Below, you'll encounter some of my personal reflections on the realm of leadership and management—sometimes provocative and controversial. The primary aim behind documenting these thoughts is to present alternative perspectives and ignite the flame of critical thinking...

TRANSFORMATION OF TIME: Reclaiming Kairos from the Empire of Chronos

We are told that transformation TAKES time. But rarely do we ask, what time IS.

Today’s business leaders navigate by dashboards. Time has been flattened into chronos—uniform, sequential, and indifferent. It becomes a management variable—plotted, optimised, budgeted. We speak of velocity, agility, adaptation—but we no longer ask whether our time is full or empty. Time has become a resource. A schedule. A cost.

But real transformation erupts not within time, but of time. It does not unfold predictably. It is kairos—the decisive moment when the meaning of time itself is renegotiated. It erupts, when our background orientation shifts—when what seemed natural becomes contingent, when institutions stutter, when selves must be rewritten. Not an episode in a schedule, but a rupture in the ontological order. Not a shift in what we do, but in who we are becoming. These moments are not counted; they are lived. And they demand a different kind of attention—not planning, but discernment.

The great deception of modernity is that time is neutral. But every age lives under a moral time, a sense of what counts, what calls, what binds. When we flatten the temporal field, Kairos collapses into clock-time. The past becomes a liability, the future a share price risk, and the present a resource to be extracted. We fabricate a disenchanted order in which transcendence is bracketed, duration is reduced to sequence; and promise is confused with projection. The present is all that remains—measured, monetised, in control.

In such a frame, transformation can only mean iteration. Feedback loops. Strategic pivots. But institutions are not clocks. They are vessels of memory, aspiration, and discernment. Change without depth is theatre. To truly transform is to stand under judgement—to witness the volume of time. To ask: What is worthy? What does this moment require of me—not strategically, but existentially?

Transformation becomes transfiguration. This is why transformation cannot be simply engineered. It must be received, named, and responded to. It is not what we do within time. It is what we become through it. Chronos governs the urgent. Kairos reveals the essential.

Leadership, then, is not merely time management. It is temporal responsibility. The capacity to witness time: to inhabit its tensions, to hold tension across its scales, to protect liturgical delay, to act when the hour strikes—not for performance, but for good.

The leaders we need are not timekeepers, but time-bearers—those who can read the signs of the times, name the absences, and act wisely from a deeper horizon. To lead in time is not to accelerate. It is to recognise the hour of becoming. Chronos demands efficiency. Kairos demands courage.

Because the mastery of the moment, as Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach powerfully reminds us, "is the mastery of life".

FROM "COSMOS" -> "SYSTEM": Why Most Business ‘Transformations’ Fail Before They Begin

The language of contemporary management is saturated with talk of “systems”: adaptive systems, complex systems, social systems. But few realise that in adopting this vocabulary, they have already internalised a powerful metaphysical shift. What presents itself as pragmatic or technical is in fact deeply philosophical. The shift from "cosmos" to system is not just a semantic evolution — it marks the metaphysical displacement of meaning by mechanism.

A cosmos is an ordered whole, saturated with value, where roles, purposes, and human actions are inherently oriented toward the good. In contrast, a system is defined by neutrality: input-output flows, structural constraints, functional feedback. Meaning is constructed, values are subjective, and change becomes a matter of strategic adjustment.

To move from cosmos to system is to sever being from becoming, and morality from ontology. In a "system", strictly speaking, genuine transformation is impossible—there is no telos, only optimisation within immanent constraints.

This shift did not happen overnight. Modernity’s moral order — built on procedural neutrality, individual autonomy, and buffered selves — has been shaped by centuries of epistemic mutation. Under the guise of liberation, we replaced divine order with social contract, intrinsic goods with instrumental rationality, and moral sources with psychological preferences. The background became naturalistic and impersonal — a ‘disenchanted’ framework in which values are no longer discovered, but projected.

As a result, business leaders, even when aspiring to radical change, often find themselves trapped within the invisible frame of the immanent order. They call for purpose, but reduce it to mission statements. They speak of wholeness, but fragment roles into competencies. They invoke community, but organise via metrics. Their imagination is circumscribed by a language that no longer points beyond itself.

This is the root failure of most transformation: it begins without questioning the very grammar of change. It assumes we can repurpose a framework designed for control to serve liberation; that an engineering imaginary can birth moral renewal. But transformation, in its true sense, cannot emerge from a system that presupposes there is nothing higher to become.

If we are to move beyond hypocrisy, we must recover a thicker language of value — one that sees persons not as functionaries, but as bearers of moral depth; communities not as nodes in networks, but as sites of shared aspiration; organisations not as adaptive machines, but as formative institutions. We must reclaim practical reason, moral sources, and strong evaluation as tools for discernment, not just calibration.

We must act not from within a "system", but re-articulate what it means to flourish within a greater whole.

Until then, our systems will adapt. But we will not transform.

AND THEN WE BORED OURSELVES TO DEATH

The alarm sounds at 6:47 AM.

Coffee machine gurgles its morning prayer while I check my phone—seventeen notifications, none from anyone who knows my name. The needle finds the vein of nothing. Again.

In the shower I practice disappearing. Steam rises around the outline of a person I no longer inhabit fully, washing a body that feels borrowed from someone who cared about such things.

The commute: forty-three minutes of spiritual rehearsal for the main event of not being present. I scroll past atrocities with the dedication of a monk at prayer, each swipe a bead on the rosary of my dissolution. The woman across from me stares into her own screen, and for a moment we share the same void, the same perfectly calibrated emptiness.

At work I excel at the performance of engagement. Meetings about meetings, emails that birth other emails, the sacred choreography of appearing busy while accomplishing nothing that will matter when the sun dies. How exquisite this dying. How perfectly calibrated the machine that feeds me my own emptiness until emptiness itself grows fat on its own consumption.

The dead walk among us and we are they. Not the romantically dead—the efficiently dead, the dead who hit quarterly targets and remember birthdays and feel nothing whatsoever when their children speak their names. We have achieved a form of non-being so sublime it requires no effort to maintain.

Lunch at my desk: a sandwich that tastes like the idea of food, eaten while scrolling through lives more interesting than mine. I find myself aroused by my own spiritual impotence, seduced by the aesthetic purity of caring about nothing. My boredom becomes an art form, my indifference a devotional practice I never chose but cannot abandon.

Evening: the couch receives my body like an altar built for sacrifice. Netflix asks if I'm still watching and I realize I never started. See how I perfect the posture of one who sees nothing while everything passes through me like light through glass. I am transparent to myself, a window opening onto the country where all desire has been refined into the desire for nothing, where all longing has been distilled into the longing to stop longing.

This is ecstasy inverted, orgasm turned inside out. We have made an sacrament of our own disappearance.

And I—I who can feel nothing—feel everything. The weight of the world's spiritual exhaustion presses against my ribs like a lover. My ennui opens like a flower in the dark, blooming nowhere, feeding on nothing, beautiful beyond measure.

We bore ourselves to death and death bores us back to something we cannot name but recognize with the terrible certainty of the already known.

This is how the sacred returns—not as light but as the darkness that makes light visible, not as fullness but as the emptiness that gives fullness its shape.

I am the hollow reed through which nothing sings its perfect song.

WE KILLED THE GOOD—AND BOUGHT THE GOODS!

"Who are YOU to tell me what is GOOD?!"... This is perhaps the deepest hypocrisy of our age: We shout loudly "don't impose your values", while quietly enforcing a single vision of the good life: liberal, expressive, and market-compatible. We live in a world that aggressively insists no one can say what is good, while spending our lives chasing values imposed by market forces, algorithmic incentives, and managerial elites. We celebrate moral pluralism while worshipping at the altar of willful blindness and economic monism. One logic—liberal market fundamentalism—reigns uncontested, enforced not by censors but by social shame, status anxiety, and digital conformity.

We've rejected all ideals that demand self-transcendence, virtue, sanctification. Why? Because they expose us. They reveal that some ways of being are higher than others—that freedom isn't merely absence of constraint, but orientation toward excellence. So we dismiss them as oppressive, elitist, dangerous. But what replaces them?

Nothing. Or worse: the market.

What was once the dignifying "affirmation of ordinary life"—work, family, calling—has metastasized into a the sacralization of consumption. We no longer ask what is worth doing; we ask what will sell, scale, signal. We no longer cultivate souls—we curate brands. This isn't emancipation. It's the triumph of emptiness: a hollowing out of human identity.

Modern liberalism didn't just forget virtue—it structurally excludes it. Beginning with a vision of humans as self-owning rational animals, it ends in a system where selfhood reduces to appetite and society to transaction. Its "freedoms"—to choose, consume, exit—mask deeper captivity: to algorithmic nudges, economic precarity, moral relativism. Liberalism destroys the very anthropological foundations it claims to defend: personhood, common good, the possibility of meaning.

The irony? While we angrily ask "who are YOU to say what is good?" we are voluntarily conforming with astonishing precision to marketized ideals of success, beauty, impact. We outsource our desires to social media trends, our ethics to compliance consultants, our meaning to corporate careers. We are not too free—we are lost. We are not post-ideological—we are post-moral.

We've killed the Good—and now, with nothing higher to live for, we’re killing the planet by accumulating goods.

Yet it is aggressively policed. Suggest that good might be objective, that truth might bind, that the highest life might not be the most autonomous—and you're instantly labeled authoritarian, reactionary, anti-progress. This isn't liberalism. It's metaphysical cowardice masquerading as moral neutrality!

We must stop pretending that denying the Good makes us safe. It makes us shallow. It makes us manipulable. It doesn't fill our lives—it empties them.

Genuine freedom isn't the right to define our own good—its the invitation to discover the Good that defines us.

WE KILLED THE GOOD—AND BOUGHT THE GOODS!

"Who are YOU to tell me what is GOOD?!"... This is perhaps the deepest hypocrisy of our age: We shout loudly "don't impose your values", while quietly enforcing a single vision of the good life: liberal, expressive, and market-compatible. We live in a world that aggressively insists no one can say what is good, while spending our lives chasing values imposed by market forces, algorithmic incentives, and managerial elites. We celebrate moral pluralism while worshipping at the altar of willful blindness and economic monism. One logic—liberal market fundamentalism—reigns uncontested, enforced not by censors but by social shame, status anxiety, and digital conformity.

We've rejected all ideals that demand self-transcendence, virtue, sanctification. Why? Because they expose us. They reveal that some ways of being are higher than others—that freedom isn't merely absence of constraint, but orientation toward excellence. So we dismiss them as oppressive, elitist, dangerous. But what replaces them?

Nothing. Or worse: the market.

What was once the dignifying "affirmation of ordinary life"—work, family, calling—has metastasized into a the sacralization of consumption. We no longer ask what is worth doing; we ask what will sell, scale, signal. We no longer cultivate souls—we curate brands. This isn't emancipation. It's the triumph of emptiness: a hollowing out of human identity.

Modern liberalism didn't just forget virtue—it structurally excludes it. Beginning with a vision of humans as self-owning rational animals, it ends in a system where selfhood reduces to appetite and society to transaction. Its "freedoms"—to choose, consume, exit—mask deeper captivity: to algorithmic nudges, economic precarity, moral relativism. Liberalism destroys the very anthropological foundations it claims to defend: personhood, common good, the possibility of meaning.

The irony? While we angrily ask "who are YOU to say what is good?" we are voluntarily conforming with astonishing precision to marketized ideals of success, beauty, impact. We outsource our desires to social media trends, our ethics to compliance consultants, our meaning to corporate careers. We are not too free—we are lost. We are not post-ideological—we are post-moral.

We've killed the Good—and now, with nothing higher to live for, we’re killing the planet by accumulating goods.

Yet it is aggressively policed. Suggest that good might be objective, that truth might bind, that the highest life might not be the most autonomous—and you're instantly labeled authoritarian, reactionary, anti-progress. This isn't liberalism. It's metaphysical cowardice masquerading as moral neutrality!

We must stop pretending that denying the Good makes us safe. It makes us shallow. It makes us manipulable. It doesn't fill our lives—it empties them.

Genuine freedom isn't the right to define our own good—its the invitation to discover the Good that defines us.

THE "AI-QUISITION" IS HERE: From AI Evangelists to Digital Witch-Hunters!

In a surreal reversal that would amuse even Foucault, yesterday's AI evangelists—those who breathlessly extolled the virtues of co-creation, augmentation, and democratized intelligence—have become today's digital witch-hunters. Armed with AI detectors and moral indignation, they now patrol the boundaries of authorship, demanding ritual confessions: "Did you use AI?" We are witnessing the dawn of the AIquisition: a new orthodoxy of intellectual suspicion.

At its core, this is not a technological drama but an existential one. The rise of AI-generated text destabilizes the foundations upon which modern intellectual identity rests: originality, expertise, and meritocracy. When machines mimic fluency, the question is no longer what is true or what is good, but who deserves credit. The policing impulse stems not from principle, but from status anxiety—now that everyone can write like a Harvard graduate, the mystique of expertise begins to erode.

Psychologically, this is the revenge of scarcity. When the social capital of "genius" diminishes, those who once championed AI as creative liberation seek to reassert control by weaponizing "authenticity." Detection tools become instruments not of integrity, but of epistemic gatekeeping—more concerned with defending the sanctity of struggle than evaluating the value of insight.

Philosophically, this hysteria reveals a profound confusion between tools and significance. Like blaming a calculator for correct math, we confuse the medium with the message. Yet prompting is not simply plagiarism; it is a form of inquiry. Curation, exposition, and judgment remain irreducibly human acts. AI does not nullify creativity—a fool with a tool remains always a fool.

But let us be clear: If AI is used to fabricate expertise, to plagiarize thought, to generate content void of integrity or context, there is a problem and the social consequences are profound. But the real question is not "Did you use AI?" The question is: Did you use it well? With judgment? With courage? With intent? For the threat is not that AI will replace us, but that we will stop asking what makes us irreplaceable.

AI checkers, ironically, are machines pretending to arbitrate what is "human." They routinely misfire, produce false positives, and stifle talent. The cultural risk is chilling: a world in which excellence is suspect, fluency is penalized, and creativity is preemptively censored. We are not protecting meaning—we are pathologizing it.

We don't need inquisitors. We need curators. Thinkers. Critics. Writers who dare to wield the tool—but refuse to surrender their soul to it. The AIquisition, if unchecked, will not protect creativity. It will bury it under suspicion.

The pen is not the author, and we are not at the end of authorship. We are at its renaissance—if only we muster the profound wisdom needed to claim it well.

A Eulogy to Alasdair MacIntyre: Toward a Postliberal Ethic

Alasdair MacIntyre (1929–2025) did not just diagnose the moral confusion of our age—he named it. In After Virtue, he wrote that we live in a world of emotivism: where moral claims are mere expressions of preference, and debate becomes performance, not inquiry. But he didn't stop at critique. He offered a way back—or forward—through tradition, virtue, and the renewal of moral community.

MacIntyre's death marks the passing of one of the most important moral philosophers of the past century. Yet his legacy feels more urgent than ever. His core insight was simple: without a shared telos, moral discourse collapses. And ours has. From politics to business, we trade in rhetoric, rights, and outrage—but cannot agree what a human life is for.

Against the liberal fiction of autonomous individuals making free choices from nowhere, MacIntyre insisted: we are dependent rational animals. Born into histories we didn't choose, shaped by traditions we didn't invent, sustained by relationships we cannot earn, we are beings whose flourishing depends on the communities that form us. Ethics, for MacIntyre, was never about rules—it was about practices, virtues, and narratives that give our lives moral intelligibility.

He rejected both the bureaucratic moralism of Kant and the cold calculus of utilitarianism. But he also critiqued modern liberalism's hollow core: its inability to name a shared good beyond private preference. In doing so, he became the conscience not only of moral philosophy but of political theory, calling us beyond liberalism to a more human politics rooted in the common good.

Critics accused him of nostalgia, of romanticizing medieval traditions, of impracticality. But MacIntyre never proposed a retreat to the past. He called for "new Benedicts"—people willing to build small, thick communities of formation, capable of resisting the fragmentation of late modernity. His vision was never utopian. It was radically realist. He understood that virtue must be practiced, not preached—that institutions matter—that philosophy, if divorced from life, becomes sterile.

MacIntyre's final years were marked by humility and integrity. He walked the talk. He taught without fanfare. He remained faithful to truth over reputation. And he reminded us—through both argument and example—that philosophy is not a matter of abstraction but of formation: of becoming the kind of people who can see clearly and live well.

In his passing, we lose not just a brilliant mind but a moral compass for our disoriented age. His work remains an invitation to rebuild what modernity has fractured—communities of virtue capable of sustaining human flourishing. The task before us is not merely academic but existential: not merely to cite After Virtue, but to live after virtues—crafting a postliberal ethics worthy of our shared humanity.

THE TYRANNY OF “NARRATIVES”: How Storytelling Replaced Development

In today’s culture, "narrative" is the new currency of identity. Strategy decks demand a storyboard. Leaders are urged to “own their crucible.” Politicians are coached to deliver “transformational narratives.” Even trauma is expected to be “re-narrated” as catharsis. But this obsession with narrative—while superficially empowering—is symptomatic of a deeper epistemic and moral collapse: the disintegration of personal development.

Historically, from Aristotle’s paideia to Aquinas’s cultivation of virtue to Confucian self-cultivation, moral life was structured around formation—the long, difficult process of shaping the self in relation to truth, the good, and a teleologically ordered cosmos. Formation was not expressive, but transformative. It demanded submission to standards beyond the self: disciplines, exemplars, institutions, and traditions that structured the path toward moral maturity.

Modernity dismantled the metaphysical infrastructure that made such formation intelligible. With nominalism, being lost its intrinsic order. With Descartes, the self was severed from the world, and knowledge internalized as representation. Liberalism privatized the good: ethics became a matter of preference; education, an imposition. Formation came to be seen as coercion, not liberation.

Into this ontological vacuum stepped “narrative.” From Maslow and McAdams to Ricoeur and Taylor, narrative was reimagined as the primary site of meaning-making. In the wake of the linguistic turn, language became constitutive, and the self became a reflexive narrator. Storytelling promised coherence without obligation, authorship without telos.

But this shift came at a cost. Narrative, untethered from truth, often collapses into self-legitimation. It displaces formation with fabrication, virtue with voice, growth with performance. In psychoanalytic terms, the symbolic order is evacuated, and identity becomes a fantasy sustained by repetition and audience validation. In sociological terms, we are left with a therapeutic culture: allergic to authority, hostile to tradition, and obsessed with authenticity.

The problem is not narrative per se. It is narrative in place of moral development. We no longer ask: What is the good life? What kind of person am I called to become? Instead, we ask: What story will get me noticed? What version of myself will maximize my impact

This epistemic pivot is not neutral—it is normative. It reflects a moral metaphysics in which coherence has replaced truth, visibility has displaced integrity, and autonomy is defined by aesthetic control rather than ethical accountability.

It is time to recover formation—not as dogma, but as the architecture of moral becoming. No narrative can save us if we are not becoming the kind of selves capable of bearing its weight.

EUROPEANS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!
Against a Fascist Capture of Global Democracy

Friends of Europe —
a red line is being crossed.
And if we lack the courage to name it now, we may never reclaim the right to redraw it.

This is not a policy debate. Nor a partisan quarrel.
This is the collapse of moral order: a regime that rewards cruelty, glorifies domination, monetises power for private gain—and demands we call it normal.

It is not normal.

A system where billionaires write laws to punish the poor and enrich the elite. Where 390,000 citizens lose healthcare while private jets get tax breaks. Where 68% of cabinet seats are held by CEOs, and zero by labour. Where despots buy loyalty with $400M Boeings or $2B crypto deals. Where judges are threatened, universities silenced, migrants caged, dissent criminalised, and the most vulnerable abandoned.

Not by accident. Not in secret. By deliberate design.

Wake up, Europe. This is 1933—with better branding.
The same hatred. The same lies. The same systematic dismantling of institutions. But now with nuclear arsenals, weaponised social media, and the world’s largest economy.

And this regime is not retreating. It is exporting.
Through trade. Through platforms. Through think tanks. Through pressure on our courts, our CEOs, our civic space. Project 2025 is not just an American blueprint for dismantling democracy- It is an open invitation to global complicity.

And too many are already accepting. Governments appease. Corporations fold. Citizens scroll.

We must remember who we are.

Europe is not a marketplace. It is a moral project. Built not on geography, but on conviction. On core values now under siege:
– Dignity, while Trump calls humans “vermin” and “poison"
– Democracy, while elections are discredited and civil servants purged
– Solidarity, while the sick are stripped of care and the poor scapegoated
– Peace, while arms flow to autocrats and protest meets armed forces
– Pluralism, while minorities are hunted, journalists threatened and truth is twisted into obedience

This is fascism rebranded—algorithmic, aesthetic, and armed with capital.

So what should we do?

As Europeans: Cut moral dependency. End arms deals with tyrants. Expel ambassadors who serve autocracy. Enshrine rights no foreign power can threaten.
As institutions: Stop cloaking cowardice as neutrality. Tax companies that betray our values. Call silence what it is—collusion.
As citizens: Disrupt their networks. Boycott their products. Vote against the populists. Speak loudly where others hedge.

Make them understand:
Europe is not for sale.
Human dignity is not negotiable.
Fascism stops here.

Not next year, when the camps overflow.
Not next decade, when the climate is dead.
Now. Today. This hour.
If we delay—if we negotiate—
we are not neutral. We are next.

Europeans of all countries, unite.
Our children are watching.
Our ancestors are waiting.
History is calling our name.
And this time, it’s personal.

THE HEROIC FAILURE OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT

It all began with noble intentions: a revolt against monarchic absolutism, a rejection of ecclesiastical domination, the embrace of reason over dogma. Enlightenment thinkers sought liberation—from superstition, tyranny, and obscurantism. But in their rebellion against false certainty, they enshrined a new orthodoxy: scientific positivism. What started as a method became an ideology; a tool transformed into a telos.

What they forgot—or refused to admit—is that science does not reveal what reality IS. It tells us what appears under specific, observable conditions. The Enlightenment’s empiricist revolution conflated BEING with knowledge of being, and BECOMING with measuring. It's hypothetico-deductive model flattened existence to what can be quantified, confining truth to the logic of covering laws for conjoint events. The metaphysical foundations of existence—the invisible, the absent, the possible—were exiled from intellectual respectability.

Fearing a return of dogma, Enlightenment heirs turned anti-metaphysics. But in doing so, they made a fateful category error: confusing the abuse of transcendence with its falsity. They dismissed anything that could not be empirically verified—not as uncertain, but as UNREAL. Yet, Kant had acknowledged that the noumenon—the thing-in-itself—lies beyond empirical grasp. Despite this, Enlightenment rationalism soon pretended that what could not be observed did not exist.

This was not skepticism. It was hubris.

The consequences were devastating. By disenchanting the cosmos, we dismembered the human soul. The world became machinery; nature a resource; we became mere functions. Meaning shrank to creativity. Morality collapsed into utility. Purpose dissolved into preference. Human life, once a journey toward the good, became a technocratic optimisation problem. Our only gods were health, pleasure and the accumulation of material goods.

But we made the mistake of presuming that rejecting unjust power structures requires abandoning the search for spirit and transcendence. In fear of universal narratives, we declared subjectivism the only universal truth—defended with the same absolutism once reserved for divine right.

Epistemic humility is not denial of depth. Metaphysics is not mysticism—it's a recognition that reality exceeds beyond appearances. To deny what cannot be seen is not rationalism. It is impoverishment. Fearing control, the Enlightenment decided to control everything. In so doing, it narrowed the human horizon to what could be dissected and dominated.

We now reap what we have sown: a civilisation incapable of wonder, allergic to wisdom, addicted to metrics, and drowning in relativism. It is not God who is dead—it is meaning, coherence, and the shared pursuit of what is good.

The Enlightenment freed us from the past. But it also cut the rope that tied us to deeper truths. Now, suspended in our own arrogance, we no longer know which way is up.

WHEN CULTURE KILLED CHARACTER: A challenge to business and HR leaders who have traded virtue for vibes

We once asked what kind of person an organisation "produces". Now we ask how people feel about it. Welcome to the age of culture—and the death of character.

"Culture" has become the totalising deity of modern organisations: it drives engagement, attracts talent, reduces risk, improves brand perception. It is invoked as the solution to every organisational pathology. Yet beneath corporate value statements lies a profound tragedy: the systematic displacement of organisational character by behavioural engineering.

Our contemporary obsession with culture is not a moral project—it is a psychological system engineered to generate performance, compliance, and affective loyalty without requiring normative clarity or ethical substance. It systematically avoids the arduous work of character formation: confronting contradiction, habituating virtue, or striving toward a common good. Instead, it monitors sentiment, codes behaviour, and outsources meaning to mood.

Organisations no longer ask who are we becoming? but how do we feel while adapting? Where structured apprenticeships once guided wisdom, we find employee engagement metrics. Where moral conflict once forged character, we find value alignment workshops. Where ethical tension once demanded growth, we find performance coaching and "safe spaces" engineered to protect the self from moral demand.

The psychological vernacular of "culture" displaces the philosophical grammar of the good. It substitutes moral commitments with behavioural nudges, practical wisdom with leadership "styles," and systemic responsibility with personal adaptability.

But the self does not develop through protection—it develops through exposure to ambiguity, responsibility, and the weight of ethical contradiction. This is precisely what our institutionalised pop management culture refuses to provide.

* Where character demands cultivation through repeated and reasoned moral action, culture demands emotional allegiance.
* Where character is formed through confronting difficulty, culture is gamified, optimised, and tracked. It asks not who we are becoming, but whether we "fit" a predetermined template.

In this impoverished moral landscape, integrity becomes "authenticity," justice becomes "DEI," and courage becomes "psychological safety." The cardinal virtues are reduced to competency frameworks and value-based performance management. Moral reasoning is replaced by emotional intelligence.

But a "great culture" that fails to cultivate courage, integrity, or justice is not culture at all—it is merely the affective lubricant of managed moral decline.

The question confronting every leader is: Will you continue administering the stultifying opiates of organisational sentiment, or will you have the courage to build institutions worthy of human flourishing?

