So, they have to dim the light. Thank you. So, finally, here we are. Welcome, all of you, ITM members and international guests to the ITM or whose plenary meeting 2023, Living on the Edge. Yes, indeed, Charlotte. We are so happy to be here. And I am very happy to be in this very cozy house. The ITM. Between Danish, Nordic and international friends and colleagues. Hey, Arnsen. Did you know that there's a certain story to the lighthouse in the picture that we've been using for visual identity? No. It's the Rubjer Knuth lighthouse I present. The story of that lighthouse is that it was actually moved all in one piece back in 2019 by humans. Yes. They got together and joined all their skills to move the lighthouse 70 meters inland to avoid that coastal erosion would cause the lighthouse to fall into the sea. So, the spot from where this picture is actually taken does not longer exist. But the lighthouse house does due to the fact that it's been moved. Wow. What a story. Forces of climate. Scary, yet great human-united effort to find sound solutions, something that we are going to dig into in the next days. Indeed. For four days in the company of more than 500 colleagues from 55 countries, you will all have the rare opportunity to discuss and digest the ethical and practical role of performing arts in the face of climate emergency. We've approached the meeting's topic with respect, carefully considering the context, the discussions surrounding it. We've made efforts to provide a platform for opposing perspectives and less mainstream worldviews. Throughout the meeting, you will also have the opportunity to meet artists and colleagues to discuss dilemmas from the high north from the Arctic, a corner of the world that is rarely represented in contexts like this one. Indeed. And derived from the attentions of the ITM's very own 2020 strategy work reviring the network. This meeting's curated programme aims to encourage and support locally rooted yet international conversations where we strive to understand and find the balances between the local realities and the global dynamics, and that we agree that no one, no person, no country, no region of this still beautiful earth we inhabit is the holder of the truth. Yet, together we can make a lasting contribution for our sector and for our common space. And on that note, I want to say, it has been an absolute pleasure for the whole ITM team to work together with the Orhus team in creating this meeting. Thank you, Orhus team. Thank you. Yes, it has been a really great pleasure. The collaboration has felt like being one bigger organisation at times, which is nice. Working together has been very inspiring. Performing arts platform in itself is a very small organisation, so of course we could not have taken on the task of hosting an ITM plenary on our own. So apart from the collaboration with the ITM team in Brussels, we've had the privilege of dedicated collaborating partners as well as a good fortune of generous support from a wide range of funding buddies which have allowed us to embark on this journey. And we want to thank them. And first up is the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, the Danish Arts Foundation, the city of Orhus, the central Denmark region and the European region of culture, the Jullan Art Foundation, the Nordic Culture Fund, yes. And the Nordic Culture Point of the Nordic Council of Ministers, the Augustinus Foundation and also the Orhus Stiftenus Foundation. And last but not least, all of you ITM members who with your membership fees enable us to run an organisation which, amongst other things, strives to provide you with strong, large, meaningful gatherings such as ITM Orhus. Yes, I second that answer. Also, we want to thank the venues that you'll be visiting during this plenary. It's Borobora, Obnacine, Gosben, Concert Hall of Orhus, Theatophiluon, Theatoreflexion, Catapult and our collaboration partners, Copenhagen Stage, Ild Festival and E-STAP Conference. Also, we thank our content committee and the artistic jury of the Living on the Edge Festival. Voila! And now, Salota and I have the great pleasure to welcome our keynote speaker of the day to the stage, the socialitist and writer Nikolaj Sjultz. Sjultz, who is born in Orhus, is a PhD Fellow at the Department of Sociality at the University of Copenhagen, where he is currently finishing his thesis on what he calls geo-social classes. Sjultz was a long-time collaborator of the renowned Franz philosopher Bruno Lató, with whom he, in 2022, authored the book on the emergence of the ecological class, which has since been translated into ten languages, received high critical acclaim and inspired green parties and movements all over the world. Most recently, Sjultz wrote the book Land Sickness, which has been translated into six languages, and today, Sjultz will talk about what he calls the new ecological class struggle with a particular attention to the role of art and culture in this struggle. So, Nikolaj, a very warm welcome to you on stage. Thank you very much for your invitation here today at the IMT IETM planning meeting. Thank you for coming here. Thank you for the nice introduction. I am absolutely delighted to be back in my home city, and I'm happy to give a talk today that I have given the awfully clumsy title, the ecological class struggle with special attention to the crucial importance of art, aesthetics, and effects. So, you see, I tried to charm you there, right? What I'm going to do today is that I'm going to speak about the short book that I wrote with Bruno Lató that rightly enough has been translated into a number of different languages now that came out with the name, the title, on the emergence of an ecological class, a memo, and the circumstances for doing so are, I do admit, still a little bit special for it is not more than half a year ago since Bruno passed away just before the book was published in English, and of course Bruno was not only a colleague of mine, he was also a close friend, so indeed that does make it a little bit special to talk about our work in common, but at the same time it also makes me proud to be able to stand here in front of you and speak of it in the memory not only of an incredibly smart guy, but also a warm, generous, curious, and funny human being who I'm sure would have been very proud to see how our arguments, our book, has not only been spreading through academic institutions, public debate and so on, but also, and very importantly, through cultural networks like yours, networks that Bruno, if any, certainly knew had an essential role in what he called the composition of a common habitable world. So today what I wish to do in Bruno's memory is that I wish to introduce you to three main points from the book, three points that I believe gives a good introduction to the book in general and for the same reason the argument or the talk here today will be divided into three parts. Number two will be a little bit more technical where the third part will touch more on what I consider that many of you people here are working in, namely the field of culture, art, aesthetics, and the creation of ethics. So proceeding the first part, I wish to say a few introductory words about the book. So based on a long collaboration of what they spoke about before between me and Bruno and what's called geosocial classes, basically the idea that the question of class is changing shape in a time of global climate change, then me and Bruno wrote this book over a couple of months in the spring-summer 2021 in light of the upcoming French election. What puzzled us, what we were breaking our minds down through was this intuition that we can say ecology is everywhere and ecology is nowhere. On the one hand ecology is everywhere, everywhere. Every day we are bombarded with news, science, alarms of an earth system that is reacting to how we are inhabiting the earth basically, and at least in a European but also other places, public sphere, the question of the climate, the question of nature, the question of ecology has already manifested itself not only as one but as the political question. So ecology is everywhere. You cannot open a newspaper without being reminded and so on and so forth. But on the other hand ecology is nowhere. What do I mean with that? Well, with a few exceptions, green parties around the world, every time there is an election, are struggling to even reach over the electoral threshold in France, where we were writing the book. The green party didn't even reach the 5% limit that allowed them to have the funding for the campaign back. And here, in Denmark, and China too, the green party, and I was there at their election party, were celebrating it as a civilizational victory that they had reached 3%. So where is this misalignment, this