The Secret of Simple Sound World Economics

In this merciless world, we observe chaos, corruption, trade barriers, extortion and exploitation of the weak. We wonder if there exists any solution to the unsurmountable problems of world economics. We acknowledge there will always be shortages. There is simply not enough for everybody on this planet.

Puzzled by these questions and by feelings of guilt two thousand years ago, people asked John the Baptist what they should be doing. You would expect a very demanding list of charity related duties. The answer was astonishingly simple, minimalistic even. To the public officials, he said: “Don't ask more than what has been established for you.” To the soldiers he said: “Don't rob anyone. Don't extort or fine anyone falsely. Be satisfied with your pay.”

Especially the idea of showing satisfaction with your pay seems unworldly strange in this era of never enough. Showing satisfaction with your pay sounds like asking to be robbed.

Nevertheless: could we try this? And see where we end up in this chaos. In combination with modest generosity, this is the best simple cure for a sound world economy.

I refer to my blogs Temperance saves the World and to Economics of Good and Evil.

Picture: retable ‘The Life of John the Baptist’ from the Notre-Dame cathedral of Amiens 2019 ©Wim Lahaye

A New Chance for Europe

Europe is often criticised. In this time, Europe is even being criticised for being a moral reference in the world in aspects like ecology, adherence to dialogue and peace and social protection. When shameless stupidity rules, moral behaviour is considered a weakness.

Even in academic circles it has become ‘bon ton’ as they say in French to criticise political authorities from the side line in choir with the bullies. It's all going too slow. As highly educated people we tend to put ourselves at the same height as the political authorities and by means of a sharp tweet or a witty post we believe we can save the world from the politicians’ ignorance and incompetence. 

At least the sharp tweets and witty posts free us a few seconds of our general feeling of being totally unimportant. The breakdown of authority has gone so far that anybody carrying power should be ashamed of how badly things are going and how weak Europe is against the other geopolitical powers. We should be grateful for our freedom of speech, but we tend to look too negatively at things.

Europe is collaborating better than ever since it got under pressure to take a new course. Collaboration is the key to every successful step in space, defence, ecology or social advancement. If Europe now succeeds in putting aside the national interests in favour of the general European interests, we are on our way to success. 

I refer to earlier blogs about Europe.

Picture: The Abduction of Europa by Zeus, statue in the town of Leuven 2023 ©Wim Lahaye

Poise, Bravery, and Hope

New Year’s resolutions usually aim at doing something, either more or less. We may intend to do more sports, eat less, smoke less, or even work less. Could we also aim at changing our attitude and state of mind to a certain extent? It may be needed in this time when everyone around us seems to be in deep despair about our future, whether it relates to work, war, immigration, climate, or the dangers of eating Christmas trees.

In this valley of tears, there is really a lot to worry about. Although there is always a slight irony in my blogs, our common tendency to be pessimistic is not totally unjustified. Our fears are triggered by the incredible rate at which everything changes. We are missing solid structures in our lives. The solid structures of religion, marriage, family, work often turn into liquids, and it sometimes looks as if we always need to restart reconstructing them like Sisyphus. It makes us extremely vulnerable. Even worse, pessimism may become self-fulfilling.

My New Year’s resolution would be to stay steadfast in the face of uncertainty. We can’t really decide never to be afraid. Fear is an emotion and usually catches us unexpectedly. We can however try to keep our poise and stay brave in the face of what is coming. The brave attitude is certainly less comfortable than the ‘run away’ or ‘blame it on the others’ attitude but it is the one which we regret the least later on. What keeps us going is the hope. The pessimists may be right but hope never dies.

Picture: pedestrian bridge in Tours, France 2019 ©Wim Lahaye

Let so much suffering not be in vain

"Tantus labor non sit cassus" is a sentence in the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) sequence (form of poem – song). The cheerful subject is the end of man and the end of the world. The man who anxiously awaits his final judgment begs to be saved. The title sentence is a sort of warning, almost a threat: if at least a number of people are not allowed to be saved (including me), then the suffering of Christ will have been in vain. So don't let the first happen (and save me) lest the second happen. One might even recognize in the sentence a certain moral blackmail against God: if He does not save me and my peers, then He will have made the suffering of His own Son meaningless.

