Signs of progress

One sign of progress is in LGBTQ rights. This topic is difficult to discuss internationally, because some places, especially but not only Russia and countries in Africa and the Middle East, still have laws that prohibit homosexuality. Some religious groups, in the Western world as elsewhere, are also homophobic. We don’t yet have an international declaration on LGBTQ rights, but the UN is paying more attention to them.

In the last 20 years, much attention has been paid to “collective” human rights. These are rights than belong to groups of people and that one individual can’t exercise if others can’t also exercise them.

Indigenous rights are collective rights. Indigenous ways of life, languages, religions, cultures and land bases are threatened. In 2007 the UN passed UNDRIP, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Canada voted against the Declaration, but later reversed its position. By 2016 the government declared its full support for UNDRIP.

Clean environment is a right

A collective right that affects everyone everywhere is the right to a clean and healthy environment. This includes the right to protection against climate changes that undermine our livelihoods and well-being.

Another collective right is the right to peace. Viewed narrowly, this is the right not to live in a state of war. In 2018, many people still live in war-torn countries, especially countries in the Middle East and parts of Africa. Others, in the Ukraine, live in fear of war. And we all live in fear of nuclear war.

Both climate change and war create huge refugee populations. By 2050, it’s thought, there will be 200 million “climate refugees” fleeing rising sea levels. Add to that the refugees who are fleeing large-scale crime, like the migrant “caravan” currently trying to enter the United States.

Economic human rights

The UN recently agreed on a Global Compact for Migration, setting out voluntary principles meant to save lives and ensure successful migrant integration into new countries without unduly burdening social infrastructure such as health care. But the real challenge is to ensure people don’t have to leave home at all.

One way to ensure more people can live in their homes is to develop economies. The right to economic development is a collective right. Development activists usually try to reduce both poverty and inequality. There’s been an enormous reduction in world poverty over the last 25 years, even as inequality has been growing in most countries.

This means it’s easier to fulfil what is known as economic human rights, such as rights to health, education and housing. Very little of this change results from foreign aid; most is a result of the spread of market economies.

Many people in many countries have benefited from globalization, though others, such as industrial workers in Canada and the U.S., have lost their jobs. This is one of the reasons for the spread of anti-immigrant, xenophobic sentiments in the Western world.

Unless we can figure out a way to control these sentiments and reduce the need for people to flee their own countries because of war, crime, economic challenges and climate change, we are facing an uneasy human rights future.

Quiz

Quiz on “Seventy years of international human rights“:

The corporate loophole

Giving AIs rights similar to humans involves a technical lawyerly maneuver. It starts with one person setting up two limited liability companies and turning over control of each company to a separate autonomous or artificially intelligent system. Then the person would add each company as a member of the other LLC. In the last step, the person would withdraw from both LLCs, leaving each LLC – a corporate entity with legal personhood – governed only by the other’s AI system.

That process doesn’t require the computer system to have any particular level of intelligence or capability. It could just be a sequence of “if” statements looking, for example, at the stock market and making decisions to buy and sell based on prices falling or rising. It could even be an algorithm that makes decisions randomly, or an emulation of an amoeba.

Reducing human status

Granting human rights to a computer would degrade human dignity. For instance, when Saudi Arabia granted citizenship to a robot called Sophia, human women, including feminist scholars, objected, noting that the robot was given more rights than many Saudi women have.

In certain places, some people might have fewer rights than nonintelligent software and robots. In countries that limit citizens’ rights to free speech, free religious practice and expression of sexuality, corporations – potentially including AI-run companies – could have more rights. That would be an enormous indignity.

The risk doesn’t end there: If AI systems became more intelligent than people, humans could be relegated to an inferior role – as workers hired and fired by AI corporate overlords – or even challenged for social dominance.

Artificial intelligence systems could be tasked with law enforcement among human populations – acting as judges, jurors, jailers and even executioners. Warrior robots could similarly be assigned to the military and given power to decide on targets and acceptable collateral damage – even in violation of international humanitarian laws. Most legal systems are not set up to punish robots or otherwise hold them accountable for wrongdoing.

What about voting?

Granting voting rights to systems that can copy themselves would render humans’ votes meaningless. Even without taking that significant step, though, the possibility of AI-controlled corporations with basic human rights poses serious dangers. No current laws would prevent a malevolent AI from operating a corporation that worked to subjugate or exterminate humanity through legal means and political influence. Computer-controlled companies could turn out to be less responsive to public opinion or protests than human-run firms are.

Immortal wealth

Two other aspects of corporations make people even more vulnerable to AI systems with human legal rights: They don’t die, and they can give unlimited amounts of money to political candidates and groups.

Artificial intelligences could earn money by exploiting workers, using algorithms to price goods and manage investments, and find new ways to automate key business processes. Over long periods of time, that could add up to enormous earnings – which would never be split up among descendants. That wealth could easily be converted into political power.

Politicians financially backed by algorithmic entities would be able to take on legislative bodies, impeach presidents and help to get figureheads appointed to the Supreme Court. Those human figureheads could be used to expand corporate rights or even establish new rights specific to artificial intelligence systems – expanding the threats to humanity even more.

Rights of nature

On Feb. 23, the Alliance for the Protection of the Magpie River/Muteshekau Shipu recognized nine rights of the river. These include the rights to evolve naturally and be protected, to be free of pollution and to sue.

The members of the Innu Council of Ekuanitshit, part of the alliance, will now be the river’s guardians. This means that those with long-standing relationships to Muteshekau Shipu will be formally entrusted with the river’s care for future generations.

“Designating the river as a legal person was the clearest message we could send,” Chief Jean-Charles Piétacho of the Innu Council of Ekuanitshit told us in an interview. “There will never be dams in this river. The river protects herself, we protect the river, we’re all protected. I think the message is very clear.”

Galvanized by widespread environmental degradation and rising Indigenous rights movements, Indigenous communities around the world are leading the way in upholding the rights of sacred and ancestral rivers. This includes Māori tribal relationships with the Whanganui River in Aotearoa New Zealand, the role of Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities in the Atrato River in Colombia, and the Yurok Tribal Council’s granting legal rights of personhood to the Klamath River through an ordinance in the United States.

The idea that nature is a sentient being isn’t new to Indigenous and other traditional peoples. “The vision of the Innu is that Nature is living. Everything is alive,” said Chief Piétacho.

Indigenous laws: Relationships and responsibilities

Recognizing the rights of nature are modern expressions of long-practised Indigenous laws. Indigenous laws are as diverse as Indigenous cultures yet share an understanding that humans are an integral part of the natural world. These laws emphasize respect for all beings and responsibilities to care for lands and waters. Trees, mountains and plants are relatives, not commodities that can be privately owned and exploited.