asymmetry, this gap between the catastrophe, unfolding itself in front of our eyes, the attention we pay to it, and the lack of political effects come from. That is the question we address in the book presented to first diagnose these political effectual, we can call it stagnations, and by trying to indicate potential pathways towards a strong ecological movement, a solid political ecology, in the hope that it will be able to compete on equal footings with the older ideologies that continue to define the political landscape, even if the question of ecology has become, let's say, the main question of ecology, of politics, sorry. So, this is what we investigate in the book, and as mentioned I wish to do today, what I wish to do is to give you three points from the book, three main arguments. I do not have a PowerPoint, it's the same thing when you do this, or a similar presentation to architects you realize halfway through that, oh my God, I have to have a PowerPoint, because they like images, but you realize, no, it's the worst thing you can do in front of people in the arts, is to give pictures to it. So I decided that you are left alone with me in my articulation, but if I had had a PowerPoint, it would have said point one, nature does not unite, nature divides. Again, the IPCC alarm bells have been ringing for a long time, every year outside right now in Denmark they've not been ringing for a long time, and the last climate disaster is coming nearer, proximity, intensity and scale. So why are we not acting? Well, probably because nobody really knows who this we is. For way too long we started arguing, political ecology has tripped over its own feet, it's been stumbling so to say, by formulating and representing its own political project, in terms of universality, you can say. It was presented as a common project that would unite us all, we all know the story, because it's been the same every time, and Ecology has opened its mouth, or her mouth the last 50 years, gathered under the flag of Mother Nature, it was imagined that we would all march together, united, as soon as a disaster was known, or got close enough. Ecology, then, was the arbiter, it was the judge that was supposed to end social conflicts and political conflicts, and finally rally us around a common political project. But Ecology is not a peace treaty, it's a battle cry. We see this everywhere, in Europe, beyond, of course, from the activists in Germany fighting against the expansion of a coal mine, through the fight against the expansion of the industrial port here in Arhus, where we are today, through Fridays for Future, to the indigenous people fighting for their territory, sorry. The lesson is the same, these questions of nature, they don't unite us, they divide us. But, drum roll. Ellie, your performance, right? This is not the Achilles heel of Ecology, but the history we argue. This is the unfulfilled potential of political ecology and the Green Parties. Why? Well, because of social history has shown us, repetitively, social conflicts, conflict narratives, have a far bigger potential for generating political effects and political mobilizations than peach projects have. I'm sorry to say it, but peace and harmony make people yawn. Conflicts make people ready to fight. So the problem is not conflict as such. The problem is rather that political ecology has not managed to articulate, embrace, define, and represent these conflicts, and that it's not managed to connect them into a, let's say, unified narrative that can mobilize people for political action. So this is our first point. For political ecology to gain a strong ideological consistency, force, autonomy, it has to identify, accept, embrace, define, and represent its political project in terms of conflict, because it can exactly help to define a we, a them, and not least a direction of history. The question is, what narrative? Point number two on my imaginary PowerPoint. A new class struggle against production for habitability. Now, historically, one concept, one narrative, one notion, one idea has been exquisitely impressive in gathering political effects mobilizing people politically. Class and class struggle. Class theory over the past centuries provided a more or less accurate compass that allowed people to understand the fundamental lines of conflict in society, where they were positioned in this landscape, and again, what the direction of history was. Now, the first thing to remember about class, that class is never one thing. It's not been, let's say, chiseled in stone. Its meaning has changed many times throughout history. Generation after generation of social scientists have continuously reworked the notion that society's changed shape. The, let's say, complexity of the social structure changed, and so did the social struggles and injustices. So in a way we can understand the history of the notion of class as a history of betrayal. But at the same time, you can also understand, I would say you have to understand, the history of the concept of class as a history of loyalty. Why? Well, because the last 150 years, every time the class concept has been reworked, rejuvenated, and so on and so forth, it's always been done through an initial dialogue with Marx and his theoretical legacy. No matter if analysts were adjusting, discarding, discussing broadly this concept of class, they always had to tackle Marx as part of their operations. Which is why I'm afraid we have to go back to Marx for a second. Hey! A communist performance artist. That's interesting. Alright. There's probably a few, if any, conceptual interventions, interventions the last 150 years that has been as powerful in political culture and sociology, in political debate, of course, as the ideas of class and class struggles. And the question is, of course, how it grew so powerful. One way to explain this, my way to explain this, and I'm right, as always, is that Marx provided a somehow precise map, a compass, that allowed people to understand how society subsisted, where, in this process, people were positioned, what conflicts they engaged into, and which direction, again, history took. In continuance here, what is very important to remember about Marx, is that the concept of class, his class theory, was always connected to an ideal of social transformation. His class analysis was always both descriptive and normative. It had to both describe, first, a given social structure, classify people in it, and after then, offer people perspectives for political action. I would say that this is why, this is the reason behind the enormous historical importance of Marxism, and Marxism afterwards, class narrative. In the wake of the Industrial Revolution, and its enormous transformations of the material structure of society, it offered a map that allowed people to find out what made the subsistence of society possible, how were people surviving, basically, collectively, where, in this social structure, were people located, who the people were fighting against, and what the direction of action looked like. More concretely, as you will recall, who was shouting up there, Marx gave us an understanding of how the historical social struggles were organized around the means of production, right? Against the backdrop of a description of how production permitted the continuation of society, different classes were clashing together in the struggles of either keeping or taking over the means of production. So again, and I know that I'm repeating, it's important, Marx's socialism was fully focused on the forces and relations of production. Societies continued to subsist by the grace of production. People lived by the fruits of production. They were different, positioned in a system of production where they clashed together in conflicts over the means of production that would drive these conflicts. These conflicts would drive history forward and eventually lead to a revolutionary change of ownership over these means of production. As we know, as she knows or he knows, she, okay, very good, a conflict between the capitalists who owned the means of production and the proletariat class. But, drumroll, by only thinking in terms of production one can today not answer the question of how societies continue to subsist, how class interests change shape or how the conflicts are unfolding. In what Bruno would have called our new climatic regime, period and time and epoch and era and time marked by ecological degradation, climate change and so on and so forth, we now see, like at the time of the industrial revolution, that the social and material infrastructure, and especially the material infrastructure of society is rapidly transformed, which makes necessary a new description of how societies reproduce, where people are in this process