I’m a scholar of violence in fact I
teach in a center that deals with
violence Wars and terrorism but today
today I want to talk to you about love
and hope I want to argue that love and
hope are intricately tied and that
they’re critical for the future of our
world now I know that some of you in the
audience might be thinking oh geez this
is this is going to be a softie top like
talk like some Disney movie or some John
Lennon song but why is that why is it
that it’s more fashionable to talk about
violence and Wars than it is to talk
about love and hope so why this silence
now I don’t need to tell you how love
feels you’ve all loved somebody or
something but what is love in essence
well I argue that love and hope are
manifestations of human agency human
agency as you might know is a sense of
autonomy and self-determination a sense
of sovereignty over your thoughts and
actions it’s a sense of choice
empowerment self-determination and
what’s interesting about human agency is
that it is a part of human essence love
and hope I argue are the most potent
manifestations of human agency why well
because love makes you feel feel fully
alive it makes you feel exhilarated
intoxicated metaphorically speaking and
hope hope is intricately tied to a
desire to love I mean you don’t fall in
love with someone only after you
that they’re in love with you too you
fall in love you take a leap of faith
you hope against hope that’s going to
work out and that’s as true for romantic
love as it is for for other kinds of
love like love for fellow human beings
now I want to come back to this issue of
love for fellow human beings and I’m
going to talk a little bit about agency
philosophers argue that agency is
critical to our existence and that in
the absence of agency would live an
inauthentic existence comprised of
faultless compliance and complicity with
even the most brutal of all regimes
here’s what’s very interesting about
agency is that while freedom assumes
agency agency need not assume freedom in
fact I argue that some of the most
powerful and dramatic manifestations of
agency take place in the absence of
freedom
take for example resistance movements
arsh wits for example there are numerous
stories narrated by survivors of
Auschwitz that detail various forms of
resistance movements that took place in
this Nazi death camp and other Nazi
death camps they range anywhere from a
desire to want to escape to wanting to
sabotage a mass execution that the Nazis
had planned there is a very emotional
story narrated by one of the survivors
of Auschwitz that I’d like to share with
you today it’s a story about a woman
called mala mala was a Jewess from
Belgium mala had dared to fall in love
with a fellow inmate they’d both dared
to fall in love and they’re both dared
to escape our sweats imagine in the
middle of this ugliness and monstrosity
mala and her lover focused on love and
hope
unfortunately as with most cases of more
such cases they were both caught and
they were both scheduled to die minutes
before malice execution while her SS
Kommandant was engaging in this
rhetorical speech about the futility of
resistance and escape malice slits her
wrists and kills herself imagine killing
yourselves minutes before you were
scheduled to die anyway
this ladies and gentlemen it’s the most
dramatic manifestation of agency without
freedom
it was Marla’s way of saying to her SS
Commandant’s that while they may control
her physical being they do not control
her essence that in essence she was
still free even if that freedom meant
choosing the timing of her death take
the example of hunger strikers in
prisons Bobby Sands member of the Irish
Republican Army became the poster child
of the hunger strikers in the 1980s he
and nine others engaged in a hunger
strike to demonstrate to their captors
that while they cannot determine when
and if they may be freed
they had one sense of choice still left
four to them and it was a choice not to
eat and again agency in the absence of
freedom take the example of
self-immolation Mohamed Bouazizi
catalyzed the Arab Spring in 2011 when
he set himself on fire as a way to
protest the Tunisian government
oppression and injustice ‘as bowa’s Uzi
had very little freedom and Freedoms in
his life due to his political economic
circumstances but he had won freedom
still left to him one sense of control
and that was to choose the method and
again timing of his death so you can see
that agency is a very powerful and
central desire for human existence and
as I said before
love and hope are some of the most
potent manifestations because love makes
us feel fully alive and hope is
intricately tied to the decision to love
and as I said this is as true for
romantic love as it is for other forms
of love love for fellow human beings for
example now I don’t mean that in some
warm and fuzzy way of holding hands and
swing together when I talk about love
for fellow human beings I’m talking
