This TED Talk features lawyer and bioethicist Jonathan Marks, recorded live at TEDxPSU 2017.

20 years ago, when I was a barrister and human rights lawyer in full-time legal practice in London,

and the highest court in the land still convened, some would say by an accident of history in this building here,

I met a young man who had just quit his job in the British Foreign Office.

When I asked him, why did you leave?

He told me this story.

He had gone to his boss one morning and said,

let's do something about human rights abuses in China.

And his boss had replied,

we can't do anything about human rights abuses in China because

we have trade relations with China. So my friend went away with his tail between his legs, and six

months later, he returned again to his boss. And he said this time, let's do something about human rights

in Burma, as it was then called.

His boss once again paused and said, oh, but we can't do anything about human rights in Burma

because we don't have any trade relations with Burma.

This was the moment he knew he had to leave.

It wasn't just the hypocrisy that got to him.

It was the unwillingness of his government to engage in conflict with other governments,

intense discussions, all the while innocent people were being harmed.

We are constantly told that conflict is bad, that compromise is good,

that conflict is bad, but consensus is good, that conflict is bad, and collaboration is good. But in my view, that's far too simple a vision of the world.

We cannot know whether conflict is bad unless we know who is fighting, why they are fighting,

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