and how they clash together in conflict. Because history is a strange thing that dances oddly and it has certainly taken a turn today that not a lot of people would have expected. The ecological sciences expected it 50 years ago, they've been warning us about it, but we haven't made it into political action. And what is this insight? Well, the insight is that the continuation, the subsistence, the reproduction of society is today no longer simply secured by production. But by a long list of other earthly entities and processes that allows societies to be habitable and what is even more peculiar is that production is exactly what has proven to destabilize the planet's conditions of habitability and thus the subsistence of societies. The decisive difference here is that societies can no longer be understood as surviving because of production. You can even say they are surviving despite production. Today, the system of production, no matter where you open your newspaper, have turned into a system of destruction. They, after they, threatening societies and the earthly conditions of habitability. In other words, like with Marx, we are seeing that all that is solid is melting into air. We are finding out, to use another Marxist metaphor, that society has another material basis, so to say, that allows the continuation of human survival. And based on this material transformation, the class struggle changes shape, as well as new lines of ecological conflicts are becoming visible. Because what we in continuance of this material transformation see, that's what we argue in the book, is the emerging contours and the necessity of creating, developing analytically and normatively, the understanding of a new sort of class interest It comes with an essential difference. This is not just a class struggle to take over the means of production. Or for that matter, as we know here in Scandinavian cultures or contexts, to find a more just distribution of the fruits of production. Instead, what we mean to see the first possible sketches of is an ecological class consisting of those who are fighting against the very practices of production. Against the system of production and its horizons and whose collective interests who are gathered around, you can say, the need of securing on a local or planetary level the habitability conditions. So, while the old class struggle of the 19th, 20th century was organized around the production forces then the new ecological class struggle is today organized around the protection the securing the maintenance of the planet's conditions of habitability a struggle between those who wish to limit these practices and those who wish to expand them despite the destructive consequences that we see everywhere is happening. And this is exactly where we argue that the potential for a collective political-ecological narrative lies the possibility of a we and the possibility of defining the history or the direction of history lies. In the ruins of production we see the first contours as well as the possibility and the necessity of strengthening a strong, well-defined we a new ecological class. All right point three, a little bit technical breathe for a second at least I had to let me just sum up green parties, political ecologists green movements must accept that ecology is not a peace treaty it's a battle cry it's a war declaration it must create a strong we and a strong them as well as an understanding of what this we is fighting for in the same way as Marx defined the people that corresponded to the social question of the 19th and the 20th century today we need to define the people that matches the ecological question and again one possible solution to this or one indication that we suggest is the idea of an ecological class rallied around the protection of the earthy conditions of subsistence the habitability conditions and against production not taking over the means of production but fighting the very horizon of production but as we know through social history we are simply not enough to identify and position oneself along such objective lines of conflicts this is why point number three is called the indispensable cultural struggle for ideas so what is that well it is not enough to position yourself along objective lines of conflict on the country the green parties would do well to remember that objective class interests have never been sufficient to engage people in struggles and they have certainly not been enough to create a strong class consciousness instead what you need is a whole universe a whole cultural spectrum of ideas, notions, narrative visions aesthetics if you wish to bring people together if you wish to construct if you wish to mobilize people for political action this is of course with the Italian philosopher Gramsci called the quest for hegemony or the struggle for hegemony understood as the essential insight that long before any ideology any political party any social class can cash in or hope to win political power it has to engage seriously in the cultural struggle of ideas it might seem superfruits facts, justice, morality might be on your side one might even feel that you don't have time to fight this cultural struggle but you cannot skip it why? because the cultural battlefield is as important has always been as important continues to be as important as the political battlefield another way to put this argument how well-oiled the card may be it's better to put it after the host even if the host tracks its hooves as it plots along heavily no matter how you phrase it no matter how you frame it it strikes me, it strikes us Bruno that the ecologists have failed immensely on this point imagine you turn on the TV yet again this bear is being transmitted Jill Scott Herron might have been right that the revolution would not be televised but seemingly the end of the world is on prime time like a long introduction wildfires in California Canada the sky in New York is red heat waves in France, floods in Pakistan four people appear in a TV debate to discuss this horrific situation a liberalist, a socialist, a conservatist an ecologist now what might become clear to the spectator is that the very first three of these offer no realistic horizon political horizon in the face of climate change their ideologies are simply, basically and there are a mode of argumentation as well are not rooted or on par you would say with the situation that we find ourselves in they cannot connect the new question of a people politics and a planet but what they do offer is a whole again register a catalog of notions, images narratives that touches every political soul the liberalist might speak of individual freedom personal responsibility the socialist might speak of solidarity, equality and the conservative might speak about the nation or the people notions that add a little bit of ideological flavor to their political project and perhaps even a status system due to the historical cultural connotations that these notions carry with our poor friend the ecologist on the other hand things are typically different this person has clearly understood that we are facing unheard of danger that we are inhabiting a different world and that we need a different politics but how often have any of us, any of you ever heard an ecologist offer any notions narratives that infuses ecologism with any desirable consent rarely no matter what you said down there it would have been awful if you said a lot I'm just going to leave them rarely because when they appear on tv they typically seem panicky about the state of event moralistic about people's lack of actions resulting in an awfully boring cocktail of have to and should do tasteless enough to make even the most sympathetic soul yawn this appears to me to be another reason for the lack of affect associated with political ecology today why? because necessity is dull panic is tiresome and because voting has to do with having a choice that is choosing something and I have asked the question elsewhere who would ever choose to vote for a party that you have to vote for for the planet not to die or that you should vote for for moral reasons almost nobody and understandably so so to sum up another reason that political ecology has not managed to win the political struggle is because they have largely neglected this cultural struggle instead they thought they could rest on cold facts about the incoming disaster soak them in moralism but as we all know then the prudencies danger and hides himself much rather than basing their argumentation on Friedrich Hüttlitz old quip that where the danger is also grows the saving power then they ought to or they should have followed an artist advice Jenny Hulses that lack of charisma can be fatal because that certainly also counts in the