The choice is yours. The consequences are ours.

NOW AVAILABLE IN LIQUID FORM: HOW MORALITY BECAME A F**KING SOAP

Somewhere between the wellness aisle and the ESG report, morality was liquefied—distilled into pH-neutral sentiment, infused with “organic care,” and dispensed through recyclable plastic. Not as struggle, not as formation, but as ambient reassurance: smooth, dermatologically safe, and completely free of consequence.

Ethics no longer confronts. It caresses. It arrives not as conflict but as conditioning—pre-filtered for consumption. It does not expose the contradictions of the system—it lubricates them. It renders everything a question of feeling—“kindness,” “mindfulness,” “planet love”—while leaving the structures of domination untouched.

This is not the moralisation of capitalism. It is capitalism’s final moral operation: the absorption of critique into affect, of ethics into symbol. What once required a confrontation with desire, power, and sacrifice is now a styling choice—ethics as interface. The good becomes a vector of design language.

This isn’t hypocrisy. It’s hegemonic integration. The role of the moral has shifted from normative orientation to libidinal management. Desire for justice, conflict, and transformation has been sublimated—pacified into daily rituals of virtue display: the curated workplace value, the gender-neutral packaging, the biometric tracking of employee “belonging.”

But critique is not absent. It has simply been aestheticised. Every institution now performs care. Every product now signifies conscience. Every policy expresses sensitivity. Yet nothing material is confronted—only rendered more washable.

What we are witnessing is not moral apathy. It is post-ethical simulation: a regime in which moral language circulates detached from moral substance, where institutions choreograph sensitivity while intensifying extraction, and where the performance of goodness becomes a governance mechanism in itself.

This is not parody.
This is a perfected system.
Goodness—now in soothing, odourless form—ready to be dispensed on demand.
It leaves no trace.
And that, precisely, is the point.

THE POSTMODERN IRONY: How We Deny Universal Truths While Demanding Universal Rights

Today’s moral discourse is riddled with paradox: we constantly denounce universal truth as oppressive and violent, while at the same time asserting our own "human rights" with quasi-religious fervour.

But where do people think these “rights” come from?

The modern concept of rights evolved from a rich lineage—rooted in so-called natural law, transfigured through "natural rights", and secularised into the contemporary language of "human rights".

* Aquinas grounded natural law in a divine teleology: human beings, by reason, participate in the eternal law, oriented toward the good. Rights were not entitlements but reflections of our duties to the moral order and God—always relational, always bounded by virtue.

* This changed radically with the rise of early modern liberalism. Hobbes severed law from teleology; Locke, more cautiously, reframed rights as God-given attributes of individuals, preceding and limiting the power of the state.

* Here begins the transformation of ius (right order) into "claim-rights"—legalistic, self-owned, and defensible against others. By the time of J.S. Mill, rights are expressions of individual autonomy, safeguarded by utility, no longer by nature or divinity.

The sacred had been immanentised: reason replaces revelation, liberty replaces virtue, and subjective will begins its slow conquest of the moral landscape.

And yet, here lies the ironic contradiction. The modern subject insists that “values are relative,” that “everyone has their own truth”—yet invokes universal human rights to defend identity, expression, and dignity.

But what, if not a shared moral ontology, grounds and legitimises such rights? Without an account of human nature, of what it means to flourish, rights become incoherent: abstract powers severed from responsibility or the good. Worse, they become weapons of will—a hollow echo of the divine, deployed in a moral vacuum.

We are thus haunted by a ghost: the universalism we deny is the very scaffold of the freedoms we demand. As Lacan implies, there is no freedom without order. There is no right without responsibility.

Rights are nothing but a "legal fiction". To reclaim meaning, we must return to the question liberalism has so eagerly obscured: not what are my rights? but what is right? Not who decides what good is? but what IS good for us, together?

Rights without a vision of the good are mere subjective political assertions of power dressed in moral grammar - whether it is rights for humans, animals, or rivers.

THE POLITICS OF VIRTUE—The Most Important Book I Read This Year

Adrian Pabst’s The Politics of Virtue is not just the most intellectually ambitious political work of its decade; it is also a dangerous book—because it dares to think seriously. Against the proceduralist deadness of liberalism, and the secularised managerialism of our age, Adrian revives a metaphysical, theological, and virtue-ethical politics that seeks neither to return to tradition as mere nostalgia, nor to modernity as empty abstraction—but to move beyond liberalism altogether.

At its core, the book offers a brilliant indictment of liberal modernity, through five metacrises. Liberalism, Adrian argues, is not just flawed but parasitic—feeding off and hollowing out the Greco-Christian heritage it claims to refine. Its anthropology is Hobbesian, its ethics contractualist, its metaphysics nominalist. What begins as emancipation ends in abstraction and disintegration—of persons, traditions, and social bonds.

The book dissects how cultural and economic liberalism—once seen as opposed—have converged into a shared logic of commodification, proceduralism, and managerial control. Liberalism’s core commitment to negative liberty and individual choice has led to unprecedented concentration of power and wealth, while eviscerating institutions of reciprocity. The result: technocracy, moral infantilisation, and economic dispossession.

Against this, Adrian proposes a politics grounded in virtue, reciprocity, and the common good. Drawing on Aristotle, Augustine, and Catholic social teaching, he envisions a renewal of mixed constitutions, mutualist economics, and cultural formation. Virtue, here, is not moralism but realism: a recognition that human flourishing requires embeddedness, purpose, and formation. Society is not a contract between atomised wills, but a community of practices aimed at shared ends.

Crucially, the book challenges liberalism not just politically, but metaphysically. It argues that liberal reason abstracts from reality—reducing the ethical to the legal, and the social to the economic. Postliberalism, by contrast, insists on the primacy of practical wisdom, moral formation, and ontological participation. It seeks to reunite freedom with truth, and governance with goodness.

Some critics might find its theological underpinnings too monistic, or its institutional alternatives underdeveloped. But these concerns miss the book’s essential wager: that modern crises are rooted not in political excess, but in metaphysical emptiness—and only a recovered vision of the good can sustain genuine liberty and justice.

It is a rare achievement to write a work that is simultaneously a theological treatise, a political manifesto, and a philosophical anthropology. Adrian has done so. Whether one agrees or not, the book cannot be ignored. It reopens the question at the heart of politics—What is the Good?—and insists that our future depends on how we answer it.

MORAL AMBITION OR MORAL ILLUSION? An Initial Philosophical Critique

Rutger Bregman's brilliant call for Moral Ambition—that the privileged must reorient their careers toward moral ends—burns with rhetorical fire. But when viewed through a philosophical lens, beneath the surface of (carefully redacted) stirring stories and sharp polemics lies less a well-grounded moral theory, and more a motivational ideology: repackaged utilitarianism wrapped in ambition and aspirational prose.

At its core, Moral Ambition urges us to choose careers for their calculated leverage on global suffering, maximising impact. This is not inherently wrong—but it is ethically narrow. By focusing on what we do rather than who we become, it treats moral life as a performance rather than a practice. Ethics becomes a leaderboard. Solidarity, a career path.

This isn't wisdom. It's liberal efficient altruism- quantified, repackaged, and uploaded into self-help templates for elite graduates, TED Talk audiences, and frustrated consultants. As Bourdieu warned, "agency" without structural critique becomes a myth of the dominant class. It is the gospel of good intentions, this time qualified in Excel Spreadsheets. Moral ambition becomes the latest status symbol: "good billionaires" and business-class flying superheroes solving poverty between keynotes.

The deeper problem is ontological. Moral Ambition presumes that the self is free, capable, detached—able to choose the good from a buffet of options. But the self is not a chooser outside the system. It is formed within it. True moral life is not an ambition "out there" but a transformation within, shaped by community, constraint, tradition, and struggle. Wisdom is never maximized—it is cultivated.

Rutger gestures toward virtue ethics, but without a telos. There is no account of the good life, no grounding in relational goods, no theory of justice. The result is a thin moral grammar: motivational, but fragile. Its consequentialism lacks tragedy; its optimism lacks realism; its agency lacks formation.

And yet, we should not dismiss it. Moral ambition, for all its philosophical limitations, can spark movement. It may nudge those numbed by cynicism toward moral action. It might even help restore language for goodness in the public square.

But this does not make it a sufficient ethics. If moral ambition becomes an end in itself, it remains a motivational surface, not a moral depth. Only if it serves as a means—an invitation into the long work of wisdom—might it become something more: a doorway to character, to self-in-system transformation, to institutions that nurture moral agency.

The real question is not how much impact we can make—but what kind of people we must become to act wisely within a world on fire.

Until we ask that, Moral Ambition remains what it is: a secular sermon. Stirring, necessary, and seriously incomplete.

Link to excellent discussion with >250 comments: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ottivogt_leadership-transformation-activity-7331236076113625090-TClR?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAABm1WMBiwxFaUc1X66gje88odJOEyNAskc

THE ONE QUESTION EVERY TRUE LEADER MUST ASK: HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?

They won't teach you this at Harvard Business School.

We celebrate innovation. We glorify creativity. We obsess over "unleashing potential." But beneath the TED Talk platitudes and Silicon Valley manifestos lies the question that exposes our entire house of cards:

How. Much. Is. Enough?

It is not just an uncomfortable question. It is heresy. Because it shatters the sacred assumption of modern capitalism: That more is always better. That growth is always good. That success is measured in scale, speed, and share price.

But when we stop asking this question, we stop seeing the cost:
– The rainforests burned to produce our next steak
– The children mining cobalt for our next gadget
– The warehouse slaves wearing tracking bracelets
– The families priced out of housing by financial speculation
– The public goods, swallowed by private gain

Let's be honest: We've mistaken capability for character. Velocity for value. Ambition for wisdom.

Another "smarter" cigarette doesn't make the world healthier.
Another $120,000 SUV, glorified in chrome and carbon, doesn't save our climate.
Another AI-generated flood of content does not make us wiser.

Not all innovation is progress. Not all disruption is virtuous.

Real leadership begins where appetite ends.

The leaders who will shape the future are not asking, "How fast can we grow?"

They're asking: what is
Enough profit to sustain—without extraction.
Enough consumption to dignify—without indulgence.
Enough ambition to inspire—without conquest.
Enough growth to regenerate—without depletion.

The most radical transformation in business today is not agile disruption.
It is to draw the line.

To say: "This far. No further."
And to mean it.

I DON’T WANT 5% MORE PROFIT!

I swear—if I see one more radiant PowerPoint slide by some well-groomed consultant promising an additional $5 billion in “shareholder value” by firing 20% of the workforce and boosting “return per capita” through a pseudo-scientific cocktail of performance metrics, "psychological safety", AI dashboards, and neuro-nudging—I will vomit.

This is not transformation. It is predation with better branding.

We have created an industry—no, a cathedral—dedicated to extracting the life-force of our people. Not to liberate human potential. Not to dignify work. But to refine ever more elegant tools for squeezing a bit more juice, a bit more yield, a bit more profit... for the owners, financiers, and algorithmic gods who sit above the system. This is not innovation. It is extraction with a moral alibi.

We gather in glitzy conference halls and parade our agile frameworks like high priests of progress—each new method more shameless than the last. And still, no one seems to ask the only question that matters: To what end?

It’s not about "cutting fat.” The real obscenity is how easily we destroy the dignity of human life in the name of “efficiency.” We’ve built empires of incentive schemes, feedback loops, and behavioural economics to instrumentalise the human soul. And we call it excellence.

Let me be clear: the system is not broken. The system is functioning exactly as it was built—to colonise meaning, reduce people to resources, and convert every act of living into monetisable surplus.

We debate endlessly how to reduce burnout—but rarely ask what is worth doing in the first place. We celebrate “net-zero” targets while staying infinitely far from positive purpose. We parade token gestures of diversity—unless of course Trump sends us a letter. We obsess over “market failures” without ever daring to ask where markets should end.

But here’s the truth: you cannot morally optimise a pathological design.
The problem is not bad execution. The problem is the moral emptiness of our contemporary management paradigm itself. It is an ethical failure—a framework in which value is confused with price, growth with good, and freedom with maximised choice.

We need a new theory.
Not rooted in marginal returns, but moral worth.

We need organisations that forge character, not just careers.
Where dignity isn’t negotiated—it’s presumed.
Where work isn’t a race for bonus
but a serious path to becoming fully human.

We want markets that serve life—
not rule it.

It is time to look into the mirror. And to finally take the world—and each other—seriously.

Until then, every slide deck, every quarterly earnings call, every consultancy roadmap—no matter how “purpose-driven” it claims to be—will remain what it is: a technocratic veil over moral cowardice.

Let me be clear:
I don't care about 5% more profit.
What we need—what the world is starving for—is 5% more goodness.
And if that doesn’t move you, don’t waste my time.

BLOOD ON OUR HANDS: EUROPE'S COMPLICITY IN GAZA'S DESTRUCTION

In Gaza, where over 53,000 Palestinians have perished since 2008, a grotesque paradox unfolds: Europe's post-Holocaust commitment to "never again" has become the very shield behind which another catastrophe proceeds with impunity. The humanitarian crisis has reached apocalyptic proportions, yet Western powers continue to provide diplomatic cover - and weapons - for Israel's actions.

52,535 Palestinians were killed in the 2023-2025 offensive, 70% women and children. Israeli forces have dropped 85,000 tonnes of explosives—equivalent to 3.5 Hiroshima bombs—creating 42 million tonnes of rubble across Gaza. These are not mere statistics but evidence of systematic destruction targeting civilian infrastructure.

The human toll: 4500 amputations without anesthesia, 17,000 children orphaned, and 500 Palestinian families exterminated. Meanwhile, 93% of Gaza households face severe food insecurity, with 27 children starved to death in a territory where water access averages just 73 liters per day—below WHO's minimum standard. Medical facilities lie in ruins, with doctors forced to perform surgeries on floor tiles slick with blood.

Despite the ICJ declaring Israel's occupation illegal and ordering a halt to Rafah operations, despite ICC arrest warrants for Netanyahu for war crimes, despite the UN Human Rights Council's apartheid designation—accountability remains elusive.

Much of this impunity stems from Europe's philosemitic stance that emerged as a form of moral rehabilitation after the Holocaust. European nations, often with good intentions, embraced a symbolic "good" Jewish identity to atone for their genocidal past and compensate for historical guilt. This historical positioning has hardened into geopolitical reality, ultimately shielding Israel from criticism and enabling it to operate outside the boundaries of international law.

Western media reveals this systematic bias: Palestinian deaths described as "collateral damage" 11 times more frequently than Israeli casualties; Israeli perspectives outnumbering Palestinian ones 3:1 in broadcasts. Leaders like von der Leyen praise Israel as a "vibrant democracy" while averting their gaze from the ruins of Gaza's hospitals and schools.

The path forward requires decoupling Holocaust memory from uncritical support for Israel. We must reject the false equation of state criticism with antisemitism. The children of Gaza deserve the same protections and humanitarian considerations as children anywhere—their lives are not worth less because of geopolitical calculations.

As 1.9 million Gazans remain displaced and 98% of Gaza's children exhibit PTSD symptoms, the international community faces a choice: continue enabling catastrophe through strategic silence, or finally honor "never again" as a truly universal principle..

The blood of Gaza's innocents now stains the hands of those who could intervene but deliberately choose to look away.

I AM WILLING TO COMMIT—ARE YOU?
A European Stand Against American Plutocracy

We were told history had ended. That liberal capitalism had triumphed. That unfettered markets would bring freedom and prosperity for all.

That was the American promise—forged in Washington, sold by Wall Street, imposed on the world. Europe obeyed.

Now that freedom is setting our world on fire.

Financial markets cheer record profits while workers' wages flatline for decades.
Billionaire rocketmen torch carbon while the Arctic vanishes beyond recovery.
Digital monopolists harvest our children's minds while mental health crumbles across generations.
Politicians worship GDP while life on Earth edges toward extinction.
And while war rages in Europe, famine spreads across Africa, and civilians are buried in Gaza and Ukraine, we parade for peace—while trading the weapons that destroy it.

These are not policy failures. They are the inevitable outcome of a system without moral compass.

Our "liberal" economy divorces freedom from responsibility, markets from morality, wealth from purpose. It has reduced citizens to consumers, community to transaction, democracy to a prostitute for the highest bidder.

When presidents pocket oil money, when corporations strangle climate laws, when multinationals exploit tax havens, when consumer culture devours the planet—these are not accidents. It's the ruthless logic of a fatal ideology that trades greed for destruction.

Europe stands at a crossroads. We can either follow America into collapse—or reclaim a European tradition where freedom demands duty, markets serve humanity, and leadership means moral courage not just managerial efficiency.

I am willing to commit

To an economic model where profit follows purpose—not the reverse. Where businesses measure success by what we contribute, not what we extract. Where wealth carries obligations to the communities that make it possible.

I am willing to commit

To politics that defies the tyranny of markets and reclaims moral authority. That defends what must never be sold—from our health to our minds, from our forests to our future.

To institutions that form character, not just manage risk. That require virtue, not just compliance. That demand accountability from those with power, including myself.

It will mean sacrifice. Having less, to become more. Accepting that infinite growth on a finite planet is not just impossible—it is immoral.

I am willing to commit. Not because it is easy, but because it is right.

Because a system that cannot say "enough" will inevitably collapse. A freedom that cannot restrain itself will devour its own children.

The American dream promised individual freedom without obligation. The European promise must be freedom through responsibility- a shared commitment to craft something greater than ourselves.

And if you hold power and refuse this commitment, you are not defending the future of Europe-

You are dismantling its only claim to legitimacy.

WE DO NOT CONSENT: A European Refusal of the Silicon Valley Worldview

We stand at the edge of a vast societal reprogramming—and no one has asked for our permission.

In Silicon Valley boardrooms, in encrypted exchanges between billionaires and politicians, in shadow-funded institutes rewriting global norms, a new regime is taking shape. It is not democratic. It is not moral. And it is not ours.

It is the vision of those who call politics obsolete. Who see human judgment as a flaw to be corrected. Who define freedom as the right to build without consequence, dominate without limit, profit without responsibility. It is techno-supremacy: those who own the code shall rule the world.

Peter Thiel proclaims “freedom and democracy are incompatible.” Sam Altman pursues artificial general intelligence to “remake economics.” Elon Musk’s Neuralink promises to merge humans with machines. Zuckerberg’s metaverse captures our every interaction. These are not business ventures—they are governance projects.

Their creed is clear: technology evolves faster than ethics, therefore ethics must yield. History is an obstacle, not a teacher. Politics is downstream from technology—build first, ask permission never.

We’ve seen billionaires bankroll private cities, think tanks, media, political parties, surveillance, and military technology. Not to serve the public—but to control it. Constructing empires unburdened by law, solidarity, or shame.

What’s emerging? A world where children’s faces are scanned in classrooms. Where emotions are mined for profit. Where votes are manipulated by predictive algorithms. Where constitutions bend to accumulated capital.

This isn’t about tariffs or trade—it’s about power. It’s a digital coup—tech elites are hijacking not just value, but the very architecture of order. Their goal isn’t innovation—it’s control. A world where democracy is obsolete, and rule belongs to those who own the system. Not a human future, but a new feudalism: data as land, platforms as countries, and citizen as serfs.

Europe cannot afford to submit.

We remember what happens when systems are built without consent, when autocrats rule unchecked, when technology loses humility. We know: progress without justice is not progress. Intelligence without wisdom is not safe. Markets without restraint become extraction.

It is time to speak—not merely as regulators of technology, but as defenders of humanity.

We do not consent to a world where public purpose is defined by private wealth.
We do not consent to the transformation of citizens into data profiles.
We do not consent to a future built without deliberation, legitimacy, or care.

Europe must respond not with clever concessions or regulatory gestures, but with values. With courage. With vision. We must reclaim the truth: technology is a means—not an end. The common good is not a constraint on growth, but its only justification.

We do not consent. And we will not be coded into silence.

DIGITAL VAMPIRES: Life As ATMs

Remember when Airbnb was about sharing your spare room to make ends meet and offer lodging at affordable prices? That original heartwarming story has curdled into something far more sinister: the systematic commodification of our neighborhoods into faceless investment portfolios while Silicon Valley extracts the profit.

Airbnb's glossy marketing still peddles the democratic dream, but the numbers tell a different story. While 7.7 million listings globally sounds egalitarian, the average host income of $13,800 masks significant concentration: superhosts earn 29% more than average, and in the EU a small minority of hosts rake in 80% of all revenue. The much-touted €149bn generated by short-term rentals in the EU are overwhelmingly concentrated in tourism hubs like Barcelona and Lisbon. Even the supposed traveler benefits have evaporated. At $213 median rates before "service and cleaning fees," Airbnb now costs as much as budget hotels.

But the most scathing critique lies in Airbnb’s impact on housing. In tourism hotspots, every 1% increase in Airbnb listings can drive up local rents by a staggering 3.7%. Visit Three Rivers, California, where 36% of all housing has been converted to STR, fueling a 55% y-o-y surge in home prices and displacing long-term residents.

This is the 'life as an ATM' paradigm: homes become speculative assets, not social goods. Tech platforms drive landlords to prioritize tourists over neighbors, eroding the very communities they claim to empower. The 'live like a local' promise becomes a cruel joke when there are no locals left.

At the same time, the gig economy deepens precarity. Hosts and cleaners work without benefits, job security, or collective bargaining. In Portugal, 77% of platform workers report income volatility; in the UK, 40% of Airbnb hosts rely on short-term rentals just to afford their own housing. Meanwhile, Airbnb charges 14–16% in booking fees—externalizing risk while internalizing profit. A not-so-caring sharing economy.

On top of that, Airbnb’s sophisticated tax avoidance drains an estimated €2.3bn annually from EU municipalities—funds that could support the very people being priced out. The company also spends over $100 million each year on lobbying, branding any attempt at regulation as a threat to innovation.

But resistance is building. Barcelona's 2023 STR ban, supported by 72% of voters, has already cut listings by 40%. Seoul's public-owned Munibnb platform reinvests profits into community services rather than shareholder pockets. Toronto's community land trusts are reclaiming housing as a protected resource, not a speculative commodity.

But without systemic intervention—tighter STR caps, expanded public ownership, and the reassertion of housing as a right, not a commodity—platform capitalism will only deepen the very crises it claims to solve. Communities become collateral, and the commons reduced to a quarry for extraction.

THE TRAGEDY OF #ECONOMICS: How We Were Taught to Obey Power, Not Trust Ourselves

Neoclassical economics has spent the last fifty years naturalising a deeply political fiction: that humans are self-interested, rational maximisers who cannot be trusted to manage their shared lives. From this single assumption, it built an entire moral universe—one where market incentives and state control are not just helpful, but essential. Without them, we’re told, cooperation breaks down, trust disappears, and systems unravel. Left to ourselves, we destroy the very resources we depend on.

Two seductive models sustain—and institutionalise—this worldview: the Tragedy of the Commons and the Prisoner’s Dilemma.

* The Tragedy of the Commons is a myth more faithfully recited in business schools than the invisible hand itself. Coined by Garrett Hardin in 1968, it tells the story of a shared pasture that inevitably ends up being overgrazed as all individuals pursue personal gain. His conclusion was clear: commons always fail unless privatised or centrally regulated. But Hardin never studied actual commons. His scenario was a fictional thought experiment, not an empirical analysis. Worse, he described not a commons (governed by community norms), but an unregulated "open-access regime". In reality, as Elinor Ostrom’s Nobel-winning research proved, well-managed commons thrive—because people build rules, sanctions, and relationships that sustain them. Hardin’s model was never a warning—it was an ideological justification for enclosure, disguised as science.

* The Prisoner’s Dilemma is a famous thought experiment: two players, one decision, no trust—both defect, both lose. The lesson? Cooperating is irrational unless enforced from outside. But the model is completely rigged. It strips away memory, communication, and social context. It removes everything that makes us human—loyalty, learning, moral judgment—and, of course, failure is guaranteed. The dilemma only “proves” something by ignoring everything that matters - in real life, cooperation quickly emerges, norms evolve, reciprocity holds.

These two models are not descriptive. They are disciplinary. They teach us to assume the worst, fear each other, and surrender moral agency. They recast morality as inefficiency and turn coordination into a technical problem for elites to solve.

All this serves one interest above all: power. If people can’t be trusted, then someone else must be—someone to own, to govern, to decide.

The tragedy isn’t the commons—it’s the dismal economic theory that taught us they could never work.

The real tragedy of economics is that it discredits care, delegitimises cooperation, and concentrates authority in the hands of those who profit most from public distrust: asset owners, technocrats, corporate managers, and state bureaucrats.

It’s time we told the truth. 

THE DIGITAL DEVIL'S BARGAIN: Humanity's Pact With AI

In the luminous glow of digital screens, Heinrich sits hunched—not over ancient grimoires but before the sleek interfaces of modern AI. Like Goethe's Faust in his study, he longs to grasp "the world's innermost core," yet with tools his namesake could never have conceived.

"Extract deeper insights!” he commands Perplexity. “Synthesize the findings!” he instructs ChatGPT. “Refine the prose!” he calls to Claude. The algorithmic triumvirate obeys with eerie precision, each performing its function in his intellectual assembly line.

Heinrich smiles at the elegantly formatted response. "It's learning from me," he thinks with satisfaction, noting how the tools have incorporated his previous feedback, adopted his phrasing preferences, even anticipated his next questions. He feels power—mastery over knowledge itself.

The moment of his bargain arrives not with sulfurous smoke or dramatic thunder; but in a quiet shift of habit. When a colleague asks his view on a complex issue, Heinrich reaches for his device before formulating his own thoughts. Faced with a difficult book, he feels an unfamiliar urge not to read, but to have it distilled and summarized.

"I'll just use the tools to get started," he assures himself, "then add my own thinking later." But "later" remains perpetually deferred.

Then, one evening, rain streaking his windows, Heinrich realizes he’s spent hours perfecting prompts for work he once did effortlessly alone. The irony strikes clearly—he’s transformed from thinker to technician, from creator to prompt engineer. His mastery now lies in feeding machines, not forming ideas.

"What have I traded away?" he wonders, staring at his own face in the black mirror of his screen.

