How to be Good Ancestor at Just Festival

How To Be A Good Ancestor

Date:

August 22

Time:

07:00 pm - 08:30 pm

Book Now

It is time to confront one of the most vital questions of the 21st century: How can we be good ancestors?

We live in the age of the tyranny of the now: politicians can barely see past the next election or businesses past the next quarterly report, and we are addicted to the latest tweet and the ‘buy now’ button. How can we overcome this frenetic short-termism and extend our time horizons to tackle long-term challenges from the climate crisis to threats from artificial intelligence and genetically engineered pandemics?

Drawing on his powerful new book, The Good Ancestor: How To Think Long Term in a Short-Term World, leading public philosopher Roman Krznaric reveals how we can expand our imaginations far beyond the here and now. Exploring everything from the seventh-generation thinking of indigenous peoples and politically empowered ‘guardians of the future’ to the history of the London sewers and the latest neuroscience research, Krznaric argues that we have an inbuilt capacity to become ‘cathedral thinkers’.

Krznaric will be interviewed by Jamie Cooke from RSA.

  • The Good Ancestor: How to Think Long Term in a Short-Term World by Roman Krznaric will be published by WH Allen (Penguin Random House) on July 16, 2020.

This is the book our children’s children will thank us for reading

It deserves to be widely read – by policy makers, and indeed by all citizens who care about the prospects for their children and grandchildren.

Professor Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal

Clear-sighted and inspiring – a must-read for anyone who’s looking for the good news.

Brian Eno

Beautiful to read, heartfelt and persuasive The Good Ancestor is one of those landmark books with the power to shift a mindset. One turns the pages feeling a growing compulsion for change. Krznaric’s clarion call for long-term thinking makes him an ancestor all future generations can be proud of.

Isabella Tree, author of Wilding

For anyone who is interested in how we can get today’s society to leave the world better than they found it – this is your Guide.

Sophie Howe, Future Generations Commissioner for Wales

Krznaric’s seamless and magical prose delights on every page. Let’s engrave his “six ways to think long” across the gateway to every Parliament in the world.

Professor Tim Jackson, author of Prosperity Without Growth

Roman Krznaric

Date:

August 22

Time:

07:00 pm - 08:30 pm

Book Now

Roman KrznaricRoman Krznaric is a public philosopher who writes about the power of ideas to change society. His books, including Empathy, The Wonderbox and Carpe Diem Regained, have been published in more than 20 languages. His new book, The Good Ancestor: How to Think Long Term in a Short Term World, has been described by U2’s The Edge as ‘the book our children’s children will thank us for reading’.

After growing up in Sydney and Hong Kong, Roman studied at the universities of Oxford, London and Essex, where he gained his PhD in political sociology. He went on to found the world’s first Empathy Museum and is currently a Research Fellow of the Long Now Foundation in San Francisco.

Roman’s writings have been widely influential amongst political and ecological campaigners, education reformers, social entrepreneurs and designers. An acclaimed public speaker, his talks and workshops have taken him from a London prison to Google’s headquarters in California.