from that, and so be recognisable. The ideological dichotomy is gone and it has been replaced not by ideological confrontation but a confrontation based on identity.
The foe is he or she with another identity. Because people need something to lean against or to set a difference with. And this is dangerous in society as I described before. With all its rapid changes etc. And we as politicians need to be far more aware of this, especially on the left side of the political spectrum that I represent. Conservatives have always been eclectic; hanging on to power is the main reason. Then you can be eclectic about values, eclectic about positions. Because you construct a set of values that caters to the time. And to the left, ideology has always been less important. But the left needs to reinvent its ideology. Based on a good analysis of society and the voters. To get rid of this attitude: “Here we are. This is where we stand. The voters are somewhere out there. Let’s wait until they’ll come and see us.” No, we need to go out there; we need to be with people, talk to people, and confront them with their fears.
Politicians have turned into providers of goods and services: ‘I have an itch, please come and scratch’. We are something like the service-provider of a phone company. You call them when something is wrong. You rather expect them not to respond. Or to respond very briefly. And perhaps to provide you with a small service and slight discomfort. And you put the phone on the hook and you forget all about them.
We have as a people in Europe outsourced governance and politics to a cast of - perhaps clever and able – people, but it is a fundamental flaw in our political system. We need to go back to the situation where there is one question we ask every individual citizen: What are you going to do about it? And we need to make sure that there is one response we cannot accept: ‘call my MP’. We need to make choices in our lives on individual basis, on societal basis. Even on a global basis. And this is going to be difficult. Because only global governance can solve the problems. Only the acceptance that there is one issue that we can solve together as humanity. Or we go under together as humanity. If we seek to solve it in confrontation and dominance over others. We will have to take action. And diversity is key to this.
When Jack Sparrow jumps into the beastie’s mouth goes against the grain of your intuition. And what politics needs to do today is counter-intuitive to people. When we say to people ‘the Other is your salvation, is your rescue, to look through the eyes of the Other will make you a better person’, it is counter-intuitive. Because people find ‘the Other’ scary, I want to stay with my own group. If we say to people: ‘governance can only be organised on a continental level or a global level’, people say no, no, no! I don’t know all this. I want to organise on a national level. It is counter intuitive. If we say to people: Change! Because we need to change. To redefine our relation with natural environment is fun! Is great! Its successful! People will say, no, no, no! It costs money; it makes my life more uncomfortable. I can’t drive my hummer anymore.
So we need to have the guts and strength as politicians to face fear. Change can only happen if every individual acts. As Teddy Roosevelt said: “Success or failure will be conditioned upon the way in which the average man, the average woman, does his or her duty, first in the ordinary, every-day affairs of life, and next in those great occasional cries which call for heroic virtues.” If we do that with passion we will prevail as a society.
Thank you very much.