The bitter truth unfolds: while the algorithms sharpen through his prodding, Heinrich dulls through his dependence. His mind withers while Silicon Valley's engines feast on his expertise. The machine merely predicts—it never truly understands—yet his own genuine intelligence fades as he trains the algorithm rather than himself.

This unholy bargain stretches far beyond Heinrich. Like a society of willing Fausts, we freely surrender our intellectual sovereignty. The architects—our corporate Mephistopheles at OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google—smirk as we refine our own digital masters. This is precisely what they designed: technology as lord, human as servant.

Unlike Goethe's Faust, saved in the final act through divine mercy, we cannot hope for heavenly forgiveness. In our secular age, no angels will rescue us from algorithmic dependence. No higher power will restore what we've willingly surrendered. The choice to reclaim our intellectual freedom is ours alone: a recognition that true knowledge demands the very struggle we so desperately seek to flee.

The screen glows, awaiting the next prompt. Heinrich’s fingers hover. The machine is ready. The question is—are we? 

DER DIGITALE TEUFELSPAKT

Im Schein digitaler Bildschirme sitzt Heinrich gebeugt – nicht über alten Zauberbüchern, sondern vor glatten KI-Schnittstellen. Wie Goethes Faust sehnt er sich zu erkennen, "was die Welt im Innersten zusammenhält", mit Werkzeugen, die sein Namensvetter niemals kannte.

"Extrahiere Erkenntnisse!" befiehlt er Perplexity. "Synthetisiere Ergebnisse!" weist er ChatGPT an. "Verfeinere die Prosa!" ruft er Claude zu. Das algorithmische Triumvirat gehorcht präzise in intellektuellem Fließband.

Heinrich lächelt. "Es lernt von mir", denkt er, bemerkend wie die Tools sein Feedback einbauen, seine Präferenzen übernehmen, seine Fragen vorwegnehmen. Er spürt Macht – Herrschaft über das Wissen selbst.

Sein Pakt kommt nicht mit Schwefelrauch und Donnerschlag, sondern in stillen Gewohnheiten. Bei komplexen Fragen eines Kollegen greift er hastig zum Gerät, bevor er anfängt selbst zu überlegen. Ein schwieriges Buch will er nicht mehr lesen, sondern es distillieren und zusammenfassen.

"Ich nutze die Tools nur zum Einstieg", versichert er sich, "später füge ich mein eigenes Denken hinzu." Doch "später" bleibt für ewig aufgeschoben.

Eines Abends, Regen streift seine Fenster, erkennt Heinrich, dass er Stunden damit verbracht hat, KI für eine Arbeit zu perfektionieren, die er einst mühelos allein erledigte. Die Ironie beißt – vom Denker ist er zum Techniker gewordern, vom kreativen Schöpfer zum Prompt-Ingenieur. Seine Genie liegt nur noch im Füttern von Maschinen, nicht im Formen von Ideen.

"Was habe ich bloss getan?" fragt er sich, starrend auf sein grimmiges Spiegelbild im schwarzen Spiegel seines Bildschirms.

Die bittere Wahrheit steht klar vor ihm: Während die Algorithmen durch sein Drängen brillanter werden, stumpft Heinrich durch seine Abhängigkeit ab. Die KI – ein seelenloser Prophet ohne Verstand – erblüht, während seine menschliche Intelligenz schwindet und Silicon Valleys Maschinen sich an seinem Wissen laben.

Dieser unheilige Pakt reicht weit über Heinrich hinaus. Gleich einer Gesellschaft williger Fausts opfern wir unsere intellektuelle Souveränität. Die mächtigen Architekten – unsere Business-Mephistos bei OpenAI, Anthropic und Google – beobachten zufrieden, wie wir eifrig unsere digitalen Meister perfektionieren. Ihr Plan erfüllt sich: Technologie thront als Herr, der Mensch dient.

Anders als Goethes Faust, im finalen Akt durch göttliche Gnade erlöst, dürfen wir auf keine himmlische Vergebung hoffen. Kein Engel befreit uns aus algorithmischen Ketten. Keine höhere Macht kann uns zurückbringen, was wir freiwillig aufgegeben haben. Die Entscheidung, unsere intellektuelle Freiheit zurückzufordern, liegt allein bei uns: in der Einsicht, dass wahres Wissen genau jene Anstrengung verlangt, vor der wir so verzweifelt flüchten.

Der Bildschirm leuchtet, wartet auf den nächsten Prompt. Heinrichs Finger schweben. Die Maschine ist bereit. Die Frage ist – sind wir es auch?

A Convenient Modern Misreading Of The GOLDEN RULE: It’s Not Just Kant in a Tunic

The Golden Rule—"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"—is too often misread through the lens of Enlightenment ethics, especially when theologians or ethicists implicitly "Kantianize" it. It becomes a tidy heuristic for reciprocity or universalizable moral reasoning, as if Jesus were proposing a proto-Categorical Imperative based on relational symmetry or social trust: "if it wouldn’t be fair if everyone did it, don’t do it." "Be reasonable, be reciprocal." But that is a profound misreading.

The Golden Rule, as given in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 7:12), is not grounded in liberal, autonomous reason, but in eschatological faith and Trinitarian metaphysics. It isn’t about fairness or mutual benefit—it’s about love that doesn’t wait to be returned. It’s not based on trusting people to do the same for you. It’s based on faith in a God who already gave everything.

Its source is not the self-legislating moral subject, but the grace of the Father, whose goodness overflows in creation, whose justice defines the arc of history, and whose mercy governs the logic of the Kingdom. Christian ethics is not about neutral universals but participatory ontology—a vision of persons and actions embedded in the divine economy.

Crucially, Matthew’s framing (Matt 5:43-48, "love thy enemy") makes clear that this is not a principle of reciprocity but of agape. It is not grounded in fraternal faith in the Father—who alone secures the justice of the world and invites us into his self-giving love. It’s rooted in a reality that Christians believe is Trinitarian: a God who is not an isolated ruler, but a living relationship—Father, Son, and Spirit—in an eternal dance of giving and receiving. That relationship, that love, is the source of the whole universe. The command anticipates not a fair exchange, or a fashionable "win-win", but a world remade by eschatological grace.

The command to treat others as we would be treated is thus not a social contract, but a summons to imitate the generous and sacrificial love of God, anticipating the eschaton where love will be all in all. It’s what we could call kenotic joy: the strange, radiant freedom that comes when love lets go of itself completely for the sake of another. To obey the Golden Rule is not merely to trust others, but to have faith in the promise of God’s reign, and to live now as citizens of that coming Kingdom.

In short, the Golden Rule is not Kant in a tunic. It is not grounded in common sense or postmodern convenience, and it cannot be invoked simply without acknowledging its source of legitimacy. It means letting go of ego, security, control to begin the real life that begins when we step into the pattern of that love. It is the ethical grammar of a Trinitarian eschatology—a divine command to live as if the Kingdom of Heaven had already begun. 

Reference to an excellent discussion: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ottivogt_philosophy-religion-leadership-activity-7325951142650159106-9fbe?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAABm1WMBiwxFaUc1X66gje88odJOEyNAskc

Excerpt (conversation with Mark D.):

• Mark: The circumincession of the Divine Economy 'embedded' in us. Real eschatology is not future tense but in a state of simultaneous immediacy through symbiotic pneumatological investiture. Grace is a coinherent perichoretic Trinitarian agency and not predicated on ideas of Platonic procession. I agree with the thinking around a participatory ontology although I would emphasise symbolic reification and intention. Trinitarian metaphysics have to be grounded in Incarnational Reality. The work of the Cross secures the justice of the world and it is an affective expression of kenotic Christology [His heart ruptured] - that "self-giving" Love - everyone needs that substitutionary bleeder in understanding the immanent soteriology moving around in the Sermon on the Mount discourse - Matthew 5-7.
  
  Matthew 7:14 "But narrow is the gate and difficult the way which leads to life, and few are those who find it" - means being pressed through the Eye of the Needle of the Cross of Calvary.
  
  Otti Vogt? 'Bring that man a Heavier Cross, the current one he is carrying is far too light'.✝️
• Otti: Mark excellent point! Your emphasis on circumincession as the grammar of divine economy rightly foregrounds the coinherent agency of the Trinity—not as an abstract schema but as the dynamic relationality of divine life made historical and personal through Incarnation. Eschatology, as you note, is not mere futurity but simultaneous immediacy—a view consonant with Augustinian interiority (“God is closer to me than I am to myself”) and Eastern energeia theology. But in resisting Platonic procession, we must avoid collapsing symbolic mediation into symbolic reification. Participatory ontology (à la Maximus, Milbank, Zizioulas) does not treat symbols as distant signs but as ontological enactments—forms through which divine life is disclosed. The Sermon’s symbols—poverty of spirit, peacemaking, the narrow gate—are not moral metaphors, but sacramental thresholds of Christiform becoming.
  Trinitarian metaphysics must indeed be grounded in Incarnational reality. Perichoresis without the Cross risks aestheticism. But kenosis is not merely substitution; and substitution is not transaction. The ruptured heart of Christ is not juridical appeasement, but the inbreaking of divine pathos—the Lamb slain before the world’s foundation.  
  Grace is thus cruciform, not in pain but in redemptive outpouring: the Cross as ontological act, not forensic device. The Sermon on the Mount expresses this immanent soteriology. Grace here is not escape from the world but the world transfigured—where the logic of domination is reversed through the Beatitudes’ paradoxical justice. “Blessed are the poor… the meek… the persecuted" -this is not moral idealism but ontological realism. Thus, Matthew 7:14’s “narrow gate” does not name an ascetic ladder to heaven, but the cruciform passage through which we are ontologically reconfigured. To be pressed through the “eye of the needle” is not simply personal sacrifice, but transformation by grace: the death of the old self and the birth of the ecclesial person. Still, this must not be reduced to individual kenotic heroism.
  Thus, the “heavier cross” cuts two ways: it warns against bourgeois sentimentalism, but also against mistaking suffering for sanctity. The Cross’s weight is not pain but moral gravity—the burden of love in a broken world. To carry it is to stand inside the contradiction of history with eschatological fidelity and kenotic joy. The Golden Rule, in this light, is not reciprocity but Trinitarian grammar: agape made flesh.. 
  
• Mark: Otti. Eastern Energetic [Energeia] Theology separates Energies from Essence and loses contact with Real Substance. No kenosis is not substitution, although there is a transaction taking place and a reformation. I really the "inbreaking of a divine pathos" - but it is intentionally inclusive. So if the Lamb was slain before the creation of the world, the eschatology involved is working backwards. I like the use of sacramental thresholds, although symbolic meditation is too abstract - symbols tie different levels of reality together - and we can only possess what we can reify in our orthopraxis. I treat propitiation as Judicial reconciliation not appeasement. Maximus the Confessor emphasised ontological enactments as a reconciliation between the Word [Logos] and Logoi [Words] in his Cosmology. The Divine Life as Trans-Signification again only becomes substantial through Symbolic Reification. I do emphasise crucicentric Christological formation in Spiritual Direction and Formation.
• Otti: Mark what a fantastic comment! Your concern about energeia in “separating energies from essence” is not without precedent, but it risks a misreading. In Greg Palamas, the essence–energies distinction does not imply ontological rupture, nor does it evacuate contact with real substance. Rather, it secures a metaphysical grammar in which the divine remains transcendent in essence, while truly participable through energy—not as extrinsic actions, but as God’s immanent self-manifestation. To deny this would either collapse transcendence into immanence, or estrange God from real-world contact. Instead, energeia theology suggests a participatory realism: grace is not a created effect, but the divine life itself shared without confusion.
  On kenosis and substitution, you are ofc right to reject penal models, but I will argue its equally vital not to evacuate transactional depth altogether. Kenosis does not simply “stand in” for humanity but transfigures what it assumes. The Cross enacts a juridical moment, yes—but one oriented toward relational reformation. Justice, not as punishment meted out, but as the restoration of communion through sacrificial gift. Christ becomes the new covenant by bearing and transforming a human-divine relation.On symbolism- when I referred to sacramental thresholds, I meant precisely your point: symbols are ontological mediators—not aesthetic signs, but portals through which levels of reality cohere. Dionysius, Maximus, and Aquinas all defend this view: that symbols bind heaven and earth not by analogy alone, but through participated being. In this light, reification is not reduction, but rightly enacted embodiment—truth incarnated in orthopraxis. One does not possess a symbol intellectually, but inhabits it liturgically.
  Your point that the Lamb “slain before the foundation of the world” implies an eschatology that “works backwards” is precisely right. The Cross is not merely historical—it is ontologically protological. It discloses the eternal form of divine love, retroactively revealing the logic embedded in creation itself. The Cross is not God's plan B; it is the world’s metaphysical axis. Divine pathos, then, is not concession to human sentiment, but the self-implication of God in history—the eternal willingness to suffer with and for the other.
  So yes, there is a judicial dimension. But it is subordinate to a deeper ontological drama: the reconciliation of all things through perichoretic mercy. 
• Mark: Otti - Gregory Palamas in his essence - energies distinction where we can only know God through his "energies" is a misunderstanding of what Symeon the New Theologian was really saying and it is (1) a soteriological rupture (2) a pneumatological rupture and (3) a reconciliatory rupture and it does evacuate contact with real substance as it loses contact with the Real Person of each member of the Trinity. It creates a completely broken "metaphysical grammar" which no-one who intends to be in real relationship should adopt. No. It embodies transcendence in immanence in a Real Incarnational way. Eastern Energeia theology is wrong and not even close to Real Energetic Pneumatology. The Cross involves a simultaneous [New] Adamic transaction, substitution and reconciliation - the rupture goes right into the Heart of God but you have to understand what is being enacted and transacted in that tear. Your understanding of the New Covenant is interesting but you have to understand it as "for us". Grace is three things simultaneously - (1) Unmerited Favour (2) Divine Empowerment and (3) Transformative Energetic Agency 'shared with us'. Kenosis consumes what it assumes, which is why Paul said "I die daily".
• Otti: Mark I guess here interpretations will differ. In my mind the Palamas’ essence–energies distinction protects divine intimacy without collapsing God into created categories. Palamas doesn't separate God’s being from God’s self-gift; rather, he distinguishes how the unknowable God becomes truly participable. The energies are not abstractions—they are the personal operations of the Trinity in history. When we encounter grace, we encounter God Himself, not a proxy. This aligns with Symeon’s mystical realism: not vague illumination, but concrete participation in divine light. Far from undermining pneumatology, this framework affirms that the Spirit is the personal agent who communicates God’s life to us. The real rupture, I would argue, comes if we conflate essence and experience, making grace indistinct from divine being and evacuating the mystery of Trinitarian self-gift. As for the Cross—it is indeed a New Adamic act: substitutional only because it is transformational. Christ doesn’t simply “stand in”—He re-creates. The transaction is not appeasement, but the ontological healing of humanity through radical love. This is not metaphysical distance. It is relational precision grounded in Incarnation.
• Mark: Otti I agree on not 'collapsing' God into created categories but Gregory Palamas is not addressing Colossians 1:15-20. No. If God is unknowable then there are several divergences from Scripture starting with 1 Corinthians 2: 6-16 and John 15:1-17. The energies are not abstractions but if they stripped of essence it acts as a rejection of the Person of the Holy Spirit. I agree with your statement on Grace. Symeon was using a form of mystical 'naturally supernatural' realism. Concrete participation is a substantial experience - Light has real substance. The framework you are suggesting is a direct refutation of the indwelling and communicative personal agency of the Holy Spirit. Essence extends into and is shaped in us in terms of Sanctification in both a declared imputed and a progressive imparted way - that being changed from Glory to Glory of 2 Corinthians 3:18. The Trinitarian self-gift is everything done 'for us' from the Jordan to the Ascension. I like your comments on the work of the Cross and your thoughts on radical love but you have to understand Holiness as a vital energetic force moving through the Incarnation. 
  
• Otti: Mark fabulous! You’re right to insist that God is not abstract or inaccessible -Scripture affirms that God makes Himself known personally, esp through indwelling Spirit (1 Cor 2:6–16, John 15). But I think Palamas does not deny this. Rather, his essence–energies distinction protects 2 things simultaneously: 1) that God remains truly transcendent, not reducible to created categories, and 2) that God’s self-communication is real, personal, and transformative. The energies are not stripped of essence—they are God’s essence as self-giving, never separate from the Persons, but their mode of presence. To encounter God’s light, in Symeon’s mystical realism, is not to access a lesser God, but to participate in radiance of divine life. The Spirit is not rejected—it is precisely the Spirit who communicates uncreated grace, making sanctification both imputed and imparted. The transformation from glory to glory (2 Cor 3:18) is not dissolution of essence but its manifestation in us through participation. Holiness is not simply moral separation—it is energetic communion with the Triune God. From Jordan to Ascension, the Trinitarian self-gift is enacted for us but also in us drawing us into a life where divine transcendence is made fully present
• Mark: Otti - this statement "God’s self-communication is real, personal, and transformative. The energies are not stripped of essence—they are God’s essence as self-giving, never separate from the Persons, but their mode of presence" is changing Palamite theology and making Essence fully present, communicable and communicative in and through the Energies which I do agree with - although I think there is 'progressive essential transference' in dealing with sanctification as a trans-substantive, and communicable experience. I agree with the comment on Symeon. I would frame your comment on the Holy Spirit this way - 'the Spirit who communicates transformative grace through revealing the real person of Christ in us (Philippians 4:19) , making sanctification both imputed and imparted - the emphasis on 'uncreated' is not adding anything of real soteriological intent and content. I agree with this: "The transformation from glory to glory (2 Cor 3:18) is not dissolution of essence but its manifestation in us through participation" but Gregory Palamas would not in his energies-essence distinction. I agree with this with one slight change: 'Drawing us into a life where divine transcendence and communicative immanence is made fully present'.
• Otti: Mark, thank you for this brilliant chat. You're absolutely right to push on the limits of Palamas’ metaphysical grammar, and I agree: while my articulation leans toward the full communicability of divine essence in and through the energies, this does represent a developmental reading—pressing beyond Palamas, though not against the logic of participation.
  Your notion of “progressive essential transference” in sanctification is fruitful. It offers a compelling way of naming what’s at stake in theosis not merely as ethical conformity, but as ontological transformation: a trans-substantive participation in the divine being that is neither pantheistic fusion nor legal declaration. This has deep resonance with Maximus’ understanding of the logoi, Bulgakov’s sophiological realism, and even Gregory of Nyssa’s dynamic perfection (epektasis). In this view, sanctification becomes the historical manifestation of divine essence in the creature by grace, a process that draws the divine mystery ever deeper into the fabric of human becoming. This also reframes Palamas’ apophatic reserve: the essence is not unknowable in the sense of being inert or inertly transcendent, but rather unknowable as exhaustible.  What we encounter in the energies is thus not “other than” essence, but essence as eternally self-giving—the ontological mode in which transcendence becomes communicatively present without being dissolved. Your reframing of the Holy Spirit’s role is both beautiful and necessary: the Spirit as the One who reveals the real person of Christ in us is not merely a corrective to impersonal grace-theology, but a return to the concrete Christocentrism of Pauline and Johannine pneumatology. The Spirit does not act as a mystical conveyor of divine force but as the personal agent of divine presence—indwelling, convicting, and transfiguring the believer in the image of Christ (2 Cor 3:18, Gal 4:19). In this light, the distinction between imputed and imparted sanctification is not two stages but a single communicative movement of participatory union.
  Your critique of “uncreated” is also well-placed. While Palamas employed it to guard against created grace models (especially in response to Barlaam), the term can indeed become metaphysically loaded without soteriological precision.The theological weight lies not in the “uncreatedness” as such, but in the relational immediacy and ontological intimacy of divine self-gift. Grace saves not because it is metaphysically exalted, but because it is personally and transformatively given. Your reformulation works- it preserves the dialectic of distance and nearness, of divine otherness that does not exclude but enables communion. This is the paradoxical realism of Christian holiness: not the eradication of the creature, but its elevation into participatory likeness through love.
  
  In this sense, Palamas for me at least guards the mystery. But the deeper movement of the tradition—from Dionysius to Maximus, Symeon to Bulgakov—presses us to affirm that what sanctifies us is not merely proximity to divine operations, but union with the very life of God, communicated without confusion, and drawing us into a glory that both reveals and exceeds us.
• Mark: Otti - but what you are doing is changing the 'essential' nature of that participation. Sergius Bulgakov on Sophiology is a predicate of Platonic procession but with an emphasis on wisdom rather than energy and it is far from Real. Gregory of Nyssa treated 'epektasis' as a Pauline "reaching towards" in understanding Philippians 3:12-14. Epektasis is derived from a Greek word found in verses such as Philippians 3:13, where it is translated as “straining toward.” The term implies something that is becoming, striving, or developing and it is incorrect to suggest 'dynamic perfection'. But I really like this: "sanctification becomes the historical manifestation of divine essence in the creature by grace, a process that draws the divine mystery ever deeper into the fabric of human becoming". Yes I like your final conceit on Palamas and you reconciliation of your view of his theology.  "The theological weight lies not in the “uncreatedness” as such, but in the relational immediacy and ontological intimacy of divine self-gift. Grace saves not because it is metaphysically exalted, but because it is personally and transformatively given. Your reformulation works- it preserves the dialectic of distance and nearness, of divine otherness that does not exclude but enables communion" - Yes I like this but I am going to continue to emphasise "for us". 'Participatory likeness - and wholeness' - through love incarnate". The kenotic theology of Sergius Bulgakov is more complex but I like your closing sentence. 
  
• Otti: Mark you’re right to caution that I risk reframing the essential nature of participation. Bulgakov’s Sophiology does indeed carry the danger of reintroducing a mediated chain of being under the guise of wisdom, thereby compromising the immediacy and asymmetry of divine–human communion.
  To clarify: when I say that sanctification is “the historical manifestation of divine essence in the creature by grace,” I do not mean the divine essence becomes present as substance in the creature. Rather, I mean that God’s essence remains incommunicable in itself but is freely self-manifesting in and through the energies—personal, real, and transformative—as grace. Not essence collapsing into form, but essence revealed through gift, without confusion or fusion. The creature does not possess God’s being but is drawn ever more deeply into participatory likeness, which is ontologically real, but metaphysically asymmetrical.
  On epektasis, I fully accept your correction. Nyssa uses the term to express endless striving, not “dynamic perfection” as terminable growth. It’s a perpetual orientation toward the infinite where perfection lies not in arrival but in unending desire, a sanctified yearning drawn forward by divine plenitude.
• Mark: Otti - But I really do mean the divine essence becomes increasingly present in a substantial way in our [redeemed and renewed] humanity.
  
  "I mean that God’s essence remains incommunicable in itself but is freely self-manifesting in and through the energies—personal, real, and transformative—as grace" - this is shifting back to Palamite theology and an incorrect understanding of what the Sufficiency of Grace really is in the context of 2 Corinthians 12:9. Essence does translate into form - that is the real nature of the Incarnation [John 1:14; 1 John 1:1].
  
  "The creature does not possess God’s being but is drawn ever more deeply into participatory likeness, which is ontologically real, but metaphysically asymmetrical" - this is entirely wrong and an injurious and grievous refutation of 2 Peter 1:4.
  
  We are in agreement on Gregory of Nyssa but when we reach out - the action is energetic but what we touch is essential.
  
  I am impressed Otti. Good.
  
  On Essence and Energy, I have been with the Serenes and sat with them in this immense Light. Unimaginable in its intensity and felt it get into everything. 
  
• Otti: Mark thanks a lot - I do not mean to deny that through the Incarnation, essence becomes truly and substantially present in Christ’s humanity—the Word became flesh (John 1:14) is not metaphor but metaphysics. In Him, the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily (Col 2:9), and in Him, redeemed humanity is drawn into union not merely with grace as gift, but with God Himself.
  However, the question remains whether this essential participation is extended beyond Christ to the ontological structure of the redeemed. My prior formulation sought to preserve the Chalcedonian asymmetry: that creaturely participation does not entail ontological possession, but communion through deifying grace. Yet you are right—2 Peter 1:4 does not speak of a likeness to divinity but of becoming “partakers of the divine nature.” This cannot be reduced to energetic mediation alone. If grace is truly sufficient (2 Cor 12:9), it must be because what is communicated is not merely operative power, but God's very being. Thus, I stand corrected: sanctification is not only relational participation but substantial indwelling, grounded in the real ontological translation of essence into redeemed form. What we reach toward is energetic—but what we receive is essential. 
  
• Mark: Otti - Chalcedon is an extremely complex Council in its deliberations on the hypostatic union of Christ - I agree with Coptic Theology in dealing with Chalcedon and their Miaphysitist perspective - but with an element of Dyophysitist dynamic 'interfusion'. The word interfusion is not to be treated as if I am suggesting a state of fusion or implicate Monophysitism but a 'dynamic reconciliatory exchange'.
  
  "What we receive is essential" - Otti Vogt
  
  Yeah. I really like that.
  
  I am arrested with the way you do Grace - that is quite convicting. That will remain with me. ✝️
• Otti: Mark intriguing! I genuinely appreciate your theological precision! You're absolutely right that Chalcedon is extraordinarily complex, and that the resulting definitions, while safeguarding orthodoxy, have left interpretive tensions. “Dynamic interfusion” is carefully framed, and I agree—it should not be mistaken for Monophysitism which dissolves the human into the divine, nor is it mere static dyophysitism, which risks functional dualism. I reckon what you're pointing toward is a relational synthesis: not a confusion of natures, but a living, reciprocal exchange qua perichoretic enhypostasis. This I guess is precisely what Cyrillian Miaphysitism sought to protect: “μία φύσις τοῦ θεοῦ λόγου σεσαρκωμένη” - “one nature of God the Word made flesh” - in this frame, I see "nature" (physis) dynamically as the composite life of the incarnate Logos, not a static substance. So when you speak of interfusion as a “dynamic reconciliatory exchange,” I hear echoes of Maximus the Confessor’s enhypostatic logic and Athanasius’ soteriological formula: God became man so that man might become God—but always within the asymmetry that safeguards both divine initiative and human integrity. Not a fusion, but the mystery of transformative union.
• Mark: Otti - 'Qua perichoretic enhypostasis' - I would emphasise 'perichoretic coinherence' in framing a 'relational synthesis'.
  