sphere of politics again as indicated the concrete antidote to the deficit of effect would be to take seriously the necessity of constructing from scratch a whole cultural archive of ecological ideas, images, aesthetics visions pictures that imbue political ecology with positive and desirable connotations only with such a registered hand can ecology create enthusiasm and only with such can people begin mirroring themselves in ecology only then can political ecology create a strong we only then can ecology begin to compete on equal terms with the old ideologies and what I hope is clear here by now is of course that a crucial alliance for ecologists are the artistic domains poets, filmmakers writers, musicians, sculptors painters, performers all their work all your work is necessary if we are to build ethics, affiliations and attitudes that creates or corresponds to the situation we find ourselves in imagine what a painter like Frida Kahlo did for communism what a writer like Jack Curic did for liberalism what a filmmaker like Jean-Luc Godard did for socialism imagine what you people could do for ecology to echo Ursula Le Guin we need both the curiosity of science and the risk of aesthetics and for good reasons as you know because since etymologically aesthetics means to render something sensible and a crisis of sensibility is definitely what we are finding ourselves in so to sum up today's lecture three points from the book that the Green Party's ecologists should take note of if political ecology wants to be taken seriously one it must accept that these issues give rise to conflicts second from this it must create a strong we thirdly the struggle must necessarily be cultural and what I hope that the third point clarifies is that perhaps more than any other people the artistic domains does have a responsibility to create a response ability as Donna Haraway puts it exactly because the work of artists have always dealt with making people feel sense what they don't feel already what they didn't feel before so my final battle cry called out here today to mark the opening of IETM's 2023 plenary meeting for the Green Party and the climate activists to join forces with those artistic domains that knows how to touch people and for this, for you your artistic army captains and colonels to come to the aid of ecologists and their desperate efforts by offering what you have always offered a redistribution of effects and sensibilities safeguarding the planet's conditions of habitability might depend on it, thank you very much what an empowering provocation and a call to us thanks a lot let's sit down so dear IETM members and guests, now it's your chance to feel like a lamp in a wolf it's a bit the lights are a bit high up here I think now we get it lighting designer is changing that photos, yeah that's much better I think I am sure this call out to you is inspiring you and making you have a lot of questions for Nicola so I'm just gonna you know, please go ahead, there's one over there fantastic the mics are coming thank you very much for a thought provoking talk I wonder if one might also say that there are a lot of effects, you know the rise of all these names these days climate anxiety ecological grief so on and so on so it's not that these existing narratives about what is happening in the climate catastrophe are boring but perhaps they are provoking feelings that are hard to be with to process and I think that arts could also have a role there but I was also wondering about this notion of conflict and then how you spoke about that from the conflict one could move one could move to a we and I wonder if this we is possible thinking about inequalities that are linked to how, you know different people and places are affected differently so I was hoping you could maybe elaborate a little bit on this possibility of a we well, I'll start with the last part of it of course that's the argument always but we kind of cottage as a society because people in India wants to have a refrigerator and so on or the poor people in society are not the people who wants to fight this middle class so on but historically I mean the first people who has been crushed under production has been the workers they are the first people the lower class let's say classical in an economical sense of the first people to feel we know that statistically the bad air the bad water and of course also the rising seas if you're living in a given city that is facing stuff like that but of course you're completely right that you have to create a language that can make these people mirror themselves in this right and I do strongly believe and that leads me to a second question that that is a question of ethics now you're right about the fact that there are ethics but those are sad, sad passions passions that we have not ethics that we have not attitudes that we have not mobilized into a political thing of course we are all feeling what I would call land sickness in a certain way we're always feeling sort of human let's say transformation knowing that you are on a football we call planet earth that is being moved and being destroyed because of your own actions but how do we make those ethics those inertias, those climate anxieties and so on and so forth something that make political impact and here I strongly believe that we have to create attractive desirable, inspiring I would even say narratives that can make people create a we but you're very right about the I would say that today we're living in a very strange time where we are completely feeling it and completely not feeling it the psychoanalysis would say that the non-feeling is a feeling as well think about it the and now I'm not only speaking politically or sociologically existentially the way that we open the newspaper and see the dire conditions of the situation compared to how we go on with business as usual it's nauseating it's scary I mean somebody like Sartre who could not have imagined anything about climate change who say that we're all living in mauve foie, bad faith we're not facing it so there are ethics but the ethics is not facing it's strongly that we have to describe both those ethics but also create desirable affectual, let's say content so to say to make not only ourselves shut up or look the other way but to actually face where we are who we are and how we can create politically a reaction to that we have a question over there thank you Nikolaj for this raw awakening of the aesthetics I've recently been reading your news book Lensickness and there's two points in it that I would really love you to elaborate on one is the intergenerational thing you have this beautiful story about your grandmother feeling with the responsibility of what is happening on earth and the other one is this really hard discussion of freedom and even emancipation and how we deal with this need for our freedom to go around actually awful people never ask one question ask two questions so you can get completely this loud now to start with the first one what was the first one freedom or generations well I would say that of course this fundamental division conflict in this whole situation both politically but also existentially as you indicate is the struggle between generations well first of all remember generations of genesis and this is certainly a question of the genesis of the habitability conditions of the earth and of course because a very legit way I would say of describing the climate situation that we are facing today is through the colonization of time the situation that we are experiencing is not only a colonization of space long story short we the westerners has been living off other people's territories and right now let's say the destructive consequences of that is falling down in their heads first but it's also a colonization of time well in the sense that certain generations have been living off other people's times my grandmother she lived in the future but of the presence which is today becoming visible for everybody because people are seeing that not only my or my kids generation but future generation generally see the earthly conditions of subsistence seriously threatened because of what happened before so the ecological class would not only fight to superimpose the territory you live on it would also fight somehow to superimpose the times you live in and the times you live off it would be as say everybody have the right to live in their own space on their own territory and in their own times not being colonized so to go back to my grandmother and that part of the book that you are referring to she understood exactly that she had been colonizing my my time, me and my little brothers times why? as a part of the post-war generation she had after the war been fighting long story short for