Wise Words from TED Speaker David Christian

David Christian: The history of our world in 18 minutes

 

 

This talk is worth each of the 18 minutes, but I especially love what he says towards the end:

"Collective learning is a very, very powerful force, and it's not clear that we humans are in charge of it. I remember very vividly as a child growing up in England, living through the Cuban Missile Crisis. For a few days, the entire biosphere seemed to be on the verge of destruction. And the same weapons are still here, and they are still armed. If we avoid that trap, others are waiting for us. We're burning fossil fuels at such a rate that we seem to be undermining the Goldilocks conditions that made it possible for human civilizations to flourish over the last 10,000 years. So what big history can do is show us the nature of our complexity and fragility and the dangers that face us, but it can also show us our power with collective learning."

President Clinton Lecture on Public Service

First Lecture by President Bill Clinton at Georgetown University in May 2013.

Below I paraphrase parts of the lecture (it's long!) that resonate with me and fit well with the themes of this blog:

• Twenty-first century citizenship requires us to do some public good as a private citizen - around the corner, or around the world, in public office, or out. Compose a life where service is important. It is important because the world is so interdependent and full of opportunities.
• The world we are living in is clearly unsustainable. There is too much inequality and too much instability.
• Public service work has four requirements. One, you should be obsessively interested in people, especially people who are different from you. You should want to understand them and understand how they perceive the world and understand what they need and what their dreams are. Two, you should care about principles - about the end of all this. What is the purpose of service? What's the role of government, what are the roles of the NGOs, how do you organize this in your mind, why are you doing this? Three, what are the policies that you believe will advance these purposes? And four, what are the politics of the situations? How are you going to turn your good intentions into real changes? People, purpose, policies, and politics. To me, the most important thing is the first.
• This might be my favorite quote of this lecture. I am deeply motivated by people and purpose and these words substantiate my passion for serving people in the realm of urban design. And of course the policies and politics are also important when it comes to planning cities.  
• Most people get in real trouble and abuse power when they forget that the purpose of their power is not to impose their will on others but to let other people be empowered to live their own lives better, or as I always say, to have better stories.
• Don't belittle people who know less than you do or have less than you do... what we have in common in our soul is important.
• Americans are not hearing enough stories from other people, from people are are different from themselves. And it's a big mistake... We have one remaining bigotry in America: we just don't want to be around anybody that disagrees with us. People are organizing massive living patterns in this country around being with somebody that agrees with them.
• The purpose of service is to help other people. Not to make you feel good about yourself, although you will. Not to impose everything you think should be done on other people. But to create a world where we can all live together, because it’s so interdependent. If we don’t, the consequences to us, to our families, to our future will be adverse and severe.
• Every place in the world where they’re trying to cooperate, they’re doing pretty well. Every place in the world that elevate our differences over our common humanity. Where we can no longer hear what people who are different from us are saying, where our ears our closed and minds are more closed – there is trouble. 
• I believe that it’s very important that every person in your generation have a worldview. We need a common understanding of what is the nature of the modern world. What are it’s biggest challenges, opportunities. What evidence do we have about how best we can deal with them.