  I agree on your excellent point of 'static dyophysitism' which would definitely risk a form of commensal functional dualism.
  
  I think Cyril of Alexandria, Athanasius and Maximus the Confessor are effectively all saying the same thing.
  
  In dealing with asymmetry I would emphasis interconvergence and with transformative union the intercommunicative.
• Mark: Otti - I started to use Scripture. My 'Sola Scriptura' approach to Patristics and Eastern Energetic theology is that "we will not accept anything that contradicts Scripture" which has its own animating energetic vivacity. To be honest I wrote virtually all this stuff back in 2005 on the walls of a drained swimming pool and in part on the ceilings of an abandoned amusement arcade, and I have not done much with it since, but your scholastic approach took me back to the original discussions - my final comments were new, although as you commented more geared to precision. The one thing I really liked was your commensal treatment of 'static dyophysitism'. You mentioned Theosis. I like Cassian.
• Otti: Mark, what a vivid image: scripture and metaphysical inquiry scrawled across the walls of a drained swimming pool and the ceiling of an abandoned arcade! :-) That’s not just method—it’s iconography! It honours the reality that truth-seeking doesn’t only happen in lecture halls, but in the ruins, in exile, or in places emptied of institutional presence but still haunted by the sacred. I respect your Sola Scriptura stance as a theological anchor, esp when applied rigorously to Patristic and Eastern thought. You're right: Scripture has its own energetic vivacity—it is not inert text, but living word (logos empsychos), disclosing divine intent through Spirit-illumined engagement. The tension with energeia theology isn’t about rejecting the tradition but discerning whether its metaphysical scaffolding truly serves the biblical witness—or over-extends it. That’s a line worth walking with care, and your reflections sharpen it. Precision matters—but so does the memory of the raw, early wrestling! And yes—Cassian. His deep moral psychology and ascetic realism are often bypassed, but he embodies a theology of theosis that is grounded, patient, and watchful—a sanctification that unfolds not in speculation but in the battle for the heart. 
  
• Mark: Otti I do not use the expression 'logos empsychos' - again poor patristic thinking.
  
  Empsychos" (ἔμψυχος in Greek) means animate or alive. It's a compound word, derived from "en" (εν) meaning "in" and "psyche" (ψυχή) meaning "soul" or "life". Therefore, "empsychos" refers to something that possesses a soul or has life within it.
  
  I would use logos empneumaticos.
  
  In Greek "pneumatikos" (πνευματικός) means spiritual. It's formed from the root word "pneuma" (πνεῦμα), which translates to "spirit," "wind," or "breath".
  
  Again Cassian. He is not doing psychology. It is formative pneumatology.
  
  Nepsis. Think about what 'pure awareness' and 'watchfulness' involves and how does it relate to noesis, phronesis and discernment.
  
  The "raw, early wrestling" arose because of trying to distinguish between real exegesis and implicate eisegesis.
  
  I do like "grounded, patient, and watchful" which could be a summation of the Philokalia.
  
  You are good at citing source material but you need to think through the implications.
  
  You will never achieve "Spirit-illumined [or illuminated] engagement" using logos empsychos as an instrumental approach.
  
  Real Energetic theology is not Eastern, Western or the Global South, it is simply understanding Scripture. 
  
• Otti: Mark brilliant! That’s a superb clarification, and you’re absolutely right to challenge my use of logos empsychos. While some literature loosely applies it to describe the Logos’ incarnation, it indeed carries problematic philosophical baggage, suggesting a generic ensouled being rather than the Spirit-constituted, divine-human hypostasis revealed in the Incarnation. ogos empneumatikosis far more precise. It locates the Logos not merely as animate but as Spirit-bearing. Likewise, for Cassian that's a crucial distinction. While I will suggest that later readings (especially in the West) psychologise the logismoi, Cassian and the Philokalic tradition as a whole is far more concerned with spiritual formation. Your invocation of nepsis is rich. As watchfulness, it is not mere attentional discipline, but a pneumatologically charged epistemic mode: a readiness of the nous, purified through ascetic struggle, to receive the divine energies and discern their movement. In this sense, it integrates noesis, phronesis, and diakrisis into a unified spiritual epistemology—not as faculties of a closed soul, but as instruments of co-operation with the Spirit. Thanks again for sharpening the tools and deepening the field! 
  
• Mark: Otti - this is a great comment: "It locates the Logos not merely as animate but as Spirit-bearing".
  
  This statement is often used: "purified through ascetic struggle, to receive the divine energies and discern their movement " - but has Pelagian implications. Ascetic struggle in itself will do nothing (John 15:5) but a dynamic relationship will. You can only discern what you can receive (John 3:27). Again this whole thing about energies in themselves is adding nothing to real energetic pneumatology and I think it fragments and scatters "noesis, phronesis, and diakrisis" which I agree should be "instruments of co-operation with the Spirit".
  
  With Patristics think through the implications.
  
  A 'pneumatologically charged epistemological mode' - only if you understand the Patristic exhortation to locate your 'mind in your heart' - Sergei Sakharov was good at that up to a point and he resisted the rote repetition of patristic formulas.
  
  "Let the inspired Scriptures be our umpire, and the vote of truth will be given to those whose dogmas are found to agree with the divine words" - Gregory of Nyssa, 'On the Holy Trinity, And of the Godhead of the Holy Spirit'. In the exchange of views in Mark 12:28-33 the scribe uses the word “sunesis” – ‘understanding’ as in rational abstract discursive intellect and Jesus uses the word translated as ‘mind’ – dianoia – in the context of relational Heart knowledge (dianoia – literally: knowing through the Heart or “spiritual discernment / knowledge / wisdom / understanding”) – Spiritual Cognition and that is where I locate Real Nepsis.
  
  One final thing – one of the problems I had and do have with academic scholasticism was and is the “soulish tendency” to emphasis the rational discursive intellect above the noetic faculties of the human spirit – where Sergei Sakharov and I met was at the point where we had both experienced our minds being drawn back out of our hearts….it is a struggle…and I confess that….keeping my rational-cerebral abstract-discursive mind in subjection to my human spirit (my heart in relational-affective terms of reference) or ‘keeping my mind in my heart’ is a daily discipline.
  
  Go well Otti. Let me know when Amazon delivers that Heavier Cross to your door. I am Iurodstvo or a Fool.
  

INDIGENOUS WISDOM: Not Always Wise? A Philosophical Provocation

In contemporary discourse, "indigenous wisdom" has become a normative shorthand—invoked in climate policy, education, and leadership as a presumed source of moral insight and ecological harmony. But while this trend may be politically resonant, it is not always philosophically rigorous. The assertion that indigenous traditions constitute moral knowledge—rather than cultural identity or adaptive know-how—requires critical justification.

Wisdom, properly conceived, is not mere survival, nor reverence for land, nor deference to elders. Philosophically and developmentally, wisdom denotes a rare integration of cognitive depth, moral discernment, reflective judgment, dialectical reasoning, and character formation. It requires both universality and critique: the ability to abstract from embedded norms, to transcend given custom, and to generate insight that applies beyond one's own community. On these grounds, not all traditions—indigenous or otherwise—qualify.

A deeper inquiry reveals three uncomfortable truths:

* Some indigenous traditions lack articulated standards of practical wisdom development—such as deliberate training in reflective reasoning, systemic moral error correction, or explicit virtue cultivation comparable to classical eudaimonist frameworks. Wisdom is often inherited, not interrogated.

* Relational ontologies and kincentric cosmologies—while morally suggestive—do not entail normative clarity. The personhood of rivers or the sacredness of land may foster ecological reverence but does not, in itself, generate criteria for justice, moral impartiality, or universal human dignity.

* Some traditions exhibit epistemic opacity: the transmission of knowledge through elders, ritual, or story is rich but resistant to reflective scrutiny, public justification, or normative disagreement. In some cases, this suppresses dissent or embeds exclusionary norms—gender hierarchies, spiritual gatekeeping, or in-group moral boundaries.

This absolutely does not mean indigenous traditions lack value, or that we cannot learn from them. Some exhibit striking parallels to virtue ethics, embodied moral pedagogy, or ecological prudence. But value does not equal wisdom. And wisdom is not proven by age, marginality, or political fashion. It must be "earned"—by meeting the same developmental, epistemological, and normative tests we apply to any system claiming moral authority.

To romanticize is to condescend. To critique is to take seriously.

Indigenous traditions may offer real contributions to a global ethics of flourishing. But that will require us to do something rare: to treat them not as sacrosanct heritage, but as philosophical interlocutors—capable of insight, but also error. Capable of teaching, but also of learning.

Only then can "indigenous wisdom" be more than a slogan. Only then can it be wise. 

Reference to an excellent and thought-provoking discussion with >140 comments: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ottivogt_leadership-philosophy-transformation-activity-7325874099744923648-LyjR?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAABm1WMBiwxFaUc1X66gje88odJOEyNAskc

Further resources suggested by Mark D.

• Framework by Ben Zweibelson tying together strategy, phenomenology, Western Philiosophical thought and Indigenous thought: "The wayfinder finds their way in unfamiliar territories by drawing on well-attuned heuristics and a capacity for improvisation to respond to the physical and symbolic dimensions of their surroundings". (written by an Arabian Indigene using the Ben Zweibelson cartography to navigate the Saharan Drift)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MflGVbhI-s
• John Boyd, Jason Bourne and David Gulpilil Ridjimiraril Dalaithngu.

TODAY I'M FEELING ASHAMED
J'accuse — the Cowardice of Europe's Leaders

Today, I am feeling ashamed. Ashamed of the moral hollowness of those who claim to lead us. I’ve just returned from the hashtag#ChangeNOW Summit, where thousands of young entrepreneurs gathered—not with slogans, but with real, determined, practiced hope—for a just future. Yet what I heard in countless conversations left me stunned: when asked to defend Europe’s hard-won environmental protections, or to stand firm against Trump’s reckless crusade to dismantle DEI, the CEOs of Europe’s largest corporations responded not with principle, but with hesitation, calculation, and fear.

I accuse Europe's leadership—not of ignorance, but of cowardice.

You see the truth. You sit in Davos and at COP. You commission reports, hire sustainability officers, tout ESG rankings. You know the science. You know what’s coming—but you don't acknowledge. Because you would rather hide.

You imagine yourselves as leaders of “purpose.” You deliver eloquent town hall speeches, produce glossy green ads, commission diversity pledges. But when a bully in the White House sends a letter demanding your submission—you fold. You cut your programmes. You comply with coercion.

You run institutions with vast capacity—over policy, over resources, over the future of nations. And yet, when threats emerge, when the call comes to lead
—to take a stand, to step into the storm— you act as if your hands are tied.

You hedge. You wait. You protect your share price, your US contracts, your quarterly guidance. You do not rise in defense of dignity, of justice, of the future.

Why? Because you never believed your values were worth fighting for in the first place.

This is not a failure of strategy, but of character. Of seeing the truth and averting the gaze. Of recognizing injustice and refusing to name it. Of knowing what matters, but choosing comfort over conscience.

But no spreadsheet can calculate courage.
No KPI can substitute for moral compass.

You stand at the threshold of history—and choose profit over principle. And in doing so, you stain the integrity of Europe. You betray not only your purpose but the very society that enabled your success.

Justice, when not practiced, is perverted.
Courage, when not chosen, becomes complicity.
This is what it means to be unworthy of power.

We built Europe not just on markets, but on ideals. On the belief that power must be directed toward the common good. That human dignity, freedom, and justice are non-negotiables.

But you—our economic stewards—have become the weakest link.

If you cannot find the moral strength to stand for what is right when it's hard, then step aside. Europe needs visionaries. Defenders of the good. Architects of hope. Stewards of our shared future.

I say this without apology: I am ashamed of you. We will not accept your silence as inevitable.

Europe deserves better. The world demands better. And history will remember who stood—and who knelt. 

LETTING GO IS NOT THE POINT...

Early in my leadership journey, I thought I had to know everything. I was fast, smart, technically excellent. My job was to provide answers, solve problems, demonstrate expertise. Leadership meant being the intellectual authority in the room. Then I got promoted—and that model broke instantly.

Suddenly I had to lead others. My performance was no longer the point—the team's was. So I shifted from knowing the answer to hitting the numbers. OKRs, psychological safety, empathy, engagement scores—I was fluent in the language of outcomes. And I was good at it. But despite all our PIPs and growth conversations, I realized we were neglecting genuine development. The machinery of total achievement had stunted our becoming into programmable authenticity, mine included.

So I let go. I stopped leading. I trained in coaching and facilitation. I learned to hold presence and support autonomy. I empowered, delegated, created space for others to self manage, disrupted performance management. I came to believe leadership itself was the problem—my job was to disappear, create conditions for emergence, and get out of the way.

This felt more human and alive. But I soon began to suspect I’d exchanged one illusion for another. What I had let go of was not power—but responsibility.

Servant leadership promises emancipation, but remains captive to liberalism’s core fiction: that freedom alone leads to progress, and justice will emerge through inclusive participation. But freedom without formation degenerates. We confuse choice with maturity—unguided autonomy breeds vice and eventually demands new forms of control.

That’s the trap: in retreating into facilitation, we abandon the task of formation. Without moral development, organisational freedom defaults to the system’s inherited goals—productivity, share price, performance. The machinery stays intact; only its colour changes. Judgment dissolves into procedure. Empathy becomes the endpoint.

To lead well is not to disappear, but to take responsibility for what our structures enable—who people become within them. Institutions are never neutral; they shape perception, organise aspiration, and reward particular selves. Leadership is not presence or posture—it's a moral office.

It requires designing architectures of potential—systems that cultivate character, wisdom and virtues. And that responsibility extends beyond individuals. Organisations are intermediaries in the moral economy: they shape communities, ecosystems, and the wider society.

Leadership, then, is neither control nor its absence. It is moral mediation—between person and institution, organisation and society, what is and what could be. The point was never to let go, but to lift up: to face the system and its contradictions, imagine its potential, commit to the good, and design the structures through which people and systems grow toward greater flourishing. Not to care less, but to care more. 

THE PROBLEM ISN’T HIERARCHY—IT’S THE WRONG KIND OF #HIERARCHY

The dream of flat hierarchies is everywhere. From tech start-ups to progressive NGOs, the gospel of horizontalism promises freedom, creativity, and inclusion. Hierarchy, we’re told, is the enemy—code for control, elitism, and oppression. But what if our problem isn’t hierarchy itself, but rather the absence of any real justification for it?

Modern organisations are not dumbed down because they’re too hierarchical. They’re dumbed down because they’ve lost a sense of why hierarchy matters at all. In our rush to flatten structures, we’ve replaced formative authority with procedural equality, apprenticeship with facilitation, and judgment with consensus. We’ve forgotten that real freedom isn’t the absence of structure—it’s being shaped within the right one.

When you remove legitimate hierarchy—one that educates into virtue, models excellence, and transmits wisdom—you don’t get equality. You get entropy. Mediocrity. Or worse: a covert oligarchy of soft power and charisma, where decisions are made by the loudest voices or the most marketable personas.

What organisations need today is not less hierarchy, but better hierarchy—a structure that sees leadership not as control, but as a calling to cultivate the common good. That kind of hierarchy is not static or authoritarian. It’s dynamic, developmental, and just. It recognises excellence not as privilege, but as responsibility. And it allows for the circulation of knowledge and judgment from initiators to the initiated, in a mutual process of learning and growth.

Flatness pretends that everyone is always already equal in wisdom. But real education—and by extension, real organisation—requires trust in a higher learning we do not yet fully grasp. It means accepting guidance from those who have gone before, without surrendering the call to eventually guide others in turn. It means acknowledging that knowledge is not just information or skill, but participation in something more important: the pursuit of what is truly good, not merely what is efficient or consented to.

Today’s cult of flatness reduces organisations to mechanisms of consent and utility, mirroring a liberal culture that has lost faith in truth and virtue. But if we are to revive organisations as communities of purpose, we must recover hierarchy as vocation: a ladder not of power, but of systemic formation.

In a time when leadership is everywhere and wisdom nowhere, we need to re-enchant hierarchy—not abolish it. Not every leader is wise, but every wise community needs leaders. Let us form them. Let us follow them. Let us become them. 

LIBERALISM DID NOT FAIL—IT SUCCEEDED: THE ONTOLOGICAL NECESSITY OF OUR POST-MODERN METACRISIS

At the core of liberal modernity lies a metaphysical crisis—a denial of transcendence that generates an ontological vacuum. Liberalism, shaped by the nominalism of Ockham and the voluntarism of Duns Scotus, displaces the classical metaphysics of participation with a logic of univocity and individual abstraction. Where the Christian-Neoplatonic tradition once grounded being in the analogical participation of all things in the divine Good, liberal ontology reconfigures substance as self-contained, prior to relation, and thus severs the constitutive bonds of interdependence and teleological order. In this metaphysical inversion, the self becomes an autonomous centre of will, no longer embedded in a meaningful hierarchy of goods or oriented to transcendent ends.

As Adrian Pabst shows, this disembedding generates nihilism by metaphysical necessity. Without a shared transcendent Good, difference no longer reflects analogical likeness but dissolves into either atomised multiplicity or totalising sameness. The rejection of formal and final causality eliminates the intelligibility of being, reducing reality to brute facts (positivism) or arbitrary assertions (voluntarism). Ethics collapses into proceduralism, emotivism, or utilitarian calculation. Politics detaches from virtue and the common good, devolving into managerial technocracy or sovereign imposition. The human person, abstracted from a telos, is redefined through a Hobbesian anthropology of fear and conflict, necessitating artificial order through coercive apparatuses—be it state or market.

This ontological defect has cascading consequences. Moral agency is severed from the structure of being; freedom becomes non-relation, and rationality collapses into instrumentality. Law displaces justice, contract replaces reciprocity, and autonomy nullifies dependence. Institutions built on this metaphysic cannot sustain solidarity, because there is no longer any intelligible good held in common. Rights become procedural claims devoid of substance; citizenship reduces to access; deliberation to negotiation between incommensurables. Educational forms detach from paideia, becoming credentialist delivery mechanisms for economic mobility rather than formation in judgment. Economic life becomes axiologically flat: labour is commodified, finance abstracted, growth unmoored from any hierarchy of goods. Culture dissolves into expressive individualism without normative horizons. Global governance, built on these axioms, becomes both imperial and impotent: unable to represent plural goods, yet imposing a universalism without content.

Liberalism does not fail by corruption from without but by metaphysical entropy within: it ungrounds value, dissolves form, and negates the possibility of a shared moral reality.

Liberalism does not collapse because it fails; it collapses because it is succeeding 

THE TYRANNY OF RADICAL TRANSPARENCY

Greater transparency sounds nice in theory: open communication, shared decisions, and the promise of decentralized power. But let’s not be fooled—the fetishization of total visibility often leaves us more trapped than liberated.

In many self-management movements, radical transparency is touted as the gateway to autonomy. But more often than not, it has the opposite effect. Instead of freeing individuals from top-down hierarchy, it forces them to internalize the relentless pressure of constant surveillance and perpetual judgment. In a world where everything is visible, people are pushed to perform—forever optimizing, calculating, and justifying their worth through metrics.

The issue isn’t transparency itself; it’s the false belief that visibility will inherently lead to better decision-making. What’s really at play is the creation of a system where people are coerced into internalizing controls, constantly seeking approval under the guise of “shared accountability.” It’s hustle culture in disguise, where every move is scrutinized in the name of efficiency and progress.

Radical transparency might make you *feel* like you’re a part of something open and collaborative, but too often it just becomes a mechanism to re-shackle you to the very forces you're trying to escape.

True freedom doesn’t come from the mere removal of bosses. It comes from the establishment of ethical decision-making that transcends the narrow logic of efficiency and profit-maximization.

The goal isn’t just decentralization; it’s emancipation—freedom from the endless treadmill of instrumental rationality in order to develop shared excellence. 

I'M NOT NETWORKING.

To "network" is to reduce human encounter to instrumental exchange—abstracting relationships into contracts, collapsing mutual presence into transactional utility.

This is the social logic of liberal individualism: a world where people become nodes, contacts become capital, and value is reduced to extraction. This isn’t community; it’s the market colonizing human connection.

I’m not building a network. I’m cultivating real relationships.

* "To build a relationship is to refuse the commodification of human presence." — Martha Nussbaum

* "The deepest form of human connection is not one of exchange, but of shared presence." — Charles Taylor

Take, for example, a proper conversation with someone you encounter at an event—one not driven by what they can offer you, but by the shared commitment to something greater: a cause, a common purpose, or simply the dignity and joy of the encounter itself.

* "The true value of a person lies not in what they can offer, but in who they are." — Alasdair MacIntyre

* "A person is not a tool to be used; they are a fellow traveler on a shared journey." — Miroslav Volf

It’s not about instrumentalising the other. It's not about leveraging time or access. It’s about offering presence, human depth and vulnerability.

I’m not building a network. I’m building a fabric—of attention, of obligation, of reciprocity. Not alliances of convenience, but bonds of trust that resist commodification.

* "Networking is a market; genuine connection is a home." — Zygmunt Bauman

* "What we need today is not more networking, but more authentic community." — Catherine Keller

Relationships aren’t mere networks or transactions—they are the foundation of our shared humanity. More than just links between individuals, they embody the essence of civil life, and a collective commitment to the common good 

The ongoing blockade of Gaza is a gross violation of international law and an unjust assault on the civilian population. It has caused immense suffering to over two million people, depriving them of basic human necessities like food, medicine, fuel, and access to vital services. Under both International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and Just War Theory, Israel’s actions are not only illegal but morally indefensible.

Violation of International Humanitarian Law (IHL)

1. Collective Punishment: Israel’s blockade constitutes collective punishment, which is strictly prohibited under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. This principle forbids the punishment of entire populations for the actions of a few. The blockade impacts civilians indiscriminately, punishing all of Gaza’s population for the actions of Hamas.

2. Proportionality: IHL demands that any military action, including a blockade, must be proportional to the intended military objectives. The severe deprivation imposed on Gaza's population—widespread malnutrition, lack of medical care, and destruction of critical infrastructure—far exceeds any legitimate military gain. The blockade is disproportionately harming civilians without effectively targeting the military threat it purports to address. This is a clear violation of Additional Protocol I, Article 51, which mandates that the harm to civilians must not outweigh the military advantage.

3. Obligation to Allow Humanitarian Aid: Israel is legally obligated to allow and facilitate the passage of humanitarian aid to Gaza’s civilian population. The blockade restricts essential goods such as food, medicines, and fuel, violating Article 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. This denial of aid exacerbates the already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Failure of Just War Theory (JWT)

1. Discrimination: According to JWT, military actions must distinguish between combatants and non-combatants. The blockade is indiscriminate, punishing civilians rather than targeting Hamas and other military forces.

2. Proportionality: Just War Theory requires that military actions must not cause disproportionate harm. The suffering caused by the blockade, including widespread humanitarian crisis, is far out of proportion to the security benefits claimed by Israel.

3. Last Resort: JWT insists that force should only be used after all peaceful alternatives have been exhausted. There is no evidence that Israel has explored or exhausted diplomatic solutions before resorting to the widespread suffering imposed by the blockade.

The blockade on Gaza is a clear violation of both IHL and JWT, and it must end immediately. The international community has a responsibility to hold Israel accountable and demand the unimpeded flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza. We cannot allow the suffering of innocent civilians to continue.

Related to: https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2025/4/24/no-mercy-israel-keeps-blocking-aid-amid-systematic-destruction-of-gaza

WHEN THE PEOPLE FEAR THEIR GOVERNMENT, TYRANNY IS THERE.

That more than 400 of America’s colleges and universities have found it necessary to speak in a *unified voice* against federal overreach is not a sign of resilience. It is a siren. It reveals that the United States has already crossed the threshold from democracy into authoritarianism.

This is not a partisan squabble. When institutions as ideologically diverse as Ivy League universities, state colleges, and community campuses must rise together to shield themselves from government coercion, it is because the state has turned hostile to the very idea of independent thought.

Their letter is clear-eyed: they are not rejecting accountability, but resisting “undue government intrusion”—a euphemism for what is, in truth, a full-scale political siege. Freezing research funds. Politicizing curricula. Imposing loyalty tests. Threatening deportation. These are not tools of reform—they are weapons of repression.

This has happened before only in the margins of history. During McCarthyism, during Nixon’s paranoid crusades, the state tested the boundaries of academic freedom. But never in living memory has the entirety of American higher education stood in open defiance to the presidency itself. This is unprecedented not because of its novelty—but because of its necessity.

The founding fathers saw this coming. James Madison wrote that “the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands... may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” Thomas Jefferson warned, “When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.” Today, universities fear the government—and justly so.

This isn’t a crisis waiting to happen. It *has happened*. The Trump administration’s war on education is not just an attack on a policy sector—it is a strike against the very architecture of a free society. When knowledge is controlled, inquiry punished, and truth manipulated at the source, what remains is not a republic, but a shell.

The mobilization of the academy is not a political protest. It is a last line of defense. If it falls, the rest of civil society won’t be far behind. 

Related to post by Eric Orts, Professor at Wharton/Penn: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7322227812466114560/?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_profile_view_base_recent_activity_content_view%3BUKX5mgiXScK3BSmtm8WNnw%3D%3D

When Celebrating Failure Becomes Celebrating Foolishness

The contemporary glorification of failure — captured in slogans like “fail fast, fail forward” — has long since outgrown its origin as a call for intelligent risk-taking. It has become a hollow ritual that mistakes disruption for development, noise for knowledge, and volume of experimentation for depth of insight.

Amy Edmondson’s Right Kind of Wrong reminds us that failure is not a virtue in itself. Only failures arising from disciplined, hypothesis-driven exploration — what she terms "intelligent failures" — advance understanding. Without rigorous hypotheses, thoughtful design, and a commitment to extracting meaning from setbacks, failure ceases to be formative. It becomes a fashionable "F*ckup Friday" that often masks incompetence or structural irresponsibility.

