RSA Events

Whilst we strive for stronger personal relationships, to conquer our bad habits or to get ahead in our careers, we often get caught in negative emotional and behavioural patterns that prevent us from moving forward. Meanwhile, the demands of our culture increasingly make us even less able to perform at our best.

But by becoming more aware of our own emotional nature, learning how to face our feelings and unhooking from our negative thoughts, we can begin to evaluate them and to change our actions to match our values.

Drawing on more than twenty years of research in the field of behavioural science, Harvard psychologist Susan David reveals how ‘emotional agility’ is the key to flourishing in work and life.

In 2015, Yanis Varoufakis became the world’s most prominent opponent of austerity when, as finance minister of Greece, he refused to accept the terms of the loan agreement dictated to his bankrupt country by the eurozone’s leaders. Since resigning his post he has become the figurehead of an international grassroots movement, joining together to put the ‘demos’ back into European democracy.

At the RSA, in conversation with Matthew Taylor, Yanis Varoufakis will explore the origins of the crisis of 2008, which wiped out half a dozen national economies and brought several more to the brink of collapse. Since then, he argues, by pursuing plans based on more debt and harsh austerity rather than reform, European leaders have ensured that the weakest citizens of the weakest nations pay the price for the bankers’ mistakes, while doing nothing to prevent the next collapse. Instead, the principle of the greatest austerity for those suffering the greatest recessions has led to a resurgence of racist extremism. And once more, Europe is a potent threat to global stability.

How did we get into this mess and can we fix it? As the UK draws closer to its historic referendum decision, can we revive the original ideals of the European project in which so many have lost faith? Do we have to choose between surrendering to the EU or leaving it – or is there a third way that puts the citizens back in control?

Western Culture has long separated the mind from the body; and the mind, with its home as the brain, has been privileged as the source of intellect, with the rest of the body annexed as mere matter.

But the new field of ‘embodied cognition’, which draws on the latest advances in neuroscience and psychology, offers a richer, more holistic view of intelligence that involves the whole body.

At the RSA, author and education reformer Professor Guy Claxton introduces this new field, explores the far-reaching implications of the persistence of the Cartesian mind/body ‘error’, and reveals how an appreciation of the whole body’s intelligence can enrich all our lives.

Lack of affordable housing is one of the defining social justice issues of our times. Eviction can lead to a cascade of events that can trap families in a cycle of poverty for years.

Matthew Desmond is a social scientist and ethnographer, co-director of the Justice and Poverty Project at Harvard University, and a 2015 MacArthur ‘Genius’ award winner.

In this election year, Desmond’s landmark work of reportage Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City offers a searing portrait of the contemporary US, where fewer and fewer people can afford a roof over their head.

At the RSA, Matthew Desmond is joined by Shelter’s CEO Campbell Robb; journalist Owen Jones and Sky News editor Afua Hirsch, to explore the impact of eviction on the lives of the urban poor and its role in perpetuating racial and economic inequality.

In the evolution of human culture from pre-history to the present, changes in ethical values have been driven by the most basic force of all: energy.

In a bold new theory, historian Ian Morris argues that humans have found three main ways to get the energy they need – foraging, farming and fossil fuels – and that in each of these epochs, the dominant energy source sets limits on the kinds of societies that can succeed, and each society in turn rewards specific values.

Small forager bands valued equality but were ready to settle problems violently. In larger farming societies those who valued hierarchy but avoided conflict did best. In huge fossil-fuel societies, the pendulum has swung back toward equality but further away from violence.

But if our fossil-fuel world currently favours open, democratic societies, the ongoing revolution in energy capture may well soon signal a new values shift. If so, what might come next?