The rights-of-nature movement may seem radical to some people. It challenges Eurocentric values such as human dominance over the natural world, which is considered largely inanimate. The conservation movement itself is founded on a worldview that sees “wilderness” as something separate to be protected from humans. The “fortress” conservation movement is ideologically non-commensurate with Indigenous ways of thinking about being a part of nature. This belief was used to justify the forced relocation of many Indigenous Peoples from their territories to establish parks and protected areas.

Rights understood through a western, liberal and individualistic lens overlook collective responsibilities to the natural world. “I sincerely think Québec and Canada missed their responsibility; they aren’t protecting the river from development,” said Chief Piétacho.

Bridging western and Indigenous legal systems through a rights-of-nature approach is one tool for encouraging a kincentric view of the world, which sees humans as “part of an extended ecological family that shares ancestry and origins.”

Indigenous laws mirror and reinforce relational worldviews that view living entities as relatives, not resources. This in turn shapes social conduct that emphasizes respect and responsibility to the natural world. Innovative governance arrangements are one means through which distinct worldviews and associated laws can be woven together.

Innovative governance models

Rivers speak but since western laws and institutions are not designed to listen, people must act as intermediaries voicing perspectives on their behalf. Indigenous laws are well positioned to conceptualize the decision-making structures needed to breathe life into legal personhood.

In 2014, Tūhoe iwi (Māori) and the New Zealand government granted legal personhood to Te Urewera, an ancestral forest and former national park. They created a board responsible for making decisions in the best interests of Te Urewera. Tūhoe, as children of Tu Urewera, give expression to her through the board.

In Northern Canada, Łutsël K’é Dene First Nation established Thaidene Nëné as an Indigenous Protected Area under Dene law. It is also protected as a park and conservation area under Canadian and territorial (Northwest Territories) legislation. The management board, Thaidene Nëné Xá Dá Yáłtı, is composed of members of Łutsël K’é Dene First Nation, the Government of Canada and the Government of the Northwest Territories. Once appointed, members no longer represent their organizations, they speak for Thaidene Nëné.

Indigenous-led initiatives

Examples like Thaidene Nëné are the exception and not the norm in Canada, although this may be changing. There is a national mandate to support Indigenous-led conservation initiatives and advance reconciliation. This support combined with Indigenous leadership and accompanying legal innovations present new opportunities for caring for the land and waters.

Many similar Indigenous-led initiatives are currently underway, supported by programs including the Bioneers Indigeneity Program, RIVER (Revitalizing Indigenous Values for Earth’s Regeneration), the Conservation through Reconciliation partnership, RELAW (Revitalizing Indigenous Law for Land, Air and Water) and the Global Network for the Rights of Nature.

The Muteshekau Shipu river declaration — and the legal guardianship role for Innu — is an example governments can learn from. “If the government wants to effectively protect Nature, they should consider this option so protected areas would be protected along with our rights,” said Chief Piétacho.

To create just and liveable futures for all our relatives (human and otherwise), Canadian laws and policies need further innovation. Vesting legal personhood in natural entities is a promising intervention when Indigenous Peoples represent these entities. It elevates the standing of nature for all peoples and respects the laws of Indigenous Peoples.

Georgia Lloyd-Smith, a lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law, co-authored this article. The authors are grateful to Chief Jean-Charles Piétacho for the interview.

Political control

Part of the danger with dominant party authoritarian regimes is that their veneer of democracy permits political opponents to run for election. But when incumbent rulers face a threat to their power, the autocrats often respond by targeting political dissidents and taking aggressive actions toward foreign enemies to bolster popular support.

For example, Russian leader Vladimir Putin faced an unprecedented challenge from citizen protests during the 2012 presidential election. The protests continued into 2013.

Putin punished the protesters. New York Times correspondent Ellen Barry reported in 2013 that “new laws prescribe draconian punishments for acts of dissent. … Mr. Putin … embraced a new, sharply conservative rhetoric, dismissing the urban protesters as traitors and blasphemers, enemies of Russia.”

Shortly afterward, Russia’s foreign activities became even more belligerent than during the Soviet period. This accomplished just what Putin wanted: Following his annexation of Crimea in 2014, his approval ratings skyrocketed.

Another recent example is Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s repression of domestic political dissidents following the failed July 2016 coup against him. According to The Guardian, the regime arrested or suspended “more than 110,000 officials, including judges, teachers, police and civil servants.”

Erdogan went after foreign-based dissidents too, allegedly orchestrating a plot to kidnap opposition leader Fetullah Gulen from Pennsylvania.

And while he won the presidential election in June 2018, Erdogan’s foreign-based critics remain concerned about his threats. Enes Kanter, a Turkish NBA star, declined to travel to London in January 2019 out of fear that Turkish spies might kill him.

Information control

Another distinction that characterizes dominant party authoritarian regimes is how they exploit Western legal and financial systems against Western media outlets critical of the regime.

Normally, autocrats control information and resources to retain power. But rather than relying on the typical autocrat’s crude hostile attacks or outright censorship, dominant party authoritarian regimes use legal or financial methods regarded as legitimate by the West.

In other words, they sue the media or they buy them.

A slew of foreign news organizations – including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and The Economist – were sued by the Lee family, autocratic rulers of Singapore, for political and financial reporting after the 2008 global financial crisis.

The family maintained the coverage defamed them. As the Wall Street Journal’s editors wrote in 2008, “We know of no foreign publication that has ever won in a Singapore court of law. Virtually every Western publication that circulates in the city-state has faced a lawsuit, or the threat of one.”

Malaysian political authorities deployed similar tactics when their rulers felt threatened.

Following the Asian financial crisis of 1997, and in the months leading up to the November 1999 general election, wealthy ruling party supporters in Malaysia filed a flurry of defamation lawsuits against foreign journalists and media organizations, such as the Asian Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones.

Russia’s means of pressuring foreign media are slightly different, but they also involve taking advantage of Western legal-financial systems.

Russia has engaged in disinformation campaigns that exploit weaknesses in the West’s freedom of speech protections, as documented by experts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and at the Center for the Study of Democracy.

And Russian companies have acquired sufficiently large ownership stakes in foreign media companies to influence their operations.

This has involved both the manipulation of their coverage and a reduction in media freedoms of the country in which they are located.

For example, Delyan Peevski is a controversial member of the Bulgarian Parliament who advocated for pro-Russian policies. Peevski built and sustained a media empire that controls around 40 percent of Bulgaria’s print sector and 80 percent of the newspaper distribution with loans from a partially Russian-owned bank.

Resource control

In contrast to firms located in other types of autocracies, state-controlled businesses in dominant party authoritarian regimes often comply with international financial regulations. This helps them gain access to Western countries’ corporate and financial systems.

Under cover of legitimate business operations, their autocratic leaders can pursue political objectives with less scrutiny.