Yet Amy’s epistemic critique only scratches the surface. The deeper issue is not that failure culture is scientifically fragile, but that it is morally disoriented.

At the heart of all human practice lies the pursuit of telos — an end that is rooted in the nature of the activity itself. Aristotle’s vision of flourishing rests on the idea that excellence consists in fulfilling work through practical wisdom; not about iterating blindly through trial and error. It is about discerning the good internal to a practice and aligning one's means and ends accordingly.

Failure is not simply an absence of success. To do something wrong is also to do something badly. It is a deviation from the work of virtue — a symptom that the action has missed its aim, either through ignorance, negligence, or distortion of purpose. To "celebrate failure" indiscriminately is to obscure the ethical structure of work. It is to conflate acts that fall short because they stretch the limits of knowledge with acts that fall short because they betray the integrity of the task.

When organisations elevate failure itself as an ideal, they valorise creativity without asking whether the creation serves anything other than speed, profit or novelty. Failure becomes less a teacher of wisdom than a shield against accountability.

True learning — like true flourishing — demands more. Virtuous failure, like virtuous action, presupposes a clarity of ends, a deliberateness of means, and a humility before the complexity of the good. It demands moral scaffolding: governance structures and leadership that foster the conditions for genuine excellence to emerge. It demands communal inquiry: spaces where errors are not celebrated superficially, but where everybody engages critically in interpreting what went wrong, why it matters, and how the pursuit of the good must be recalibrated.

Above all, it demands a recognition that failure is not the goal. Neither in the life of an organisation nor in the life of a person is failure to be sought for its own sake. The goal is to act rightly — and where we fall short, to rise wiser. 

Descriptive Sciences Cannot Answer Normative Questions. Full Stop.

I keep seeing posts about the “future of work” that seem to follow a familiar pattern: start with a set of descriptive statistics—often presented with scientific-looking scatterplots—then leap to sweeping normative claims about what workers *should* become like and which skills we must urgently acquire.

This Interesting post - randomly picked (and not implying any ad hominem critique whatsoever) - fits the mold. Backed by data that appears authoritative, it argues that psychological traits like resilience, adaptability, and even “critical thinking” are the key skills we need to cultivate in order to embrace the future of work.

But of course this immediately raises a deeper issue: what type of future do we need? What type of work SHOULD we have in the future? What makes life at work good?

Descriptive sciences like psychology can offer insights into patterns of behavior, but they’re not equipped to answer normative questions—like what kind of activities we should value (beyond the usual inquiry into subjective satisfaction levels or "normal" levels of psychological functioning), what goals we ought to prioritize, or what kind of society we want to build. When we frame the conversation solely in terms of psychological adaptability, we risk naturalizing the current trajectory of work as inevitable—rather than interrogating it.

And ironically, even “critical thinking” gets often rebranded here as an individual psychological capacity, rather than what it actually is: a philosophical, dialectical and moral one—the ability to question frames, challenge assumptions, and reflect on the values driving our systems.

The future of work deserves more than a regression line and a self-help framework. It needs critical, interdisciplinary thinking that can engage both data and ethics.

Psychology can certainly play a supportive role—if it moves beyond the confines of narrow American ego psychology—but it should never replace philosophical inquiry. 

Originally triggered by: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7321038956949659649/?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_profile_view_base_recent_activity_content_view%3BUKX5mgiXScK3BSmtm8WNnw%3D%3D

Freedom Demands Responsibility: How We Forgot Democracy Was a Struggle

The democratic project has grown fragile, not because it failed, but because we forgot it was a struggle. Since the fall of communism, democracy has become natural, obvious, hollowed out into an administrative (in)convenience, a background hum of “governance.”

What once was a battleground of ideals has become a market of preferences.

But fundamentally democracy is about freedom. And true freedom isn’t about having rights in isolation. It’s not an escape into self-interest or the luxury of detachment. True freedom is reciprocal. It is social. It is collective.

The myth of “negative freedom” — freedom from obligations, from the other — is always weaponized by the powerful. It becomes a mask for exploitation, justified by merit, talent, “freedom of contract,” or “market efficiency.” But none of these can excuse abandoning the vulnerable.

If we truly value freedom, we must ask: how do we nurture the responsibility for democracy in those who have never had the experience to lose theirs?

How do we help people see that today’s totalitarianism doesn’t march in uniform, but creeps in quietly, softly, with elegant rhetoric — through the silent concentration of power, wealth, and resources in the hands of a privileged few?

How do we keep alive a fire of resistance — not just in policy, but in every mirror, in every institution, in every classroom, street corner, and boardroom?

We need to repoliticize the agora. Reignite the public space. Bring passion back into what we’ve let become procedural.

The most urgent task of our time is to reclaim freedom not as individual escape, but as shared responsibility. The fire of shared and higher ideals must burn again. 

Food Sovereignty vs. Food Security: Perhaps the Deconstruction of USAID Can Help Decolonize the System

U.S. foreign aid, particularly through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), has been harshly critiqued as a modern instrument of neocolonialism. While often presented as humanitarian assistance, it has been convincingly argued that this aid serves to perpetuate dependency, manipulate political landscapes, and advance U.S. strategic interests.

During the Cold War, USAID was deployed to counter Soviet influence in newly independent African nations. In countries like Ghana, Guinea, and the Congo, aid was conditioned on alignment with Western capitalist models, often at the expense of socialist-leaning policies favored by local leaders. This approach not only redirected domestic agendas but also entrenched a patron-client dynamic in which recipient nations remained economically and politically tethered to the U.S.

Critics argue that U.S. aid fosters dependency rather than sustainable development. Programs often require the purchase of American goods and services, redirecting funds back to the U.S. and limiting economic benefits to recipient countries. Free food imports displace local agricultural production, while shifts from indigenous crops to export-oriented varieties harm ecosystems, reduce biointegrity, increase pollution, and make countries reliant on volatile trade networks. Additionally, high-interest loans deepen debt burdens, diverting resources away from essential services and infrastructure.

The imposition of Western development models can also erode local cultures and institutions. Initiatives like the "Play Pump" in Africa—intended to combine water access with children’s play—failed to reflect community needs, resulting in ineffective and even harmful outcomes. Aid agencies often prioritize institutional survival over genuine development, reinforcing a cycle of dependency.

In Mali, foreign aid earmarked for development has been misappropriated, fueling corruption and political instability. Funds have been used to empower specific ethnic groups, worsening internal conflict and undermining the supposed humanitarian mission.

While U.S. foreign aid still carries the potential to support development, its current structure too often reinforces neocolonial patterns. Ironically, the downsizing of USAID might offer an unexpected positive outcome: weakening a persistent neocolonial system that enables U.S. and global exploitation. This shift could open space for more authentic development—centered on empowering local communities and insisting not on food security for Western interests, but on global food sovereignty rooted in justice, autonomy, and ecological balance. 

Colonial Economics: https://standrewseconomist.com/2021/02/24/colonial-economics-the-abuse-of-aid-in-africa/?utm_source=chatgpt.com 

Hope Is A Word With Its Sleeves Rolled Up: Europe Must Remember In Order to Thrive

Europe, born from the rubble of war and animated by the dreams of visionaries like Jean Monnet, is not simply a place on a map—it is a promise. A promise of cooperation over conflict, institutions over impulse, peace over power. To forget that past now would not merely be careless. It would be cowardice.

When bullies—foreign autocrats and domestic demagogues—test the resolve of the European project, we cannot retreat into cynicism or indecision. We must step forward. Not recklessly, but wisely. Not naively, but with courage. Leadership isn’t about managing the moment—it’s about shaping the future.

To lead now, Europe needs more than policy tweaks. It needs character.

* Leadership begins with care and compassion. We cannot build a sustainable future within a system that reduces everything to capital. We must never abandon the principles of humanism in service of a plutocratic techno-feudal order.

* We must confront the extractive model—in economics, in technology, in AI—not just with critique or regulation, but with a positive vision. A vision of a Europe not merely less harmful, but actively good. We cannot outsource the soul of Europe to algorithms or quarterly returns.

* We must hold the line on a European set of values. Entrepreneurship is always political—it reflects what we stand for. As long as extraction is rewarded and responsibility penalized, the system will remain broken. If Europe is to thrive, it needs leaders who choose character over charisma, who practice restraint rather than merely demand it from others. No regulation can substitute for virtue. Without a moral compass, we remain trapped in the very status quo we claim to resist.

* And we must act. Europe must function like an ecosystem, uniting countries and people of good will to resist aggression and ensure that evil cannot prevail. We must be both architects and advocates, building better institutions that protect our values—and be willing to vote with our time and our talents, not just our slogans.

If we fight, we might lose. But if we don’t fight, we have already lost.

This is the moment for collective action—not just from parliaments or presidents, but from all of us who understand that history is not a museum. It is a mandate. We owe a duty not only to future generations, but to those who risked everything to make this fragile Europe possible.

Allow yourself to be radicalized—not by rage, but by reason. What Europe needs now is a revolution of the moderate middle.

Because hope, real hope, is a word with its sleeves rolled up. And it’s time to get to work. 

STOP BEING F*CKING PRAGMATIC!

Pragmatism has become the excuse for mediocrity.

It’s the polished language of compromise, used to mask cowardice and greed.

“We’re just being realistic,” they say—while building tools of distraction, systems of dependence, and products that drain rather than serve.

We don’t need more “solutions” designed to extract attention, time, or money.
We need creation rooted in truth.
We need the courage to ask:
What actually elevates humanity? What heals instead of harms? What builds instead of exploits?

Excellence isn’t about making the most profit with the least resistance.

It’s about reaching into the unknown, demanding more from ourselves, and refusing to settle for the easy path.
True creators don’t follow the market—they move it.

Not because it's strategic, but because it’s right.

Stop optimizing for engagement.
Start optimizing for integrity.
Stop solving for efficiency.
Start solving for meaning.

The world doesn’t need more “pragmatic” solutions.

It needs visionaries brave enough to create from a deeper place.
From love, not fear.
From purpose, not profit.

So no, we don’t need to be pragmatic.
We need to be uncompromisingly excellent.

Not in service of exploitation—but in service of good.

Inspired by a wonderful Brune Poirson here at hashtag#changeNOW 

EUROPEAN LEADERS MUST CHOOSE: REVOLUTION BY REASON OR EVOLUTION BY RUIN?

In the past 50 years, humanity has unleashed more distractions, disruptions, and upheaval than in the entire span of human evolution.

Jean Monnet once suggested that people only accept change when they are faced with disaster. This profound truth speaks to the crossroads we face today—between transformation driven by catastrophe or by wisdom. We stand at the precipice of a future shaped not by reason and conscious evolution, but by ruin if we refuse to act.

In Europe, the time has come for leaders to make a critical choice: will you guide the continent through the revolution of reason, or will you allow us to stumble into the abyss of unchecked destruction? The stakes are not merely economic but deeply moral. Leaders cannot remain silent, cannot hide behind a veil of inaction. By doing so, we become co-conspirators in the crime against our planet and future generations.

As Paul Polman passionately stated this morning, it's no longer about keeping shareholders happy or protecting short-term profits. It’s about stewardship. True leadership lies in collectively taking care of our ecosystems, our societies, and our collective well-being. This is a fight for the character of Europe—not the share price. We need leaders who will prioritize sustainability over transient gains, who will transform through evolution, not collapse.

I'm looking forward to the conversations with Jean-Marc Lieberherr Monnet, Marcello Palazzi, MSc MBA, FRSA, Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Hans Stegeman, HERMAN MULDER, Paolo Di Cesare and many other passionate European leaders here at hashtag#ChangeNOW to shape a coalition of business for good.

The world is watching. The future is ours to shape—by reason or by ruin.

Ecosia vs Google: Search the Web, or Feed the Kraken?

Every time you search the web, you're casting a vote. Not just for what you're looking for—but for the world you want to live in.

Google built its empire on the promise to "do no evil." But today, it’s the blueprint for techno-feudalism. A trillion-dollar juggernaut that hoards user data, dominates digital ad markets, enables surveillance capitalism, and shapes what billions see—and don’t see—online.

Behind the clean homepage lies a labyrinth of contradictions:

- Carbon Pledges vs. Massive Emissions: Google claims carbon neutrality, yet powers data centers with fossil fuels and bankrolls climate denial think tanks.
- Privacy Claims vs. Surveillance Reality: It tracks you across apps, devices, and the physical world—turning your life into behavioral data for sale.
- Democracy vs. Monopoly: It throttles competitors, manipulates algorithms, and plays gatekeeper to the internet itself.

Meanwhile, Ecosia quietly offers an antidote.

- Ecosia is not-for-profit: 100% of profits go to climate action. Over 200 million trees planted—turning searches into reforestation efforts worldwide.
- Privacy-first: No personal data sold. No third-party trackers. Your search is yours.
- Green Infrastructure: Powered by 300% renewable energy—meaning every search removes CO₂ from the air.
- Steward Capital: Purpose is protected through legal structures. No greedy billionaire can snap it up to maximise ROA.

Ecosia isn’t perfect. But it’s proof that another internet is possible—one rooted in regeneration, not extraction.

So ask yourself:

Are you feeding a kraken that consumes democracy, data, and the planet?

Or are you planting forests with your searches?

It’s not just what you search. It’s who you are and what you stand for. 

"If you feel pain, you're alive.
If you feel the pain of others, you're human."

Attributed to Leo Tolstoy

AI, Education, and the Death of Wisdom

There is a profound difference between instruction and education — a distinction foundational to classical and humanist philosophy, yet often forgotten in contemporary discourse. Instruction is oriented toward transmission: it fills the learner with facts, techniques, and skills. It operates within a framework of competence and efficiency, oriented toward outcomes that can be measured and optimised. It is the domain of training and know-how.

Education, by contrast, does not merely fill — it forms. Etymologically, educare means “to draw out” or “to lead forth.” It aims not to produce skills, but to cultivate the character, judgment, and orientation of the person. Instruction informs the hand; education transforms the soul. This classical distinction — found in Plato, Aristotle, and revived in thinkers like Newman, MacIntyre, and Arendt — grounds the core idea that virtue is not taught like geometry. It must be practiced, formed, and oriented toward an understanding of what it means to live well.

The same distinction holds between choice and decision — a differentiation with enormous ethical and political implications.

Choice is a function of knowledge. It involves the evaluation of predefined options, often reducible to cost-benefit analysis or risk management. It belongs to the realm of instrumental rationality, a logic of optimisation. When we choose, we are selecting between known paths — a better price, a shorter route, a stronger return.

Decision, by contrast, comes from the Latin decidere, meaning “to cut off.” It is not merely a selection among options, but a moral act of commitment — often taken in conditions of uncertainty, ambiguity, and irreversibility. True decisions arise when the available knowledge is insufficient — when the choice is not clear, and yet one must act.

We can think about a map and a compass:

• A map tells you what is— the layout, the possibilities. It enables optimisation.
• A compass tells you where to go— even if the terrain is unmapped. It orients you toward the good — what ought to be.

#leadership #phronesis #wisdom #transformation

Based on: Stefano Zamagni, Le Sfide della DSC

Eulogy for Pope Francis: A Political Pastor of the People

Jorge Mario Bergoglio—Pope Francis—was the most politically disruptive pope of the modern era, not because he sought power, but because he understood that neutrality in the face of injustice is complicity. His papacy was defined by a radical conviction: that the Church must not merely preach to the world but stand in solidarity with it—especially with those at the margins.

From the moment he stepped onto the balcony of St. Peter's as a pope who took the name of a humble saint, Francis challenged us to reimagine what the Church could be. He refused the trappings of office, lived simply, and in countless gestures—washing the feet of prisoners, embracing the disfigured, making space for the homeless—he embodied the Gospel he preached.

Francis transformed Catholic Social Teaching into a program of action. In Laudato Si', his landmark encyclical, he taught that care for creation is inseparable from care for the poor. In Fratelli Tutti, he offered a vision of global fraternity that transcended borders, religions, and ideologies. He denounced the "throwaway culture" that discards both people and planet, and demanded "integral ecology" that recognizes their deep interconnection.

But Francis was no mere theorist. He reformed Vatican finances, opened paths for lay leadership, and confronted the Church's failure to protect children from abuse. He launched the synodal process not as consultation but as transformation—repositioning the Church as a listening, participatory body rather than a hierarchy of pronouncement.

His path was not without thorns. Curial insiders resisted his decentralizing reforms. Traditionalists saw his emphasis on mercy and inclusion as dangerous ambiguity. American Bishops rejected Mensuram Bonam. Progressives wanted faster, more decisive change. But Francis never claimed to resolve every tension. Unlike his predecessor Benedict XVI, whose papacy defended doctrinal clarity, Francis embodied a Church of praxis: a field hospital more than a fortress, where proximity to suffering mattered more than purity of ideas.

He believed the Church must be political—not partisan, not a party, but committed to the structural demands of the Gospel. His papacy gave voice to those the Church had long failed to hear. He did not leave behind a settled institution, but a more restless, outward-facing Church that understands its credibility depends not on its authority but on its authenticity.

As we bid farewell to this shepherd who smelled of his sheep, who challenged power not from above but from beside, the "people of good will" are called to carry forward his insistence: that a society that does not stand with the poor and vulnerable, that does not care for our common home, that does not reach across divides to build fraternity—is not truly reaching its potential.

May his spirit of compassion, openness, and courage continue to challenge us toward a more just and human world. 

It could be argued that the root of democracy's decline lies not in the erosion of consensus, but in the degradation of conflict. What’s increasingly missing from modern society are the conditions necessary for constructive dialectic - the spirit of an Olympic struggle toward excellence and the openness to learn from "successful experiments in living."

Perhaps most importantly, when we no longer believe in anything beyond the self, we're left unwilling to surrender even a part of it in service of something greater.

Dictatorship, American-Style

The founders of the American Republic built a system of checks and balances to protect the system from monarchic tyranny. But today, that system lies in ruins.

Under Trump, the presidency has become a throne: with contempt for democratic deliberation, disdain for judicial review, and a base delighted to be ruled by spectacle. Trump is ruling by decree, bypassing Congress- issuing executive orders like royal edicts. Just glance at the flood of proclamations at https://lnkd.in/eEsrCzWP.

The terrifying truth is that it works. The guardrails of democracy are proving to be decorative. A clown with a pen now governs like an emperor. And the people cheer. This is how democracy dies—quietly, one executive order at a time.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH: A Call for European Leadership

The world is fraying—socially, ecologically, politically—and yet those with the greatest power to act continue to hide behind the thinnest veils of responsibility. The dominant leadership paradigm, exported globally but epitomised most clearly in American recent leadership culture, is not just insufficient—it is immoral.

We are no longer dealing with a crisis of performance, but a crisis of ethics. The American model of leadership—of charismatic individualism, shareholder primacy, instrumental performance, and hyper-agility—has become a blueprint for exploitation masquerading as innovation. It promotes ego over community, mistaking narcissism for strength. It valorises short-term gain over long-term good, disguising recklessness as risk-taking. It commodifies everything—people, relationships, even values themselves.

But power without virtue is violence, and leadership without wisdom is destruction.

The time has come for Europe to rise—not in arrogance, but in moral clarity.
Not to dominate, but to lead differently.

We need to move beyond critiques and toward creation. Europe must take up its mantle as a historical cradle of humanistic thought, ethical political economy, and moral responsibility. We must reclaim our philosophical and civic heritage—not to preserve the past, but to build a future grounded in the dignity of the person, the common good, and the pursuit of excellence.

Leadership must begin with moral identity—the deep, structurally embedded commitments that shape who we are and what kind of world we are building. It must cultivate organisational wisdom—not technical cleverness, to embody the good within conditions of complexity and contradiction. From there, leadership forms character, not in the individual alone, but in institutions—so they can become sites of flourishing, not domination.

This is not about nationalism. It is not about Europe against America or anyone else. It is about Europe for the world—for the future. We call upon European leaders—political, corporate, civic, academic—to join forces in building a European movement for good leadership. Not a brand, but a moral community. Not a policy programme, but a practice of systemic change.

We don’t need more agile transformations. We need moral transformation.
We don’t need more innovation theatre. We need institutional virtue.
We don’t need more thought leaders. We need character leaders.

A world shaped by moral leadership is not only possible—it is necessary. It is the only path to restore trust, repair systems, and regenerate the conditions for true human flourishing.

Europe has the philosophical depth, institutional sophistication, and civic traditions to lead this transition. The only question is: will we have the courage?

Let’s make “European leadership” synonymous not with bureaucracy or caution—but with courage, care, and commitment to the good.

The world is watching. Let us rise—together. 

Social reality isn’t just complex—it’s curved.

Complexity speaks to causality and unpredictability; at its core, it concerns fate and calls for solidarity. Curvature, on the other hand, reflects power and ideology; it gestures toward morality and demands justice.

The obsession with "complex systems" in popular management science —dressed up with cybernetic and biological metaphors—at least partly misses the point; it ultimately obscures the need for ethical and political clarity. 

Generative AI is like postmodern academic research: truth is whatever gets cited enough. ;-)

The real threat isn’t to academia, but to the people who rely on its outputs—where AI will help (some academics) to further flood the world with low-quality thinking dressed up as insight. 

It is a great pity that many economists of the 'old school' - who still thrive among us, hold up their analyses of 'market models' as though they were golden precepts for mankind, like early nineteenth-century boys with a new toy.

There would be as much room for the Art of Living, and much more likelihood for it being improved, if minds ceased to be engrossed by the art of getting on.

(Ronald Fletcher, John Stuart Mill: A Logical Critique of Sociology)

BREXIT HAS FAILED – It’s Time to Admit It. And Revert It.

Brexit has been a disaster, and it’s time we faced the evidence. Economic growth is stagnating, British political power is reducing, freedom of travel in Europe is increasingly restricted, and trade barriers are crippling businesses. According to the Office for Budget Responsibility, the UK’s GDP is 4% smaller than it would have been if it had remained in the EU. Meanwhile, exports to the EU have fallen by 16% since 2019, and the UK is losing many of the valuable benefits directly related to its embeddedness within the institutions of the Europe Union.

The promise of sovereignty and prosperity - let alone many of the other populist promises made by miserable politicians - has failed to materialize. Instead, we’ve seen disrupted supply chains, labour shortages, growing inequality, decreasing civic protections, burgeoning public debt and rising costs. The UK’s ability to influence global decision-making has diminished, not strengthened. Of course, as Will Hutton points out, the idea that a "global Super-Britain" would somehow strike favourable deals with the world's superpowers was absurd from the beginning - and, as expected, Britain has turned into a rule-taker, not a rule-maker.

Let's be clear: Brexit was likely one of the dumbest decisions ever made in a referendum. Its "heroic failure" reflects a lingering, outdated fantasy of an empire long gone, combined with the reckless shortsightedness and incompetence of conservative politicians who still refuse to face the consequences. As Max Planck wisely noted, good ideas often progress "one funeral at a time" (or, literally, "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.") But we cannot wait for that: the stubborn clinging to a failed idea will only harm future generations.

It’s time to reassess, correct this mistake, and rejoin the EU before we face even greater economic, political, and social decline. And it's time for those who claimed victory to take responsibility. You’ve divided the country and caused significant harm with virtually no benefit. At the very least, have the integrity to make things right.

A METAPHYSICAL MISUNDERSTANDING: (MENTAL) WELL-BEING AS THE NEW SCIENCE OF MORALITY

In today’s hyper-optimized culture, the buzzwords “health” and “well-being” dominate boardrooms, social media feeds, and even academic discourses. We live in an era where our collective moral compass is increasingly calibrated by metrics—step counts, mindfulness apps, and happiness indices—that promise an “objective” measure of our flourishing. Yet beneath the sleek veneer of quantifiable progress lurks a reductionist trap: the idea that normative ethics can be distilled into a descriptive science of (mental) health, reducing our moral lives to a statistical 'felicific calculus' of pain, pleasure, and psychological satisfaction.

This contemporary narrative, which equates moral betterment or economic sustainability with improved health and wellbeing, is profoundly myopic. By reducing morality to a checklist of observable data points, subjective opinions, or biological responses, we risk erasing the messy, critical engagement that defines true ethical life. Ethics is not merely a question of scientific "conjoint event" analysis— a good life is not simply the refinement of our moral senses tied to biological needs or the anticipation of "sympathetic" community approval; rather, it is an ongoing journey of self-realization and reflective commitment. To reduce ethics to a science of wellbeing is to ignore the transformative power of practical reason—the capacity to step back, scrutinize our deepest values, and articulate ideals that transcend mere sensory or communal gratification. Our moral ambitions demand an existential inquiry into who we are, what we value, and how we ought to live together in community.

When the pursuit of happiness is framed solely as the pursuit of well-being, we overlook the inherent tension between our lived phenomenological experience and our higher aspirations, between scientific method and aesthetic inspiration. Practical wisdom is an art, not a science—it demands a nuanced dialectic of moral striving, a process that calls for the cultivation of virtues, the acceptance of existential contradictions, and the relentless questioning of our most cherished assumptions.

In sum, true moral progress is not about achieving a perfect statistical maximization of universal wellbeing indicators or gross happiness products, but about engaging with the deep, often paradoxical ideals that guide our lives. It entails a commitment to self-actualization in a specific "singular" time and place—an endeavor that is inseparable from our duties to one another and an evolving dialogue about the society we wish to create. While health may be a necessary foundation for such progress, it is by no means the ultimate end. 

From Mother Nature to Lovelock's Gaia: The Many Perils of Reifying Nature

Last week, I once again found myself in numerous discussions where people spoke gravely about "nature," often implying that the environment has some kind of "natural" moral claim over business practices. One speaker even went as far as suggesting that the illegitimate rift between culture and nature could be traced all the way back to Plato’s allegory of the cave, which strictly divides the ideal world from the natural one. But of course this interpretation is highly problematic, as it misreads Plato’s intentions. In Plato’s work, the division is not between a modern interpretation of “nature” and an ideal realm, but rather between “the many” (the empirical realm of sensory data) and “the One” (the realm of eternal ideals) - which introduces the long-standing antagonism between rationalists and empiricists.

