our dominant ideology is based on a lie
the idea that human beings are
fundamentally selfish some economists
even have a word for this they call us
Homo economicus self-maximizing man
elbowing other people out of the way in
order to enhance our own wealth and
power and it’s certainly true that some
economists behave like that and some
public figures behave like that but it
does not describe the majority of
humankind by a long talk we are in fact
an exceptional species with levels of
altruism and empathy that exceed those
of any other species and and that
capacity for altruism appears to be
innate from the age of 14 months
children will try to help others to
reach something that’s out of their
grasp by the time they’re 2 they will
start to share valued possessions not
just with family members but with
unrelated people something which really
marks us out from the great majority of
animal species by the time they’re three
and they will start establishing moral
norms imposing on their friends and and
and other people they know altruistic
codes don’t behave like that that’s
wrong and all these seem to be innate
and embedded characteristics part of the
normal human psyche but it is quite
exceptional in in in terms of the rest
of the animal kingdom
when it comes to another characteristic
– we are way out ahead of almost all
other species which is our degree of
social interaction the extent to which
we possess social Minds perhaps the only
species which goes further than us is
the naked mole rat but I won’t go into
that today and and these two
characteristics brought together will
create this remarkable moral sense and
an ability to project our moral selves
well beyond our immediate circumstance
and a recent paper in a psychology
Journal points out that Homo economicus
is an excellent description of
chimpanzees and it’s a really bad
description of human beings but the
danger is that if we keep telling
ourselves we’re selfish and greedy and
grasping and we just shove everyone out
the way that that could become a
self-fulfilling claim that we start to
see other people as a social threat we
start to see them as being above all
else competitive in their relations with
us rather than the thing which humans do
better than any other species being
cooperative and I wouldn’t claim that
this is the only thing setting us apart
or the only thing responsible for the
extraordinary levels of loneliness which
that many of the 7 billion people
crowded onto this planet paradoxically
suffer plainly there’s been all sorts of
economic and technological and social
change which have also been responsible
for these horrendous levels of
involuntary social isolation but it’s
bound to be a factor surely if this is
the way that we see other people and we
sense this social threat from other
people that is bound to set us apart and
Ewan and I came together to to challenge
that myth and to challenge the idea
which is completely unscientific that we
are fundamentally as Thomas Hobbes
claimed solitary poor and our lives are
nasty brutish and short they are at
least quite long not nice but to
actually try to stand up to that myth
which had its roots in an understanding
of human evolution which was confined to
the book of Genesis and now what we know
from neurobiology from psychology from
human evolution we know we are not like
that but unfortunately that’s not the
method that’s not the message that often
comes across and what we’ve decided to
do is to use the most powerful medium
human beings have invented for bringing
people together in order to spread that
message and that’s music
we wrote an album called breaking the
spell of loneliness and the first track
laid out our manifesto such a thing of
[Music]
we have
it’s working
be together
human
and the glitz that our goal and the
silver shirt we see ourselves in the
image of me have we fought over the
scraps since a very personal
do we really believe
that such a big mess society keeps us
together that makes us human
it’s not to rehearse not how we live in
the depths of the SAS going money too
we lend our hands a stranger’s be mates
we go a mouse or the tremors tenants we
it’s such a big mess society
not me
that’s what Kahneman laughing together
that makes us human
[Music]
watch it all weather and the light of
the Sun and the water about meat
United will stand away
[Music]
to play
[Music]
and I such a big mess Society
and losing their mate it’s black unity
living together that makes us human
[Music]
something is plainly going wrong for the
most ultra ultra social of all species
and the sector of our society which
seems to be suffering from it most is
our children childhood should be a time
of lightness and joy but recent
statistics suggest that for many it’s a
time of horrible darkness one figure
that came out well just last week
suggests that children in children here
in Britain girls have increased the rate
of hospitalization for cutting
themselves almost fourfold over the last
ten years there’s something going very
badly wrong here indeed and I think
there are several possible explanations
well what makes this strange is that
parenting seems to have improved almost
beyond recognition in the past 50 years
that that parents are more engaged more
switched on to their children than
perhaps they’ve ever been before fathers
are much more involved and yet all this
really bad stuff is happening at the
