Challenging Our Imagination: (In Creative Possibilities and Potential Risks)

The Failure of Imagination
The Three Laws (Renumbered)

1. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

3. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
(After the work of Arthur C. Clarke in his essay ‘Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination’ in Profiles of the Future: Enquiry Into the Limits of the Possible (1962 and 1973)

Challenging Our Imagination: (In Creative Possibilities and Potential Risks)

Creating the Foundations for a Global Cultural Civilisation
1914–2024 (Different Historical Opportunities)
The Challenges and Opportunities of a Spacefaring Civilisation
Museums of Human Proclivities Established During the Twentieth Century
Eight (Smallish) Existential Threats That May Come Your Way (See separate paper)

Introduction

This is the way the world ends,
not with a bang, but a whimper.
T.S. Eliot

It has been said that every Age has its own unique perception of the risks and dangers of its own Apocalypse. This awareness of the potential threats of an apocalyptic event is not unreasonable given the history of natural and man-made disasters that have been recorded throughout history. The Techno-Scientific Civilisation that has come to dominate the globe in the early part of the twenty-first century is a product of the rational mind that can trace its history back to the Age of Reason and the ideas developed by the philosophers of the Enlightenment. The rational mind and the pursuit of the scientific method of enquiry have created unprecedented positive change in the human condition and also created the possibilities of unimaginable further change. In the war of ‘reason’ against ‘dogma’, reason has reigned triumphant in almost all areas of human understanding. But like all such victories there is a price to be paid and lessons to be learnt. One of the central tenets of the rational mind is the belief that the human condition can be improved at the expense of the domination and unbridled exploitation of nature.

To paraphrase Albert Einstein (or maybe even Groucho Marx) –‘We are not going to get out of the mess we are in by using the same thinking that got us into the mess in the first place.’ The relationship between us as human individuals, our social systems and the natural world have always been in a state of dynamic balance tending towards dynamic imbalance. The forces of modernity, in particular the forces of science and technology, would seem to be pushing this dynamic balance towards a perilous unravelling over time. At one level this unravelling has always been happening and seems to be part of the fundamental characteristic of our social systems. In traditional societies this unravelling was kept in check by certain physical limitations. Our First Global Techno-Scientific Civilisation (FGTSC) is in the process of removing most of these physical limitations.

The narratives of our First Global Techno-Scientific Civilisation (FGTSC) are based on the belief that knowledge is the key to understanding. It is also assumed in these narratives that the relationship between ‘knowing’ and ‘understanding’ is positive in the sense of linear cause and effect. But the very opposite may be true insofar as the more details we accumulate about any specific subject, the less we understand the whole of it. In many of our modern narratives, we profess that ‘knowing’ is the unique key to ‘understanding’. But if information and knowledge could create a better world, we would be living in a world of far less violence, less exploitation, less poverty, less criminality and less corruption. Within this analysis lies the understanding that the human mind and human conscious awareness have evolved two different hemispheres. The rational mind in its search for understanding is in constant tension with the spiritual mind in its search for meaning.

We know that there are great possibilities and great dangers from the developments associated with science and technology. The power of science and technology has created critical dangers and risks that are unprecedented in human history. The progress in developing thermonuclear weapons and the articulation of the doctrine of MAD (‘Mutually Assured Destruction’) should have been a wakeup call to such catastrophic possibilities. The ‘Doomsday Clock’ associated with the strategy of ‘first use’ of nuclear weapons would be farcical if it did not resemble reality. The fact that nuclear Armageddon has not happened so far does not offer much comfort that it will not happen in the future. At the same time, we as perceptive individuals have also created the concept of MAS (‘Mutually Assured Survival’) with all its challenges.

The Cold War and the nuclear arms race between nuclear armed superpowers cast a dark shadow over the middle part of the twentieth century. On a number of specific occasions, the Cold War almost developed into a Hot War of nuclear extermination. But at the same time, other developments and breakthroughs in many areas of science, technology and medicine were contributing to a better standard of living for a significant proportion of the earth’s population. The space race created one of the most historic breakthroughs in human history when the first men landed on the Moon. Some very positive and inspiring concepts and ideas were developed around the inspiration and possibilities of the challenge of space. Individuals like Professor Gerard O’Neill, with his team of researchers, developed the concept of the ‘High Frontier’. These researchers, building on the breakthroughs already created in space technologies, foresaw a very bright future in the human enterprise in space. O’Neill and his team developed the concept of free-floating space habitats that could be built on a massive scale. These habitats were seen as technically feasible, the major obstacles being political and the failure of imagination.