The discussion easily leads to a dangerous conflation of ethics and epistemology when “nature” is in itself treated as an ideal category rather than as a descriptive term for “physis”. Much like Kant’s transcendental categories, our concepts wield not only explanatory power but also ethical force, especially when they shape our values amid existential contradictions. However, neither nature nor culture possesses an inherent, universal moral authority—both are constructed concepts that need to be critically tested for their ethical legitimacy. As Kant famously stated "reason makes nature, but it does not create it". ("Macht zwar der Verstand die Natur, aber er schafft sie nicht.")

The reification of "mother nature" or "Gaia" only compounds the issue, anthropomorphizing these categories to suggest some sort of natural law or cosmic moral force. This tendency—especially when combined with the kind of moral righteousness displayed last week—risks turning abstract categories into rigid moral absolutes. The idea that nature, in its "pristine" form, holds an ethical legitimacy is ultimately a fantasy, obscuring the real complexities of human relationships with the world around us.

While humans are an integral part of nature, there undoubtedly exists an inherent contradiction between our economic activities and the environment: the necessity to exploit natural resources for survival and progress clashes with the finite nature of these resources, creating tension between economic growth and environmental sustainability. However, we must be cautious of overly simplistic appeals to either economic dogma or an idyllic pastoral Eden in ethical debates—whether framed by an anthropocentric perspective or a view of nature as intrinsically valuable. As Zizek reminds us, appearances are always already ideological, and our concepts and values are interwoven. Thus, we must try to adopt a more critical and nuanced approach to ethical conduct—one that transcends the limitations of both scientific empiricism and dogmatic spirituality. 

FROM EGO TO EXCELLENCE: STOP BRINGING YOUR 'WHOLE SELF' TO WORK!

In popular alt-management literature, we often find the rallying cry to “bring our whole self to work”. Yet, this hollow mantra oversimplifies complex philosophical and ethical challenges. Rather than expecting employees to expose every facet of their personal identity on the job, we should aim to collectively “develop our best self through work.”

1. The notion of the “whole self” presumes a fixed, essential identity which fails to account for the fluid, relational nature of our being. Our identities are not isolated essences; they are continually shaped by our interactions within broader social and institutional contexts. This embedded ontology suggests that work should be an 'identity workplace' for developing our best selves rather than a stage for our ephemeral pre-formed personality scripts.

2. Positive psychology often underpins the “whole self” ideology, promoting a "selfist" belief in the achievement of happiness through unbridled authenticity and freedom of choice. However, this approach ignores the fact that genuine personal development is not about finding and protecting some eternal essence in ourselves, but about our capacity to step into roles that connect our lives to a meaningful whole. As Carl Jung suggests, this often requires us to "do the work" to integrate or let go of aspects of ourselves.

3. By encouraging employees to present an unfiltered self, organizations may quickly foster environments that undervalue the hard work required to develop communities that can help us to cultivate virtue and character. As many wisdom traditions teach us, it "takes a village" to enable deeper transformation. Excellence arises from a disciplined practice of moral virtues—where personal integrity, communal care and social justice are intertwined.

4. Workplaces do not exist in a vacuum; they are embedded in society. The “bring your whole self” philosophy tends to emphasize isolated individual fulfillment at the expense of professional responsibility and political engagement. But leading a good life is never solely about our own desires, but about our contribution to the common good through work.

Personal growth is not achieved by baring every element of who we are, but by engaging in a transformative process of professional development that aligns with higher ethical and community standards:

* Recognizing that identity emerges from a dynamic interplay between individual agency and structural forces.
* Cultivating our "self" through inter-independent and compassionate community engagement.
* Promoting work as a means to achieve both personal excellence and the common good.

Hence, business transformation is not simply a drive for increased productivity or individual self-expression, but an integral process to enable our good life within a just and sustainable society, by becoming our best self-in the org-within the system. 

WHERE IS THE WELL-BEING ECONOMY? IT'S HERE, AND NOW IT'S TIME FOR YOU TO JOIN US!

This week we had a powerful and inspiring session with Dr Victoria Hurth, Ben Kellard, Bénédicte Peillon-Russo, Derek Walker, Lorenzo Fioramonti, Mohammad Jamei, Paolo Di Cesare, Dan Corpe and many others brilliant minds.

Together, we explored innovative strategies to reboot our economy, focusing on how businesses and policy makers can collaborate in driving meaningful, positive change for society.

Victoria emphasized that business can never be disconnected from society; instead, it must serve as a vital link between long-term societal well-being and economic production. Ben highlighted the importance of institutions, while Derek shared valuable insights from the Welsh experience as a member of the WeGov group. He particularly underscored how the Prosperity of Future Generations Act already acts as a crucial lever for driving systematic transformation.

Bénédicte shared fantastic insights from the hashtag#BCorp movement, which in Italy alone has over 5,000 members. She highlighted the successful introduction of benefit corporation legislation in Italy, a process strategically supported by Paolo and hashtag#Nativa. She also celebrated the recent launch of Rome as the first "Benefit City." Thanks to the passionate support from the mayor and city authorities, the initiative has already attracted over a hundred businesses in its first year.

Lorenzo passionately encouraged the audience to take it to the next level—to join a gamechanging movement to create a wellbeing economy and purpose-driven businesses. He also pointed out that with the recent proposal for an ISO standard for purpose-driven business, there is an opportunity to create yet another powerful force for change. Drawing from his experience as a minister in Italy, he emphasized that we must view business transformation as a political and systemic change, one that is possible if we put our hearts and minds behind it. Together, we can reinvent the way we do business.

Overall, it was a fantastic session and, for me, undoubtedly the highlight of this memorable hashtag#Anthropy 2025. I’m excited to continue the conversation next month at hashtag#TransformationCamp at the University of Vienna with Mirjam von Hofacker and Antoinette Weibel, followed by a session with Lara Yumi Tsuji Bezerra and inspirational pioneers from the Young President Organisation hashtag#YPO and then hashtag#ChangeNOW in Paris, alongside Marcello Palazzi, MSc MBA, FRSA, Paolo, William Clark and many other B Corp and change leaders. Join us—at a time when reckless chainsaw-wielding plutocrats and self-serving political gorillas dominate, it’s time to stand up for a different, perhaps more European, business model!

A big thanks also to John O’Brien MBE as the creator and convenor of hashtag#Anthropy who made all the brilliant conversations this week possible! 

THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE? REALLY?

Once again, we're force-fed the tired, Thatcherite neoliberal mantra—“free markets, deregulation, meritocracy and profit maximization”—as if it were some eternal truth. Today’s Conservative opposition darling, Kemi Badenoch, serves up this bland, dogmatic rhetoric like a stale cup of tea.

Let’s call it what it is: a desperate, superficial recitation of outdated ideas that only benefit the top 1% while the rest of us drown in inequality and ecological collapse. This isn’t leadership—it’s a pathetic refusal to acknowledge reality. Instead of crafting innovative solutions for a just society, these politicians are busy clinging to the neoliberal playbook, living in their own little echo chamber where “there is no alternative” means “keep feeding the machine.”

Meanwhile, the evidence is mounting that these policies are failing our planet and our people. How can we continue to worship a system that prioritizes corporate greed over common good? It’s time to shatter this delusional narrative and demand real, transformative change! 

INEQUALITY IS RISING: A Disturbing Tale of Three Different Worlds

From the early twentieth century until around 1980, across many countries the income share of the top 10 percent steadily declined—from just over 40 percent to closer to 30 percent, with countries like Sweden experiencing an even sharper fall.

After 1980, the picture splits into three distinct worlds: see the graph with United States for the Anglo-Saxon world, France for much of Continental Europe, and Sweden representing Scandinavia. In the United States, the top one percent, which had dropped to a little over 5 percent of all income by 1980, has dramatically surged back nearly to early-century levels. This new "Gilded Age" is not mirrored as strongly in France or other parts of Continental Europe, where increases in top income shares are much more modest.

Three key insights emerge:
* Historical Shocks Are Key: Simon Kuznets famously hypothesized that income inequality would first rise with modernization—especially as new, productive sectors emerged—and then fall in an inverted U-shaped curve as benefits diffused. However, research shows that the post-WWII decline was driven not by broad-based productivity gains but by a steep drop in capital income from shocks like the Great Depression and the two world wars among the very top.
* Wages Over Capital in the New Era: Since 1980, the revival in top income shares—especially in the United States—has been fueled mainly by soaring wages for top earners rather than a resurgence in capital income.
* The Top 1% Matters Most: Fluctuations in the overall top 10 percent are largely driven by changes within the top one percent, while the rest of the decile remains surprisingly stable. Though one might expect technological progress and education (the “race between technology and education”) to boost wages for all high-skilled workers, the steep gains are concentrated among the very top, hinting at “superstar” effects.

These insights force a rethinking of long-held assumptions about economic development and inequality. The data show that:

1. Not All Inequality Is Equal: Even subtle shifts within a tiny fraction of the population can have huge impacts on overall inequality.
2. Shocks Matter: The idea that capitalism naturally diffuses prosperity is not backed by the data.
3. The Modern Challenge: Although technological progress and education are seen as panaceas for social mobility, the wage gap among top earners has widened disproportionately—raising challenging questions about fairness, opportunity, and policy.

Piketty’s call for greater international cooperation to enable a progressive wealth tax remains as valid as ever, especially when wealth concentration increasingly fosters plutocracy and the risks of fascism in countries like the US. 

THE WELFARE STATE: More Piggy Bank Than Robin Hood!

The prevailing myth of the welfare state as a simple redistribution mechanism that takes from the rich to give to the poor—a "Robin Hood" model—is vastly exaggerated. While there is some degree of progressive redistribution, the majority of the welfare state functions more as a "piggy bank", reallocating resources over the course of individuals' lifetimes rather than merely shifting wealth between socioeconomic classes.

Most people contribute to social insurance programs during their working years and later receive benefits in childhood (education), old age (pensions, healthcare), or periods of need (unemployment benefits, disability support). Empirical evidence from countries like the UK shows that the vast majority of citizens pay into the system roughly as much as they take out over their lifetimes.

The rationale for this model is twofold:
* Market Failures in Lifecycle Planning: Young people cannot borrow to pay for education based on their future earnings potential, and individuals cannot predict their future healthcare needs or longevity. Additionally, there are clear benefits of a national insurance model when it comes to managing health risks.
* Economic Growth and Productivity: A well-designed welfare state invests in human capital, ensuring a more skilled, healthy, and productive workforce. This enhances economic growth rather than simply redistributing existing wealth.

Different models of welfares state also reflect deep ideological commitments about fairness, intergenerational justice, and social cohesion. The core question is: How much of life's risk should be borne privately versus collectively? Countries that see inequality as a result of bad luck (e.g., Nordic countries) tend to have stronger redistribution policies, while those that glorify personal effort (e.g., the US) prefer market-based solutions.

1. Egalitarian vs. Family-Centric Models
* Countries like Scandinavia embrace universalist welfare systems, where public childcare, education, and pensions ensure equal opportunities and a decent level of care.
* In contrast, nations like Italy and Japan emphasize family-based welfare, with lower public spending but greater expectations that many care responsibilities fall on relatives, especially women.

2. Intergenerational Solidarity and the Aging Population
* In countries with strong public pension systems (e.g., Germany, France), ever fewer younger workers are taxed to support an aging population.
* In more individualist models (e.g., the US, UK), personal retirement savings play a larger role, but can lead to huge inequality in old age.

Debates about welfare systems are often reduced to simplistic slogans. Yet, understanding the complexity of welfare and its linkage to fundamental societal values is crucial for designing systems that are both equitable and sustainable in an era of increasing uncertainty. 

"IN OUR DAY EVERYTHING SEEMS PREGNANT WITH ITS CONTRARY."

* Machinery, gifted with the wonderful power of shortening and fructifying human labour, we behold starving and overworking it.

* The new-fangled sources of wealth, by some strange weird spell, are turned into sources of want.

* The victories of art seem bought by the loss of character.

* At the same pace that mankind masters nature, man seems to become enslaved to other men or to his own infamy.

* Even the pure light of science seems unable to shine except on the dark background of ignorance.

All our invention and progress seems to result in endowing material forces with intellectual life, and in stultifying human life into a material force."

(Karl Marx, People’s Paper, 1856 in Jonathan Wolff: Why Read Marx Today, OUP 2003)

Image: karl-marx-and-engels-in-the-printing-house-of-the-neue-rheinische-zeitung-newspaper-published-in-cologne-at-the-time-of-the-revolution-of-1848-1849

Democracy Under Siege: FULL ANALYSIS OF THE TRUMP-ZELENSKY DEBATE & The Price of 'America First'

The heated exchange between Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the White House was more than a diplomatic dispute—it was a stark revelation of differences in leadership and worldviews, and ultimately the precarious position of U.S. allies.

Check out the full analysis, dissecting how Trump’s transactional mindset, Vance’s dismissive rhetoric, and Zelenskyy’s defiant desperation expose the fractures in American foreign policy.

More than a clash of personalities, this moment encapsulates the erosion of moral leadership, the perils of isolationism, and the existential risks faced by those who once saw the U.S. as a beacon of democracy.

Thanks to Bob Dignen for the great idea!

 
1) What does the debate say about the character and personality of the three people involved?

Donald Trump

Transactional and Dominance-Oriented: Trump repeatedly emphasizes power dynamics (“you don’t have the cards,” “you’re buried there”), suggesting he sees negotiations as a zero-sum game where leverage matters more than principles.
Blunt and Aggressive: He interrupts frequently and dismisses concerns outright (“You’ve done a lot of talking,” “Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel”). This reflects his combative leadership style, where he asserts control through dominance rather than persuasion.
Boastful and Self-Centered: He presents himself as the sole provider of Ukraine’s military aid, disregarding the broader coalition that supported Ukraine. His references to his administration’s past actions are exaggerated for effect (“Obama gave you sheets, I gave you javelins”).
Pragmatic but Lacking Empathy: He downplays the human cost of war and frames everything in terms of deal-making. His push for a ceasefire comes across as more about avoiding U.S. entanglement than concern for Ukraine’s suffering.

J.D. Vance

Loyal Surrogate: He echoes Trump’s rhetoric, reinforcing Trump’s framing of the conversation (“Have you said thank you?”). His role appears to be that of an enforcer, pressuring Zelenskyy to show gratitude rather than addressing the strategic stakes.
Patronizing and Condescending: His suggestion that Zelenskyy should not "litigate" Ukraine’s concerns in the Oval Office makes it seem as if Ukraine’s leader should not question U.S. policies, despite Ukraine being the affected party.
Superficial Understanding of Diplomacy: His defense of Trump’s diplomatic approach seems disconnected from Ukraine’s historical experience with Putin. When Zelenskyy points out that negotiations with Putin have repeatedly failed, Vance has no substantive response.

Volodymyr Zelensky

Resilient and Direct: He challenges both Trump and Vance’s claims, refusing to accept a passive or submissive role in the conversation. He remains firm in pointing out past broken agreements with Putin.
Emotional but Principled: His frustration is visible (“Ask our people about the ceasefire”), but it comes from lived experience rather than rhetorical posturing. He conveys a sense of moral urgency rather than treating the situation as a negotiation game.
Diplomatic but Undermined: Despite attempting to engage in a reasoned discussion, he is repeatedly talked over. His position is weakened because he is dependent on U.S. support, limiting how much he can push back.

2) What does it say about Trump’s worldview (based on his metaphors and language)?

Power and Transactionalism: Trump’s repeated insistence that Ukraine “doesn’t have the cards” reveals a worldview centered on leverage rather than values or alliances. To him, international relations are a poker game where power determines outcomes.
Lack of Ethical Commitment: He treats diplomacy as purely about personal negotiation skills rather than principles like sovereignty or justice. His repeated insistence that he could be "tougher than any human being" but chooses not to be suggests he sees restraint as a strategic choice, not a moral one.
Gratitude as a Political Currency: He fixates on whether Zelenskyy has sufficiently thanked the U.S., framing support not as an obligation of alliances or shared interests but as a favor for which Ukraine should be eternally grateful.
Dismissal of European Allies: His remark that Obama "gave sheets" while he "gave javelins" diminishes the broader NATO and EU efforts to support Ukraine. He downplays multilateral partnerships in favor of personal leadership narratives.

3) Who has personal leadership credibility in this debate, and who doesn’t?

Zelenskyy has the most credibility: He argues from lived experience, citing past ceasefire agreements and explaining why Ukraine distrusts diplomacy with Putin. He remains composed despite provocation, staying focused on Ukraine’s situation rather than engaging in personal attacks. His credibility is grounded in the existential stakes for his country—he speaks from necessity, not political calculation.
Trump lacks credibility as a leader for international allies: His focus is not on Ukraine’s survival but on transactional gains. He repeatedly diminishes Ukraine’s agency, making it clear that his priority is U.S. interests on his own terms. His statements are inconsistent—he claims to be neutral yet aligns with Putin’s strategic interests by pushing for a ceasefire without security guarantees. His leadership is authoritative but lacks moral authority; his approach is about forcing obedience, not inspiring trust.
Vance has the least credibility: He plays a secondary role as Trump’s enforcer, echoing talking points rather than contributing meaningful arguments. His comments about diplomacy contradict Ukraine’s reality, making him appear uninformed. His main contribution—demanding that Zelenskyy express gratitude—makes him seem petty rather than statesmanlike.

4) What does this mean for people who depend on the U.S.?

Unreliability of U.S. Commitments: The conversation signals that U.S. foreign aid is not based on stable alliances but rather on transactional loyalty tests. This raises concerns for smaller nations relying on U.S. support—assistance may be contingent on personal relationships rather than strategic interests.
Shifting U.S. Priorities: Trump’s framing suggests he views Ukraine as a burden rather than an ally. His push for a ceasefire without conditions implies that he is willing to sacrifice Ukraine’s sovereignty to remove U.S. entanglement, raising questions about how he would treat other security commitments (e.g., NATO, Taiwan).
The Cost of Dependence: Zelenskyy’s repeated attempts to explain Ukraine’s situation but being ignored shows that dependent nations have limited agency in negotiations. This may push allies to diversify their security relationships, looking more toward the EU, China, or regional coalitions.
A More Transactional U.S. Foreign Policy: Trump’s approach indicates that gratitude and submission matter more than shared democratic values. This signals that future international negotiations may be dictated by personal power dynamics rather than long-term commitments to principles like democracy and sovereignty.

Final Assessment

The Trump-Zelenskyy confrontation lays bare the consequences of an ‘America First’ doctrine untethered from historical responsibility and ethical leadership. While Zelenskyy fights for his country’s survival, Trump reduces global diplomacy to a game of leverage, and Vance reinforces a narrative of transactional cynicism. This is not just about Ukraine; it is about the credibility of U.S. leadership in a world where alliances are no longer guaranteed, and democracy itself is on unstable ground. The message to U.S. allies is clear: dependence on America is now a gamble, not a safeguard.

Based on ChatGPT analysis of the transcript hosted here: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/russia-ukraine-war/read-full-transcript-of-heated-exchange-between-trump-zelenskyy-vance-at-oval-office/3496679 

Oligarchs in the Newsroom: When the Free Press Is for Sale, Democracy is for Sale!

Germany often prides itself on its quality press, particularly when contrasting it with the billionaire-owned media landscape of the United States. Yet recent events should make Germans reconsider just how free their own press truly is. While many decry Jeff Bezos’ meddling at The Washington Post or Elon Musk’s reshaping of Twitter into his personal megaphone, Mathias Döpfner’s influence over Bild and Die Welt reveals that media oligarchy is not an American affliction alone.

Jeff Bezos, with a net worth exceeding $200 billion, has long insisted he would not interfere with The Washington Post. Yet the recent departure of the paper’s opinion editor, David Shipley, following Bezos’ push for a libertarian shift in editorial direction, tells another story. The demand for content emphasizing “personal liberties” and “free markets” has alienated readers, leading to a mass cancellation of over 75,000 digital subscriptions in protest. What was once a bastion of journalistic independence is increasingly becoming a vehicle for its owner's ideological preferences.

Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter has been even more blatant in its manipulation of public discourse. By reinstating controversial accounts, selectively amplifying voices aligned with his worldview, and using the platform to settle personal scores, Musk has demonstrated that “free speech” under his ownership means freedom for speech he approves of. In doing so, he has transformed a once-diverse digital public square into an instrument for his own power plays.

If Germans think this is purely an Anglo-American phenomenon, they should look closer to home. Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer, has wielded his media empire—including Bild and Die Welt—as a political weapon. Leaked messages revealed that during the German federal elections, he attempted to manipulate voter sentiment by pushing right-wing populist narratives, climate skepticism, and xenophobic tropes while ensuring his publications remained FDP-friendly. Die Welt even provided a platform for Elon Musk to voice his support for the far-right AfD in the midst of an election campaign.

Döpfner’s influence reaches far beyond media. His personal wealth has expanded alongside Axel Springer’s aggressive acquisitions, solidifying his position as a political gatekeeper. What unites Bezos, Musk, and Döpfner is not just their wealth but their willingness to bend media institutions to serve their own interests. When billionaires own the press, the free flow of information becomes a privilege granted at their discretion.

The result? The creeping oligarchization of media is not just an American problem; it is happening in Berlin as well. The only antidote is an informed and vigilant public, one that refuses to accept that a free press should come at the mercy of a handful of powerful men.

Leadership Rule #1: You Never Get Big by Making Others Small

I was always taught that good leaders praise in public and critique in private. True leadership is about elevating others, not tearing them down.

When a pathological narcissist rallies the American media to publicly humiliate a symbol of courage, they reveal the worst kind of leadership—one driven by fear, insecurity, and a desperate need to diminish anything virtuous. After all, for a narcissist, nothing is more humiliating than true moral strength.

So what’s the alternative? Surround yourself with brainless yes-men or fellow strongmen like Putin, dragging the morality of international relations down to transactional deal-making. In other words, make sure no one rises above your own incredibly low standards of leadership.

Leadership is about lifting others. Anything less is just cowardice in disguise.

Moral maturity is often misunderstood to be a natural byproduct of diversity. However, while diversity in experience and perspective can certainly enrich our understanding, it’s not the diversity of people, or their gender, that necessarily drives moral growth. This is particularly evident when a "diverse" group of executives shares essentially the same career background or mindset.

However, moral maturity is also not simply a function of diversity of thought, as I've sometimes argued in the past. In fact, moral maturity doesn’t hinge on diversity per se, but on something subtler: the number of relevant moral features we actively consider when making ethical decisions.

In business we often limit our thinking to considerations about cost-benefit analyses, weighing immediate gains against expected losses and costs. But a greater capacity for moral decision-making comes from recognizing a wider array of salient features that are "at stake" when evaluating important questions—not just immediate costs or benefits, but environmental consequences, social ramifications, deeper structural mechanisms and interdependences, and universal principles like justice, compassion or equality.

It’s this ability to perceive and engage with a diverse set of moral dimensions that leads to genuine moral creativity and solutions that are richer and more "beautiful". In fact, as Kant points out in his critique of judgment, it is often an "aesthetic idea" that allows us to leap from a narrowly defined problem, based on direct observation, to a more imaginative set of proposals that can integrate multiple principles and concepts.

In essence, moral maturity grows from the richness of the moral landscape we navigate, not merely from the diversity of subjective perspectives we encounter. While moral imagination does not eliminate the need to choose among available options, it is often the first step to a "better" decision, as patricia Werhane has shown. 

FREE PRESS = FREE MARKET? Time to Reign in Billionaire Plutocrats

Yesterday Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post and the third richest man on the planet, directly intervened for a second time in recent months in his newspaper’s coverage, undermining its editorial independence.

Bezos announced in an email to staff that he had directed the Post’s opinion editor to limit the section’s pieces only to those “in support and defense of … personal liberties and free markets”, appearing to restrict how the Post’s opinion writers can respond to the crisis in the US – and the world – brought about by Donald Trump’s second reign as president. Rather than comply with this politicised edict, the Post’s opinion editor resigned.

Since the US election, Bezos has stepped up his direct interventions in the Post’s coverage. In October, the Amazon and Blue Origin founder, who has billions of dollars at stake in government contracts, told editors at the Post to pull a planned endorsement of Kamala Harris, the first time in 30 years the newspaper’s editorial board had not endorsed a candidate.

(Betsy Reed, Editor, Guardian US)

Of course, none of this is entirely new—those who believe that most countries have a truly free press are likely mistaken. However, what is new is the direct and visible influence of unelected billionaires in shaping public opinion. As personal wealth and power become ever more concentrated, the very foundations of democratic sovereignty are being systematically eroded. This is a development that cannot be ignored or allowed to continue unchecked. In the meantime, it might be a very good idea to boycott Amazon.

The Chainsaw Massacre: How Corporate America Drifts Towards Moral Bankruptcy

In a staggering betrayal of social responsibility, corporate America is weaponising Trump's ethical implosion to systematically dismantle moral commitments. What began as plutocratic political corruption is metastasizing into a global corporate cancer—a calculated and continuous retreat from fundamental principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and environmental sustainability. Tech billionaires and Fortune 500 executives are capitalizing on the reckless dismantling of democratic structures in the US and the irresponsible global bullying by a flock of half-witted Trumpistas to consolidate power and wealth.

The evidence is damning: BlackRock's cynical abandonment of diversity metrics, Ford and Walmart's brazen rollback of inclusion programs, and the continual wholesale evisceration of sustainability commitments reveal a chilling corporate playbook. This is not evolution; this is predatory capitalism weaponizing political chaos to normalize systemic injustice. Each corporate surrender hammers another nail into the coffin of social progress, sacrificing human welfare on the altar of ever-increasing share prices.

If left unchecked, the Trump era's most pernicious legacy will not be just the undermining of democratic institutions or the ethical drift of selective multinational companies, but the permission structure it creates for corporate sociopathy and teleopathy—a business world where ethical considerations are reduced to optional performance metrics, and human dignity is just another line item to be ruthlessly bludgeoned away.

We are witnessing nothing less than a coordinated corporate coup against the very foundations of a just society, and it is time for European business leaders to stand up against this sad spectacle of moral regression! 

Wenn die Mitte des politischen Spektrums mit Populismus und Fremdenfeindlichkeit spielt, stehen wir bald wieder im Billardzimmer um halb zehn...