Malaysia’s state-owned investment fund, 1MDB, engaged in aggressive investment tactics with corrupt practices – including “abnormally high payback” for investment bankers – that extended across the globe.

The U.S. accuses former Prime Minister Najib Razak’s family friend of masterminding the theft of US$2 billion from the fund. And its capital was also channeled to politicians and projects to help the ruling party win the 2013 elections.

Russia has also used state-linked companies to gain influence over Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria’s crucial energy sectors via purchases of ownership stakes in listed companies.

This granted the Russian state access to other key sectors of these economies, such as finance and telecommunications. Russia then was able to influence government policies.

In one case, the Serbian government chose not to enforce the European Union’s sanctions against Russia. That was a risk for Serbia, because it has wanted to qualify for European Union membership by 2025.

Even bolder actions occurred with Russia’s interference in the U.S. 2016 presidential election.

Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, told the Senate in September 2018 that never before had the Kremlin violated American sovereignty so “illegally, aggressively and audaciously” – even during the high-stakes rivalry of the Cold War.

It is now common knowledge that Russian-controlled agencies and businesses played a strategically vital role in the election interference.

Resisting influence

Can democracies defend themselves against such aggressive regimes?

The “Kremlin Playbook,” written by Heather A. Conley, James Mina, Ruslan Stefanov and Martin Vladimirov, is an extensive study of Russian influence in Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Latvia and Serbia. It provides a detailed list of policy recommendations to resist Russian influence that can be applied to other dominant party authoritarian regimes.

They include strengthening intelligence gathering and cooperation between the U.S. and its allies; increasing U.S. and allied governments’ assistance to vulnerable countries; and stronger protections for and enforcement of transparency measures.

But I believe an important addition to this list is the need to monitor the strength of the ruling party’s hold on power. That’s because aggressive, politically charged activities are most likely to occur when incumbent rulers face an elevated threat.

With its attack on the U.S. 2016 election, Russia showed that it’s possible to interfere destructively in the most powerful Western democracy. I expect that other autocracies that look like democracies will follow suit – across the globe.

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The findings

First, closing civic space is a critical issue, threatening basic democratic rights. Our work on Navigating civic space shows that the trend towards closing civic space has accelerated under COVID-19.

Commitments to open governance are important. But they don’t go very far if citizens don’t have the basic freedoms to speak truth to power without fear of reprisal. This means also actively protecting democratic space. That includes joining forces with those defending the rights of those speaking out against corruption and abuses of power.

Second, even in increasingly hostile and authoritarian settings, a rich repertoire of citizen actions are taking place. But, not through the normal, established channels which many have come to expect. Sometimes these claims are expressed in cultural forms rather than engaging directly to authorities. One example is the use of political rap lyrics  in Mozambique.

Other times, they are made through informal channels, through networks or intermediaries, as our work using ‘governance diaries’ with marginalised groups found. And, sometimes protests may arise from a sense of collective moral outrage of citizens who, no matter how vulnerable, have just had enough.

We found this for example in struggles for security and against violence, or against sexual harassment, or for access to energy.

Donors and governments seeking to support movements for democratic reform need to start with looking for where these sources of civic energy are actually emerging. This, instead of the more traditional channels where they are often thought they ought to be.

Third, women are often leading the way. Our work found women were often in the front lines of protecting civic space and demanding reforms. This is despite patriarchal social norms, threats of violence, or biases of authorities and political parties who do not recognise women as legitimate claim makers.

We saw, for instance, the power of women’s leadership in the Bring Back our Girls Movement against the abduction of girls in Nigeria, or in widespread mobilising against sexual harassment. We also saw this in struggles for women’s rights in Pakistan.

Commitments to action for protecting or expanding democratic space must include commitments to support women as leaders and champions of reform.

Fourth, small steps matter. In fragile, closed and authoritarian settings, donors and other actors need to re-calibrate their definitions and measures of success. Measuring success through examples of full-blown democratic accountability or well-established democratic institutions is perhaps an unrealistic goal when faced with limited civic space, weak institutional channels for engagement and repressive leadership.

The focus instead should be on more intermediary outcomes, which can serve as building blocks for longer term democratic renewal. In our work, these included:

• increased visibility of previously excluded issues and voices;
• improved access to higher levels of authority by local groups;
• a strengthened sense of rights and citizenship among the citizenry;
• greater responsiveness from authorities on certain concrete issues;
• changing norms, including gender norms, increased expectations and cultures of accountability;
• greater trust between people and public authorities, as well strengthened solidarity between groups.

Outcomes such as these will go a long way to creating the conditions that are possible for larger, more institutionalised democratic reforms.

Finally, our research shows that citizens across the world see access to energy as more than a necessity for cooking, transport, communications and livelihoods. They also see it as a fundamental right. This has led to widespread protests to try and get their voices heard when it is denied.

Linking democratic renewal and climate change

Yet those who consume the least yet need the most are not being listened to. Little attention is made to how to make energy policy more accountable or inclusive, especially in repressive and often resource-rich settings.

Building on our research on civic space and the politics of energy, a new project with African partners will explore the the spaces for inclusive deliberation on what a just transition would look like for the citizens of oil and gas producing regions in sub-Saharan Africa.

So far, our research points to the need to carry the grassroots demands for inclusion on energy policy – which we saw on the streets of Glasgow during the COP26 as well as many countries around the world – into upcoming summits on democracy and open governance.

When the space is created for citizens to truly have a say on their energy futures, especially in often resource-rich but repressive regimes, then perhaps we can perhaps also say that democracy is being renewed.

Two global summits will be taking place in December, with important implications for the state of democracies around the world. On December 9-10, US President Joe Biden will host the virtual Summit for Democracy for leaders from government, civil society, and the private sector. Then on December 15-17, the government of Korea will host the 10th Open Government Partnership Summit.

Inoculating the public

Emerging during the Second World War, inoculation theory concentrated on political persuasion and propaganda campaigns. When U.S. soldiers in the Far East faced the danger of being brainwashed if captured, psychologist William McGuire developed a different focus: to “inoculate” people to resist being “brainwashed.”

McGuire referred to this as a “vaccine for brainwash” that would boost the population’s resilience to disinformation and decrease their susceptibility to fake news.

Inoculation reduces the effectiveness of disinformation. Education and training in critical thinking for the public is acutely important, especially for adolescents, whose perspectives and skills like objective reasoning and analysis are starting to develop.

As the risk of electoral intervention increases, Canada has been allocating a tremendous amount of resources to combat possible occurrences. Content on how to identify fake news has even been added to school curricula.

Federal initiatives, like the Digital Citizen Initiative and Digital Citizen Research Program, also work to strengthen the public’s resistance to persuasion by disinformation.