We can also apply it to the salvation of our world: "Let so much suffering not be in vain." The Church regularly points out that man is appointed to the management of nature and that he must be accountable for it. If man is letting the world perish by continuing his clear-cutting, then all the sacrifices made by Christ and his followers, including all the sacrifices made by climate activists, will have been in vain.

It can be good to be reminded of this every year. Do I consider the climate activists here to be the modern-day followers of Christ? In a certain way, yes. Of  course, the climate deniers also have their arguments, but in general I do advocate caring and good stewardship with our earth and it is a good time of the year to bring that up again.

I also refer to my blog: "Day of Wrath".

Afbeelding van Peace,love,happiness via Pixabay

Seek for Advice

Life has always been complicated. Sooner or later in their lives, all people ran into situations where they needed some kind of advice. In the old days, you could get this advice from shamans, priests, counsellors, teachers, witches or just from good friends, which was probably the best. The ancient Greeks, if they were wealthy enough, could travel to the oracle of Delphi to get some advice on what to do next.

In our society, seeking for advice looks easy but may not be that easy. A first impediment for seeking advice is our obsession with autonomy and self-reliance. Everybody is very busy appearing autonomous. Asking for advice requires a certain humility. You may need to recognise someone else for his/her specific competence. Even worse, you may discover you got it all wrong to start with. Any kind of advice, whether free or paid, may require a certain gratitude from you. Gratitude is sometimes difficult to convey.

A second impediment for seeking advice maybe the fact that we feel bombarded by advice already. In the good old days, we needed to ask for scarce information; nowadays information is abundant and thrown at us at megabytes per second. As a result, we develop a defensive attitude towards advice. We remain just as helpless as before as we now need to filter out the rare useful information from the information ocean. Therefore, we still need personal advice, more than ever.

Let us think this week on what topics we may need advice. You can't honour your fellow human being more than by asking advice. Saint Paul's advice would be “to put on the new man” or as we say in Dutch “Enrobe yourself with the new man (person)”. (‘Bekleedt u met de nieuwe mens’). Be a brand-new person. Good advice may lead us to a good life and to reinforced friendship.

I refer to my blog Dare to Expect.

Picture: Delphi, Greece, picture taken in 1991 ©Wim Lahaye

The Balkan Countries Belong to Europe

When I was a pupil at primary school, I got fascinated by the dichotomy of Europe created by the Iron Curtain. As a child, I found it incredibly sad that Eastern Europe could not be visited easily and that Eastern Europe citizens could not visit us very easily. (I found out later the former Yugoslavia was an exception to this rule.) Around the end of my university studies, a dream came true. The Iron Curtain opened and West Europeans could unite with East Europeans.

Only five years later in December 1994, the European Young Engineers were born and I remember well how Hungarian young engineers visited us soon after in Belgium. Last year I was very proud to see as a founding member that our latest successors had succeeded in organising a European conference in Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia.

The eastern Balkan countries are perhaps the last countries to join the European Union, although we can't know this for sure. Historically the Balkan countries played a very important role in the Roman Empire, be it that their distance to Rome was far less than their distance to Brussels. This makes it hard for Balkan country Europeans to come to Brussels and it may lead at times to local frustrations about the decisions taken in faraway Brussels. This frustration is certainly coming, but we should remain positive and welcome this unexpected human progress. Hope never dies.

Meanwhile, we were happy to receive last week two delegations of academic staff of four Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Serbia) on a seminar about space economy in our beautiful town of Leuven.

I also refer to my blog Erasmus travels through Europe.

Afbeelding van Dimitris Vetsikas via Pixabay

The Increasing Likelihood of Flying Teapots

When Bertrand Russell formulated his famous flying teapot analogy, he deliberately chose a very British object, one that nevertheless would have looked very awkward if it were ever observed to be revolving in an orbit around the sun, the Earth, or around any celestial body.