The following work is divided into a number of separate but unequal parts.

Part One outlines a purely subjective list of alternative possibilities that might have developed during the twentieth century. This section entitled, ‘Creating the Foundations for a Global Cultural Civilisation’, outlines an alternative pattern of historical opportunities that were possible throughout the twentieth century. In hindsight of course almost everything is possible. But none of the trends imagined and outlined here were beyond practicable possibility if the political and cultural forces had evolved in that direction. These developments, or similar trends, could have made significant contributions to a better and more decent world. The list does not include the very positive developments associated with the establishment of the United Nations and the many other global organisations that have made very positive contributions to our global survival and sustainability.

Part Two outlines a number of missed opportunities and developments associated with the challenges of building a spacefaring civilisation. The twentieth century will be remembered for its terrible wars and the enormous environmental destruction associated with consumer capitalism. But the century will also be remembered for the unprecedented development of landing the first men on the moon. The plaque placed on the moon at that time reflected our highest principles and ideals: “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind”. Around the same time, the first pictures of the whole of Planet Earth from space were made available. From time immemorial, individuals and societies have looked out into the heavens and wondered what might be there. The pictures of our home planet hanging in the darkness of space created an unprecedented challenge to us as individuals and to our societies.

Part Three is a short list of museums that could be established to reflect the developments and the progress of a global cultural civilisation. In this context each of these museums would be dedicated to highlighting the evolution of some part of human culture that had a very negative impact on human experience. Each museum would reflect some form of human proclivities that have been consigned to the ‘dustbin of history’. The museum of ‘War and Cultures of Violence’ would be based on the assumption that war and the cultures of violence associated with the war system had already passed into history. There are other ways that museums could be used to mark the evolution of human progress in the full sense of its meaning. From our cultural perspectives, museums have the potential to highlight some of the more negative aspects of human cultural evolution.

Part Four looks at some of the ‘smallish existential dangers’ that have evolved around the type of civilisation that has developed in the twentieth century. These possible existential threats are conceivably more dangerous than some of the more significant threats that have been identified. These ‘smallish existential threats’ are more dangerous because they are built into the everyday fabric of modern social, cultural and economic systems. We know from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that the ‘Doomsday Clock’ is getting closer and closer to midnight. The ‘Doomsday Clock’ reflects how the scientists perceive the global existential dangers from nuclear weapons and the climate change associated with environmental destruction. While the critical dangers identified by the Bulletin in the movement of the ‘Doomsday Clock’ are significant, there are many ‘smaller’ dangers that have the possibility of evolving into serious existential threats. (See separate paper)

The Global Economy is Awash with Wealth

Some people see things as they are and say why?
I dream things that never were and say why not?
(After Robert F. Kennedy and George Bernard Shaw)

Now, in the early part of the twenty-first century, total global wealth is estimated to stand at over $500 trillion…. At the same time, the naysayers believe that we cannot afford decent living conditions for all, that we cannot afford a sustainable environment, that we cannot afford the challenge of space. Other naysayers believe that we do not have the imagination, the creativity or the ability to create a better world in which the rule of law and the balance of justice are the guiding principles, a world in which human security does not require the use of violence or the structures of war, a world in which the human spirit, with all its complexities, can truly flourish.

1. Creating the Foundations for a Global Cultural Civilisation
1914–2024 (Different Historical Opportunities)

There is little doubt that the world we live in, our present reality, has been shaped by the events and the happenings of the past. Even the most creative ideas and inventions evolve within the framework of historical time. The ‘present’ can never be entirely free of the past, but at the same time the ‘present’ is not enslaved to the past. The ‘present’ is open to the endless possibilities of the future within the limitations of feasibilities and practicalities. Human creativity and imagination are some of the most powerful forces in the universe. The historical opportunities outlined here are set clearly within the possibilities of historical reality. Historical forces are not predetermined to follow one particular path rather than another. History is not set in stone. The historical forces that shape our experiences have endless possibilities of both positive and negative development.

