History, Politics, Society
Antony Blinken
Walls or Bridges?
A defining division has emerged in America that separates us from each other and leads to two very different visions for the future. It is a division between a future of walls and a future of bridges.
History, Religion, Society
Alison Wolf
The Guideline is Gone
I am increasingly convinced that one of the reasons that we grapple so unhappily with the question of education, and what it is to be educated, is that we have lost any firm set of shared convictions, growing out of and anchored in religious beliefs and institutions that suffuse communities and countries.
Politics, Society
Thomas Chatterton Williams
Anxiety as Roleplaying?
If we are going to get out of this new age of anxiety, if such a turn of events is even possible given the limitless complexities of the contemporary human condition, we are going to have learn, all of us, to see through the veil of stereotype falling between us.
Philosophy, Politics, Society
Jean-Marie Guéhenno
The Embodiment of Evil?
The Western world has now been engaged for almost two decades in a battle with the external forces of evil, Al-Qaeda, the Islamic state. Is that the battle of good and evil? Or is it a diversion that prevents us from looking within our societies, and eventually within ourselves to find the right battleground?
Culture, Society
Andrew Keen
The Dangers of Social Media
Architecturally, social media have been designed on uncannily medieval principles. We self-select into our own inward-looking virtual villages, according to our tribal affinities. Science is replaced by mysticism, expertise by the cult of authenticity.
Art, Culture, Society
Evgeny Morozov
The Death of the Cyberflâneur
Intrigued, I set out to discover what happened to the cyberflâneur. Cyberflâneurs are few and far between, while the very practice of cyberflânerie seems at odds with the world of social media. What went wrong? And should we worry?
Art, Culture, Society
Valentina Vapaux
Yes, sure, whatever, really
Then they ask you, who is this Generation Z, but it’s really hard to muster an answer. Because the plants are dying and the wildfires keep burning. Even though not here, not now. But somewhere, and that’s enough to make you quiet.
Rob Riemen
Apocalypse Now: The Revelation of our Time
Introducing the topic of the Nexus Conference 2025
Politics, Society
Anand Patwardhan
The flag of democracy
If one cannot safeguard the interests of the planet or the human race through dictatorships and money-controlled democracies, then the only answer is to work to create an alert and effective civil society that fights not necessarily for electoral power alone but sees itself as an ever vigilant watchdog no matter who comes to power.
Climate, Politics
Bill McKibben
From the ashes of the climate crisis
Global warming is a time test – if we don’t solve it soon, we don’t ever solve it, because we will have passed impossible tipping points. Winning slowly is just a different way of losing. And if we’d started in 1990 it would have been hard, but doable – forty years isn’t much, but it’s a hell of a lot better than seven, which is where we are now.
Politics, Society
Colombe Cahen-Salvador
The Equitist Revolution, and why we must fight for it
Out of every crisis comes change. Humanity is at a turning point. A new vision of society is needed to radically shift the direction of our times. I don’t believe a single second that what’s out there in terms of political offer at the moment begins to answer that need.
Philosophy, Politics, War
Avishai Margalit
Proportionality and Total War
Blurring the distinction between combatants and civilians erodes the much needed taboo on total wars. Total wars are wars without distinction; wars conducted by terror.
History, Politics, War
Bruno Maçães
War and Technology: A Fairy Tale
There are many kinds of wars between states, fought for many reasons, and sometimes for no reason at all. The wars that shape history are those fought for the sake of the world order, such as the war between Athens and Sparta chronicled by Thucydides.
Humanism, Society, War
Leon Wieseltier
We and the Syrian Refugees
All our traditions instruct us in the obligation and the privilege of welcome. May we all be, in this terrible crisis, good sons and good daughters of our traditions, and not desist in this work until we find justice for these millions, until they find justice and a home.
History, Politics, Society
Elif Shafak
An Appeal to Cosmopolitanism
Contemporary politics — with its populist demagogues, illiberal democracies and nationalist or tribalist movements — more and more resembles the beginning to an Anatolian folk tale. Just like the listeners of those ancient folk tales, we, global citizens of today, have entered a messy, disorderly universe.
History, Politics, Society
Jean-Marie Guéhenno
The Mere Absence of War is Not Enough
Have we reached the end of days? War has been a part of the human condition since the beginning of time. But another world war in the age of nuclear weapons would spell the end of humanity as we know it.
History, Politics, Society
Nicolas Baverez
Freedom is a Fight
More than ever, war is not about economics but about power and ideology. Authoritarian empires, as Vladimir Putin shows, will do anything, including war, to prohibit freedom in what they define as their sphere of influence.
Art, Culture, History, Philosophy, Society
Laurence des Cars
The Role of the Museum
If the Louvre were to burn down, as Nietzsche feared, we would not lose a shrine of the past, or of ‘classical art’ providing the foundations of our civilization; we would lose a place of polyphony and polysemy, meaning a place where different narratives can come together to provide further density to our own time.
Rob Riemen
The Quest for Vision in the Era of Confusion, Corruption and Foolishness
Introducing the topic of the Nexus Conference 2024
History, Politics, Society
Kishore Mahbubani
The Asian Century: peaceful or not?
The 21st century will be the Asian century. On this, there’s no doubt. The only question is whether it will be peaceful or not.
History, Philosophy, Science, Society
Ray Monk
Wittgenstein, Russell and Oppenheimer on War and the Bomb
What are the lessons we have to learn from thinkers like Wittgenstein, Russell and Oppenheimer for our time? As it happens, all three of these thinkers have grappled, in fascinatingly contrasting ways, with questions of war and peace, and much could be learned from investigating how they did so.
Philosophy, Politics, Society
Donatella Di Cesare
Peace is not over
We must defect from the world of death that is being designed around us. And demand a return to democratic politics, in the proper sense of the word.
Culture, History, Society
Zena Hitz
The Division of Labor and the Sources of Consolation
The capacities to think, to study, to know and to understand are human capacities. This may seem like the most dull and obvious claim in the world, and yet we have forgotten it.
Francesco Boldizzoni
Do we still need social democracy?
I am far from believing that social democracy is viable anywhere in the world. But if there is a natural home for it, it is Europe.