The flying teapot analogy was often referred to by atheist thinkers as a rightful argument against religious dogmatism. I myself being a religious person, I nevertheless fully concur with Russell’s viewpoint. The flying teapot analogy is not only well found and funny, it rightfully lays the burden of proof to the one making an unfalsifiable statement. Saint Thomas was right to question his friends’ statements, which remain unfalsifiable to us. I however disagree with some atheist thinkers that religious adherence requires rational proof of the related beliefs. I agree with atheist thinkers that religions should not disdain non-believers.

Climate change deniers believe climate activists believe in flying teapots, but climate change is falsifiable science, it is not a belief. The existence of climate change deniers can't be denied though.

With the shifting thin grey line between the feasible and the unfeasible, it looks like Russell’s analogy becomes more likely in time. We can already send teapots in an orbit around the Earth, and our telescopes could then see them flying. Sending over a few dozens could be done at reasonable cost, say $500 to $1000 per teapot. A teapot constellation would make a nice student project and I’m sure the funding question will come up soon. The Kessler syndrome, ending in clouds of pieces of porcelain in space, could be the end to this very British dream.

I refer to my blogs “Belief Creates the Actual Fact” and to “What Satellites Can Do For You”.

Picture Patricia Deneffe ©2024

A Faith of Absurdities

At this feast of Easter, one conclusion can’t be denied. Christianity is a faith of paradoxes and absurdities. I’m not claiming other religions don’t have them, on the contrary. Jesus, however, is a person who seemed to embody the controverse and the paradox. I give some examples below.

1.      He is dead, but belongs to the living.

2.      What was hidden from the wise is revealed to children.

3.      The last will be first.

4.      For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. (The Matthew Effect)

5.      Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the land.

6.      Blessed are those who have not seen, yet believe.

7.      Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

8.      For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.

9.      The blind see and the deaf hear.

10.  The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

 

A lot of lectures start with something obvious, e.g. “this person is a sinner”. After Jesus’ intervention, sometimes by means of a metaphor or a parable, the obvious proves to be not so obvious and the contrary of the obvious proves to be closer to the truth after all. This pattern occurs a lot in the gospels. Now, you could claim that wisdom is often like that. Confucius, Socrates and Seneca were not bad at paradoxes either. That is probably true, but the fact that Jesus has the courage to stick to his paradoxes until the last moments of his life probably played a role in the 2000-year popularity of his messages.

This is not to say that Christianity is only about wisdom, paradoxes and absurdities, and the correlated popularity of the message. Christianity is not meant either for a small tribe of intellectuals who believe they understand the astute subtleties. The heart of the matter goes much deeper. It is about his modesty, and the faith, love and hope he shared. We should not celebrate Easter because we give his wisdom a thumbs up. We celebrate Easter because this controversial personality is still with us and because we love Him so much.

Afbeelding van Kathryn Kolencik via Pixabay

A New Year’s Resolution: Cultivate the Art of Being There

Most New Year’s Resolutions emphasise action or abstinence. We should do more or less of something. We should do more sports, more language learning and more hobbies. We should smoke less, work less and drive our cars less.

Instead of our actions, we could also consider our presence in this world. Are we really there for our loved ones? Do we spend time with them and how do we spend our time with them? How is our attentiveness towards our loved ones? Do we really listen and talk with full attention? We do not always need to speak, but are we receptive to the expressed and non-expressed needs of our fellow human beings?

In many cases, we can’t solve all problems and it is not good to overact. The essence is to be there. This sounds like a tautology. We need to be present when our loved ones need us. Let us get rid of our full agendas and live in the here and now.

The Power of Vulnerability

In these dark days, the struggle for existence, on the last days leading up to Christmas, can be tough. Now that in itself is not a problem if we could freely share that feeling with each other, among colleagues. Rather than telling success stories to each other, we could tell what went wrong, how we made ourselves immortally ridiculous with the customer and, above all, how miserable we felt about it.