The human imagination is capable of envisaging and conceptualising alternative possibilities to the forces that seem to predetermine a particular outcome of events. This unique gift of conceptualising alternative possibilities is both a blessing and a curse. This exceptional ability can be used to image the darkest of possible developments and to justify the most extreme type of actions in response. But this conceptualising ability can also be used in the most positive of ways. The evolution of human cultural history would seem to be a constant battle between these two forces. We can imagine the concepts associated with Liberty, Equality and Fraternity as much as we can the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or Millenium Development Goals. At the same time, we are capable of creating justifications for every form of violent conflict and every system of exploitation and destructiveness.

The twentieth century saw some of the most extreme violence ever recorded in human history. Most of this appalling level of violence was associated with the demented forms of ideologies connected with the extreme ‘right’ and ‘left’ of political ideologies. During the course of the twentieth century most of these extreme ideologies were destroyed by external forces or collapsed from within. But even as these extreme forms of ideologies left the stage of history, new systems of violence and exploitation evolved on a much lower scale. At the same time, many serious attempts were made to establish global norms and institutions which, it was hoped, would greatly reduce, if not eliminate, the recurrence of such bloody conflicts. The establishment of the League of Nations in 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference was one of the first global attempt at establishing the principles of collective security. The failure of the League of Nations can be attributed to a number of specific factors which are still debated by historians. But whatever the cause of this failure, the collapse of the support of the principles of the League can be seen as a major contributor to the causes of the Second World War.

The establishment of the United Nations organisation in1945 was another very important attempt by those involved to create the framework for a more stable and less violent system of international relations. The foundation document of the United Nations was very clear in its mandate: the very first part of the preamble to the constitution states ‘We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’. The document goes on to reaffirm ‘faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person’. Many of the people involved were very optimistic that the mistakes of the past could be learnt from and overcome and that a new Age of global peace and prosperity could be established. One of the first resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly was the establishment of the UN Atomic Energy Commission (1946), which was an attempt to promote the peaceful use of atomic energy and prevent the development of nuclear weapons. A number of very progressive treaties were proposed, which, if implemented, would have made significant contributions to replacing the ‘War System’ of international security with a much more sustainable system. The Kellog-Briand Pact (1928), which was officially called the General Treaty for the Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy, was just one of a number of alternative possibilities that were seriously being proposed. Another missed opportunity full of possibilities was the McCloy-Zorin Accords, which embodied ‘The Agreed Principles for General and Complete Disarmament’ (1961). We know now that most of the most progressive proposals did not succeed and we are still paying a very high price for such failure and at some stage these challenges will have to be faced up to and solutions found. But the very fact that these proposals were put forward as serious possibilities in the twentieth century should give us hope that they can be revisited and developed in the twenty-first century.

This outline of the possibilities of different historical opportunities is very optimistic. But it is based on the belief that the future does not always happen accidently and nor is the future predetermined by the past. We are not slaves to the past. It is not always necessary to walk backwards into the future. We have the creativity, the imagination and the energy to create a better future. There are no shortages of blueprints for how our civilisations can flourish and prosper and meet the challenges created by our science and technologies. The future is, as always, in the hands of the present generations and they have the power to consign many of the social, cultural and political negativities to the ‘dustbin of history’.

Creating the Foundations for a Global Cultural Civilisation 1914–2024

(Different Historical Opportunities)

1914 The Third Hague Peace Conference:

Establishing Non-Violent Conflict Resolution Protocols
Reducing and Restricting Arms Manufacturing
Managing Conflicts Without War and Violence

1919 The Conference of Berlin:
Dealing with Historical and Ethnic Grievances

Addressing Cultures of Violence
Developing Conflict Resolution of Historical and Cultural Hatreds
Promoting Understanding, Dignity and Empathy through Education

1925 The Paris Protocols: New Creative Enlightenments
Setting the Agenda for the Twentieth Century Renaissance

Governments: Addressing the Challenges of Power and Responsibility
Economics: Formulating Structures for Creativity and Equity
Nature: Protecting the Natural World in all its Diversity