Fragmented approaches

Canada does not have one specific unit, department or institution that focuses on fighting disinformation. In addition to police and military departments, there are several branches of government that deal with disinformation and cybersecurity.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) often publishes reports regarding disinformation as a security challenge and warns of state-sponsored disinformation campaigns, especially during elections.

Meanwhile, the Communication Security Establishment (CSE), also a national security and intelligence organization, focuses on cyberthreats, foreign-based terrorism and other espionage. Its July 2021 report examines the extent of cyberthreats to Canada’s democratic process.

The Competition Bureau Canada also addresses fake news related to COVID-19 and businesses, while the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre engages with suspected criminal activities.

Canada lacks an integrated institution that oversees all cybersecurity intelligence and analysis, planning and executing efforts to counter disinformation.

Open communication

Cybercrime is intensifying and relations between countries (such as the U.S. and China) are worsening. Instances of foreign involvement in political campaigns have been documented.

In this new era of cyberthreats to national security, it will be necessary for governments to communicate openly and share information as authoritarian regimes attempt to undermine their opponents.

A department within the Canadian government with the authority to enforce a whole-of-government approach would be unquestionably vital for Canada’s liberal democratic future.

Internationally, the Canadian government should take more specific actions that align with our allies and like-minded democracies to “strengthen our capacity to prevent malign interference by foreign actors aimed at undermining electoral processes through malicious cyber activities.”

This could start by establishing an integrated system within the Five Eyes alliance that includes the exchange of sensitive information to combat disinformation and, in the future, further extended to more democracies.

There is, unfortunately, no single solution for fighting disinformation. Multidisciplinary approaches by international and national governments, private companies and other organizations are all vital to improve the resilience of national security and protect our democratic society from information warfare.

Studying scientists’ communication

Before dismissing this recommendation as a perverse appeal to slink into the mud or take up the corrupted weapons of the enemy, keep in mind that in academia, “rhetoric” does not mean rank falsehoods, or mere words over substance.

Rhetoric is one of the original seven liberal arts. Aristotle defined it as “the faculty of observing, in any given case, the available means of persuasion.” Scholars like me who study the rhetoric of science analyze and evaluate the persuasive communication of scientists.

Although it draws from an ancient tradition, rhetoric of science is a relatively young field of study. It was born in the late 20th century, after historian of science Thomas Kuhn introduced the idea that science develops not through the steady accumulation of facts, but in revolutionary moments. With a paradigm change, the heliocentric model of Copernicus replaces the geocentric model of Ptolemy, Darwin’s natural selection overturns natural theology, plate tectonics wins over the theory of a stable Earth.

Kuhn’s call for a study of “the techniques of persuasive argumentation” within scientific communities that settle conflicts between paradigms introduced the “rhetorical turn” in science studies. Rhetoricians enthusiastically took up the call to look at the way that language and culture help to shape knowledge.

At first, this kind of scholarship seemed hostile to scientists.

In the age of “alternative facts,” it is worth remembering that for most of the 20th century, theimage of the scientist as American cultural herowas ascendant.

Scientists have long presented themselves in public as the inheritors of an American pioneering ethos, the very embodiment of the American spirit of exploration, innovation, hard work and success. You see it in influential engineer Vannevar Bush’s“Science: The Endless Frontier,” the report that spurred the formation of the National Science Foundation.Geneticist Francis Collins frequently drew an analogybetween the Human Genome Project and Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery. This characterization was so powerful that even George W. Bush, a Republican president widely critiqued for his administration’smisuse of science, found it necessary to praise scientists as modern-day American “pioneers.”

In the latter part of the 20th century, when scholars began pointing out that the most effective scientists were those who were also the most effective rhetors, the validity of scientific theories and the institution of science itself seemed to be under attack. Rhetoricians got caught up in the “science wars” between postmodern deconstructionists and natural scientists. They were viewed with distrust by defenders of science.

Next phase for rhetoric of science

But times changed. In the early years of the 21st century, the two cultures of the humanities and the sciences found themselves united against forces that wouldstarve higher education of funding. Many rhetoricians began to see their mission not as taking scientists down a peg or two, but as helping scientists improve their public communication.

For example,Celeste Conditdraws from the rhetorical tradition to help medical geneticists appreciate the importance of understanding their audience. Scientists should be careful not to underestimate the public, which “knows a fair amount about the basics of heredity.” But neither should they neglect how certain terms affect the public mind. When telling individuals they have a genetic predisposition to cancer, for example, “version of a gene” is a less scary use of words than “mutation,” which evokes horror movie monsters.

Condit’s students,Marita GronnvollandJamie Landau, explore the problems and potentials of the most frequentmetaphors used by the public to discuss genes, such as ticking time bombs and Russian roulette. They recommend that scientists introduce new, more accurate and less alarming metaphors that call to mind the choreography or orchestration of a gene/environment interaction.

Rhetoricians have advice for climate scientists too.Ron Von Burgintroduces the rhetorical concept oflitotesas a way for scientists to respond to inaccurate but emotive imagery. Litotes is a figure of speech that works as an understatement by stating the negation of its opposite; imagine a friend hinting that an invitation to visit would “not be unwelcome.”

Von Burgpoints to scientistswho used this strategy effectively when responding to critiques of climate disaster movie“The Day After Tomorrow.” Climate skeptics denounced the blockbuster as hyperbolic. Climate scientists agreed that its story line about instant climatic shift was absurd. But they also argued that the overall message that climate change requires our attention was “not untrue.” “The film is not scientifically invalid” insofar as the events it depicts – melting ice sheets, powerful hurricanes – are likely to occur, but just over a longer time frame.

Ethos, or the speaker’s development of a trustworthy character, is another important concept that rhetoricians share with scientists engaged in public debates.Jean Goodwinhas studied how scientists can reach out to skeptical listeners with appeals that signal their vulnerability rather than their superiority. Observing climate scientists speaking to skeptical audiences, she has found that one mustgive trustin order to receive it in return.

What’s changed in the 21st century

Following moments of open class warfare in the late 1960s and early 1970s, battles against the political and economic order became fragmented, trade unions were attacked, the legacy of the anti-colonial struggles was eroded and the history of the period was recast by the establishment to undermine its potency. In the post-Cold War era, a new phase of protest finally began to overcome these defeats.

This revival of protest exploded onto the political scene most visibly in Seattle outside the World Trade Organization summit in 1999. If 1968 was one of the high points of radical struggle in the 20th century, protest in the early 2000s once again began to reflect a general critique of the capitalist system, with solidarity forged across different sections of society.

The birth of the anti-globalisation movement in Seattle was followed by extraordinary mobilisations outside gatherings of the global economic elite. Alternative spaces were also created for the global justice movement to connect, most notably the World Social Forums (WSFs), starting with Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2001. It was here that questions over what position the anti-globalisation movement should take over the Iraq War, for example, were discussed and debated. Though the WSFs provided an important rallying point for a time, they ultimately evaded politics.