prosperity for a strong economy for growth this was her political collective but also subjective autobiography a heritage that she was so strongly proud of having built and that she was completely sure that her children my father and my generation would take over with pride, embrace with happiness and confidence but again as I said history is a very weird thing that sometimes dances oddly and violently because what my grandmother then at the very end of her life is now finding out is not only that we have to go in another direction no she's finding out something a lot more violent which is that the things that she was fighting for did not bring her kids prosperity not only at least it is exactly what had trapped them on a planet that is now violently reacting to that dream an incredible existential how can you sleep at night knowing that everything you fought for has now trapped your grandchildren in a situation but the argument is of course that then we have to go on the roof of music who then push our elders out of the floor no no but we have to articulate these divisions exactly in order to create political alliances I think that's what generally also connects my work both the sociological aspect and existential aspect I'm very interested in how we are divided not necessarily to remain divided but because I think we are fighting both individually and collectively false we are finding ourselves in a false peace if we accept that this is not divisions but we are divided inside ourselves between our elders between classes and so on and so forth and I think we need a language to articulate that so now you're questioning whether I'll answer you on freedom there's a lot of hands now we have one up here and there's two over there it's on thank you you mentioned Marx a fair bit and the kind of human struggle for representation in a political system and I wonder how much the ecological crisis test that or advance that I think a theme that constantly comes up is well do non-human others have any kind of rights within our political system and would that be a way to fight ecological collapse if they did or is that an absurd idea for you and actually climate change means a kind of a much bigger change to our political system and democracy and representation within that if that makes sense there you are there's a tree over there right now you see there's a plant right now I have to say that non-human should have rights I think it's one of the things we have to discuss now when we are rebuilding what politics means the most important thing is just that we find a way of let's say emerging or letting the ecological earthly subsistence questions be emerged into politics and it's not very difficult actually because it's always been there even if we always pushed it a little bit aside again that's why I like to go back to Marx because Marx started by human survival how do societies reproduce right? that's his fundamental question where in this process are people and what are the struggles that goes on I'm saying that's a complete same situation we're finding out today that we are rediscovering how societies reproduce not only through production but through negotiation with a lot of other entities of earthly subsistence with an earth system basically some of them are plants some of them are ocean streams about air, soil and so on and so forth we have to put them in there somehow and I think if we go through the modern history it's actually instead of saying this is a completely new thing I would rather say that this is a tweak even if it's a pretty tough tweak so to say whether that means that we have to give rights to non-humans and so on and so forth I don't know I haven't made up my mind but I think it's a very important question we have one more question we pressed for time so it will be this question and then maybe one more and that'll be it so feeling the pressure for asking a very good question but I'm curious about the role of art and also in times of war and conflict because I also feel that I'm trained to step out of the conflict to make sure that the conflict is not happening and the policies that are made we are still in the shadow of the Second World War where we don't want the culture to be a voice that can operate as a revolution but still it's needed so I would like to hear your thoughts on that I'm not sure I understood the question to be honest which is awful because you said you had pressure on your fire screen I'm really it's the whole notion of us the ones who should now you say we are the ones who could save the situation by backing up certain political voices but I'm just curious in terms of what you think about that if the consequence of that is war or the consequence of that is yes we have to push our older generation out over that there are consequences it's about privilege so I just want to hear more about that yeah okay well I think you need I'm not an artist I know absolutely nothing about art which is very free whatever I say but I'm just saying that we need as has been indicated through the other questions to somehow aestheticize this to somehow effectualize it I would say why would you not turn it into a war it is a war that's the whole point that you are already seeing your territories being attacked by big production machines and so on and so forth by capitalism by people who are taking away your conditions of habitability I know people are very afraid about this word of war but at least then you listen and it is already an declared war it's a false peace situation we're sitting in if you open up your newspaper you see you're seeing the rich people buying bunkers in New Zealand and flying to Mars war has already been declared it's about defining this war positioning yourself in it and I think for that to create after that objective analysis that has been done and so on and so forth then I think you need art to make people affected by it what does that mean in terms of making art does it mean being trading new being a plant being sensitive to things that you were not sensitive to before does it mean making sensitivity for conflict and so on and so forth in a second we're going to see a performance out here called We Are The One Percent so all of these things I'm not the person to ask how to do art but I know that you are in a war and I know you need art to make that shake in people because or else they're going to walk around thinking that there is no war so there's one question in here as well so thank you for finally saying capitalism in this whole lecture I think we should I mean if we're talking directly and openly this is the Marx fan I think what you're saying without saying it which is really strange to me is the fact that we are in a war against capitalism on other things yeah because I mean if there were a functional socialism today it wouldn't have been an extracting colonizing politics so I'm just like for me all of these things that you've said are also kind of strange because you're counting on artists and you're in a way you've invited us to create basically a PR campaign exactly for ecologists which also no you're not here to accept the TV but I'm here to do it yes and thank you for that it was a lovely lovely lecture but what I'm saying is artists are workers I mean we are talking about using our means of production and taking them like there was a two month period that was flying over the world like we can go on a general strike I mean that because that's basically what we're saying we're saying let's stop working because we are also workers we shouldn't be the ones that anyone counts on to lead the revolution no revolution was ever led by an artist it was always led by the workers it was fueled by it but I think that what we need to do is kind of not be the spokespeople for climate activists or anything like that but I think what we should do is just demonstrate this urgency that we all feel this enormous apathy and depression in the wake of something that's going to basically destroy the world so I kind of feel that we are still talking about a socialism not a democratic socialism not a democratic socialism but a socialism that has to be a revolutionary I think it takes two different things there's a question about the question of art it's completely fair but I agree very much on your last point that it is up to you to simply demonstrate this urgency that's the only thing I'm saying I'm not saying that you should strike that would be completely silly why would you do that I mean of capitalism of course is at the very heart of this but I'm just saying that it's even deeper that it's not only capitalism it's production itself again if you read through the history of socialism socialism was a productivist horizon of society that's the only one thing that both