same time social media possibly has
something to do with it if it has it’s
great force for bringing us together but
it could also set us apart especially
when it becomes a means of social
comparison and girls for instance using
all these this retouching software to
make themselves look slimmer and
smoother than they really are and the
the potentially devastating impacts that
have has when you’re constantly trying
to compare yourself to this idealized
image which you can’t possibly reach but
I think there’s something else happening
as well and I think it’s got something
to do with one of the greatest and least
documented social changes we’ve
undergone which is children not going
outdoors it is quite remarkable the
extent to which this has taken place for
example in the course of just one
generation 25 years the unaccompanied
home range of children the area that
they roam unsupervised by adults has
reduced by 90% and this not only has
impacts on their physical health just
not getting fit enough not developing
physical skills
not only cuts them off from the natural
world and cuts off the possibility that
those children could turn into the new
generation of people loving and
defending that natural world I think it
also has a devastating impact on their
social skills because when you’re not
being supervised by adults when you’re
running around with a tribe of children
of your own age you have to work it out
for yourself you have to develop those
social skills by yourself you have to
work out what’s a sensible thing to do
and what’s not and you learn so much
better that way when you’re engaged in
your own learning process rather than
being told and you develop the social
skills and very often the friendships
which will carry you through life and
staying indoors staring at a screen by
yourself
well that makes you the subject of our
would stand near our quiets now when
once their anguish shouts and laughter
the songs that echoed through the veil
as children left it followed after
streams that once we jumped and swam the
old oak tree we can the child inside as
philosophy sites the child inside us
asked
[Music]
who would stand near love watched me
grow from a child upon my father’s
shoulders me across the bow and smell
the tree as years grew older and I told
Peter Smith I’m afraid
dandelion Club Sun lon
conquers life bugs are neglected even
though words of a winner now
my queen sir leaves the line a collected
Rena Stern
the way
and almost Weaver
a Quisling the mansion built by my son
nor by my daughter
[Music]
as busy roads no plane the place to run
and laugh and play together switch I’ll
decide is flat from D far from the sting
and warm weather who woodland lead son
trotting now the Rambo
[Music]
Sheldon say does lost me Saints child
and save us bust
[Applause]
and it’s not just it’s not just children
who have been cut off from the living
world through enclosure over the course
of hundreds of years almost all of us
were shut out by one means or another
from the countryside losing the great
fortifying Commons that provided so much
of our subsistence but also so much of
our social and community and ceremonial
life as well we ended up in the cities
Britain was the first largely urbanized
nation on earth and there we developed a
new Commons the street where so much of
our community life and so much of our
ceremonial life took place but then that
Commons tomb has gradually been taken
away from us in this case by another
force the motor vehicle and the busier
the traffic on the street the less
social connection you have with your
neighbors the fewer of your neighbors
that you know but the good news is that
many people are trying to reverse that
they’re trying to take back that urban
Commons they’re trying to reclaim the
nice fixed fast seven billion lives
alone together upside down
oh love the beat and lay out the tables
and flags and come on that’s – it’s open
the white doors and stand together very
clean in the streets once it to the
streets are raise our children well no
one died unknown windows no doors were
locked
once again let’s make the street
shadowed three streets belong to
everyone
wait then comments that we share from
the box to the playing fields and
benches these streets are more than just
a part of me so we’ll have the beer and
laying out the tables kind of relax and
come on out students open wider doors
and stand together
we reclaim the streets highways that
select the term the father’s Godzilla
laps all right like a nice one day at
least let’s all obey the engines once
again well fill the streets with life we
dance on the pavements here together
take back the road for the kids to play
pull down the billboards and the places
I’m toe up streets in the hallway
we’ll have to be in a layout the tables
hang the flags and among our students
open wider doors and stand together
they really clean the street we reclaim
the street
is our belief that the health of a
political society depends on the ability
of people to come back together that if
we are to see political renewal in this
country or in any other is going to
depend not on angry meetings of people
shouting each other which is what most
people will see the political engagement
is being is going to depend on social
and cultural gatherings of people once
more reasserting community is going to
depend on the recognition that we stand
together or we fall apart thank you