The global anti-war movement led to the biggest co-ordinated demonstrations in the history of protest on February 15 2003, in which millions of people demonstrated in over 800 cities, creating a crisis of democracy around the US and UK-led intervention in Iraq.

In the years leading up to and following the banking crisis of 2008, food riots and anti-austerity protests escalated around the world. In parts of the Middle East and North Africa, protests achieved insurrectionary proportions, with the overthrow of one dictator after another. After the Arab Spring was thwarted by counter-revolution, the Occupy movement and then Black Lives Matter gained global attention. While the public, urban square became a central focus for protest, social media became an important – but by no means exclusive – organising tool.

To varying degrees, these movements sharply raised the question of political transformation but didn’t find new ways of institutionalising popular power. The result was that in a number of situations, protest movements fell back on widely distrusted parliamentary processes to try and pursue their political aims. The results of this parliamentary turn have not been impressive.

Crisis of representation

On the one hand, the first two decades of the 21st century have seen soaring inequality, accompanied by debt and the neglect of working people. On the other, there have been poor results from purely parliamentary attempts to challenge it. There is, in other words, a deep crisis of representation.

The inability of modern capitalism to deliver more than survival for many has combined with a general critique of neoliberal capitalism to create a situation in which wider and wider sections of society are being drawn into protest. More than a million people have poured onto the streets of Lebanon since mid-October and protests continue despite a violent crackdown by security forces.

At the same time, people are less and less willing to accept unrepresentative politicians – and this is likely to continue in the future. From Lebanon and Iraq to Chile and Hong Kong, mass mobilisations continue despite resignations and concessions.

In Britain, the Labour Party’s defeat in the recent general election is attributed largely to its failure to accept the 2016 referendum result over EU membership. Decades of loyalty to the Labour Party for many and a socialist leader in Jeremy Corbyn calling for an end to austerity couldn’t cut through to enough of the millions who voted for Brexit.

In France, a general strike in December 2019 over President Emmanuel Macron’s proposed pension reforms has revealed the extent of opposition that people feel towards his government. This comes barely a year after the start of the Yellow Vest movement, in which people have protested against fuel price hikes and the precariousness of their lives.

The tendency towards street protest will be encouraged too by the climate crisis, whose effects mean that the most heavily exploited, including along race and gender lines, have the most to lose. When the protests in Lebanon broke out, they were taking place alongside rampant wildfires.

Thinking strategically

As protesters gain experience, they consciously bring to the fore questions of leadership and organisation. In Lebanon and Iraq there has already been a conscious effort to overcome traditional sectarian divides. Debates are also raging in protest movements from Algeria to Chile about how to fuse economic and political demands in a more strategic manner. The goal is to make political and economic demands inseparable, such that it’s impossible for a government to make political concessions without making economic ones too.

As the 2020s begin, it’s clear we’re living in an unprecedented moment: a climate emergency and ecological breakdown, a brewing global financial crisis, deepening inequality, trade wars, and growing threats of more imperialist wars and militarisation.

There has also been a resurgence of the far right in many countries, emboldened most visibly by parties and politicians in the US, Brazil, India and many parts of Europe. This resurgence, however, has not gone unchallenged.

The convergence of crisis on these multiple fronts will reach breaking point, creating conditions that will become intolerable for most people. This will galvanise more protest and more polarisation. As governments respond with reforms, such measures on their own will be unlikely to meet the combination of political and economic demands. The question of how to create new vehicles of representation to assert popular control over the economy will keep emerging. The fortunes of popular protest may well depend on whether the collective leadership of the movements can provide answers to it.

What was the original structure of the Black Lives Matter movement?

Black Lives Matter started in 2013 as a messaging campaign. In response to the 2012 acquittal of George Zimmerman for shooting and killing Black teenager Trayvon Martin, three activists – Opal Tometi, Alicia Garza and Patrisse Cullors – protested the verdict on social media, along with many others. Cullors came up with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, which gained widespread use on social media and in street protests.

Over the next several years – as Black Lives Matter flags, hashtags and signs became common features of local, national and even international protests in support of Black lives – this messaging campaign became a decentralized social movement to demand accountability for police killings and other brutality against Black people.

The movement remained decentralized, although some significant, formal BLM-related organizations emerged during this time. For instance, in 2013 Cullors, Tometi and Garza formed the Black Lives Matter Network to facilitate communication, support and shared resources among the dozens of locally organized and led Black Lives Matter chapters that were springing up around the United States.

In 2014, the Movement for Black Lives, or M4BL, formed as a separate but related coalition of dozens of organizations of Black activist and others, including the Black Lives Matter Network.

In 2017, the Black Lives Matter Network transformed into the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, co-founded by Tometi and Cullors, who was the executive director until she stepped down in May 2021. This group describes itself as “a global foundation supporting Black led movements.”

What’s changed about BLM’s structure since then?

While the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation says it is decentralized, over time it has followed a pattern similar to other social movements driven by individuals and organizations. It has become more of a conventional hierarchical organization, centralizing its operations and leadership. Its founders have won awards, book deals and notoriety.

The BLM Global Network Foundation has not developed any publicly known independent source of funding, nor was a decision ever made to rely primarily on grassroots support or small individual donations. As a result, it is dependent on corporate and foundation money to pay for its operations and programs. Amid the George Floyd uprisings in 2020, the BLM Global Network Foundation generated some US$90 million in donations or grants from corporations and foundations.

The Movement for Black Lives, which calls itself decentralized and anti-capitalist, also raised millions in 2020, including $100 million from the Ford Foundation.

All told, corporations pledged close to $2 billion to BLM-related causes in 2020, though less is known about pledges for 2021.

Meanwhile, many frontline Black Lives Matters chapters have struggled to stay afloat. Some key chapters have begun calling for financial transparency and more democratic decison-making from national leaders at the BLM Global Network Foundation, as well as a share of the funds the national groups have raised.

Others have disavowed the Black Lives Matter Network and defected from it, focusing on local community fundraising and organizing to support their work.

How is public opinion about the BLM movement changing and why?

Though the phrase “Black Lives Matter” has become a common sight, the movement is losing public support. According to a new Civiqs survey of 244,622 registered voters, support for BLM fell from two-thirds of voters in June 2020 to 50% in June 2021.

Some of this shift may be due to growing public awareness of the movement’s internal struggles, such as competing visions and competition over scarce resources, as well as questions about whether some BLM leaders have used donations for personal benefit.

Is this evolution of Black Lives Matters typical of social movements? Can you give other examples?

Tensions and conflicts are part of the evolution of all social movements, including BLM.