the socialists, the communists and the liberalists were agreeing on that the horizon of society was production then we can speak about reinventing socialism we can call it that if you prefer not just be a revolutionary change over the means for production I'm seeing socialism as a of course I'm a socialist completely but it has to redefine itself as being against production my other, I'm not saying there's a problem with the word capitalism but the fact is just that we've been saying there's overthrow capitalism for 150 years right how did that go capitalism for me is a notion or let's say the revolutionary remarks is critique I don't think first of all this is what I just said before that it completely captures the situation and secondly I'm afraid that it doesn't affect people I'm afraid that that notion we have become unsensible to maybe with your art if you don't strike can make people sensitive to it again that would be a first step thank you very much you have given us a lot to discuss and digest in the coming days thanks so much almost finished we're gonna go and have a drink just a minute and thank you for your questions something to think about to discuss and digest we will soon leave this room for some lovely drinks and a little something to eat and a welcome by the cultural mayor of Ohus but before we do so just a few reminders yes we encourage you to read the courtesy tips our transparency note and our tips on environmental consciousness at the meeting which we have put together and can all be found and the practical information on the meeting page on the ITM website we have all been learning important codes of contact in the last years and some of us are still learning I quoted the safe space guidelines of Urban Apa in Belgrade and I will quote two of them again let's respect the physical, mental and emotional boundaries of others as well as our own let's strive to act with positive intent and take care of each other and again my new favorite no one is the holder of the truth yes I like that one too I would also add always try to assume that people have the right intentions when they speak even if you disagree be curious about the proposition of others so and now we should get ready for a welcome reception at the beautiful Ohus city hall yeah, sorry at the beautiful city hall right across the park and since we're all going there I love that building so since we're all going there I thought I would give a few insights on the building the city hall is more than 80 years old but it still presents itself as a quite modern building the city hall is designed by Danish architects Arne Jacobsen and Erik Müller the exterior surface of the building is actually clad with Norwegian marble so much for sharing thank you we have a new member of the ITM now what I was trying to say was that please take a good look when we go there don't worry if you are in doubt on how to get there I'm sure there'll be plenty of possibilities for guidance so without further ado let's all walk together yes thank you very well, welcome and let's enjoy the next days


Thanks so much for joining us on Think Tech Hawaii, and it's fundraising season again, so for those of you who appreciate and support us, please do go to thinktechhawaii.com, find the donate button, click on it, and if you are so moved, help keep us going. Today, educational censorship up against free learning. We have seen huge increases in not only book bannings, but in educational gag orders and educational gag legislation coming out of the Republican Party. Today, to discuss that with us, we have two esteemed law professors and a very experienced mediation, arbitration, and business consultant and professional. Okay, so we have Tina Patterson in Germantown, Maryland, mediator, arbitrator, recently returned from the gathering of mediators and arbitrators for the American Bar Association section of dispute resolution, as is David Larson, the immediate past chair of the ABA section of dispute resolution, and a professor at Mitchell Hamlin School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Ben Davis, visiting professor of law in Charlottesville, Virginia at Washington and Lee, and professor emeritus, retired from the University of Toledo School of Law, and extensive experience practicing in Europe as well before that. So, ladies and gentlemen, we're looking at a history where in 2021, besides book bannings, there were 54 GOP bills proposed for educational gag orders to prevent teachers from teaching entire subject matter, from critical race theory to LGBTQ choices to other thing. That number jumped in 2022 to 137 in the first not even full eight months. Now in 2023, in the first six weeks, we have 84 GOP educational gag legislative proposals. What's going on? Do you know you want to start us off? Thanks, Chuck. I think what's going on is literally a shutdown of the ability to learn, the ability to explore, and the ability for us to teach our children basic skills. You gave the highlights, but it's more than that. When we start talking about our teenagers, it's talking about reproductive systems, it's talking about how we engage with one another, and I think David's going to talk a little bit more about this. It's the institutionalization of these things. I'll pause there because I don't want to steal David's thunder, but it's not anything I've seen before. I mean, books have been banned in the past, yes. I remember ordinary people catcher in the ride, but now it's on a different scale altogether. So David, where is this politically institutionalized censorship of learning and teaching coming from? Well, I think it's part of a broader political strategy that the Republicans are saying, we're going to take control of the state legislatures and we're going to implement the policies we're comfortable with until we can somehow get power back at the federal level. Because we don't have that now. So I think it's part of that strategy. We're going to institutionalize. We've always had debates about the appropriateness of different learning materials. There's nothing wrong with that, to have that kind of a debate. And I think what's frightening about it is getting institutionalized. The Santas keeps signing bills down in Florida. And a couple of days ago, I was looking at his website and as he signed the Senate Bill 266 and he said, quote, we are ensuring that Florida's institutions encourage diversity of thought, civil discourse, and the pursuit of truth for generations to come. So that's what he says this legislation is intended to do. So if you look at Senate Bill 266, it prohibits programs, majors, minors, curriculum, general education core courses, based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in institutions of the United States. Those two statements are completely antithetical. You can't say that I'm going to ensure diversity of thought and a search for truth and then specifically prohibit discussion of different ideas and theories. So we've got this situation going on where it's we're muzzling people. We are seeing statutes written with a certain amount of vagueness intentionally, so that legislatures can back off a little bit legislators and say that I'm not censoring anybody. People are censoring themselves. So you write the legislation vaguely prohibiting certain things and nobody really knows what it means. That same Senate Bill calls on presidents to review their procedures for disciplining faculty. So it's right there. The threat's there that we're going to prohibit you from doing these things. We are reviewing our policies and procedures for disciplining you if you happen to do it. And it's really a very aggressive censorship strategy. And you're right. And the punitive measures that are being attached to these things are not only the censorship and withdrawals of funding for schools, but terminations and sometimes even criminal penalty for teachers who even engage in those communication. Yeah. So I have two theories on this. I'll throw them out for you. One is if anyone remembers those old Republican consultant named Lee Atwater who discussed the Southern strategy. And so this progress over time in the strategy where you couldn't do the kind of George Wallace 50 stuff, but you had to come up with new words and things that were a little more sort of theoretical, but you're basically doing it to pull on the same heartstrings in the American people to get yourself voted in. So today, the Lee Atwater version 2023 is the word whoop. I'm against whoop. And so that is all about triggering the same kind of stuff that essentially was always trying to be triggered as part of Republicans getting domination in the majorities. There's also the gerrymandering part. But I think that I look at it as that. The other thing is it's decoupling the