The Horizon of Our Common Cause: Narratives, Ideas and Conviviality

Humanity faces existential crises that cannot be ignored; perilous futures are at our door with civilizational and planetary integrity teetering. Democratic institutions are in chaos and technological disruption is dominant. Given this, what mindset and energies are now required to deal with the enormous complexity, scale, and implications posed by problems such as nuclear weapons, climate change, AI, epistemic violence, political impunity, widespread poverty, and cultural infallibility? By what means and with what intellectual and creative tools can we respond to these urgent matters about human society and its survival? Drawing on the best of what the humanities can offer in this critical context, this presentation will focus on a horizon that invokes (1) the urgent necessity to create new narratives of co-existence; (2) developing and enabling robust intellectual and creative spaces for the emergence of salient ideas; and (3) forming a collective common cause, framed through muscular, critical, but also humble, sensitised conviviality.