Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman review – why you quit your job to make the world a better place | Health, mind and body books

R.The author tells us firmly. The appearances may suggest otherwise: it is written and is almost fully presented in the familiar style of this type, with generous printing, short sentences, maximum in diagonal, many lists and plans (“six signs that may be on the wrong side of history”).

But it deserves to take Pragman (a historian and a three -wing historian of something called “one of the most prominent young thinkers in Europe” by the TED network) in his speech. It starts from the deep anomalies and erosion that many talented young professionals who find themselves are achieving large sums of money in stressful jobs (at best) the exposure of morals. The “moral ambition” of the title revolves around the realization that the serious financial, organizational, technological and analytical skills – the type that will make you in the United States, for example, with a safe ticket to prosperity – can be used to make tangible improvements in the lives of human and inhuman neighbors.

In order for this to happen, we need live live accounts about how, in the past, this has not become just a possibility but an urgent necessity. In the Nazi France occupied by the Netherlands, who exactly identified the Jews and why? In the American twentieth century, who recorded and sat naked violations of the corporate authority? In the eighteenth century, how did the campaign to end the slave trade gained greatly in a relatively short period of time?

Stories that Pragman tells alive and are often really inspiring. Its pages on the profession of American radical activist Ralph Nader And its amazing series of victories over the self -deficiency of companies and self -interest in a blatant contradiction with the full abandonment of the values ​​that he stood in the current United States. But Pragman also has important things that he can say in his novel about Nader about the nature of the effective radical leadership, including distributing responsibilities and allowing a little way for people to put their business schedules (“The driving function is the production of more leaders, not more followers.”

Pragman does not shine at his climax, unhappy with the profession of Nader, a presidential tour in 2000 that was effectively handing the presidency of George W. Bush. The intensity of his disgusting campaigns, the demands he presented from himself and others, and the confidence close to a Christian in his abilities in solving problems in the end, contributed to the deep inaccuracy and the design of criticism. Brejman-while provocatively claims that to make a change, it must create something like “worship”-it is clear that the ideal is not full of octane is not active and actively dangerous.

He has some positive judicial things that he can say about the intertwining of the “effective altruism” movement (which has distorted a lot of its association with problematic numbers such as Sam Bankman Al -Muqali). The one focus on measurable event encouraged the idea that you can do the maximum good by achieving the maximum money so that you can give it everything. But the effect of this was, for some, to weaken the focus to the extent that an attempt to solve global problems can already be replaced by discussing what you might do indefinitely if you are richer.

There is nothing ethically superior about incompetence, and there is no excuse for the ineffectiveness of finding good intentions. Brejman has strict and necessary things to say about the legend of the “noble loser”, because it exceeds that, as the purity of the motivation exceeds the actual birth. “Winning” is an ethical necessity, and accountability is necessary.

The accountability requires at least two habit. One is simply facing a problem to find out what the problem is, especially from those who suffer from it directly. The other, more challenging, is caution of these items of antiseptic and the maximum that makes it impossible to either build long -term dangerous strategies to make policy, or make tactical alliances with those who do not share all your convictions.

The growing awareness of the intersection – the interlocking nature of a wide range of factors that prevent human dignity and freedoms – was a really important aspect of modern thinking about what justice might mean. Ultimately, talking about editing one group and should lead you to see that you should link them to the editing of other groups. But Bregman argues that Bregman argues that you may end up refusing to work with anyone who does not participate in a huge and constantly expanded list of supposed ancient Orthodoxy, which is an ethical package in which you cannot start in one case unless all other rules are secured, which no person can have a real package without identifying each article from the article. It is a false sir’s position that leads unavoidable to division and ineffective, and the privilege of feeling the moral safety of the activist on any urgency about relieving actual suffering.

As a corrective, Pragman describes a number of successful movements that have seriously thought about the necessary tactical settlements and acceptance of the delay in order to reach safer results if it is less dramatic – than the cancellation movement to the busy province of Montgomery in 1955 (explains how the famous protest of Rosa was planned with publications. “

But this story and others show tension that Bragman has never been tense – which may not lend himself. It is very attractive to a high guarantee, looking for an issue that would give the maximum moral satisfaction; There are pages where at least some readers will be seduced by completing the white arena. However, it is very realistic about the need to stop one’s desire for a specific type of holiness, accepting the need for regular self-care to avoid the victim’s fall either for exhaustion or-worse-for the myth of the individual, and remaining clear about measurable differences-you never care whether they are exciting and global as you wish. Since the book is erected strongly towards the young and talented, there is a lot of focus on achievement and contentment-but the book as a whole achieves deeper, aware of the dangers of self-recycling.

This is why in reality it is more than just self -helping. It may be more optimistic than the current global trends that seem to call; It may be a little thin on how to keep it creatively, even spiritually, the moral ambition that he describes. But at its best, it provides a very superior perspective, and insists on the need to do everything in your power to allow yourself to raise awareness and raise awareness of what he is dealing with in dignity not only for humanity but (an important element in the argument of Bruceman) for the entire living environment. As note at the end of the book, the belief that individuals cannot make a change is that it is irony that a deep individual conviction, and refuse to see the intertwined human agency. exaggerated? maybe. But often the calls should be to the weapon.