state system by essentially creating what I would call a separate and unequal trap for certain topics in education. And by creating those at the state level, there will be some comment about do is don't worry because there are federal requirements that are applied that are going to, you know, apply federal law, but essentially it's trying to decouple state commitment to this broad vision of education to create really separate track, unequal track for certain things and to use the budgetary power of the states to enforce that in terms of the marketplace of books being presented, the marketplace of hiring people, the potential for firing people, all those kinds of things are being used to create this separate and unequal track. And, you know, what's painful, at least we're doing to this right now in Ohio, is that you look, I just saw a letter that was done yesterday by the Inter-University Council made up the 14 presidents of the 14 public institutions here in Ohio. And rather than being full-throated to support for academic freedom, they're in the corner, we're going to work with you legislature, you know, please can you change the words like this a little bit, maybe this over here, this thing, can you just emphasize our federal responsibilities as opposed to highlighting, I mean, let's do it like they do it. They say, let's do it like, here's some language that they're doing in Florida, right? Why don't you do it like they do it in Florida, right? And I'm like, look, you know, you guys betray those principles in the whole of the 19th century, most of the 20th century, and you would think in the 21st century, you would be backing academic freedom and diversity and all that stuff. But instead, you're doing this little dance. And I'm, you know, I said to him, look, I think you back it up or you stand down because it's just not possible that you can have public educational institutions in favor of a separate and unequal system. It's just not possible in 2023. At least that's the way I think of it. So, but that's what's going on. The old Lee Atwater Southern strategy being played out across the country and the creation of a separate and unequal track for certain things, which creates fear. I know people have told me they're in fear. And I said, no, you shouldn't be in fear for who you are in this country. No one should be in fear who they are.   No, I brought the book because they can feel it coming down the road. It's going to be after them. I said, no, we're going to stand on this. We're not going to be bullied on this because so that you don't get bullied on that. I will do it again. You know, I got a letter in the editor in the local newspaper up there in Toledo, Ohio, where I read the riot at. Do what I can. You do what you can. You fight. Well, you fight and you speak out. You know, so many things can happen at the lower levels of government. But don't forget that the people who are serving on these local school boards and the lowest levels of government are your neighbors. You probably know them and you probably run across them and talk with them. So take advantage of that opportunity to talk with them about these things. Have your voice heard. It may be much easier to have your voice heard at this level because you have your rubbed shoulders with these people, maybe routinely. So you might feel you can't get to your senator and you may feel deterred from doing that because it seems so hard. But it isn't at the local level. I would think that most people look at school boards and there's probably at least one person whose name they've heard before on their local school board. And when these kinds of things are happening, when we're getting the point of literally banning books, I was reading one report from a law librarian who was so uncertain about what was going to be prohibited that she took the yellow crime tape and took it around some of the bookshelves to keep the kids out away from the stack of the books until she could figure out what was going on. So if you see that going on, you've got to talk to people that are making these policies to say that it's out of control, that it's really frightening.  It's got to speak to them. And some of the books that are being banned are the very books that are speaking to different kids. And you take those books away and you're going to have kids that are not only alienated by other pressures in society, but even in school, that they're not going to find the kind of reinforcement and support and education that they should be able to find. Yeah, I'm going to back up to something you said. And then it goes with what you mentioned, Tower of the Pen. We talk about reaching out to our local legislators, reaching out to our school board, but there's nothing like an op-ed. And when people say, oh, I can't write, sure you can. Some of the things that catch us most in terms of the media are full page ads or a community that has decided to take out an ad position. We typically talk about the negative, but Ben is a perfect example. Write the letter to the editor. Write the letter. Let the editor know you have a different opinion. If there's five or six people that you know that are willing to sign or at least respond to the letter to the editor, do it. If you're not sure how to write a letter to the editor, one of the programs I'm aware of is called the op-ed project. And they work with people on how to develop letters to the editor or what they call op-ed. But write that letter, write the school board, write your council member. I don't like this. I don't want this. Write the library. The library gets funding too. No, this book is not going to be banned. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this book. And then you're right. Let's let this narrative about trans, who's trans, who's not trans, let people be people. They're not committing a crime, let them be. Well, yeah, I'm going to jump on what you said, Tina. And as I'm sitting here in Charlottesville looking at this stuff going on up in Toledo, you know, and where there is really a slur against the faculty, the staff, and the institution where I spent 18 years of my life that's being propagated. You know, I was like, well, what is the rest of the College of Law faculty saying about this? Or the staff there? Or what are the professors at the whole university saying about this and the staff? Or what about the alumni or having the school that they want to be dismissed? What are they saying about it? I mean, I'm sitting here in Charlottesville, Virginia. But you know, but I'm saying, well, you know, all you folks who've had all that invested in you and you're watching these people talking about this thing, this and that, about where you went to school. You know, you can make posts on Facebook about, I don't like that guy or something like that. But what are you doing to say, hey, this is not right. And contact your state senator or your state house and representative person or the president of the university, you know, trust me, I remember being at something as a private citizen. And lo and behold, all these people said, I was so crazy by the question and answers I did in 2012 in the Q&A. One true the vote wrote a thing. Law professor goes berserk at true the vote made it. I was asking questions, you know what I mean? I mean, and I saw it. And so, you know, I called my dean and said, hey, if you get any noise, just let you know this king's coming out. People wrote my dean saying, I'm so shocked by this law professor and how he acted at the true the vote meeting. And I found out that this whole thing went up through the board of trustees, we're on the margins of a board of trustees meeting. Some people were talking about, what's this thing about that law professor? Fortunately, general counsel, mayor friends, he said, you know, don't worry about that's nothing, that's fine. I got called into the dean's office and the dean asked about that. I said, yeah, I went to a true the vote meeting to see what they were about. I used to be a poll watch, the private citizen. And I heard that they were intimidating motor. And he said, oh, you're doing that. Did you do as a representative of the university? No, I was going as a private citizen. I got nothing to say to you. I said, okay, but do me a favor. The next person who writes me about me, please ask them, what's the name and address of their employer. So I can write to the employer. I mean, this is the kind of intimidation that this is all about.  