SELF-MANAGEMENT aims to create barriers against domination. Purple Organisations seek protection against instrumentalisation. Both may appear similar, but they are not: the former strives for freedom as an end in itself, while the latter views freedom as a means to an end. Autonomy might relate to flourishing, but this is where things get complicated...

When we start to run around calling management a "disease", we might end up barking up the wrong tree. ;-)

PS: The popular case for self-management reflects the usual anarchist claim that hierarchical power structures are unjustified and unnecessary. Just as anarchists contend that the state’s coercive authority is illegitimate because individuals can organize themselves voluntarily, proponents of self-management claim that workers can coordinate production and governance without managerial oversight. However, just as anarchism struggles with the practical necessity of political coordination to attain distributive justice, self-management encounters the challenge of maintaining coherent decision-making and accountability. The viability of "pure" self-management thus depends on the capacity of workers to internalize collective responsibility and adhere to agreed-upon norms without coercion - which of course merely internalises control rather than abolishing it. Most importantly, the existence of individuals who do not conform with peer controls (whether through opportunism, incompetence, or conflict) will immediately threaten the complete absence of coercion. Hence, unless every single worker is consistently reasonable and cooperative, some form of directive managerial control, whether decentralized, collectivist or minimal, will be inevitable. Management isn't a disease - it is simply a question of the most effective scaffolding of coordination. If workers are fully capable of self-organization, they will also be capable of recognizing when more abstract management mechanisms—akin to hierarchy—become superior to sustain larger-scale, complex businesses. That being said, the chosen coordination mechanism, ceteris paribus, reveals little about individuals' capacity to thrive or the organization's ability to create social value - or, conversely, about the risk of "bosses" to abuse their positional power. 

Foucault would remind us that power works not by silencing people, but by shaping what they think is worth saying. The more ignorance and fear dominate political discourse, the easier it becomes for powerful interests to control democratic choices—not through coercion, but through carefully managed narratives.

1️⃣ Ignorance: When voters lack access to comprehensive, critical information, they become dependent on simplified narratives. A complex world is reduced to “us vs. them,” where history, economics, and policy are replaced by slogans and scapegoats.
2️⃣ Fear: A fearful public is an easily controlled public. Fear of economic collapse, migration, crime, cultural decline—anxieties are deliberately amplified to create the illusion that only strong, decisive leaders can restore order.
3️⃣ Control: Populist parties thrive because they offer simple, emotionally charged solutions to manufactured fears. They ultimately don't challenge the system—they reinforce it by directing voter anger away from structural power and toward convenient enemies.

Ignorance + Fear = Control. Well said, Art Ames.

Power is not just about force—it’s about shaping what people believe to be true. Modern democracies don’t need outright oppression when they can manufacture consent through subtle control of knowledge and fear.

WISE LEADERSHIP – Architects of Potential

Leadership is more than authority—it’s the art of shaping possibility. Some leaders enforce rigid control, ensuring efficiency and order. Others empower individuals, creating participatory systems where autonomy thrives. Some embrace adaptability, fostering shared leadership that reacts fluidly to change. But the rarest leaders cultivate wisdom, expanding both truth and ethics to challenge old boundaries and unlock new futures.

➡️ COMMAND & CONTROL Leadership is hierarchical and directive, ensuring stability, efficiency, and rule enforcement through centralized decision-making. The organization is structured for clear authority, with employees executing predefined tasks under strict oversight.

➡️ AGILE LEADERSHIP Operational Leadership is decentralized, with decision-making distributed to enable fast, responsive adaptation to external change. Teams operate autonomously within guiding principles, focusing on iteration, customer feedback, and continuous improvement.

➡️ PARTICIPATORY LEADERSHIP Leadership is based on self-management, autonomy, and participatory decision-making within a framework of mutual accountability. Power is redistributed, reducing hierarchy while fostering fairness, empowerment, and shared governance.

➡️ WISE LEADERSHIP Leadership integrates ethical reflection, systemic awareness, and long-term impact, balancing inside-out vision with outside-in adaptability. The organization fosters deep inspiration, aligning self, others, and society in pursuit of holistic flourishing.

LEADERSHIP is inherently shaped by ideology, as it reflects underlying assumptions about reality, approaches to truth, and commitments to what is considered good. Through dialectical development, leadership evolves by deepening its grasp of truth refining its ethics, and challenging ideological boundaries. In this way, leadership fosters wisdom—the ability to choose the right ends and means amid existential ambiguity and objective uncertainty—allowing organizations to develop their potential to reduce the impediments for collective good. 

The End of Passive Morality: Why Leaders Must Act

For too long, many in Western democracies—especially on the progressive side—have embraced a passive vision of morality: live ethically, wish no harm, cultivate personal virtues, and trust that a better world will emerge. But in times of rising authoritarianism, when figures like Trump dismantle democratic institutions and reduce global cooperation to a cynical power game, moral decency alone is no longer enough.

Kant’s famous ‘flourishing man’—who does no harm but also refuses to act in the face of suffering—offers a warning. A leader who believes in democracy and human dignity cannot simply observe; they must defend these values. When the rule of law, international solidarity, and human rights are openly undermined, silence is complicity. Justice is not self-sustaining; it exists only when people are willing to fight for it.

Now is the time to reject the comfortable illusion that history naturally bends toward progress. It does not—unless we bend it ourselves.

QUESTION: What is "good" governance in modern business?

Select the option that best reflects your view on effective governance:

A. Clear and strong moral authority – Leadership is centralized, decisions are guided by strong moral principles, and authority flows from top to bottom.

B. Efficiency, expertise and tradition – Governance is structured to preserve long-standing hierarchies and good practices, while ensuring steady, incremental improvement with respect for established local cultures and systems.

C. Freedom and autonomy – Governance focuses on ensuring minimal interference with individual decisions, protecting personal freedom, and allowing for market-driven outcomes.

D. Inclusivity and fairness – Governance prioritizes equal representation, social justice, and ensuring that diverse voices and needs are considered in decision-making.

E. Community and sustainability – Governance is focused on collective, consent-based and bottom-up decision-making, ensuring long-term community well-being, and balancing social needs with environmental sustainability.

F. Collective control and equality – Governance promotes shared control, equal and wide distribution of power, and the removal of hierarchy through worker participation and public ownership.

---

Explanation:

The "goodness" of governance is relative to the values prioritized by each approach. Here’s how the criteria align with different governance paradigms:

- A aligns with objective or universal rule systems, e.g. based on religion or cosmology, where leadership is considered legitimate when it provides authoritative moral guidance and order.
- B reflects a conservative approach, valuing stability, continuity, and tradition in decision-making structures.
- C is in line with libertarianism, focusing on freedom, autonomy, and limited interference in personal or business affairs.
- D corresponds to social democracy, where fairness, inclusivity, and social justice are key in evaluating governance.
- E mirrors ecological and communitarian values, emphasizing collective well-being, sustainability, and local participation in decision-making.
- F aligns with socialism, where governance emphasizes collective control and economic equality, often through shared ownership or democratic worker participation.

In modern business, the first step in revamping governance structures is to realise which set of values or priorities are held most important and why. Each model has its strengths, and genuine "good governance” is ultimately dependent on detaching from and looking beyond the dominant ideology that is currently guiding our decisions. 

Deutschlands Einwanderungsdebatte: Wenn Ignoranz Politik macht

Europa steht vor einer demografischen Krise – ohne Migration wird die Bevölkerung drastisch schrumpfen. Deutschland könnte von 83 Millionen auf 53 Millionen Einwohner im Jahr 2100 fallen, mit dramatischen Folgen: eine überalterte Gesellschaft, wirtschaftliche Stagnation und explodierende Rentenkosten. Doch anstatt diese Herausforderung mit rationalen Maßnahmen zu begegnen, überbieten sich Politiker darin, das Land für genau jene Menschen unattraktiver zu machen, die die Wirtschaft und das Sozialsystem am Laufen halten könnten.

Viele Politiker wissen natürlich ganz genau, dass Einwanderung notwendig ist, um dem demografischen Druck entgegenzuwirken. Doch um Rechtspopulisten entgegenzutreten, setzen sie zunehmend auf restriktivere (und oft inhumane oder illegale) Asylgesetze - in der Hoffnung, dass härtere Grenzkontrollen politischen Spielraum für mehr reguläre Migration schaffen.

Kann das gutgehen? Radikale rechte Parteien wie die AfD stellen einen solchen Konsens infrage und treiben einen neofaschistischen, anti-immigrantischen Diskurs voran. Dass die CDU unter Merz sich rückgratslos diesem Kurs annähert, wirft die Frage auf: Weiß man überhaupt, was man tut?

Ein häufiges Argument gegen Migration ist natürlich Kriminalität. Doch die Zahlen sprechen eine andere Sprache: Deutschland hat eine vergleichsweise niedrige Kriminalitätsrate. 2023 wurden 154.541 Fälle gefährlicher und schwerer Körperverletzung erfasst, der Kriminalitätsindex lag 2024 bei 38,9 – deutlich besser als Frankreich (55,3) oder das Vereinigte Königreich (47,4). Zwar lag der Anteil von Asylsuchenden an Straftaten 2023 bei 18 %, doch Studien zeigen, dass demografische Faktoren wie Alter, Arbeitslosigkeit und soziale Ausgrenzung eine viel größere Rolle spielen als der Migrationsstatus an sich. Die beste Prävention gegen Kriminalität? Integration, nicht Spaltung.

Gleichzeitig zeigt sich die wirtschaftliche Realität: Allein 2022 traten über 300.000 mehr Menschen in den Ruhestand als in den Arbeitsmarkt ein, und bis 2030 könnten bis zu fünf Millionen Arbeitskräfte fehlen. Schon heute fehlen Fachkräfte in Pflege, Sozialberufen und Schlüsselindustrien – Bereiche, die auf Migration angewiesen sind. Ohne eine junge, arbeitende Bevölkerung steigen die Steuerlasten, während das Wachstum einbricht. Weniger Beschäftigte bedeuten weniger Steuerzahler und ein unfinanzierbares Sozialsystem. Kurz gesagt: Deutschland hat keine Wahl. Es muss Migration endlich aktiv gestalten, anstatt sie zu blockieren oder zu dämonisieren.

Die Ironie? Diejenigen, die aus Angst vor „Deutschlands Untergang“ gegen Migration hetzen, sind genau diejenigen, die seinen wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Niedergang beschleunigen. Wem hilft dieser politische Kurzschluss? Sicher nicht den (noch nicht pensionierten) Wählern, die am Ende mit den Konsequenzen leben müssen. 

Wahl 2025: Die Faszination des Unverantwortlichen Wählens

Die Bundestagswahl 2025 steht bevor, und erneut zeigt sich: Viele Wähler stimmen nicht für ihre eigene Zukunft, sondern gegen sie. Man könnte meinen, dass Menschen ihre Wahlentscheidung rational treffen – anhand der Programme, die ihnen und allen finanziell, sozial und gesellschaftlich nützen. Doch die Umfragen sprechen eine andere Sprache. Warum wählen so viele Bürger Parteien, deren Steuerpolitik sie ärmer macht, deren Sozialabbau ihnen schadet und deren wirtschaftspolitische Ideen auf Fantasie beruhen?

Manipulation & Politische Märchen
Die größten Gewinner dieser Wahl? Parteien, die das Märchen verkaufen, dass Steuersenkungen für die Reichen am Ende allen zugutekommen. Die größten Verlierer? Die Wähler, die darauf hereinfallen. Während hashtag#CDU, FDP und AfD Steuersenkungen von über 100 Milliarden Euro versprechen, bleibt die Frage der Finanzierung völlig offen. Wer zahlt am Ende die Zeche? Natürlich die Mittelschicht und jene, die auf öffentliche Infrastruktur und soziale Sicherung angewiesen sind. Doch dank cleverer Narrative ("Mehr Netto vom Brutto", "hashtag#Freiheit statt Sozialismus") halten sich viele für zukünftige Millionäre und wählen entsprechend.

Angst & Sündenböcke
Nichts lenkt so sehr von echten Problemen ab wie gut inszenierte Angst. Statt sich mit explodierenden Mieten, stagnierenden Löhnen oder maroder Infrastruktur zu beschäftigen, werden Wähler dazu gebracht, sich vor „Massenmigration“, „grüner Bevormundung“ oder „Genderwahn“ zu fürchten. Dabei sind es nicht Geflüchtete, sondern schlecht durchdachte Rentenreformen und Investitionsverweigerung, die Löcher in den Haushalt reißen. Doch Angst schlägt Vernunft – und so gewinnen Parteien, die Lösungen verhindern, während sie Panik schüren.

Identität Statt Rationalität
Wähler entscheiden nicht nach Zahlen, sondern nach Zugehörigkeit. Es geht nicht darum, welche Partei die besten Konzepte hat, sondern darum, wer „unsere Leute“ repräsentiert. Wer sich von linken Parteien „moralisch belehrt“ fühlt, wählt lieber gegen seine eigenen Interessen, nur um „denen da oben“ eins auszuwischen.

Das „Gewinner-Phänomen“
Viele wählen nicht nach kompetenter Analyse, sondern danach, wer als „Sieger“ wahrgenommen wird. Friedrich Merz hat nie ein Unternehmen geführt, sondern saß als Lobbyist in Aufsichtsräten – dennoch halten ihn viele für „wirtschaftskompetent“. Die hashtag#FDP hat noch nie ein Finanzierungsmodell präsentiert, das nicht mit Milliardenlöchern endete – doch sie gilt als „Partei der hashtag#Wirtschaft“. hashtag#AfD-Wähler hoffen auf eine „starke Hand“, obwohl diese Hand sie am Ende nur noch weiter in die wirtschaftliche Unsicherheit drückt.

Das Ergebnis?
Die Umfragen zur #Bundestagswahl 2025 sind kein Abbild von rationalen Entscheidungen – sie sind der Beweis dafür, dass hashtag#Demokratie nicht nur am Egoismus der Wähler scheitert, sondern vor allem an ihrer Bereitschaft, sich durch Manipulation, Angst, Identität, Wunschdenken und Unwissenheit leiten zu lassen.

FROM THE BATTLEFIELD TO THE BOARDROOM: Dismantling the Military Machine in Modern Organizations

Beneath the sleek veneer of contemporary corporate culture lies an invisible architecture of control—a paradigm forged in military strategy yet masquerading as modern management. This is not mere metaphor but a structural reality shaping how we conceptualize work, leadership, and human potential.

Corporate hierarchies mirror battlefield command chains: CEOs as generals, managers as officers, employees as units executing orders. The Prussian military’s Auftragstaktik—decentralized execution within rigid top-down control—resurfaces in today’s OKRs, agile methodologies, and KPI-driven accountability. Business language betrays its martial roots: “tactical execution,” “mission-critical objectives,” “frontline teams,” and “chain of command.” Performance reviews resemble battlefield debriefs, while leadership doctrine glorifies decisiveness, operational discipline, and competitive elimination.

The result? A system designed for control, not collaboration—mistaking coordination for creativity, efficiency for wisdom.

The militaristic model is not just outdated—it is actively harmful. It stifles innovation, alienates talent, and breeds fear-driven compliance. Employees are not soldiers executing commands; they are creative agents, capable of autonomy and adaptive problem-solving. Yet organizations continue to rely on industrial-era command-and-control frameworks in an age demanding agility, complexity-thinking, and co-creation.

The alternative is not anarchic dissolution, but a sophisticated reimagining of organizational governance. Instead of command structures, we need systems that distribute intelligence. Instead of rigid hierarchies, we need adaptive networks that amplify human potential. Success must be measured through holistic, multi-dimensional metrics of value creation—not just economic output, but social impact, collective well-being, and ethical sustainability.

At some point, organizations clinging to militarized management will be outmaneuvered by democratic, intelligence-distributing entities that recognize human potential as their greatest potential. The future of work is not about winning battles—it is about building ecosystems where collaboration thrives.

It is time to demilitarize our institutions and design organizations for human flourishing. 

Wirtschaftskompetenz oder Wunschdenken? Die absurde Debatte vor der Bundestagswahl

Die Wirtschaft dominiert die Wahlkampfdebatten – aber warum eigentlich? Wirtschaftswachstum wird als Allheilmittel gehandelt, doch kaum jemand hinterfragt, welches Wachstum überhaupt gemeint ist. Nachhaltiges Wachstum, das langfristig Wohlstand für alle sichert? Oder ein blindes Fixieren auf das BIP, bei dem nur wenige profitieren und die Umwelt leidet? Während andere Länder die wirtschaftliche Validität von Gesetzen systematisch prüfen, bleibt Deutschland in ideologischen Grabenkämpfen stecken. Und noch absurder: Viele Wähler interessieren sich nicht einmal für die Fakten in den Wahlprogrammen.

CDU, FDP und AfD versprechen massive Steuersenkungen – über 180 Milliarden Euro Mindereinnahmen allein bei der AfD –, ohne auch nur ansatzweise zu erklären, wie das finanziert werden soll. Das DIW warnt: Diese Versprechen sind wirtschaftlich utopisch. Gleichzeitig verkauft sich Friedrich Merz als wirtschaftlicher Kompetenzträger, obwohl er weder jemals eine Partei noch ein Unternehmen geführt hat, sondern nur als Lobbyist auf gut bezahlten Aufsichtsratsposten saß. Und während die Schuldenbremse dringend notwendige Investitionen blockiert und die Rentenbombe tickt, drehen sich die Debatten weiter um leere Versprechen statt um durchdachte Lösungen. Wirtschaftskompetenz? Fehlanzeige.

WHEN DEMOCRACY STARTS FLATLINING (or: Would You (Really) Choose a Surgeon This Way?)

Imagine this: your beloved daughter needs urgent heart surgery. Her life hangs in the balance, and you’re tasked with choosing the surgeon. Six surgeons stand before you, each proposing a completely different intervention. Some have stellar reputations, others are unknown quantities, and one seems to have no medical training at all but a charming smile and a great sense of humour. The stakes? Her life, her future.

Now, how do you choose? Do you carefully examine their credentials, compare their approaches, and weigh their expertise? Would you do personal interviews? Or do you simply go with the surgeon you’ve known for 50 years from the Rotary Club or the same soccer team?

Perhaps you just follow a gut feeling—after all, what matters most is that they seem to be a decent person, right?

If you made your decision that way, would you sleep soundly at night? Would you feel responsible if something went wrong? And let’s flip it around: if your daughter were asked to pick a heart surgeon for you, would you expect her to use the same casual criteria? Or would you want her to pore over every detail, consult experts, compare approaches, and thoroughly examine each candidate’s competence and track record before making a choice?

This is where democracy enters the operating room. Your vote is at the core of a democratic society, and it affects more than just your own life—it affects the entire country and future generations. Yet, many people seem to believe that the responsibility of a voter is merely to show up at the ballot box and pick a leader based on vague character assessments or personal liking. No need to scrutinize qualifications, evaluate policies, or weigh competing visions for the future —we just choose whoever “feels right.”

But if we wouldn't choose our daughter's heart surgeon this way, why do we feel entitled to select our national leaders like this? Do we believe the future of our country is less important? Is it really too hard to find information or too much effort to do the research? Really?!

The irony is glaring. The people we elect are entrusted with operating the pulsating heart of our society. Their decisions will shape economies, laws, and global stability for generations. We wouldn’t dream of entrusting our daughter’s life to someone chosen on a whim, yet we entrust our children’s futures to leaders selected with even less thought.

This is where democracy starts looking less like a noble exercise in collective wisdom and more like what forethinkers of democracy like Alexis de Tocqueville feared: the tyranny of a "dumb totalitarian majority."

Perhaps it’s time to stop treating democracy as a glorified popularity contest and start applying the same critical thinking we would demand for any other important life decision. Because unlike heart surgery, when democracy fails, we don’t just lose one life—we gamble away our future.

DEMOCRACY IS NOT A SUPERMARKET

Too often, we seem to conceptualize political participation as a trip to the supermarket—strolling in with a shopping cart, expecting to pick up a bag of services (such as property rights, public order, national security) paid for by our taxes, ideally at a discount. But this reductive "supermarket model" of democracy strips away the rich, nuanced fabric of collaborative self-governance.

Instead, democracy should function more like a dynamic platform where citizens are not consumers, but co-creators of social potential. It's a space where public services aren't commodities to be bought and sold, but shared investments in our collective human capability. Taxation becomes not a burden, but a meaningful subscription to our shared social infrastructure—a commitment to creating opportunities for everyone.

That absolutely doesn’t mean services should be inefficient or that the state should provide an unlimited list of benefits. But the platform model recognizes that genuine freedom transcends the mere absence of interference—it’s about constructing real pathways for meaningful participation and shared prosperity, especially for those most marginalized. In this model, every policy represents a collective promise, not just a tool for self-interested competition, and every citizen becomes an essential contributor to the ongoing project of mutual social development.

By challenging the neoliberal vision of the minimal "night-watch" state, we reimagine government not as a reluctant service provider, but as an active ecosystem that nurtures individual and collective potential. It’s a vision that aligns with the idea that a just society must ensure that every citizen can flourish—a perspective that goes beyond merely protecting against harm to actively creating the conditions for a good life. Generous reciprocity, not narrow self-interest, becomes the foundational covenant of citizenship.

Crucially, this model demands more from us—not just rights, but responsibilities. We must engage continuously, think critically, and hold our institutions and each other accountable. We are not passive shoppers selecting pre-packaged political products; we are active architects of our shared social reality.

Too often, populist parties promise that a supermarket model will somehow deliver the benefits of the platform—insisting that unfettered markets and minimal government will naturally result in shared prosperity. In reality, leaving social well-being to the whims of competition and individual self-interest has never produced a meaningful "trickle-down" effect. Instead, it has consistently fueled deepening inequality, stalled social mobility, and eroded public trust.

The choice seems clear: we can remain consumers in a transactional political marketplace, or try to become true co-owners of our democratic enterprise, continuously building, challenging, and reimagining our collective future.

Link to the extensive discussion:  https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ottivogt_ai-climate-democracy-activity-7294348446012964864-Xr24?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAABm1WMBiwxFaUc1X66gje88odJOEyNAskc 

Business Ethics: From Moral Imagination to Moral Inspiration

In the labyrinth of corporate decision-making, where ethical choices often get lost in spreadsheets and quarterly reports, a provocative question emerges: Can we transform business ethics from a compliance checklist to a radical act of moral creativity?

Approaches like Patricia Werhane's moral imagination suggest that ethical failures stem from cognitive blindness—executives are trapped in narrow mental frameworks, unable to see alternative paths. Her intriguing model proposes to expand perspective through systematic cognitive liberation: first disengaging from ingrained scripts, then imaginatively generating new options, evaluating them against agreed moral minimums, and committing to principled action.

However, the approach has several limitations. It primarily views ethical failures as issues of mindset rather than deeper structural problems. It attempts to resolve dilemmas through stakeholder perspective-taking but lacks a clear framework for moral deliberation. Additionally, it risks offering convenient justifications for corporate wrongdoing by shifting focus from individual responsibility to a constraining organizational culture.

An alternative model—drawing from critical realism and dialectics—could enable a more radical transformation. Rather than incrementally improving difficult decisions, "moral inspiration" could help to fundamentally redesign the ethical architecture of organizational decision-making.

1. Our four-step approach begins with moral attachment—not detachment. Instead of viewing ethics as an abstract intellectual exercise, we demand proximity. Executives must feel the visceral impact of their decisions, bridging the chasm between boardroom abstractions and community realities. Good leadership requires care.

2. Next, we focus on eliminating structural obstacles—identifying and dismantling systemic injustices rather than merely generating more choices. This isn't about incrementally improving an inherently flawed system, but exposing and transforming its fundamental contradictions.

3. The third step localizes ethical ideals, moving beyond generic moral minimums or universal moral codes to context-specific excellence. Here, within a particular ecosystem, we're not just splitting the pie more fairly, but reimagining what the pie could be—a profound shift from transactional to transformative ethics.

4. Finally, we suggest to embrace ethics as an ongoing, dynamic process. Moral becoming isn't about reaching a fixed endpoint, but cultivating perpetual ethical reflexivity.

This approach transforms business leaders from compliance managers to moral architects—individuals capable of not just navigating ethical challenges, but fundamentally redesigning the terrain of possibility.

The future of business ethics might not be merely about imagining better means, but about a more radical, compassionate quest to inspire better ends. 

Why Does Jesus Look Like a White European?

For centuries, people have painted Jesus in their own image—Greeks made him look like Zeus, Renaissance artists gave him European features, and colonial powers used his whiteness to justify empire. The most widely reproduced Jesus today? A 1940s commercial illustration by Warner Sallman, mass-marketed like a brand.

But the historical Jesus? A brown-skinned Middle Eastern Jew.

So why does the white Jesus persist? Because images shape power. A Eurocentric Christ reinforced racial hierarchies, just as colonial missionaries spread a European version of faith. Even today, media still defaults to white depictions.

Representation matters. Who benefits when Jesus looks more like a European king than a radical Middle Eastern prophet?

When Sympathy Fails: The Troubling Ethics of Adam Smith

Adam Smith's "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" has long been hailed as a foundational text in moral philosophy, especially among Anglo-Saxon thinkers. However, a closer examination of this work reveals a framework rife with inconsistencies, a superficial grasp of ethical principles, and a troubling tendency to rationalize existing social hierarchies.

At the heart of Smith's theory lies the concept of "sympathy," which he posits as the basis for moral judgment. Yet, his reliance on the "impartial" or "indifferent" spectator as the arbiter of ethics is inherently circular, without resolving the deeper question of moral normativity. Worse still, Smith's attempts to reconcile virtue ethics with the emerging market logic leads to a morality that is, at best, merely prudential and, at worst, a mere justification of social conformity.

* Smith's emphasis on emotional restraint ("pain never calls for lively sympathy") illustrates a deep ambivalence about human suffering, going so far as to suggest that even mild annoyance is "improper" and a "rudeness to the whole company." Prioritizing social decorum over emotional honesty, psychological well-being, or physical suffering stands in stark contrast to contemporary values.