1929 The New York Agenda:
A New Global Economic Order

Promoting Sustainable Economic Systems Without Exploitation
Establishing the Infrastructures for Ending Poverty and Hunger
Launching a Council to Encourage Human Creative Potential

1933 The Locarno Agreements:
Establishing the Infrastructures for Human Progress

Creating an International Court of Justice
Recognising the Rights of all Ethnic, Racial and Cultural Traditions
Establishing Infrastructures for Equality and Respect for all Individuals

1939 The New Delhi Gathering: Extending the Foundations of a
Global Civilisation

Developing the Foundations of a Global Cultural Civilisation
Developing the Foundation for Global Political Confederation
Developing the Foundation for Rational Political Economic Systems

1945 The Tokyo Symposium:
Flourishing of the Individual through Meaning and Beliefs

Addressing Individual Emotional Well-Being
Protecting the Spiritual and Religious Traditions of the World
Understanding and Developing Psychological Flourishing

1955 The Tehran Summit: The Foundations for the Flourishing of the Individual

Protecting the Safety and Well-Being of All Children
Promoting the Full Equality of Women and Men
Caring for the Individuals Who are Marginalised

1965 The Moscow Protocols:

Restructuring and Rebalancing Systems of ‘Power’ and ‘Privilege’
Addressing Problems of Corruption and Criminality
Creating Solutions for Addictions and Drug Abuse

1975 The Rio de Janeiro Summit:
Caring for the Earth

Protecting the Global Commons
Reaffirming the Rights of the Natural World
Recognising Our Responsibilities towards All Sentient Beings

1985 The Johannesburg Declarations:

Promoting the Cultural Diversity of Mankind/Womankind
Protecting and Respecting All Sentient Life
Defending the Integrity of the Global Commons and Global Wilderness

1990 The Geneva Convention on Space Exploration:

Recognising Space as Our Common Heritage
Identifying Our Responsibilities for Our Home Planet
Making Space and Its Possibilities Accessible to All

1995 The Beijing Challenge:

The Establishment of a Library of World Cultures
(One in each country in the world)
The Creation of Departments of Tolerance
(One in each government in the world)

2000 The Gathering at Rome:
Outlining a Spiritual Renaissance

Protecting the Spiritual and Religious Cultures of Humankind
Helping the Individual Search for Meaning
Promoting Individual Flourishing Through Ethics and Empathy

2010 The Abu Dhabi Protocols:

The Establishment of a Museum of War and Violence
(One on each continent)
The Establishment of a Museum of Poverty and Hunger
(One on each continent)
The Establishment of a Museum of Human Exploitation
(One on each continent)

2024 Global Celebrations:
Celebrating One Hundred Years of Movement Towards:

Peaceful Coexistence
Creative Prosperity
Economic Justice
Individual Flourishing
Protection of Nature
Cultural Diversities
Global Civilisation
Spacefaring Possibilities

2 The Challenges and Opportunities of a Spacefaring Civilisation

“In the limitless reaches of space, we will find liberation from tyranny, from scarcity, from ignorance, and from war. We will find the means to protect the Earth and to nurture every human life, and to explore the universe. …. This is our mission; this is our destiny.”
President Ronald Reagan, 1988

Many people genuinely believe that a better future is not possible, that future generations will always be enslaved to particular historical events and forces that have shaped the present. Ever since the Greeks invented ‘history’ we have been restricted by our propensity to walk backwards into the future. For long periods of human history, this approach seemed to work to a certain extent. Because using our conceptual experience from the historical past does allow us as a species to use our logic-based intuitions to understand what works and what does not work. In historical terms, walking backwards into the future has never been a major problem for previous historical civilisations. The straitjacket of history did offer some comfort and guidance to previous generations. But the challenges that are now facing our First Global Techno-Scientific Civilisation (FGTSC) cannot be addressed by walking backwards towards these challenges. Is it possible for our species to stop walking backwards into the future? Can we learn to face the future by walking towards it? If so, this would be a paradigm change of an unprecedented kind. This is our best (if not our only) hope of utilising our enormous creative potential both as individuals and as a species characterised by our social and cultural nature.