I mean, it's all kind of stuff that goes on. But you know, it's nice thing about being emeritus is like, you know, well, I'm just going to tell you what I think. But I'll tell you, I know how fear is trying to be put in people's hearts. And that's all that this is about. And unless you stand now, you're going to be standing, you're going to be in worse later. That's why I was happy to see Penguin Books is suing the Sanctis in Florida. And parents from Florida suing the Sanctis. I was happy to say also that Disney suing the Sanctis. I mean, that's what they got. That's what you got to be. That's what you got to be now, man, because these people are just really trying to put in place a separate and unequal. And I'm just, I am so done with that. As a human being in the 21st century, I am so done with it. It's just not fair to decent people everywhere. For nice people who want to have their kids have a good education, and don't be caught in some political games with somebody trying to run for president. I mean, it's just nonsense. Sorry. Well, you know, there's a there's a moment that's around the corner now. That's going to be one of these flashpoints where you're going to stay quiet or you're not. And that's when we get the affirmative action decision from the United States Supreme Court. Now, that's going to be a moment in history where speak now or forever hold your peace. You know, schools and institutions are going to have to decide what they're going to do in the face of this opinion that probably is going to impair their ability to attract the diverse student body. And we're, you know, we've begun talking about it at our law school. And I think everybody should start talking about it, how they're going to respond. Because it's probably going to be pretty devastating in terms of what we've been permitted to do in terms of affirmative action in the past. I think we're going to get a really destructive opinion. And now we're going to do a strategy for responding to that. But what we can't do is just not respond. It's going to have to be going to have to be outspoken, aggressive and logical. Because, you know, what's being done is just not logical. It makes no sense to go back in time. So before we made all the advances we did in terms of civil rights, inclusion and diversity, and we're not we're not there yet by any means. So the idea that we're going to start retracting or retreating now, it just makes no sense at all. But I take it one step further, logical and rational. So what we're hearing right now is bordering on irrational, as far as the justifications, the stories, irrational and fear-based.  I think about the old saying, if you don't stand up for something, you'll fall for anything. So stand up. Speak up. David, like you, I'm very concerned about this upcoming discussion regarding affirmative action. There are many of us who, we don't talk about it, but we know if the school didn't have an affirmative action policy, we probably wouldn't have gone to school. And, you know, to have this discussion at this day and time, it's hurtful. But it's also, it seems like the pendulum is swinging again. This conversation takes me back to conversations that I heard my parents and grandparents talk about in the mid 20th century.  What do we tell the ones that are infants now? It's just disgraceful.  This is literally being rational and logical. What would a logical, rational person do? You know, that's kind of, that's sort of what's happening with some of this legislation. It's like in Florida, you can't talk about systemic racism, systemic sexism. And the idea is, I think that if kids aren't exposed to this idea, they will never question it. They'll never question the fact that there may be institutions in the country that are inherently racist or sexist because they've never been exposed to the concept that it's possible. And I think that's the goal of some of this legislation is to kind of prevent that kind of critical thinking. Yeah, I agree. It's dumbing kids down. Okay. I mean, that's the thing for me is that it's dumbing kids down. And I think the effort should be to raise kids up to be critical thinkers that will, you know, solve the complex issues that we have coming forward.  And I'm doing was talking with my neighbor and she was talking about, you know, here in Charlottesville, how among blacks and whites has been a feeling that the atmosphere has changed since the last 10 years and so over, or particularly since that united the right kind of event that happened in 2017 in terms of just sort of the what's allowed to be said and what you hear, right? So, you know, what, what Tina's hearing from her parents and reminding them of the mid, sick mid century stuff. People are feeling it. People are feeling it. And the thing I say to people is, well, wait a minute, man, back in the day, there was Governor Lester Maddox, there was Governor George Wallace, there was Governor Ross Barnett, there was Governor Faubus, and people were out in the streets fighting him nonviolently. So, what's the big deal with this guy, Governor DeSantis, or the guy in the wine in Ohio and these guys?   Those people worried about getting fired from a job if they went out and protested about not being able to vote. And as to the affirmative action case, you know, let me tell you folks, Brown versus Board of Education was came down on May 17, 1954. That's a, there's a picture of this black lady with her little daughter with the newspaper on the steps of the Supreme Court. That's a classic iconic photo that was taken on May 18. That little girl is just like a year or two older than my sister and me today. And so the arc of our life has been in a life in that post-Brown experience. Every place that I have ever worked, I've been one or every place where I had an education or ever worked in the United States, I was one of one or two or maybe three blacks. This entire 67 year in places which have lots of white, that's how limited what's gone on has been. When Bakke came down, it was considered to be a failure at the time. They teach it now in law schools like Bakke was a success. It wasn't a success back in 1976. It was a failure because they gave up on the rationale of dealing with the history and talking about going with the diversity. So now we're talking about affirmative action being up. It's just one more of these things along the line. But you know, I'm into the history. I just found out last Friday, the name of the enslaved mulatto woman who had six children with president William Henry Harrison. Her name was Delicia. And one of those children was an ancestor of mine named Oliver Harrison. And when William Henry Harrison moved from Berkeley plantation to Grossland, he had a couple more kids. Those kids were free because they were in Indiana. But when he was trying to clean up his act to become president, he sold her to an enslaved North Carolina had had six kids with her. That's real history, folks. That's real history that's out there that they're just trying to hide from. I've talked to both Grossland and Berkeley and the comment somebody said is their little opaque on these things. You know what I mean? But I've got people in my family do the work and they've done the work and the DNA and all that stuff. So yeah, you can hide it, but you can't run from it. Okay. And then any wrap up remarks? Tina? I've already said it stand up. You'll fall for anything to stand up. David. Yeah, just real quick. This is going to be for another program.  There's got to be a factual predicate. It's got to be an imbalance and a traditionally segregated job category. So it's a remedial based program. It's not an affirmative program and it's been mischaracterized to its detriment. The only thing I've been adding, I've been using a phrase recently, I call it the Delta. It's the Delta is between how high a black could rise and how high a white person could rise, going back to that delicia in 1815 and everything through. But there are many deltas in our society about people who came over on immigration. There's lots of different deltas in the society between how far someone could rise. And I just, that's the one I'm focused on because the disparities are so stark. So, you know, when they start talking about affirmative action is bad and all that stuff, I'm like, Hey, man, let me just take a look at the Delta. Where's the Delta? Where's the infant mortality rate? What's the maternal mortality rate? What's the health crisis rate? What's the incarceration rate? What's the Delta? Those are focused on the Delta, not on the jive, if I would say. Sorry, it goes so long. So, great questions for exactly as David just said and Tina replied for more sessions. Come back, rejoin us. We'll be back in a couple of weeks and leave at that point. I think if I remember right, Ben will be in charge. So, Oh my goodness. Please, please make sure you all are available. Okay. Thank you all with a lot. Best wishes. Thank you so much for watching this video. If you enjoyed it, please hit the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at ThinkDecHawaii.com. Mahalo.