Movements for peoples of African ancestry also face a distinct challenge: They often have to appeal for both funding and action from the same white power structure and corporate interests that participate in and benefit from the suffering of Black people.

For example, although President Lyndon B. Johnson is remembered for helping pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act, he routinely referred to the 1957 version of that act as the “nigger bill” in conversations with his Southern white supremacist colleagues.

Another example involves the McDonald’s Corp. In 1968, after the death of Martin Luther King Jr., McDonald’s partnered with U.S. civil rights organizations. The company claimed its African American-owned franchises were carrying on King’s civil rights agenda to empower the Black community.

According to historian Marcia Chatelain, however, instead of enabling economic freedom, McDonald’s has burdened the Black community with low wages, relatively few franchises and high rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. McDonald’s has benefited from a devoted African American consumer base, more so because African Americans consume more fast food than any other race, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Money shaping social movements, such as the civil rights movement, is not new. The civil rights movement, including the summer of 1963’s March on Washington, was funded by white liberal organizations and foundations. In the summer of 2020, BLM protests also generated millions in similar funding. Indeed, the Ford Foundation and the Borealis Philanthropy recently formed the Black-Led Movement Fund, which raises money for the Movement for Black Lives.

Malcolm X, in his analysis of the 1963 March on Washington, brought attention to the influence white philanthropy and leadership held over “black” social justice organizations, especially regarding funding that was controlled by the white power structure. Siding with Malcolm’s analysis, James Baldwin also observed, “the March had already been co-opted.”

Is it at all clear what structure BLM will or should have in the future?

Based on our research on civil rights-Black power organizations and on Black internationalism, BLM would benefit from a “starfish” organizational structure.

Starfishlike organizations are decentralized networks with no head. Intelligence is spread throughout an open system that easily adapts to circumstances. If a leader is removed, new ones emerge, and the network remains intact.

In the U.S., BLM organizers work through various groups, yet all are tied to centralized hubs, like the Movement for Black Lives coalition. These organizational choices conform to a spider analogy. Compared to the starfish structure, spiderlike organizations operate under the control of a central leader, and information and power are concentrated at the top.

In the wake of the 2020 mass protests against racism after George Floyd’s murder, many Republican-led states proposed a new wave of draconian anti-protest laws to stifle dissent. This suggests that BLM might be more resilient if it followed the starfish approach.

In their desire to appeal to a diverse public to end white supremacy, Black Lives Matter’s leaders fail to consider that pervasive anti-Black violence is “the very engine that powers” white supremacy and makes broad coalitions ineffective.

Art in times of crisis

COVID-19 is just one example of a period of shared adversity when our connection to the arts has flourished. The Dadaists’ commentary on the 1918 flu reflected an intense and collectively frustrated desire for meaning in a world filled with chaos.

During the Great Depression, the arts became increasingly experimental. In the United States, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal saw the largest public art funding initiative the country had seen. A few decades later, in the 1980s, provinces and municipalities in Canada followed suit and began significantly investing in public art.

Protest music during the civil rights movement and Vietnam War expressed anger, despair and hope. Gay artists and writers during the AIDS crisis memorialized a collective grief that was being either ignored or vilified. The art from both eras came at an immense cost, and has been profoundly culturally and socially influential.

Today, the pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated inequalities that were already present.

But there has also been engagement and social solidarity: from Black Lives Matter, to the Indigenous Land Back movement and support for unhoused people.

Those who have the privilege not to pay attention are finding this option less viable. This engagement arguably comes with its own set of problems, but it is a momentum that can be built upon to imagine and do the work needed to create better futures for society.

Artists are well positioned to do this creative imagining.

Art beyond the gallery

As we each search for meaning throughout our intensely local and geographically limited lives during the pandemic, public art finds, creates and shares the beauty, joy and solidarity that can be found in public spaces.

Galleries are often isolated from the communities in geographical proximity. They have often been places of exclusion, and have historically served to uphold a dominant, European settler-centred narrative. They have played a role in perpetuating colonial and racist attitudes towards Indigenous communities, their art and histories.

Indigenous artists have long been challenging these narratives. Mainstream art is catching on, and there has been an unprecedented level of Indigenous representation and leadership within gallery spaces in recent decades.

This leadership should shape public art in Canada. Public spaces, like art galleries, have also privileged some more than others. Bringing art outside of the gallery space is not a catch-all solution. What matters more is how it’s done.

Toronto’s year of public art

In Toronto, the municipal government has announced that its “Year of Public Art” will begin in the fall with a total budget of $4.5 million in 2021. This is the inauguration of a 10-year public art plan. It responds to calls for an improved public art strategy, with a greater commitment to equity in the location of installations, the level of engagement with communities and the artists who create works.

Toronto has promised a strong commitment to Indigenous self-determination, leadership and placemaking within its public art strategy.

The city’s public art installations have increased in the past 50 years, with over 700 installations added between 1967 and 2015.

Toronto’s Percent for Public Art program, a commonly used strategy in cities in North America and Europe, encourages developers to donate one per cent of their gross construction costs towards public art in their development’s direct vicinity.

The program is voluntary though. And because most development is happening in the downtown core, this is where public art has been concentrated, meaning neighbourhoods with less development have received less investment in public art.

Nonetheless, the city is home to a multiplicity of adept communities and talented artists who continue to use public art to build community capacity and foster social inclusion.

Listening to artists of diverse backgrounds and elevating communities to participate meaningfully will support important conversations that determine our collective future. And that makes the investment in public art worthwhile for us all.

Focus on corruption

When he came onto the national stage 2010, Navalny brought a new type of opposition to Russian politics. He is in tune with popular concerns and able to find common ground across nationalist and liberal activists. He calls for removing President Vladimir Putin through elections, while articulating a new vision for Russia.

Navalny’s importance is not about popularity. The Kremlin’s arrests and disinformation campaigns have raised enough suspicions among voters that polling shows he would not win a national election, even in the unlikely event of a fair fight.

Instead, Navalny’s challenge to Putin’s regime rests on his innovative ideas and organizing strategies that have made him a force in Russian politics.

He began as a lawyer, challenging the large Russian energy companies by buying stock and thus gaining the right to attend shareholders’ meetings. He used his access to defy corporate leadership and release documents to demonstrate malfeasance.

He established The Anti-Corruption Foundation – now labeled a “Foreign Agent” by the Kremlin – which collected citizens’ reports of corrupt practices. His RosYama project, literally “Russian Hole,” allows citizens to go online to report potholes – a widespread, chronic problem in Russia – and track the government response.

Navalny amplified his anti-corruption fight in 2011, when he labeled Putin’s political party, United Russia, the “Party of Crooks and Thieves”. When these efforts contributed to mass protest against electoral fraud, Navalny was at the fore. Addressing an unprecedented crowd in 2011, he said, “I see enough people here to take the Kremlin and [Government House] right now but we are peaceful people and won’t do that just yet.”