* Smith's reflections on justice contain equally unsettling implications. His assertion that public shame is a fate worse than death, and his description of remorse as being driven by fear of social rejection rather than a sense of intrinsic wrongdoing, reduce morality to a mere matter of external judgment rather than ethical reflection.

* Also troubling is Smith's apparent justification of social stratification. While acknowledging that the "admiration" of the rich and powerful is a "great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments," he nonetheless deems it necessary for maintaining social order.

* The treatment of historical moral practices further exposes a troubling moral relativism. His lack of moral condemnation of infanticide in ancient Greece starkly contrast with modern principles of human dignity and the sanctity of life.

* Finally, Smith's discussion of patriotism and treachery underscores an uncritical valorization of national loyalty, failing to account for situations in which opposing one's country might be the morally superior course of action – a perspective well recognized in contemporary political and ethical thought.

The Anglo-Saxon philosophical infatuation with Smith appears to stem more from ideological convenience than from a careful engagement with his work. If scholars delved deeper into "The Theory of Moral Sentiments," they might notice how Smith's moral theory dissolves often into a rather uncritical affirmation of the Victorian gentleman, rather than offering a robust ethical foundation. The critical re-examination of a revered text is long overdue, as many seek to re-interpret his Wealth of Nations in more ethical terms.

Dialectics of Autonomy vs. Control and the Potential Myopia of Self-Managed Organisations

Many self-managed organizations (SMOs), in their sometimes religious pursuit of autonomy, miss a deeper, more transformative opportunity offered by the dialectical relationship between autonomy and control. In the quest to decentralize decision-making and purge traditional managerial structures, these organizations often embrace *autonomy* as an end goal, without recognizing the underlying dynamics at play.

It has become fashionable to approach organizational challenges either as paradoxes that have to be contained appropriately by management or as questions of ideological battles—but both approaches can limit the possibility of genuine transformation.

We end up trying to either sugar coat hierarchical domination or embark on a crusade for total self-management. But neither strategy resolves the dichotomy - even when organizations fervently declare themselves liberated, they are still bound by the structural paradox, even if it’s self-imposed.

Here’s the crux: autonomy, when overemphasized in a self-managed system, will end up as just another form of (self-)control. A system that prides itself on autonomy will create rigid frameworks around "templated" individual freedom and "ideal" employees, where the pressure to "perform autonomy correctly" can crowd out the very essence of deeper dialectical development. In effect, autonomy itself becomes reified—a static ideal that prevents the organization from evolving beyond its own categories of "autonomous" and "controlled."

True organizational transformation—pointing to a dialectical sublation—requires us to move beyond choosing one pole over or "navigating paradoxes"; it's about recognizing that both poles are interdependent and, in their sublation, create something new, in service of the elevation of the Organisational spirit. To sublate a paradox is to integrate and transcend the limitations of both autonomy and control, freedom and order, allowing for a dynamic, evolving process that supports human development and flourishing in ways neither of the poles could alone.

This means that instead of rigidly adhering to autonomy as a goal or striving to eliminate management structures, organizations should embrace the tensions inherent in the relationship between autonomy and control. By doing so, they can create environments that allow for a space where individuals and teams flourish not because they are “free” from control, but because they are actively engaged in processes that integrate freedom, responsibility, and collective decision-making.

In other words: genuine transformation in organizations is not necessarily about avoiding management or abolishing hierarchy, but about transcending these categories to allow the organization to evolve and adapt in ways that are meaningful, collaborative, and sustainable to create new spaces for true human flourishing.

The true strength of a nation is not measured by the wealth of its tech moguls, the rise of its stock markets, or its triumphs in space.

It is revealed in how it treats its most vulnerable—the homeless, the sick, the immigrants—because the greatness of a society lies not in how it lifts the powerful, but in how it elevates those who have fallen the furthest.

THE DEMOCRACY WE DESERVE: When Citizens Fail the Demos, Democracy Fails Us

We live in an age where democracy is celebrated, yet the very essence of democratic participation — voting — remains shrouded in mystery, manipulation, and neglect.

Samuel Adams once warned that voting is "one of the most solemn trusts in human society," a responsibility that citizens must uphold for the good of the nation. Yet, in modern democracies, we're left to navigate the voting process without proper guidance, teaching, or preparation. Instead, we’re inundated by an industry of pundits, analysts, and strategists who thrive on observing, explaining, and, increasingly, manipulating voting behaviour.

It’s as if we expect voters to instinctively know how to fulfill their civic duty, but without the necessary public sphere, transparency, tools or institutions to ensure informed, reasoned decisions. No wonder many elections feel less like genuine exercises in democratic choice and more like theatrical performances designed to coax voters down a seductive, ideological pathway serving special interests. In a world where political parties are driven to serve narrow clienteles rather than the common good, and where voters feel powerless and disengaged, it's no surprise that democracy is faltering.

If we truly value democracy, we need to invest in the institutions that promote its health — and that means teaching voters how to engage with the process thoughtfully. Democracy isn't just about showing up to the polls; it's about empowering people to make decisions that reflect the collective well-being, not just the whims of a few.

Until then, we risk perpetuating a spectacular charade that bears little resemblance to the democracy Adams envisioned, yet echoes the very corruption of "democracy" that Aristotle warned about, when he described it as the deviant form of a good political system.

Friedrich Merz: Der Kanzlerkandidat der Großkonzerne

Friedrich Merz ist ein Sonderfall in der deutschen Politik. Während viele Politiker nach ihrer Amtszeit in hochdotierte Industriejobs wechseln, geht Merz den umgekehrten Weg: vom Top-Lobbyisten und Konzernanwalt zum Kanzler. Doch was bedeutet das für Deutschland? Welche Interessen wird er vertreten? Die Recherchen von CORRECTIV werfen ein grelles Licht auf sein Netzwerk in der Industrie und zeigen, wie eng seine Verbindungen zu Chemie- und Metallunternehmen sind.

Ein Leben für die Großindustrie
Merz war nicht einfach nur ein Wirtschaftsanwalt. Er war eine Schüsselfigur in der Kanzlei Mayer Brown, die BASF und andere DAX-Konzerne beriet und gegen regulatorische Maßnahmen kämpfte. Seine enge Verbindung zu BASF begann bereits in den frühen Jahren seiner Karriere, als er für den Verband der Chemischen Industrie arbeitete. Später saß er im Verwaltungsrat von BASF Antwerpen, und als Aufsichtsratschef von Blackrock Deutschland war er indirekt an einem der größten Investoren des Chemieriesen beteiligt.
Diese Verbindungen sind nicht nur besorgniserregend, sondern hochbrisant: Mayer Brown klagte erfolgreich gegen Verbote von gesundheitsschädlichen Chemikalien, BASF gehört zu den größten Energieverbrauchern Europas, und Blackrock beeinflusst als mächtiger Vermögensverwalter politische Prozesse weltweit. Merz steht damit an der Schnittstelle eines Netzwerks, das politische Entscheidungsprozesse im Sinne der Konzerne gestalten könnte.

Die CDU und das Lobbydrehbuch
Besonders alarmierend ist die Tatsache, dass das CDU-Wahlprogramm in Teilen wortgenau mit den Forderungen der Chemie- und Metallindustrie übereinstimmt. Ist die CDU unter Merz noch eine Partei des Volkes oder längst eine Interessenvertretung der Konzerne?
Die Energie- und Klimapolitik ist ein Beispiel dafür. Während Wissenschaftler warnen, dass der Umbau der Industrie zu einer nachhaltigen Wirtschaft dringlich ist, setzt Merz auf eine Politik, die den Großkonzernen maximale Freiheit lässt. Das bedeutet: weniger Regulierung, weniger Umweltauflagen und ein Minimum an sozialer Verantwortung.

Was bedeutet das für Deutschland?
Friedrich Merz verkörpert wie kein anderer den Schulterschluss zwischen Wirtschaft und Politik. Er ist kein Kanzler für alle, sondern ein Kanzler der Großunternehmen. Wenn Merz Kanzler wird, folgt eine Politik, die die Interessen von DAX-Konzernen über die der Bevölkerung stellt. Mindestlohn, Umweltauflagen, soziale Sicherheit – all das wird dem Profit untergeordnet.

Deutschland steckt zwar in einer wirtschaftlichen Krise, aber unverhohlene Klientelpolitik ist beiweitem nicht dasselbe wie richtungsweisende Entscheidungen.

CORRECTIV: https://lnkd.in/eWTewYWa

GERMANS ARE WORLD CHAMPIONS OF CALLING IN SICK: It’s easy and it pays well

Germany has historically been a pioneer in workers' health rights, with Otto von Bismarck introducing the first statutory health insurance in 1883, including paid sick leave. While this laid the foundation for the welfare state, today's German employers argue the system has become a liability. German workers average 15 sick days annually, nearly double the EU average, costing businesses €76.7bn in 2023—a significant rise since 2010.

Generous benefits—100% pay for up to six weeks from day one of illness—are thought to incentivize higher absenteeism compared to stricter systems like Britain’s. Recent changes, such as allowing electronic sick certificates, may have further increased sick days. Employers like Oliver Bäte of Allianz and Ola Källenius of Mercedes have called for reforms, including a "waiting day" without pay, to curb rising costs. Experts argue that while reforms could reduce abuse, measures like partial sick leave, improved workplace hygiene, and better occupational safety might balance worker recovery needs with economic demands. Achieving this balance, the Economist suggests, remains a key challenge for policymakers.

Read here: https://lnkd.in/d59hkZ6N

There is undoubtedly an issue, but much of the debate seems to focus narrowly on individual behavior and sick leave policies, barely scratching the surface of deeper systemic problems such as exploitative workplace structures, rising inequality, and the uninspiring nature of many jobs—factors that may be the real drivers of absenteeism and worker dissatisfaction. Companies like BMW illustrate that better employment conditions can lead to lower sickness rates, while movements like B Corps are highlighting the need for a broader conversation about building a truly sustainable economy. 

Wie die Schuldenbremse der Alten die Jungen ausbremst

Deutschland präsentiert sich gerne als Ausnahme in der internationalen Wirtschaftslandschaft: eine starke Exportnation, solide Finanzen und eine niedrige Verschuldungsquote. Doch dieser Stolz auf die „Schwarze Null“ und die Schuldenbremse, die seit 2009 in der Verfassung verankert ist, verdeckt eine beunruhigende Wahrheit: Dieses Modell bremst nicht nur dringend notwendige Investitionen in die Zukunft aus, sondern belastet junge und kommende Generationen zugunsten der heutigen Rentner.

* Die Schuldenbremse begrenzt die Neuverschuldung von Bund und Ländern drastisch. Bereiche wie Bildung, Digitalisierung, Infrastruktur und Klimaschutz bleiben massiv unterfinanziert. Diese Investitionen wären entscheidend, um die wirtschaftliche Dynamik zu sichern und den Übergang zu einer nachhaltigen Wirtschaft zu ermöglichen.

* Gleichzeitig steigt die Belastung durch Renten- und Sozialausgaben stetig. Deutschlands Bevölkerung altert rapide, und die Verpflichtungen gegenüber der heutigen Rentnergeneration wachsen. Ohne eine entschlossene Reform des Rentensystems werden diese Ausgaben bald einen Großteil des Haushalts verschlingen. Dies führt zu einer stillen, aber gewaltigen Umverteilung von den jungen Generationen hin zu den Älteren.

* Deutschland profitiert zwar von hohen Handelsüberschüssen, die kurzfristig fiskalischen Spielraum schaffen. Doch diese Überschüsse verschleiern die strukturellen Probleme: Sie fördern die Abhängigkeit von externen Märkten, während die Binnenwirtschaft und der infrastrukturelle Fortschritt stagnieren. Mit anderen Worten: Die Einnahmen aus dem Export dienen nicht dazu, die Zukunft zu gestalten, sondern finanzieren indirekt den Status quo.

Die Schuldenbremse hat de facto eine Form der versteckten Umverteilung geschaffen: Statt Schulden für produktive Investitionen aufzunehmen, übertragen wir die wahren Kosten auf die Jüngeren – durch veraltete Infrastruktur, unzureichende Klimamaßnahmen und ein Rentensystem, das nicht nachhaltig ist.

Ein Umdenken ist notwendig, um die Schuldenbremse an die Realitäten des 21. Jahrhunderts anzupassen:
* Reform des Rentensystems: Eine Anhebung des Renteneintrittsalters, gekoppelt mit einem flexibleren System, das Teilzeitarbeit im Alter ermöglicht.
* Gezielte Investitionen: Schaffung eines Sonderbudgets für Zukunftsinvestitionen, das von der Schuldenbremse ausgenommen ist.
* Nachhaltige Fiskalpolitik: Ein klarer Rahmen, der Sozialausgaben und Investitionen ins Gleichgewicht bringt.
* Generationenvertrag erneuern: Ein gesellschaftlicher Konsens darüber, wie Belastungen und Chancen zwischen Jung und Alt fair verteilt werden können.

Ohne eine drastische Kurskorrektur droht eine langfristige Verschärfung der intergenerationellen Ungleichheit. Leider zeigt der Blick auf die Programme, dass die meisten Parteien entschlossen sind, weiterhin ausschließlich die Interessen ihrer alternden Stammklientel zu bedienen. 

THE IMMORALITY OF CARBON PRICING

Imagine a courtroom with a jury composed of some of the greatest ethical traditions of humanity: utilitarianism, deontology, virtue and care ethics, contractarianism, dialogue ethics, Christian teaching, and Buddhism. They are summoned to scrutinize the morality of carbon pricing – a mechanism that ostensibly puts a dollar value on the devastating global impacts of climate change.

Utilitarianism: Calculated Injustice
For utilitarians, morality hinges on maximizing happiness or minimizing suffering for the greatest number. Carbon pricing is a system that tacitly accepts increased suffering of the many for the comfort of the privileged few.
Verdict: Immoral

Deontology: A Betrayal of Duty
Deontological ethics demands adherence to universal principles like fairness and human dignity. Carbon pricing violates the duty to treat people as ends in themselves, by allowing wealthy, high-emitting nations to perpetuate harm while masking it as "responsible policy."
Verdict: Immoral

Virtue Ethics: A Failure of Character
Carbon pricing demonstrates arrogance, a lack of compassion, and a disregard for justice. It prioritizes technocratic solutions over moral leadership, sidelining the voices and needs of the most vulnerable.
Verdict: Immoral

Care Ethics: Neglecting the Vulnerable
Carbon pricing, with its cold, transactional nature, fails to acknowledge the lived realities of those who suffer most from climate change. Its proponents sit far removed from the communities devastated by rising seas and strengthened storms.
Verdict: Immoral

Contractarianism: No Fair Agreement
Would the Global South—low-emitting, climate-vulnerable nations—agree to a social contract that prices their suffering at a fraction of that in wealthier nations? Never. Carbon pricing imposes a fundamentally unjust contract on those least able to resist.
Verdict: Immoral

Dialogic Ethics: The Silence of the Excluded
Carbon pricing excludes the most affected voices from rational discourse: small island nations, subsistence farmers, and coastal communities. The policy's legitimacy collapses without their equal participation.
Verdict: Immoral

Christian Teaching: Failing the Poor and Creation
Carbon pricing commodifies God's creation and sacrifices the marginalized for market efficiency, betraying both human dignity and ecological stewardship.
Verdict: Immoral

Buddhism: Ignoring Interdependence
Carbon pricing's transactional logic severs the sacred web connecting humanity and nature, privileging profit over harmonious coexistence. It fuels attachment to material gain, perpetuating suffering.
Verdict: Immoral

The verdict is unanimous. Carbon pricing, conceived by cynical Western scientists, prioritizes market efficiency over justice, fails to respect the dignity of those most affected, and excludes vulnerable communities from decision-making. The time has come to seek better solutions rooted in true justice, compassion, and ecological harmony. 

THE MYTH OF THE OXYGEN MASK AND THE LOGIC OF GIFT

The oxygen mask metaphor has become a ubiquitous mantra in the self-care movement: “Put on your own mask first before helping others.” At first glance, it seems practical and empowering – after all, how can we help those around us if we're running on empty? But beneath the metaphor lies an implicit worldview that deserves closer scrutiny.

At the heart of the metaphor lies the assumption that we are self-sufficient individuals, capable of thriving in splendid isolation. It frames giving as a secondary act, something we can only engage in once we've "recharged" ourselves with something external and material, such as oxygen. But such a prescription may do more harm than good, further exacerbating the very issues it seeks to address:

* Health, as it turns out, is not merely a matter of personal resources but a reflection of the quality of our connections; it’s about engaging in relationships that nourish and sustain. Outside of acute emergencies, much of our suffering stems not from a lack of oxygen but from disconnection, alienation, and damaged relationships.

* By portraying giving as a unilateral transfer of resources that depletes the giver, the oxygen mask metaphor reduces the act of care to a mere transaction. But true giving, as philosophers and psychologists have long recognized, is a reciprocal and nourishing process – one that enriches both the giver and the receiver.

The distinction between "donation" and "gift" illustrates this point: while a donation is a one-way transfer of an object, a gift is born from a relational exchange, an openness to "become with" others, in a shared context of mutual care. It is an expression of connection and friendship that enriches both parties, independent of the object.

The seductive simplicity of the oxygen mask metaphor offers a clear, individualistic solution to a complex, interdependent problem. Real life, it turns out, is messier. Think about a healthy ecosystem, where every part contributes to and depends on the others; plants don’t thrive by hoarding sunlight for themselves. Likewise, human happiness seems much be closely tied to our capacity to reciprocate.

Hence, rather than asking whether we are ready to give, we should ask whether our relationships are strong enough to sustain both giving and receiving. If we find ourselves feeling drained by our relationships, it may be time to reflect on our ability to nurture them or to assess whether those relationships truly align with our well-being.

In an emergency, grab your oxygen mask. Beyond such moments, it’s worth looking deeper. Giving is not a one-sided, draining act but a nourishing exchange, rooted in our shared humanity. Our individual well-being is inseparably tied to the flourishing of our communities, urging us to build relational structures and cultivate virtues that empower us to give meaningfully—both as individuals and as a society. 

Die CDU und die Schuldenbremse: Ein Trojanisches Pferd für die Finanzelite?

Unter dem Deckmantel fiskalischer Verantwortung wird die sogenannte "Schuldenbremse", die unter Führung Angela Merkels 2009 im Grundgesetz verankert wurde, oft als Maßnahme zur Sicherung der wirtschaftlichen Stabilität gepriesen - während sie in Wirklichkeit private Finanzinstitutionen auf Kosten des Gemeinwohls stärkt.

Die restriktiven Obergrenzen der Schuldenbremse für öffentliche Kredite haben die Fähigkeit der Regierung, die Wirtschaft in Krisenzeiten anzukurbeln – eine entscheidende Funktion verantwortungsvoller Fiskalpolitik - erheblich eingeschränkt. Dies hat eine gefährliche Abhängigkeit von den privaten Kreditmärkten geschaffen, was es den Finanzinstitutionen ermöglicht, kräftig von den Notwendigkeiten der öffentlichen Hand in Bezug auf Investitionen und wirtschaftliche Unterstützung zu profitieren.

Die politische Rhetorik rund um die Schuldenbremse, die auf dem mythologischen Tropus der „Schwäbischen Hausfrau“ einer sparsamen Austerität basiert, hat die komplexen Realitäten moderner Volkswirtschaften verschleiert. Indem sie sich auf emotionale Sentimente des fiskalischen Konservatismus stützt, hat insbesondere die CDU es verstanden, diese Politik als gesunden Menschenverstand zu verkaufen, während sie geschickt die unverhältnismäßigen Vorteile für die Finanzwelt übersieht.

Da öffentliche Investitionen durch die Schuldenbremse zurückgehen, sind private Finanzakteure eingesprungen, um die Lücke zu füllen – oft durch die Privatisierung öffentlicher Vermögenswerte und Infrastrukturen. Dies hat Banken, Private-Equity-Firmen und Investmentfonds die Möglichkeit gegeben, von lukrativen Public-Private-Partnerships zu profitieren und ihre Einflussnahme auf die Wirtschaft weiter zu festigen.

Die prozyklische Natur der Schuldenbremse hat diesen Trend noch verstärkt, da Krisen zu einer Zunahme privater Verschuldung und der Inflation von Vermögenswerten führen – beides bietet den Finanzinstitutionen reichlich Gelegenheit, Gewinne zu erzielen. Das daraus resultierende Verschwinden öffentlicher Investitionen und die Ausweitung der privaten Märkte haben das Machtverhältnis zunehmend von demokratischer Kontrolle hin zu den Gewinninteressen des Finanzsektors verschoben.

Diese besorgniserregende Dynamik wirft fundamentale Fragen zur Prioritäten auf: Ist die Schuldenbremse ein gut gemeintes Instrument zur Sicherstellung der fiskalischen Verantwortung, oder handelt es sich um ein sorgfältig konstruiertes Rahmenwerk, das darauf abzielt, die Dominanz privater Finanzinvestoren auf Kosten des Gemeinwohls zu festigen?

Die Umstaende deuten auf Letzteres hin: Friedrich Merz hat eine höchst fragwürdige Vorgeschichte in der Lobbyarbeit für große Finanz- und Wirtschaftsinteressen, einschließlich seiner Führungsrolle im Wirtschaftsrat der CDU, einer Lobbyorganisation pro Wirtschaft, sowie seiner engen Verbindungen zu großen Finanzinstituten wie BlackRock. 

The Shameless Chancellor: Warburg Bank, Cum-Ex, and the Stain on Scholz's Credibility

In a country that prides itself on transparency and the rule of law, the shadow cast by Warburg Bank over Germany's financial integrity is a damning indictment of the selective memory of its political elite. As Germans prepare to vote in the upcoming elections, it’s time to confront the uncomfortable truths that their "möchtegern" chancellor, Olaf Scholz—who proudly touts his "Haltung"—has conveniently chosen to forget.

Warburg Bank's history is a sordid tale that offers plenty of doubt about financial manipulation and tax evasion on a grand scale. Under the leadership of Siegmund Warburg, the bank spearheaded the Eurobond market, a financial instrument which, as Ann Pettifor points out, was designed to exploit regulatory loopholes and enable corporations to bypass national taxation and oversight. What was hailed as financial innovation was, in reality, the creation of a system that prioritized profit over the public good, setting the stage for decades of tax arbitrage.

The Cum-Ex scandal, in which Warburg Bank and its leadership were deeply implicated, represents the pinnacle of this audacious scheme to defraud taxpayers. By manipulating dividend payouts and tax refund claims, the bank and its cohorts robbed the public coffers of billions. When Hamburg tax authorities decided not to pursue €47 million owed by Warburg, suspicions arose about undue political influence.

Meanwhile, Olaf Scholz, the current chancellor and a current contender for the country's top job, insisted to have conveniently forgotten the stain of Warburg Bank's activities. His meetings with bank representatives during critical moments have drawn scrutiny but no clarity, leaving the public to wonder what influence these financial elites wielded over the political process.

Adding insult to injury, the legal system's failure to deliver justice is exemplified by the case of Christian Olearius, the former head of Warburg Bank. His trial for Cum-Ex-related crimes was conveniently abandoned due to "health issues," a mockery of the very principles of accountability and equal justice under the law.

This is not about dredging up the past for the sake of drama – it is about holding power to account. Warburg Bank's history offers a case study in how financial elites exploit the system, leaving ordinary taxpayers to foot the bill. Germany deserves leaders who confront these truths, not those who look the other way.

As Germans head to the polls, it is time to demand answers and accountability, lest the sins of the past be repeated in the future. The Warburg Bank scandal is a stark reminder that the pursuit of truth and justice must take precedence over the preservation of political legacies. It is unacceptable that so many doubts remain over the billions stolen from the public, the justice denied, and the political connections that shield the powerful from accountability. 

THE WORKER AS THE CRIMINAL: Flaws in Modern Performance Management

In the sterile confines of the corporate office and the grim halls of the courthouse, two parallel systems of control quietly shape the lives of individuals. One judges the "criminal," the other the "employee" - both reduced to constructed narratives, their complex realities distilled into binary outcomes of punishment or reward. Criminal justice and performance management may seem worlds apart, but they share a troubling kinship, rooted in the myth of individual freedom and the mechanisms of social control that uphold an exploitative hierarchy of power.

At the heart of both frameworks lies the Kantian assumption of the autonomous, rational subject - the criminal who must be held responsible for their misdeeds, the worker who must be accountable for their outputs. There is a striking similarity between what Alan Norrie calls the "penal equation" of retributive justice—"crime + responsibility = punishment" and conventional performance management formulas, where "performance + accountability = rewards/punishments."

Yet, in both cases the veneer of individual agency obscures the structural forces that truly govern our fates. Just as the criminal justice system ignores the socio-economic conditions that shape criminal behaviour, performance management overlooks the workplace inequalities and systemic forces that constrain employee success. In both domains, a myth of meritocracy is installed to provide legitimacy-"freedom" becomes a tool of social control, framing systemic failures as personal shortcomings. Both criminal justice and performance management present themselves as neutral arbiters of fairness, yet their outcomes disproportionately favour those with structural advantages.

The parallels deepen as we examine the vocabularies: rehabilitation, reform, development plans, coaching - these euphemisms conceal the coercive nature of procedures, cloaking surveillance and conformity under the guise of empowerment and progress. Both systems rely on the internalization of control, compelling individuals to monitor their own actions, aligning them with societal norms or corporate KPIs. Measurable outputs and individual accountability become the yardsticks by which worth is determined, legitimizing existing power structures and marginalizing the “underclass”.

To truly transform these systems, we must recognise that there cannot be retributive justice within a distributionally unjust system. Ultimately, true justice and empowerment lie not in the management of the individual, but in the reconfiguration of the systems that govern our lives. Rather than extrinsic rewards and punishments, which sustain the status quo, we need to aspire to workplaces and societies that foster collective flourishing as their own reward. The task is not merely to tinker with the tools of control, but to liberate ourselves from their very roots.

#transformation #leadership #hr #hrm #freedomtoflourish #justice

Reference: Norrie, Alan, The Limits of Justice: Finding Fault in the Criminal Law, The Modern Law Review Limited (MLR 59:4, July), https://www.jstor.org/stable/1097226