The meaningful exchange of truly diverse ideas and perspectives has withered over recent decades. Unorthodox thinking is increasingly trashed or disregarded, even as the chattering class’s fear- and force-predicated approaches repeatedly prove inadequate to cope with the true complexities and crises of the modern world.
We need instead to foster and promote critical thinking and constructive discussion. We are making every effort to ensure that our new Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC), an international coalition of politicians, business leaders, public intellectuals and cultural commentators, will help ensure that a broader range of perspectives can be heard globally.
Consider the world’s response to the COVID pandemic. A panic-stricken lockdown orthodoxy far too soon took hold, and those whose policy proposals deviated quickly were labeled “COVID deniers.” Governments that went the farthest were feted by public intellectuals and in newspaper opinion pages.
The obvious downsides to universal lockdowns were ignored by those striving to garner credit for simple-minded immediacy of response. Thus, we saw increases of inequality in income distribution and wealth, widespread loss of employment,…