about a love for fellow human beings in
the real sense on the ground level so to
say for example imagine that you’re
walking in the street and you notice
yourself coming walking toward a
stranger you notice that this stranger
looks sad now you don’t know why they’re
sad or what their situation is but you
decide to smile at them you smile with
your eyes in the way in a way to give
them into some sense of hope some sense
of shared humanity solidarity acceptance
that’s love for fellow human beings and
you know what you may never know just
what that smile meant to them
volunteering in a hospital with
terminally ill patients that’s love for
fellow human beings now you may not
change the world but you certainly
change the world of the person with whom
you spend a few hours with for those few
hours you gave this person hope for
those few hours that person was fully
alive witnessing a hate crime
about to happen and intervening to stop
that despite the fact that you know that
you will never be the target of that
hate crime is love for fellow human
beings and this love for fellow human
beings is based on agency it’s based on
a choice now to be sure hate is also
agency it is after all a choice for
those who choose it and for those who
choose
hate it makes them feel empowered and
control but I argue that hate doesn’t
make you feel as exhilarated as love and
hope
why because hate comes from a place of
anger resentments fear hopelessness
where is love oh love love comes from a
place of acceptance understanding
tolerance hope hope is everything
some years ago I lost a job at a
university that I was teaching at in in
the United States this was at a time
when the country was going through one
of the worst economic recessions things
look bleak I was devastated now I know
that we all lose our jobs at some point
in our lives no big deal right well this
was a big deal this was a big deal
because at the time a lot of personal
plans were contingent on a two-income
household that were suddenly called into
question what was also called into
question was the logic of writing or
continuing to write a book that I was
writing at the time it just seemed
futile to be focusing on intellectuality
when more pressing needs a food shelter
job were knocking on my door but I held
on to hope I mean I went on the job
market but I held on to hope that if I
can finish this book maybe better things
would come for me I finished the book
the book got published a few months
after the book was published I was
offered a position as visiting lecturer
at Princeton University a few years
after that I was offered this position
here at NTU holding on to hope is
everything but what’s the larger
significance of hope for our world well
I think that if we come from a place of
hope we can dare
think critically we can dare to
challenge the norms that have thus far
only led to the action reaction of
violence Wars and terrorism we can
imagine dare to imagine a different
world what I’m really saying what I’m
really saying is that if each one of you
particularly the young folks in the
audience if you can come from a place of
hope right now right here then when
later you’re in positions of power as
teachers professors government officials
policymakers scientists you can take
this perspective with you you can dare
to question the way the older generation
did things you can dare to question the
norms that thus far only led to
perpetual Wars you can imagine a world
that’s based instead on reconciliation
acceptance tolerance now I’m not saying
that it’s easy to hold on to hope it
most certainly is not not in the world
that we live in today what I am saying
is that our only hope is to hold on to
hope but here’s the thing about love and
hope as based on agency they’re not
unlike any other actions based on agency
that is there are no guarantees there
are no guarantees that the outcomes will
be as you expected the outcomes might be
better than you expected or worse than
you expected or somewhere in between but
you know what there is one guarantee
that if you take no action there will be
no outcomes negative or positive
psychologists say that we are the
authors of our own lives through the
actions that we take or don’t take well
I say that we are
also the authors of her own world
through the actions that we take or
don’t take so the hope that we hold on
to or don’t we can write rewrite the
story of this world we can rewrite the
story by holding on to love for fellow
human beings and hope for a better world
so I just want to leave you with a few
questions today now I want you to really
think about these few questions do you
think that our world is worth the risk
of love and hope do you think that you
are worth the risk of love and hope do
you think that your children are worth
the risk of love for fellow human beings
in the hopes for a better world are they
well I say absolutely yes yes yes
they’re worth it we are worth it thank
you
[Applause]