Our organisational culture is however still based on a model of competition. Showing weakness and vulnerability is not done, because our assessment and our salary depend on it. We bottle up our emotions until they reach heights we didn't know existed. Is it because our organisations are mainly run by men? It looks like a competitive macho culture plays a role everywhere. Moreover, our society is still permeated by a certain stoicism.

The problem is that the competition model has reached its limits. One of the symptoms of this is the burning of employees – the so-called burnout. In a knowledge-based society, competition is neither effective nor efficient, because it prevents the sharing of knowledge. Collaboration is much more effective than competition. Our evaluation systems are based on individual performance and not on willingness to cooperate. And to evaluate the latter, you should not ask the boss, but the peers.

In an atmosphere of cooperation, it is easier to show vulnerability. The advantage is that you don't need to hide your weaknesses so much and that you can therefore call on colleagues in time to compensate for them. This reduces the burnout rate and increases customer satisfaction. Don't get me wrong. We don't do this just for the numbers. We improve the quality of our lives and we make the world a little more friendly.

I refer to my blog resilience.

Picture: Michelangelo, Madonna with Child, Church of Our Lady, Bruges, ©Wim Lahaye

Leadership and Subjectivity

When Moses arrived on the top of Mount Nebo in Jordan, how did he know this was the land he had announced to his people, the Promised Land? The objective truth is: he didn’t know. Perhaps the view is magnificent as we can see on the picture, but there were other people and other armies down there. It is reasonable to assume Moses got tired roaming through the desert for forty years. Otherwise, there was no objective fact indicating this was the end destination for his people.

The book of Exodus, which tells the story of Israel’s people leaving Egypt under Moses and his brother Aaron’s leadership, is a splendid manual on leadership. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t read the scriptures because they are useful. I read them because I love them. I love them because they are beautiful and because I feel like they could make me a better person. But for those of you who don’t love the scriptures, beware the book of Exodus contains all you need to know about leadership.

The Bible says Moses knew from God. But how does God speak to man? It never happens through objective reasoning. Moses didn’t have any useful objective data that would have allowed him to make a reasonably good decision. Moses knew almost nothing about the land in front of him and the strength of its armies. He needed to rely on his inner voice, through intuition, prayer, belly feeling, dreaming, sense of responsibility and love for his people, in short through his own subjectivity.

If good leadership in difficult circumstances requires subjectivity, it has a serious implication for the leader. The people need to believe him. They need to give him the authority to rely on his personal subjective feelings. They will only do this if they believe he is good, wise and integer. And this belief is usually based on some common experience in extremely bad conditions, such as the experience in the Sinai desert. If the people’s belief gets lost through some negative experience, the leader becomes extremely vulnerable. The leadership crisis we observe today, is due to a lack of common experience in the desert and a lack of willingness to grant authority to someone else, usually because of our own narcissism. The conclusion of this blog is that in leadership, subjectivity is objectively required.

I also refer to my Dutch blogs Leadership and Love and Dreamers Who Do.

Picture: Mount Nebo, Jordan, 2023 Courtesy of Patricia Deneffe

Let them be wrong about you

We may embrace the idea of not judging others; this does not immediately free us from the fear of being judged by others. Hans Christian Andersen's story of the ugly duckling reminds us of the fact that we may be excluded, simply based on the fact of being different. Being different makes us vulnerable and vulnerability may end up with injury. In the end, we become our injuries. The fear of being injured in the future may have a paralysing effect on us, even to such an extent that we proclaim a final judgement over us that is worse than the original blame. (Moreover, of all dreadful judges, you are probably the worst one for yourself.)

In the social media, we discover our fellow human beings are often wrong about many things: be it elections, climate or the meaning of woke. Even in academic circles, the reasoning of our fellow human beings is far from straight. The most educated people may end up with totally opposite opinions, depending on how their youth traumas made them look at the world. We may deeply regret this but generally we have no other option than to live with it. If our fellow human beings are wrong so often about so many things, why couldn't they be wrong about us? We do our best in the hope that humanity keeps a nice track record about us. Alas, humanity does not care.