The twentieth century saw enormous developments in the areas of science and technology. One of the most unprecedented breakthroughs came in the area of space exploration. These developments culminated in 1969 with the landing of the first men on an extraterrestrial body. For the first time in human history, the people of Planet Earth could see their home in all its beauty from space. Even at the height of the Cold War, there were some individuals who had great optimism that the challenge of space exploration would help reduce those tensions in the efforts required by the challenges of space.

The development of space exploration will be enormously expensive and will also require further major breakthroughs in many areas of science, technology and human psychology. But the real stumbling block to the challenge of space is not now technical or financial but political and ideological. The United States was one of the leading space powers, but many of its politicians and vested-interest clusters rejected the challenge of space. We know now that the failure of the challenge of space exploration was never really a question of the cost involved, which of course would be considerable. But research has shown that the cost of developing and advancing space science and technology would be between 5 and 10% of the world’s annual military expenditure. Unfortunately, at the time these developments became technically possible, political leadership in most countries was still in thrall to the ideology of security through military spending. A few individuals from various backgrounds did envision the immeasurable cultural possibilities that would be created by the challenges of space exploration.

The first clear pictures of our planet from space and the first landing on the Moon created an optimism about the enormous potential and the frontiers of knowledge that were now possible. But there was a failure of imagination and vision combined with the inertia of the existing vested-interest groups in those countries that had the necessary resources. In this outline, the relative timescales need to be adjusted to take account of the almost total failure of the leading nations to grasp the cultural challenge and opportunity of space exploration. The first set of outlines identifies the optimistic possibilities created with the early breakthroughs in space science. But we know that most of these developments never materialised. So, it is of course necessary to change the timeframe of these developments and push the decades back to whatever now seems possible. In this context, at least two generations of young people have been deprived of the possibilities and the creative challenges of the space frontier.

2 The Development of a Spacefaring Civilisation:
Outline of Original Possible Development Scenario

1970–1980

First space station established (LEO)
First moon base established
Development of reusable launch systems
Construction commences of first space base at the moon’s Lagrange Point

1980–1990

First Mars landing (the first man to land on Mars being a woman)
First landing on near-Earth asteroid
Second and subsequent moon bases established
Second space station (including first and second space hotel)
Construction commences of O’Neill Large Scale Space Habitat at moon’s
Lagrange Point

1990–2000

First permanent base on Mars established
First base on asteroid (including mining base)
First colony established on Mars (with Institute Resource Utilisation)
First large scale manufacturing base on moon
First large scale manufacturing base on Mars

2000–2010

Development of gravity-free hospitals in space
Development commences of space elevator
First landing on the moons of Jupiter
Moving near-Earth asteroid into efficient orbits

The Development of a Spacefaring Civilisation:
Outline of Second Stage Development Scenario

2010–2020

Development of first base on Jupiter’s moon Europa
Construction commences of second and third O’Neill Large Space Habitats

2020–2030

Development of major centres of population on various planets, moons, asteroids and artificially constructed habitats

2030–2040

All heavily polluting types of manufacturing industries taken off Earth. Major food production industries established off planet

2040–2050

The contribution of the space frontier to almost unforeseen developments in science and technology at all levels of the human exploration of the space frontier

2050–2100

A time of challenging human creativity to go beyond the solar system and to develop the hundred-year starship project (100YSS) in less than one hundred years

3 Museums of Human Proclivities
Established During the Twentieth Century

Identifying The Forces that Shape:
The Past, the Present and the Future

In every critical period of world history there have been individuals and organisations with the belief in the endless possibilities of human goodness, morality, ethics, virtue and creativity. These individuals and their theologies, philosophies and organisations believe that human virtues such as love, charity, empathy, compassion, fairness and decency can overcome the vices and depravities that are also characteristics of human behaviour. These men and women hold to the belief that the ‘good’ can be a far greater force than the ‘evil’ in human affairs. They believe that ‘hope’ is greater than ‘fear’, they believe that human ‘love’ and ‘empathy’ are more powerful than human ‘hate’ and ‘intolerance’. They believe that the pursuit of ‘truth’ and ‘meaning’ will liberate individuals from our tendencies towards enslavement to the dark forces of our human propensities. They believe that human creativity is capable of laying the foundations of both a physical and spiritual renaissance in each new generation.

