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Forbes
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Moral Ambition By Rutger Bregman — Review
Greed and selfishness are failing humanity: can 'moral ambition' save the day – and us? Helping hand. getty Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?Tell me, what is it you plan to dowith your one wild and precious life? – The Summer Day by Mary Oliver I have eagerly followed Dutch historian Rutger Bregman's career online ever since I saw a video clip on twitter of him speaking truth to power at the Davos CEO Greedfest Conference. In this video, Mr Bregman admits to the audience that he was bewildered by the economic scolds at Davos who talked about participation, justice, equality and transparency, but 'nobody raises the issue of tax avoidance and the rich not paying their share. It is like going to a firefighters' conference and not talking about water.' After I had been won over by that charming introduction to his moral philosophy, I simply had to know more. I'm most pleased to tell you that, a few years later, I finally managed to get a review copy of his hot-off-the-presses book, Moral Ambition: Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference (Little, Brown and Company, 2025). This impassioned book is incredibly readable – I read it in one go. It uses crisp, energetic prose and interesting examples to argue that it is possible for all of us to live meaningful lives. Additionally, reading the opening credits in this book that quote numerous book reviews already published, I felt like I was in an online book club with some of my favorite famous people, from Trevor Noah and Timothy Snyder to Stephen Fry, and I was determined to read this book that they all were talking about, so I could be part of the conversation, and an active participant in this social movement, too. Mr Bregman opens Moral Ambition by discussing how most people waste their talents on bullshit jobs, when they could instead focus their talents, energy and time on how to live a meaningful life that is useful to society. We learn how our conventional definitions of success harm us, animals and the planet, and Mr Bregman uses numerous examples to demonstrate how we can shift our focus from personal gain to societal benefit. This, in a nutshell, is moral ambition; the willingness to devote one's life to solving the world's biggest problems – globally pressing threats like climate change, pandemics, or the energy crisis. In his book, Mr Bregman describes the four categories of people as he sees them. First are people who are neither ambitious nor idealistic. This category includes those who work at meaningless 'bullshit jobs' and those people who only seek to retire. Second are people who are ambitious, but not idealistic. This group includes consultants, bankers, many tech employees (and I'd suppose, most politicians.) Third are people who are idealistic, but not ambitious. Most protesters and activists fall into this group. Fourth are those incredibly rare people who are both ambitious and idealistic. Mr Bregman moves on to discuss his concept of 'zeroes', 'ones', and 'twos'. Zeroes are those rare people who start things, the trailblazers – or troublemakers, if you prefer. Ones are the people who help the zeros in their crusades. Twos are those who join in and follow after things have gotten started. According to Mr Bregman, regardless of whether you are a zero, a one or a two, the ultimate goal is doing something that's useful for humanity. As an example, he points to how the young law student, Ralph Nader, got his start back in the day, by successfully suing General Motors for making unsafe cars. Nader's actions led to LBJ signing the Highway Safety Act and Traffic Safety Act. Following on that success, Nader then started the 'Radical Nerds', a group of talented and idealistic law students who were recruited by Nader specifically to focus on solving societal problems. Mr Bregman discusses the idea of the 'Noble Loser' – someone with ethical intentions but unable to make a difference. This is often because Noble Losers don't know how to make a difference. According to Mr Bregman, one way to overcome this deficit is to join a group centered around moral ambition, that relies on a cult-like mentality to identify and accomplish their goals. (I disagree with the author here because a cult can so easily go wrong, as we've seen far too often.) Some of Mr Bregman's examples include the Against Malaria Foundation, the Abolition of Slavery movement and even 'ordinary people' hiding Jewish people in their homes during WW2. Using these examples and more, Mr Bregman discusses what is necessary to make a substantially positive social impact. He concludes that it really doesn't take much. For instance, many of those who hid Jews did so simply because they were asked to. And anyone who knows this can have similarly powerful social impacts. In the book's final chapter, Mr Bregman introduces three global challenges (in addition to climate change) that could serve as worthy, solvable threats for those with moral ambition who are seeking to improve society: nuclear war; artificial intelligence and biological warfare. Despite some of my reservations, I think Mr Bregman's argument to think carefully about the impact that your actions and life have on others is critically important. Taking deliberate actions to live a meaningful life, a life that is useful, and impactful, is the most fulfilling way to live your best life. An inspirational guide to finding that path for ourselves, Moral Ambition reminds us that the real measure of success lies not in what we accumulate, but in what we contribute, and it shows how we can build a lasting legacy that truly matters. Highly recommended for absolutely everyone from the ages of 15 to 115, I think this powerful, well-argued book would be an especially thoughtful and transformative graduation gift for your high school or university students. © Copyright by GrrlScientist | hosted by Forbes | Socials: Bluesky | CounterSocial | Gab | LinkedIn | Mastodon Science | Spoutible | SubStack | Threads | Tribel | Tumblr | Twitter
Irish Times
23-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Leo Varadkar has more to offer than reality TV shows or doling out PR advice to mega-rich clients