In general, gossip, misunderstanding and stupidity may destroy our reputation in our limited social habitat. It doesn't help to be perfect: don't even try this! Instead, accept it, let it go and allow your fellow human beings to be wrong or at least incomplete about you. You rarely lose anything by allowing that to happen. People say stupid things all the time and they would have been wrong about you anyway! The happy ending is not that you become a swan, but you may feel like one! You win an enormous freedom: the freedom to be and to do what you like. You will no longer be paralysed. This can be a very liberating thought.

I also refer to another Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale: the Emperor's New Clothes.

Picture: from the book Andersens Sprookjesschat, Zuid-Nederlandse Uitgeverij – Antwerpen/Amsterdam 1966

A New Year's Resolution: Wholeheartedness

Wholeheartedness goes a step further than sincerity or honesty. Whoever is honest does not lie and tells the truth. But he/she does not necessarily say everything and does not necessarily show himself completely with all his/her emotions. This can cause problems. Anyone who says yes when given an impossible assignment is not dishonest, but is confronted with a problem due to a lack of wholeheartedness.

In wholeheartedness, the bearer is an open book. He surrenders himself to the listener in full confidence and assumes that the listener has all the capacity to share in the joy and pain that the message brings. The wholehearted person is not only honest in words but also in posture, attitude and interest in the reaction of the other. The wholehearted person approaches the fellow human being with an audacious confidence. He/she is well aware that the listener may not like the message, but consciously acts vulnerably, with his / her imperfections, to get the message into the heart of the listener. The message is so important that all shame and fear of ridicule is overcome.

An interesting question is whether you can learn or practice wholeheartedness. It's a bit like the virtue of patience; it's a passive letting go rather than an active doing. What we have to learn to let go of is the question how we look like and today this is mainly the sensed need to appear 'cool'. It is the most horrible contemporary need by the way, because what is still so nice about being cool when everybody is cool already?

Wholeheartedness can move mountains. But the wholehearted person must lower shields and be willing to be hurt by the fellow man. Wholeheartedness takes courage. But there is something in return. Most people are good and that is why they also appreciate courage and wholeheartedness. So let us make it a very whole-heartfelt year!

Some charismatic leaders are also wholehearted. I refer to the YouTube video of Brené Brown. She doesn't only explain the concept, she also radiates in her speech what wholeheartedness is. Brené Brown on the Building Blocks of Wholeheartedness – The Marginalian

Picture from shutterstock.com

Ode to Friendship

Today is Saint John's day. Saint John is the patron of friendship and namesake of many good friends in many countries (Jan, Jean, John, Johan, Hans, Juan, Giovanni, João, ..). In art, Saint John is recognisable as the 'youngest looking' apostle, with long hair and a slightly feminine touch. Legend has it that he was so loved by Jesus that he became the only apostle allowed to live until his old age.

December 27 is also an ideal day to reconnect with your friends. Friends are peers in whose company we like to stay. They know us and we know them. We don't have to wear masks. We accept them as they are and they accept us as we are. However, the differences can be very large. That way, good friends can often form very strong teams. But friendship is not there to deliver great achievements.

Colleagues can become friends, but it is only when they become friends that it is a relief to be among them. In friends we recognise ourselves. We sympathize with them in the event of success or setback. Friends can compete but know no jealousy. To true friends we grant every success.

We can tolerate more from friends, but at the same time we also dare to demand more from friends. True friendship gives and asks. Friendships are often intertwined life stories. This intertwining makes the life stories fascinating and beautiful. Friendship gives colour to life.

Picture: Hans Memling - Johannes op Patmos, This is a freely licensed work, as explained in the Definition of Free Cultural Works.

The Deer Hunter

Conversion rarely happens in one step. Usually there is a gradually increasing feeling of unease followed by a sudden external trigger that invokes the start of the conversion. In the movie The Deer Hunter, the main character is obsessed by hunting until he finally gets to his target within shooting range. On the one hand, he is struck by the beauty of the deer. On the other hand, he slowly got devastated by all the ugliness his hunting had left behind in the past. He decides to change course and not to shoot the deer he had always wanted to shoot so much.