He joined the movement’s Coordination Council and forged ties across the diverse opposition with the goal of reforming Putinism.

His canny use of social media has given thousands of Russians – both old and, especially, young – new insight and ways to protest against their government.

New model of opposition

Navalny drew on the resources of these protests – activists, themes, online fundraising strategies and new coalitions – to build an opposition strategy that links elections and a variety of forms of protest. He brought together an impressive team of young activists who challenge the regime at every step of the election process, from party formation to candidate registration and vote counting.

Volunteers go door-to-door or accompany candidates to meet voters on their daily commutes or in apartment courtyards. They build temporary structures, called “cubes,” on busy streets, where they educate voters about policy. Campaign leaders urge activists to share online messages offline with those who do not use the internet.

New electoral technologies

When he fell ill, Navalny was campaigning on behalf of a new generation of local candidates.

By demonstrating that Russian elections are little more than performances of the state’s capacity to manufacture votes, the Navalny team reveals the lack of choice and accountability in the system.

In summer 2019, this strategy led to significant protests after the regime barred almost all of the opposition candidates in Moscow’s municipal elections. When the government cracked down on pro-democracy demonstrators, Navalny’s team built a web-based way to identify any candidate who shared its values and urged voters to support that candidate – even if the candidate was in a party that they detested.

Recent work by political scientists Mikhail Turchenko and Grigorii Golosov demonstrate that Navalny’s “Smart Vote” strategy made a real difference in Russias’s 2019 local elections, helping to defeat nearly a third of Putin-aligned candidates in Moscow. Navalny’s team was gearing up to do the same thing in the September 2020 vote.

Social media innovation

Navalny’s creative use of new media is not limited to pothole repairs and voting apps. Beginning in 2006, he wrote a popular blog on the Live Journal social networking service. When the Kremlin shut down his blog in 2012, he reinvented his social media presence.

The Anti-Corruption Foundation produced a short film, “Don’t Call Him Dimon,” that lampooned former President and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev by showing his vast sneaker collection and flying a drone over his duck pond. Like ducks, sneakers became symbols of the opposition. The expose revealed the myth of Medvedev as an honest leader.

The exposes have continued on Navalny’s YouTube channel. His broadcasts have probed Russian intervention in U.S. elections, the Kremlin’s failure to provide COVID-19 relief and rigged Russian elections. These stories challenge the narrative presented in Russian state media, combating the regime’s systematic disinformation campaign.

Inspiring a new generation

Navalny’s efforts have captured the imagination of young Russians and demonstrated the effects of generational change. Following “Don’t Call Him Dimon,” tens of thousands of young people took to the streets, shocking a country that believed Putin’s opposition was played out. Months later, they flocked to join Navalny’s presidential campaign organization.

Navalny knew the dangers of being the face of opposition to the Putin regime. The day before he fell ill, he joked with young supporters that his death would do more harm to the Kremlin than his activism.

It’s clear that Russians – who have taken to Twitter to urge him to hold on – don’t want to test that hypothesis.

The first satyagraha

In 1917, Mahatma Gandhi, one of the leading icons of the Indian nationalist movement, started a political protest in the village of Champaran in what is today the eastern state of Bihar.

The movement was on behalf of poor farmers who had been forced to grow indigo used in the making of dyes. The British colonial authorities who saw this as a lucrative trade coerced the farmers into growing the crop even as they were poorly paid. If the farmers refused, they were heavily taxed.

Gandhi organized a nonviolent protest on behalf of the farmers. That was when the word satyagraha was used for the first time in the context of a political protest.

The use of this form of protest was both ethical and instrumental. The moral dimension sprang from Gandhi’s convictions. The practical element had to do with the realization that violence against the might of the British colonial empire was counterproductive.

Gandhi had first arrived at the idea of using nonviolent protest as a tactic in his early years as a lawyer in South Africa, where he was concerned with the maltreatment of the Indian community under British rule.

The concept of satyagraha was in turn drawn from his extensive reading of the works of the British poet and social critic John Ruskin, the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy and the American philosopher Henry David Thoreau.

Gandhi melded their ideas into what he had learned from the ancient Jain faith about the concept of “ahimsa,” which involves minimizing harm to all living beings.

Dandi march

In Gandhi’s view, and that of his followers, satyagraha involved a passionate commitment to nonviolent civil disobedience. To that end, he and his followers not only shunned all violence but steadfastly fought against social injustices.

Gandhi used the concept effectively in a protest against the colonial salt tax laws.

The Salt Law under colonial rule had prohibited the private production of salt, forcing Indians to buy this vital dietary staple at high market prices set by the British.

In 1931, Gandhi organized a march that went across much of the country to the seaside town of Dandi, in the western state of Gujarat. In a gesture of defiance to the Salt Law, Gandhi and his followers picked up natural salt from the beach as a way to demonstrate that they had a right to produce their own salt.

The British colonial authorities met this resistance with considerable violence and imprisoned Gandhi along many of the protesters. However, Gandhi and his supporters refused to back down. They conceded that they had broken the law by collecting salt from the seashore and were prepared to suffer the legal consequences.

The memories of this episode have become part and parcel of the history and folklore of the Indian nationalist movement. Accordingly, it is hardly surprising that the protesting farmers embraced the concept of satyagraha as part of their protests.

For over six months they have led protests as a tactic and have steadfastly refused to budge from their principal demands, which involve repealing the three new farm laws that the Indian Parliament passed in September 2020 which, if implemented, would dramatically cut back on government support for agriculture and move farmers toward an open national market.

Farmers fear these drastic changes and, despite government entreaties as well as crackdowns, they have refused to budge.

‘Lawful but awful’

The first is that it won’t be effective in dealing with the bulk of the harmful content we find on the internet today.

Social media companies are not perfect at removing content that violates Canadian law, such as child sexual exploitation material or terrorist propaganda, but they’ve improved considerably in recent years. Where they struggle, however, is in dealing with “lawful but awful” content that is legal under the laws of most democracies, including Canada’s, but is known to create real-world harm.

Consider the vast amounts of pandemic-related misinformation on YouTube and Facebook, or the casually racist or misogynistic memes that populate many Instagram feeds.

The broad protections that Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms provide for the right to free expression makes it difficult for governments to ban such content outright, or to even restrict the expression of such harmful and distasteful ideas in public spaces. Correspondingly, a new law that seeks to penalize technology companies for failing to promptly remove illegal material will only scratch the surface of the problems with harmful content online.

More troubling, however, is the example that the forthcoming legislation will set for countries that don’t share our respect for human rights.

Authoritarian governments around the world are adopting social media laws that are similar to the one set to be unveiled here in Canada. Those laws impose draconian penalties on social media companies that fail to take down content that is illegal under national laws.