In this context, the concept of a ‘museum’ is used to identify negative and destructive propensities and structures that have been part of the primitive stage of human evolution. The museums should be seen as a record of structures of human behaviour and beliefs that have been consigned to the ‘dustbin of history’. The following is a tentative list of the type of museums that you might expect to find in a more advanced global civilisation than exists today. In this sense, the concept of each museum would assume that the structures and the negativities surrounding each of the areas were already consigned to the ‘dustbin of history’. The museum of ‘War and Structures of Violence’ would not indicate the end of human conflict. It would indicate that the cultural institution of war and structures of violence are no longer used or accepted as ways of overcoming human conflict. On the other hand, you would expect that the museum of ‘Poverty and Systems of Exploitation’ would reflect a reality of forces that are purely historical.

Museums of Human Proclivities
Established During the Twentieth Century

1914 World Museum of War and Cultures of Violence (The Hague)

1919 World Museum of Poverty and Systems of Exploitation (London)

1925 World Museum of Individual Dysfunctionalities (Vienna)

1929 World Museum of Destructive Political and Economic Ideologies (New York)

1939 World Museum of Criminality and Corruption (Istanbul)

1945 World Museum of Plagues and Contagious Diseases (Geneva)

1950 World Museum of the Maltreatment of all Sentient Life Forms (New Delhi)

1960 World Museum of Dysfunctional Social and Cultural Systems (Moscow)

1969 World Museum of Historical Environmental Exploitation (Rio de Janeiro)

1980 World Museum of Intolerant Beliefs (Cairo)

1990 World Museum of Sexual Moralities (New Delhi)

2000 World Museum of Human Progress (Beijing)

The Crowded Mind of Human ‘Thoughts’

Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity,
we shall harness for God the energies of love, and
then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.
Fr. Teilhard de Chardin

We have been told that the average human has about 60,000 thoughts in their average day. Although the jury is still very much out on this question, with all sorts of different interpretations being given for the number of thoughts we have per day and by implication per minute. Some of the interpretations of the number of thoughts per day range from as little as 12,000 as to as many as over 70,000. The question here is not the actual number of thoughts that a person may have, but the structure and content of these thoughts and how they affect us as individuals. Some researchers in this area have estimated that upwards of 70 to 80% of our daily thoughts are negative. If true, that’s very sad. The human mind, it would seem, is wired for neuroticism. But either way, many theologians and philosophers believe that this constant mental traffic prevents us from seeing clearly, listening deeply or developing an awareness of our own cognitive well-being. Other studies seem to show that the ‘psychological present’ is a window of about 3 seconds – everything else is either past or future.

In many ways we are or we become the ‘thoughts’ that we ‘think’. From time immemorial, theologians, philosophers and scientists have sought to understand how we think our thoughts. Within this context, they have tried to understand the ‘magical gift’ of conscious self-awareness. They have studied the relationship between ‘thinking’, ‘perception’ and ‘action’ to try and understand how we live in the world. Our understanding of the world in which we live is greatly influenced by the social and cultural narratives within which each individual evolves their awareness. These narratives influence our perceptions at both the macronarrative and micronarrative levels. Social media in all its many formats is starting to be a significant factor in the construction and evolution of our cultural narratives.

Each and every individual as an individual conscious being has the innate potential to analyse and evaluate the world around them. This potentiality and all its creative possibilities can of course be damaged and restricted in relation to the realities of individual existence. But the forces that dictate or shape this individual potentiality cannot be understood by logical analysis. No two individuals can be predicted to respond to the same stimuli in a similar fashion. When the inputs and the perceptions are intertwined in complicated networks of feedback loops, individual responses are open to endless possibilities. The great debate of the effects of ‘nature’ versus ‘nurture’, the theory of cognitive development and many other narratives are important contributions to our understanding, but they should not be seen as the ‘panacea’ of knowledge.

There are of course clear differences between the life experience of individuals who are born and mature in an environment of severe deprivation such as that caused by famine, violence and extreme poverty, when we compare this life experience with individuals who are lucky enough to avoid the experience of such hardship and destitution. But even among those individuals who are lucky enough to experience more balanced social conditions there are no guarantees that they will take advantage of their luck and use their potential to analyse and evaluate the world around them. The default mode of many individuals is to accept what ‘is’ and work within the existing system and normative narratives.