The same can happen in our life. Obsessed with work, we may suddenly discover the beauty we had always failed to see.  The bullet we wanted to fire ends up in our own heart and brings us to conversion. And we may make the conservation of beauty to our new life objective.

I refer to my Dutch blog het potentieel van een mislukking.

Winners and Losers: the Contestisation of Daily Life

Your position in society does not only determine your wealth. It also determines whether your opinion matters. In the Middle Ages your position was determined by your descendance. Your descendance was determined by God. In the 20th century, descendance was rightfully abandoned as a determinator of people’ s position in society. This position was more and more determined by relationships. This was the case until we discovered in the eighties this was not right either. Competition became the new way to separate winners from losers. In the 21st century, we create contests for almost everything.

In the old days, the media were paternalistic. They considered it their duty to raise the people’s cultural and moral level to the assumed level of the elite. Nowadays the media are subject to competition as well. They need to fight to get attention from their audience. Opinions are no longer interesting. What people want to see is blood, sweat and tears from winners and losers. Panem et circenses, bread and games.

We are neither interested in truth nor beauty. We want to see the losers cry. We want to see them humiliated and angry. We want to see the winners cry from happiness. We want to see them ejaculate Champaign from magnum bottles. We want to see them the day after with a giant hangover. In political debates we are no longer interested who tells the truth. We want to know who got injured the most by the insults of the other party. Instantaneous emotions decide on winners and losers.

In postmodern times, we despise the elite and make everybody watch the people’s emotions, be it the disappointed football supporter, the angry critic in the street or the man with the green hair who is a genius and should have been leading the nation. What we listen to is not their sacred opinion; we only observe their frustration. The only thing that hasn't changed in all these years is that everybody has an opinion but nobody’s opinion really seems to matter.

The Honour of Humiliation

In our blog Senators are good men we already learned that people seek recognition in the group they belong to. Members of a group tend to behave like selfish sheep. The herd itself behaves like a bad beast. The Russian president became more popular in his country by starting a war. Western leaders have started using warlike language to become more popular as well. Nowadays, at both sides, truth is at risk. Fortunately, in the history of time, there have always been leaders who have been able to stand out. They were not leaders by worldly power; they were leaders by moral authority.

Emile Zola went to prison after having written his famous letter ‘J’accuse’ to the people of France. He did this because he was convinced that truth and justice were more important than power. Other examples include Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Dag Hammarskjöld. These people retaliated evil with good. They accepted all the consequences of their unwavering integrity. Thereby they exposed the lack of integrity of the political parties they had to deal with; they also exposed themselves to the aggression of these parties but never changed their opinion to comply with the powerful. They preferred the honour of humiliation over the disgrace of power.

What silent people could do, is support such leaders. We need to recognise Confucius inequality. It will inspire new candidate leaders. After all, nowadays the fools stand out too easily.

I refer to my blogs Ode to Audacity (English) and Leiderschap en Liefde (Dutch).

Picture: Henry de Groux, Zola aux outrages, File:Zolasortie.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Demons of the Middle

Demons, like devils, are usually at the side of evil, but their operation is more subtle. They are evil spirits that take hold of the human attention. They do nothing by themselves, but frighten, confuse man and seduce him to evil. In Harry Potter they play a key role.

In the world of software, there are also daemons. These are programming routines that run in parallel with other software and that fulfill a certain role, such as keeping a software license active. The word daemon is well chosen. Demons always remain active in one way or another, especially if you don't ask for it.

Fortunately, we don’t believe in demons anymore. Yet the demon as an imagery makes sense, because in this way we can describe an aspect of reality with a catching metaphor. We could say that the result of demon action is palpable, especially in the middle of major challenges. When you are fulfilling a huge task, you can meet the demon with the hammer. You look at the enormous effort you have already made and suddenly you realize that you are only in the middle. Life itself is also a big task. The French use the elegant expression "le démon de midi", the demon of the middle to name the temptations of the middle of life. Man can then succumb under the demons of the middle.

