This is the most important TED talk. TED, like Silicon Valley and the wider audience of nominally liberal, technocratic elites it draws from and caters to, has a tendency towards timidity, agnosticism even, on complex, soul-rending, matters of justice. There’s this unwillingness to connect our privilege with the dispossession of others and it casts a dark shadow over the optimistic, “breathless bullshit” that is TED’s bread and butter.
Well I believe that our identity is at risk. That when we actually don’t care about these difficult things, the positive and wonderful things are nonetheless implicated. We love innovation. We love technology. We love creativity. We love entertainment. But ultimately, those realities are shadowed by suffering, abuse, degradation, marginalization. And for me, it becomes necessary to integrate the two. Because ultimately we are talking about a need to be more hopeful, more committed, more dedicated to the basic challenges of living in a complex world. And for me that means spending time thinking and talking about the poor, the disadvantaged, those who will never get to TED. But thinking about them in a way that is integrated in our own lives. -Bryan Stevenson