teach in a center that deals with
violence Wars and terrorism but today
today I want to talk to you about love
and hope I want to argue that love and
hope are intricately tied and that
they’re critical for the future of our
world now I know that some of you in the
audience might be thinking oh geez this
is this is going to be a softie top like
talk like some Disney movie or some John
Lennon song but why is that why is it
that it’s more fashionable to talk about
violence and Wars than it is to talk
about love and hope so why this silence
now I don’t need to tell you how love
feels you’ve all loved somebody or
something but what is love in essence
well I argue that love and hope are
manifestations of human agency human
agency as you might know is a sense of
autonomy and self-determination a sense
of sovereignty over your thoughts and
actions it’s a sense of choice
empowerment self-determination and
what’s interesting about human agency is
that it is a part of human essence love
and hope I argue are the most potent
manifestations of human agency why well
because love makes you feel feel fully
alive it makes you feel exhilarated
intoxicated metaphorically speaking and
hope hope is intricately tied to a
desire to love I mean you don’t fall in
love with someone only after you
that they’re in love with you too you
fall in love you take a leap of faith
you hope against hope that’s going to
work out and that’s as true for romantic
love as it is for for other kinds of
love like love for fellow human beings
now I want to come back to this issue of
love for fellow human beings and I’m
going to talk a little bit about agency
philosophers argue that agency is
critical to our existence and that in
the absence of agency would live an
inauthentic existence comprised of
faultless compliance and complicity with
even the most brutal of all regimes
here’s what’s very interesting about
agency is that while freedom assumes
agency agency need not assume freedom in
fact I argue that some of the most
powerful and dramatic manifestations of
agency take place in the absence of
freedom
take for example resistance movements
arsh wits for example there are numerous
stories narrated by survivors of
Auschwitz that detail various forms of
resistance movements that took place in
this Nazi death camp and other Nazi
death camps they range anywhere from a
desire to want to escape to wanting to
sabotage a mass execution that the Nazis
had planned there is a very emotional
story narrated by one of the survivors
of Auschwitz that I’d like to share with
you today it’s a story about a woman
called mala mala was a Jewess from
Belgium mala had dared to fall in love
with a fellow inmate they’d both dared
to fall in love and they’re both dared
to escape our sweats imagine in the
middle of this ugliness and monstrosity
mala and her lover focused on love and
hope
unfortunately as with most cases of more
such cases they were both caught and
they were both scheduled to die minutes
before malice execution while her SS
Kommandant was engaging in this
rhetorical speech about the futility of
resistance and escape malice slits her
wrists and kills herself imagine killing
yourselves minutes before you were
scheduled to die anyway
this ladies and gentlemen it’s the most
dramatic manifestation of agency without
freedom
it was Marla’s way of saying to her SS
Commandant’s that while they may control
her physical being they do not control
her essence that in essence she was
still free even if that freedom meant
choosing the timing of her death take
the example of hunger strikers in
prisons Bobby Sands member of the Irish
Republican Army became the poster child
of the hunger strikers in the 1980s he
and nine others engaged in a hunger
strike to demonstrate to their captors
that while they cannot determine when
and if they may be freed
they had one sense of choice still left
four to them and it was a choice not to
eat and again agency in the absence of
freedom take the example of
self-immolation Mohamed Bouazizi
catalyzed the Arab Spring in 2011 when
he set himself on fire as a way to
protest the Tunisian government
oppression and injustice ‘as bowa’s Uzi
had very little freedom and Freedoms in
his life due to his political economic
circumstances but he had won freedom
still left to him one sense of control
and that was to choose the method and
again timing of his death so you can see
that agency is a very powerful and
central desire for human existence and
as I said before
love and hope are some of the most
potent manifestations because love makes
us feel fully alive and hope is
intricately tied to the decision to love
and as I said this is as true for
romantic love as it is for other forms
of love love for fellow human beings for
example now I don’t mean that in some
warm and fuzzy way of holding hands and
swing together when I talk about love
for fellow human beings I’m talking
about a love for fellow human beings in