A Dutch historian has established an incubator for idealistic leadership that he calls the School for Moral Ambition. Rutger Bregman, who confesses to being an indomitable optimist, is the author of a book entitled Moral Ambition: Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference. His non-profit school's mission is to put that message into practice by redirecting the careers of 'high achievers' motivated by money and status towards making the world a better place. The cynical guffaws in corporate boardrooms are already audible. Yet Bregman (37) is starting with an ace in his hand – most people are well-intentioned. 'If people desperately want to work for McKinsey and their main goal in life is to go skiing and have that cottage on the beach, fine. People have the right to be boring,' he told the New York Times, somewhat sneerily . 'But I think there are quite a few people who work at Goldman Sachs or Boston Consulting Group who are looking for a way out.' Bregman's initiative coincides with the foundation of a US fellowship for 'empathetic leadership' by the Centre for American Progress Action Fund jointly with former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern . Her premiership was distinguished by exceptional acts of compassion. Most memorably, after 51 people died in mass killings at two Christchurch mosques, she embraced Muslim mourners while wearing a headscarf and pronounced: 'They are us.' In her final speech to parliament, she said she hoped she had demonstrated that a leader 'can be anxious, sensitive, kind and wear your heart on your sleeve'. When, aged 42, she announced she was quitting politics because she realised that, after five years, she could no longer give it her best, the dominant narrative was that she had 'burned out'. The tone of the commentary was one of incredulity that a politician would walk off the rose-strewn stage just because she felt she could no longer give it her optimum. READ MORE [ Jennifer O'Connell: Response to Jacinda Ardern's resignation was depressing and predictable Opens in new window ] For all his Fine Gael conservatism, Leo Varadkar displayed some of Ardern's spirit during his time as a political leader. He and his partner Matt Barrett welcomed a Ukrainian war refugee into their home and, as a registered medical doctor, the then tánaiste volunteered to administer vaccines on his time off from government work during the Covid-19 pandemic. The vitriol heaped on him by keyboard warriors accusing him of exploiting the crises for self-promotion exposed the depth of cynicism in elements of the public rather than in him. A tight-lipped Varadkar was asked about his post-politics career plans while climbing a mountain in South Africa for RTÉ's adventure show, Uncharted with Ray Goggins, broadcast last week. His future includes an advisory position with the international PR agency Penta , whose clients include Microsoft, Google and JP Morgan. [ Uncharted with Ray Goggins review: Leo Varadkar has to get halfway up a mountain with Lyra before he lets his guard down Opens in new window ] As he struggled up that mountain in hazardous weather, I could not but think this man has more to offer than the jangling of his nerves on the slippery slope of an entertainment show and doling out advice on their public image to mega-rich clients. He is the prototype of accomplished, status-aware people being targeted by Bregman's mission to lure elites away from their 'wasted lives'. The Dutchman's premise is simple – capitalism has a boundless ability to create highly-paid and socially aggrandising jobs that make little contribution to the betterment of our world. He points to the financial sector as an example, saying 45 per cent of Harvard graduates end up in consultancy or finance. Some of the world's most lavishly enumerated chief executives are running wealth management and private equity companies. But are they happy? You pay peanuts, you get monkeys, goes the justification for obscenely bloated salaries. We've heard that mantra from bankers whose cupidity helped collapse the Irish economy in 2008. Top talent requires top dollar, they wailed. Top talent's vision, it turned out, is machines doing the jobs once done by people. We heard the mantra again in 2021 when a new secretary general was appointed to the Department of Health on a €292,000 salary, exceeding his predecessor's by more than €90,000. That's the department ultimately responsible for the €2 billion-plus children's hospital that has been under construction for a decade. Most recently, we heard it in the case of Brendan McDonagh , the Nama chief executive who withdrew as the putative 'housing tsar' amid controversy about his anticipated €430,000 salary. The political system cultivates the ideology that money is the measure of the man. Donald Trump represents the worst excesses and – let us hope – the dying sting of that mindset. The world's history of self-interest features a cast from Caligula and the Borgias to Vladimir Putin and Charlie Haughey. Hubris, megalomania and plain greed underlie the greatest existential threats to humankind currently posed by climate destruction and wars. It requires smart influencers willing to prioritise humankind's needs over their own to turn the tide. Bregman's theory is that talented people would be more fulfilled and more admired by concentrating their brilliant minds on the objective of making life better for others instead of accumulating zeros in their emoluments. 'She/he was loaded,' hardly compares as a headstone epitaph to 'she/he improved life on Earth'. Checking your privilege is no substitute for using it to benefit others. Former president Mary Robinson has used her international capital to try to save the planet. Jimmy Carter could have chosen to dine out on his reputation for the 41 years after he left the White House, yet he became most respected for the humanitarian work he did for the remainder of his life. The Robinsons and Carters of our age will remain the exceptions unless the cultural reverence for self-interested wealth-creators is turned on its head. That transformation needs a critical mass of converts to the idea that working to make the world a better place for everyone is more rewarding than working to enhance your own place in the world. