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As human beings, we learn, explore, acquire knowledge for one reason only, to do, to act. We keep on learning so that we can act more effectively in our world. Not the world, our world, where we interact and have presence. So our learning is not just about acquiring knowledge of ourselves or, or of our world separately, but of the interaction between us and it, of our relationship with it. And that interaction is tempered by what we have experienced as the balance of power we have with our world. What we have learnt we can or cannot do, what value we have to it, what it has to us, what values we and our world have formed together. Is our world friendly, an ally, a competitor or, or an enemy, and so on. And these experiences are most deeply felt and embedded when we're children, because of course, that's when the discovery of ourselves in the world is still so fresh. So that's when we form our foundational assumptions, the so called beliefs that say, this is who I am. So what we think of as our personality or self is really tightly linked to this drive to experience ourselves in relationship to the world, to make our place in our world. And that experience needs to be both action and feedback, a tangible result, confirmation that we have some impact in our immediate environment, that we have some control over our lives, that we matter. And when that ability to interact is severely constricted, or probably more important, when we stop believing that we can make a space for ourselves and that whatever we do has little or no impact on our context, on our world, we tend to look for alternatives. And these are really quite limited. We can have another go at doing something individually, or we can get together with others and take collective action. If neither of those options work, we have two more which could in certain instances be one and the same thing. We shrink the world where we operate, where we think we have a better chance of having an impact, or where we change our world, we try and change the entire context in which we can or cannot act. The religious prosecution and slaughter of Protestants, of various hues, by Catholics and by Protestants, of Catholics in 16th and 17th century Europe are pretty good examples of what I'm talking about. When individual and collective action didn't work, the persecuted hid or lowered their profile to escape attention. They shrank their world. And when that didn't work, many of them moved to what they hoped to be more sympathetic or safer regions nearby. And when they were still pursued, they changed their world completely and sailed to, for example, faraway places like North America or the Cape of Good Hope. The irony of course, is that what they did and how they treated the inhabitants of the new world they went to was shaped by the values and assumptions of power and lack of power that they had experienced in Britain or Europe. Those who escape persecution take with them the burden of fear and lack of power, the immensely powerful assumption that the world is a dangerous place for those without superior power. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, the DRC is a more modern example of its around 109 million people, over 23 million of them, are facing extreme hunger. 23 million people of 109 million are facing extreme hunger. That's over four times the population of Denmark, over twice the population of Greece and Belgium, and 4 million more than the population of New York State. Much of the current problems have been caused by conflicts, terror and persecutions by both warring militia and those grasping to control the country's valuable mineral resources for the developed world. In my other podcast on refugees, a young man from DRC told me how he too went through this sequence of changing worlds as a child. First, he and his family shrank their world. They tried to keep a low profile and hid from the militia. Then, when his father was butchered, they fled to another part of the country, which they thought would be more sympathetic and more distant from these warring militia. More shrinkage. And finally, when his mother was killed and his siblings abducted, this sole survivor fled to Uganda. He made one difference, though. In order to ensure that he didn't export the virus of weaponized power, of which he was very aware now, that rage of fear, he made sure that he devoted his life to helping those with even less power, while working to understand and mediate his own fears. Now, those examples are the extremes, people changing their world for existential reasons. But much as those in the affluent world experience relative poverty, that means poverty that may feel extreme relative to those on the other side of town, but which is nowhere near the deprivation experienced in Gaza, the Sudan, or Yemen. So we have relative powerlessness. We may not ever experience forced labor or slavery in Seattle or Stuttgart, but we can be made to feel incredibly threatened and anxious by bullying, abuse, or even mild pressure to perform in this liberal world of ours. So, for example, you've been trying for years to get someone to listen to you about being molested by the boss. HR tells you not to rock the boat, and anyway, it's your word against his, hers, theirs. What about collective action? Which part of your word against theirs did you not understand? So you prepare yourself to despair and shrink your world, telling yourself that, A, they're all lying bastards, B, they're all in it for themselves and C most important, they're never going to listen to me. Or you've been told again and again and again that you live in a meritocracy. And as long as you work hard and well and are loyal, you'll thrive. You did just that and you lost your job. You try and get another job. That's your individual action. But your skills are no longer needed. Collective action. It may work eventually if you're in a highly needed sector, but what's the point if your company has gone bankrupt or or moved offshore or your union has been weakened over the years or even banned? So you accept your helplessness and shrink your world, telling yourself that A, they're all lying bastards, b they're all in it for themselves, etc. Etc. Etc. But unlike the Huguenots or the people of the drc, in this more affluent society of ours, you have another world that is really very close at hand. And you don't even have to move town, let alone country, because in the meantime you've been doing something else. You've been doom scrolling, which as you probably know, is the ultimate of shrinking your world. But never mind. And while you've been doing that, you've also been liking commenting or chatting with new friends and connections on social media. And guess what? They listen. They react when you make a comment. And even if you don't actually take part in the conversation, they're sending you a clear me too. Me too. I lost my job and I feel useless. Me too. My boss did that to me too. I understand. It happened to me too. Now you're beginning to belong. And then it gets even better. The groups or the people you follow start shouting really loudly. You join them. You don't have to do much. Your likes, views reposts, add to the roar. The shouting becomes so loud that film studios, governments and even huge corporations listen. And what's more, they feel they have to do something. They fire those accused, they recast entire movies, they redesignate gender neutral toilets, laws are changed, some people are tried and convicted, others are simply cancelled. You might not get your job back, but there are a hell of a lot of people out there as mad as hell, as mad as you are. In this world, the virtual world, you can make things happen. Or at least the audience says you can. In the real world, you. You cannot. Or at least that's what you've experienced. So you change worlds. Or more accurately, you participate in and are enthused by the virtual world where things happen. You spectate and are depressed by the real world, where you're convinced you have little or no influence. Reality is where we can act as an individual. A world in which I can actively participate and help make things happen is real, literally actual. A world in which I have become convinced I cannot make things happen becomes virtual to me. It becomes intangible. The physical world becomes virtual and the virtual becomes actual. So when it comes to the slaughter and starvation of human beings in Palestine or Myanmar or Sudan and even the continuing destruction of our entire planet, we tut tut, we may even donate. But we remain, most of us ultimately detached because we are watching, at best, a livestream of a physical world which where we do not belong. The world where you do belong, in this example, is not all of social media, by the way. It isn't even your favourite platform. It's those you follow or follow you on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok X or even LinkedIn. And this might seem absurd at first glance, but it's a tiny community. Yes, people may have hundreds of thousands, millions or even hundreds of millions of followers across platforms, but your emotional connection is to that one influencer personally. Your head may tell you that they have no idea who you are, but your heart tells you that your link is with Donald or Kamala, Selena or Taylor personally. Our virtual community becomes the world that matters. And because it matters so much, because it is a haven to which we have escaped this duality, it makes us all less able to discuss, to debate, to embrace different ideas. If I have just discovered the joy of being listened to and being able to change things with very little effort, I. I'm not going to be very tolerant of any disagreement either back in the uncaring physical world or in my newly found social media world. I will most likely interpret disagreement, however polite, as an attack, not a debate. The thought is not only did the uncaring, lying, bastard physical world block me from acting in its world, but now it's threatening to invade my safe. Hayden, that's not going to happen. I'm canceling you. The problem is that the cancellation of other viewpoints may make us feel safe and listened to in this bubble, but it also makes us less, not more relevant. This world that we escape to is a tiny world. It's one where curiosity, the foundation of human development and innovation is discouraged not only because safety is the priority of the fearful and unheard, but because, well, the clue is in the word followers. Success in this world is measured by how many followers that influencers have. And influencers don't want their followers to Be curious and look for alternative viewpoints, not necessarily maliciously or even in a consciously controlling way. But it's logical that if my success is measured by how many people follow me, I'm not going to encourage you to go elsewhere. Now, you've probably guessed. This is not a podcast about the evils of social media. This is about human beings seeking to find worlds where their actions and presence are recognized, where they matter, not necessary, where they can make huge impact, but where in their world, however small, they matter. This is not a new phenomenon we've been creating or changing worlds to restore balances of power, to be listened to and to make space for ourselves for untold centuries. Guilds of craftsmen and merchants in England were formed very soon after the Norman conquest to do exactly that. Trade unions, political parties, debating clubs, trade associations, and even some newspapers all were formed as sanctuaries. Smaller, more focused, fortified worlds where people were listened to and were able to act with impact and feedback, where people were able to rebalance the power or the lack of power that they had with their immediate world to act and to learn to act more effectively. Unfortunately, as we know, gradually, and sometimes not so gradually, these sanctuary worlds lost the ability to listen, lost the ability to include, and ended up enabling only an elite few those who gained power in these havens. The institution and its most powerful influences became more important than the people who were the reason for its formation the first place. Instead of being sanctuary worlds where people could be heard and could participate, they became the acolyte worlds of the few, the worlds of influencers and followers. The point I'm making is that social media are not to blame for the fracture of society or political life. They are the latest sanctuary worlds that are now literally the palms of our hands. What's new is that social media are able, because of the paradox of being both incredibly personal and incredibly far reaching, to both enable and encourage huge volumes of followers to feel that they have individual, personal impact. If my logic, or illogic, if you like, is remotely on target, then then the most effective social media campaigns for good or evil are incredibly adept at a number of. At being personal. We're doing this for you, you matter. At validating their message with huge numbers. We are all, all 200 million of us in this together, us two. At claiming to create space for you to act as an individual. And sometimes this, I think, is the clincher at providing feedback back in the physical world. And those that aim specifically at the despairing or unheard are saying, one, you belong here. Two, we hear you and three, we will drain the swamp so that you can act, make your space in the physical world. We will knock down their edifices so they can't block you anymore. We're not promising to make things better for all of society, just for you. We're not promising to build. We're promising to clear things out for you. It becomes pretty clear why the disenchanted, the angry and the constricted become unquestioning followers. But why do the relatively affluent, apparently content, also seek the alternative world of social media? Have we reached the stage where no matter whom we elect what we produce, we feel nothing has changed, Nothing is going to change. That we're becoming more and more remote from both our own communities, our own employers and places of employment, and our own politicians. That relatively, we have as little impact on our world as the despairing and the unheard. That somehow we've become saturated by power imbalances throughout the world. The imbalance of those at war and those at peace, those in excess and those in hunger, the private equity giants and yet another local company that has been bought and disemboweled. We too are being confronted daily with the narrative of power imbalances and conflicts in the way local, national and global politics is conducted and in the way our societies described by both social and traditional media as places of conflict and imbalance. The assumption that the best television or the best article is characterized by a good old fight has dominated all the so called traditional media for a very long time. On social media. The only difference is that instead of reporters writing and conducting these conflict stories, influencers and their followers are doing it themselves. On television. It makes good viewing. Apparently, if we seat opposing politicians right next to each other and then watch them having a go at each other, or two football managers, or two neighbours, or two dogs, even if we don't understand a word they're saying because they're snarling and yapping over one another, even if at the end of it we know nothing more about their policies or their differences or what they're actually planning to do for the country. Even the BBC's rule of impartiality seems to me to be based on conflict. Section 4.1 of their editorial guidelines Due impartiality usually involves more than a simple matter of balance between opposing viewpoints. It then goes on to say we must be inclusive, considering the broad perspective and and ensuring that the existence of a range of views is appropriately reflected so that no significant strand of thought is underrepresented or omitted. Fascinating. A balance between Opposing viewpoints would seem to me to be neither simple nor more restrictive than parading a number of viewpoints. But balance demands exploration, contemplation, and critical analysis of those viewpoints. Reflecting a range of views can be nothing more than a parade of conflicts. And who, by the way, is going to decide which is a significant strand of thought? Conflict is so central that we can't even mourn death and suffering without inserting the conflict element. I had a conversation with somebody the other day who, when I told him that I grieved the deaths and suffering of those in Gaza, felt bound to tell me that a Hamas had started it, b Israel had a right to defend itself, and C finally, yes, this was tragic. This was not a callous man. This was somebody who genuinely cared. But we're so embedded in the ethics of conflict that we cannot be fully compassionate with those suffer or die, whoever they are. Death is death, suffering is suffering. You either empathize with whomsoever is experiencing that, or you spectate. You become a member of the audience watching a contest of pain. Whataboutism is a spectator sport. Okay, so the first problem, as you'll have noticed with retreating to a sanctuary, is that you're progressively splintering your own world. Every time you retreat, your world becomes smaller. So ironically, you're limiting, not expanding, the space in which you can act and be. You may be subscribing to someone who has a couple of hundred million followers, but the context will be tiny and it will be set by the influencer. Then there is the acting. Are you really acting? Are you really doing? Or are you making minimal effort, liking, and at a push, making probably an improvised approving comment? If we learn so that we can act, and we try to learn more in order to act more effectively, what are we actually learning by liking and commenting? Approving me? The second problem with changing your terrain is that you leave the physical, actual, consequential world to those with physical, actual, consequential power. And while you're saying I hate all politicians or whatever, or they'll never change, so why bother? Those politicians will have a much clearer run to do exactly what they want. The more we feel we cannot act or even make a difference to the physical world, the less we actually do or say, and so our influence shrivels. In short, when we retreat, we surrender the world. And in the meantime, the power that didn't listen to you before is of course occupying both worlds. By being a follower, you not only diminish your ability to learn and so to act, but you're enabling the creation of huge new power blocks, and these in turn will make you feel even less relevant. So what's to be done? Recognize that the problem is not social media. And as I've said elsewhere, the problem is not and will not be AI. These are instruments of human beings, and both the problems and the solutions are always rooted in the creators. Social media are filling a deep seated need that our social, political, educational and commercial institutions are simply not addressing, let alone filling that need. At its most fundamental level is to be able to act, to be able to influence one's own life, to be able to shape one's world. And remember, I'm not talking about the world, but one's own world. Although if you feel that you're able to shape your own world, your own environment, you will, I believe, care more about others in their world. Because you won't see those suffering in Sudan as potential refugees about to invade and take over your country. You will see them as being fellow beings. You won't fear being fired or cancelled if you speak out about the butchery in Gaza, the West bank, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or wherever your world becomes bigger, the more you're able to feel consequent within it. Globalization was supposed to broaden our horizons by harmonizing the rules of trade and exchange. Well, harmonizing doesn't necessarily benefit all equally. Those with the power and wealth to cross borders, physically or with their goods, will certainly benefit. Those with only local markets, much less so. And those, of course, individuals and communities who can be substituted by outsourcing across these harmonized borders, will actually be hurt by globalization. More locally, we measure a country's success by gdp, which says nothing at all about the relative wealth or quality of life of SMEs and individuals. And then we make them feel like failures if they're not performing as well as the country apparently is. The fact that a country's economy is deemed as thriving does not mean the citizens are much as a company's profits are not an indication of the quality of life of its employees. And of course, social media, any alternative world isn't the solution. They are temporary havens that create the illusion of being safe havens. By definition, they decrease our influence and our ability to act. They detach us from our physical world with the promise that they will grant us influence in their world. The key to that message is their world. I don't have the solution. What I do know is that this imbalance of power, in which we feel that we can make very little difference, is dangerous. Perhaps decision making government needs to be more localized. Perhaps we do, as some advocate, neat citizens assemblies or local referendums, but only if they are of some consequence. Perhaps we do need to prioritize local communities over global profits. We certainly need to relook at how we educate our children to be critical thinkers. Critical thinking is not, as some politicians insist, the distortion or undermining of a country's history of policies. It ensures that we question and contextualize our assumptions. Philosophers like David Bohm found it was much more important to know why people make certain decisions rather than what they decided. Perhaps then, we really need to think holistically and even philosophically about the society we want to live in. Perhaps we need to remember that fundamental drive that we had as children. Curiosity. Curiosity about our fellow beings and about our relationship with the worlds we all inhabit. Finally, perhaps we need to remember that the only real equitable balance of power has to start with partnership, the acknowledgement that as partners we have an obligation to share responsibility for our world. Instead of being followers in either the physical or the sanctuary virtual world, let's try thinking and working together in the real world. That's the only place we can really make a difference. And if you abandon it, you simply leave a vacancy. You simply leave a vacancy for someone else to fill. As always, if you have comments or thoughts, please don't hesitate to let me know. I'm Stephen Barton. This has been another episode of the Power of Balance SA.