the real sense on the ground level so to
say for example imagine that you’re
walking in the street and you notice
yourself coming walking toward a
stranger you notice that this stranger
looks sad now you don’t know why they’re
sad or what their situation is but you
decide to smile at them you smile with
your eyes in the way in a way to give
them into some sense of hope some sense
of shared humanity solidarity acceptance
that’s love for fellow human beings and
you know what you may never know just
what that smile meant to them
volunteering in a hospital with
terminally ill patients that’s love for
fellow human beings now you may not
change the world but you certainly
change the world of the person with whom
you spend a few hours with for those few
hours you gave this person hope for
those few hours that person was fully
alive witnessing a hate crime
about to happen and intervening to stop
that despite the fact that you know that
you will never be the target of that
hate crime is love for fellow human
beings and this love for fellow human
beings is based on agency it’s based on
a choice now to be sure hate is also
agency it is after all a choice for
those who choose it and for those who
choose
hate it makes them feel empowered and
control but I argue that hate doesn’t
make you feel as exhilarated as love and
hope
why because hate comes from a place of
anger resentments fear hopelessness
where is love oh love love comes from a
place of acceptance understanding
tolerance hope hope is everything
some years ago I lost a job at a
university that I was teaching at in in
the United States this was at a time
when the country was going through one
of the worst economic recessions things
look bleak I was devastated now I know
that we all lose our jobs at some point
in our lives no big deal right well this
was a big deal this was a big deal
because at the time a lot of personal
plans were contingent on a two-income
household that were suddenly called into
question what was also called into
question was the logic of writing or
continuing to write a book that I was
writing at the time it just seemed
futile to be focusing on intellectuality
when more pressing needs a food shelter
job were knocking on my door but I held
on to hope I mean I went on the job
market but I held on to hope that if I
can finish this book maybe better things
would come for me I finished the book
the book got published a few months
after the book was published I was
offered a position as visiting lecturer
at Princeton University a few years
after that I was offered this position
here at NTU holding on to hope is
everything but what’s the larger
significance of hope for our world well
I think that if we come from a place of
hope we can dare
think critically we can dare to
challenge the norms that have thus far
only led to the action reaction of
violence Wars and terrorism we can
imagine dare to imagine a different
world what I’m really saying what I’m
really saying is that if each one of you
particularly the young folks in the
audience if you can come from a place of
hope right now right here then when
later you’re in positions of power as
teachers professors government officials
policymakers scientists you can take
this perspective with you you can dare
to question the way the older generation
did things you can dare to question the
norms that thus far only led to
perpetual Wars you can imagine a world
that’s based instead on reconciliation
acceptance tolerance now I’m not saying
that it’s easy to hold on to hope it
most certainly is not not in the world
that we live in today what I am saying
is that our only hope is to hold on to
hope but here’s the thing about love and
hope as based on agency they’re not
unlike any other actions based on agency
that is there are no guarantees there
are no guarantees that the outcomes will
be as you expected the outcomes might be
better than you expected or worse than
you expected or somewhere in between but
you know what there is one guarantee
that if you take no action there will be
no outcomes negative or positive
psychologists say that we are the
authors of our own lives through the
actions that we take or don’t take well
I say that we are
also the authors of her own world
through the actions that we take or
don’t take so the hope that we hold on
to or don’t we can write rewrite the
story of this world we can rewrite the
story by holding on to love for fellow
human beings and hope for a better world
so I just want to leave you with a few
questions today now I want you to really
think about these few questions do you
think that our world is worth the risk
of love and hope do you think that you
are worth the risk of love and hope do
you think that your children are worth
the risk of love for fellow human beings
in the hopes for a better world are they
well I say absolutely yes yes yes
they’re worth it we are worth it thank
you
[Applause]
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