From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
As a collective, we tend to look at progress as being linear, especially where it concerns women's rights. This is a huge mistake and breeds complacency because we risk losing the hard-won gains.
My impression however is that the rate of change in society is accelerating as a result of rapid developments in science and technology. Science today is a huge, industrial scale activity and has a far greater impact on society than it did a few hundred years ago.
art has always played a role in revolution, evolution and change. Art has always been a great changing force, the great common denominator, and a force to help people understand the world we live in, and the people within that world.
Truth is an aspiration which none of us can ever know that we have attained. Nobody has a pipeline to the truth; nobody is imbued with divine revelation. We seek truth through institutions like science, journalism, governance, justice systems and record keeping.
I believe that working towards women's economic empowerment at the global level is the single most important battle we will fight in our lifetime, and that's because harnessing the incredible talents and potential of women is not only the right thing to do – it will also create stronger economies and a fairer society for all.
Economic integration doesn't remove a country's identity, far from it… rather the range of products, services, instruments and intellectual processes available increases. You keep what you have and add things from abroad. This is not reducing identity, but expanding it.
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.
It's essentially a democratic revolution, wresting control from the conventional gatekeepers like intelligence agencies and the media.
Society at large only sporadically pays attention to the extraordinarily despair-producing conditions in which young black poor youth attempt to survive.
LGBT+ identity came into existence as a defence mechanism against those who were attacking us. We were being targeted because of our sexual behavior and our love. We had to defend ourselves – that is why we claimed, and asserted our LGBT+ identity.
Screens are weapons of mass distraction, and as audiences we have to listen and give speakers a chance.
Ultimately, there are no values in the secular world that can replace the complete happiness people find in the vision of the face of God.