As life expectancy increases, so does the period in which one feels in the middle. Therefore, these are golden times for the demons of the middle. Where people used to succumb to phthisis or tuberculosis at the age of forty-five, they now succumb to burnouts, depression, divorces and other works of demons. With all the misery in life, there is also a matthew effect, so that you have a better chance of getting an additional demon if you have already met many before. Demons can only be defeated through prayer and patience. Their effect is limited in time but the damage caused can be significant and permanent.

I refer to my blogs: “the Course of Love” and “A lifelong understanding of W.B. Yeats”.

Image: Pieter Breugel the Elder, the Fall of the Rebel Angels

Dare to Expect

Before being thrown into 'real' life again, we start making New Year's resolutions. The older you get the more anxious you may become to have high expectations. We tend to become afraid to get disappointed in life, therefore we tend to reduce our ambitions and expectations.

However if we want to achieve something in 2022, we should have high ambitions and expectations. it is true that disappointment may be lurking but if we are mild to ourselves we will never regret an ambitious endeavour. It rather becomes a problem when our ambition was too low and if we were too anxious to start in the first place. We don't really need a perfect outcome, but we should be glad about all progress made.

We should not only dare to expect from ourselves we should also dare to expect from others. Friendship should not only be giving it should also be demanding. We have the right to ask our friends for help and we should have confidence that they are prepared to help us to the extent possible. Again disappointment may be lurking but we should always be mild if our expectations cannot be met.

I refer to my earlier blogs “Ode to Audacity” and “Expectations”.

Picture source: SES

The Chasm between Academics and Populists

In these troubled times of migration, Covid-19 and Climate change issues, academics and populists have crossed swords many times. Populists have accused academics of giving biased advice about migration issues, covid risks and climate evolution. Academics have published articles to make clear to the public opinion that they don’t support any populist viewpoint, e.g. the need for migrated people to return to their home country. In the social sciences, populism has become a study object in itself. The odd thing is that there are many academics who are populists and there are many populists who are academics or at least academically trained. If so, these people then usually raise a dissident voice within their own group of peers.

Politically, academics may have a broad spectrum of opinions but the mainstream academic viewpoint coincides with the so-called ‘liberal-left’ opinion. Academics usually ‘believe’ in climate change, they support renewable energy sources, they are in favour of an open society and they trust the government’s advice in matters of Covid-19 – they have even created the measures themselves. Academics support Angela Merkel and detest Donald Trump. The mainstream populist viewpoint, on the other hand, is rather a ‘nationalistic–right’ opinion. Populists don’t believe in climate change, they support the available energy sources, they would like to close the society to foreigners and they surely don’t trust the government’s advice. They believe people should be free in blowing out gas and sneezing around, yet unfree in moving to another country. Populists hate Angela Merkel and sympathise with Donald Trump.

The sad thing about the polarisation, is that the truth is somewhere in the no-man’s-land in between. Academics claim to have science at their side, which is indeed reassuring, but they often ignore the difference between their ideal models and reality. Academics think it is possible to be good for everybody. In an ideal model, there may indeed be enough food, houses, safety, energy for everybody, but in the real world, there is not enough for everybody. Academics tend to ignore questions like: can we offer every migrant a decent way of living here and if not, is there a risk of destabilising our own society? Can we transition to renewable energy without switching off the lights? If people don’t like our measures, shouldn’t we force them? Academics need to answer these questions as objectively as possible and focus on the diverse needs in society. The problem is not that academics are too reluctant to raise these questions, but rather that the polarised climate in society will push them to erase any doubt of belonging to the other camp. Likewise, populist leaders should dare to raise questions in their own communities. Questions like: how can we still fulfil our moral duty in helping refugees in danger? Again, the brave ones at each side will make a difference in the long term.

I refer to my blog: “Political Paralysis by Polarisation”.

Picture: Petra in Jordan 1988 ©Wim Lahaye