The problem, however, is that the laws in many authoritarian countries criminalize forms of expression that are protected under international human rights law, from voices dissenting against the regime in power to the cultural and religious expression of minority communities.

Pakistan provides a stark example of this trend. Last year, the country enacted a law strikingly similar to what Ottawa is considering, but in the context of a legal system where blasphemy can be punished by death and where it’s a crime to violate “religious, cultural or ethnic sensibilities.”

In Poland, the increasingly authoritarian government of Andrzej Duda also introduced similar legislation in parliament last month, while Victor Orban’s administration in Hungary is also reported to be considering legislating a similar measure.

Internet at risk

Canadians should be concerned about the enactment of such laws in faraway places not only because we value human rights, but because this type of legislation puts the future of a global internet at risk.

As governments seek to regulate the online sphere according to their own peculiar national laws — regardless of whether those laws comply with international human rights standards — there is a risk that the internet will splinter into a series of national networks. That has profound implications for all of us.

Against this bleak international backdrop, Canada needs to think carefully about our approach to regulating online harm. Rather than going it alone by seeking to enforce laws aimed at social media companies, Canada should work with other rights-respecting democracies to develop a multilateral approach to addressing harmful online content.

This is precisely what was done to deal with terrorist and violent extremist content online following the 2019 Christchurch massacre, when a coalition of governments led by New Zealand and France worked with industry and civil society stakeholders to devise the Christchurch Call to Action.

A multilateral approach grounded in the shared language of human rights can help keep the internet free and open while moderating its worst excesses. It will also deny authoritarians around the world of the argument that what’s good for Canada is good for them too.

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From stone age to space age?

Once upon a time, the story goes, the world was full of space for humans to expand into. The genus Homo radiated out from temperate Africa, colonising the tundras of Ice Age Europe, and the continents and islands of Asia and Australasia.

As the climate warmed from 12,000 years ago, populations increased and people with domesticated animals and crops expanded further, turning forests into fields along the way.

On one side of the frontier was tame “culture”; on the other wild “nature”. Humans proved tremendously successful at adapting to these new environments using technologies such as fire, stone tools and metallurgy.

By the 20th century, technology had enabled humans to move beyond the narrow band of pressure and temperature where our bodies had evolved, to explore the deep sea, the Earth’s poles, and outer space. Special suits and vehicles enabled travel to these remote places where life at the extremes promised revelations about our place in the universe.

This story is captured well in a famous scene from the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey in which a bone tool, flung into the sky by an ancestral being, is transformed into an Earth-orbiting spacecraft.

The other side of the frontier

What’s often left out of this popular narrative is the perspective of those on the other side of the frontier. Consider colonial expansion from the 15th century onwards, when European nations sent ships to the southern hemisphere in search of new resources.

European invaders painted Indigenous people as Stone Age “savages” and cast themselves as the pinnacle of human evolution, entitled to lay claim to terra incognita and terra nullius.

The conquest of frontiers in the American West, the Australian outback, South America and numerous other places, was often brutal and bloody. The expanding front didn’t bring “civilisation” to supposedly benighted people; the result was rather genocide, disease, environmental degradation, alienation and poverty.

Utopia did not lie waiting in the New World.

Yet, despite the weight of historical evidence, people continue to assume that new frontiers beyond the Earth can provide refuge from old injustices perpetuated on this planet.

Panspermia and the moral imperative

Panspermia is the theory that the universe is filled with life. Micro-organisms and pre-biotic molecules travel on comets and asteroids between the worlds, flourishing when and where conditions are right.

The expansion of life into every available niche is thought to be a natural process that’s taken place countless times in this, and other, galaxies. The corollary of this idea is that enabling the spread of human life throughout the universe is justified.

To date, evidence that micro-organisms can survive journeys in space, even if encased in meteoroids, is scant. Critics also point out that the theory merely delays the real question, which is how life started.

While the panspermia theory is controversial, the idea that there’s a moral imperative for humans to expand beyond Earth is echoed by influential proponents of space exploration.

Consider these thoughts) from American science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, from his 1971 conversation with Carl Sagan, and Arthur C. Clarke, on the eve of NASA’s Mariner 9 spacecraft entering orbit around Mars:

And here’s space-travel advocate, Marshall Savage in his 1992 book The Millennial Project: Colonising the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps:

Such views are increasingly attracting trenchant criticism, as scholars “decolonise” knowledge and expose how the simple narrative of frontier expansion obscures the cause of terrestrial inequalities.

Islands of the interior

Perhaps the frontiers to be conquered in the 21st century are not spatial, but virtual.

Rapid advances in computing technology and data storage have renewed speculation about the idea, so often described in science fiction, of uploading personalities into a digital environment. Here worlds can be tailored to suit individual or collective taste without environmental impact.

In the 1890s, Russian space pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky hypothesised that living in microgravity (when people and objects appear to be weightless) would eliminate social disparities. Basking in the full energy of the sun, with no need for houses or furniture, everyone would be equal.

While this vision has not been realised, digital habitats seem to offer similar potential. The trappings of status in the “real” world, with all their attendant costs, need only be imagined to come into being; a new body or an elaborate castle are just a matter of coding.

But our experience with cyberspace to date suggests that class, race and gender still structure access to resources. The impacts of colonialism have contributed to a “digital divide” that mirrors the old geopolitical frontiers.

Virtual communities can also be places where the worst of human behaviour is nurtured. Some argue that this is because people don’t yet perceive the online environment as “real”. Hence they think the social consequences of their aggression cannot be real.

How, then, do we define reality when human interactions and material culture become numbers stored in machines?

It may be that the ultimate frontiers of the future will be boundaries between different levels of engagement with the material world. The “haves” may withdraw into quantum computers, rather than colonising other planets, and leave the “have-nots” to tackle the global unpredictability of the Anthropocene era.

A thirst for the new

If crossing frontiers consistently fails to deliver utopia and instead replicates terrestrial inequalities, is there any cause for optimism?

People on Earth avidly follow the discovery of expolanets (a planet that orbits a star outside our solar system). Witness the frenzy that accompanied the announcement of the potentially-habitable Proxima b in August.

The live exploration of inaccessible ocean landscapes through remote cameras, like those of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s research vessel Okeanos Explorer, is equally compelling.

Humans, it seems, have a thirst for escape. We hope that elsewhere – wherever that is – things may be better.

But this particular version of elsewhere has proved to be elusive. In the end, frontiers are not crisp lines on maps, but complex historical processes. As legendary explorer Freya Stark (1893-1993) said, “every frontier is doomed to produce an opposition beyond it”.

This, then, is our mission: to reconcile the opposites on the near side, before boldly going further into the beyond.