How shocking events can spark positive change | Naomi Klein

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 28 July 2020

⏱️ 16 minutes

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Summary

Things are pretty shocking out there right now -- record-breaking storms, deadly terror attacks, thousands of migrants disappearing beneath the waves and openly supremacist movements rising. Are we responding with the urgency that these overlapping crises demand from us? Journalist and activist Naomi Klein studies how governments use large-scale shocks to push societies backward. She shares a few propositions from "The Leap" -- a manifesto she wrote alongside indigenous elders, climate change activists, union leaders and others from different backgrounds -- which envisions a world after we've already made the transition to a clean economy and a much fairer society. "The shocking events that fill us with dread today can transform us, and they can transform the world for the better," Klein says. "But first we need to picture the world that we're fighting for. And we have to dream it up together."

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to TED Talks Daily. I'm Elise Hugh. Well, we're in the midst of collective overlapping crises set off by the coronavirus pandemic. So what will become of society as a result?
0:15.8	Journalist Naomi Klein says shocking events can either spur our growth in progress or they can set us all back.
0:22.7	In today's talk, Klein outlines what it takes for crises to lead to transformative change for the better.
0:29.1	If you'd like to discuss these ideas, check out Ted Circles, our global community of small group conversations.
0:35.5	Throughout August, they're discussing how change happens. Join them by
0:39.5	visiting ted circles.com. There's a question I've been puzzling over and writing about for
0:48.1	pretty much all of my adult life. Why does some large-scale crises jolt us awake and inspire us to change and evolve?
0:59.5	Well, others might jolt us a bit, but then it's back to sleep. Now, the kind of shocks I'm
1:06.3	talking about are big, a cataclysmic market crash, rising fascism, an industrial accident that poisons on a
1:16.2	massive scale.
1:18.2	Now, events like this can act like a collective alarm bell.
1:23.5	Suddenly, we see a threat.
1:25.3	We get organized.
1:27.0	We discover strength and resolve
1:29.4	that was previously unimaginable.
1:32.5	It's as if we're no longer walking, but leaping.
1:37.3	Except our collective alarm seems to be busted.
1:42.6	Faced with a crisis, we often fall apart, regress, and that becomes a window
1:47.9	for anti-democratic forces to push societies backwards, to become more unequal and more unstable.
1:57.5	Ten years ago, I wrote about this backwards process, and I called it the shock doctrine.
2:03.8	So what determines which road we navigate through crisis, whether we grow up fast and find those
2:11.9	strengths, or whether we get knocked back?
	...

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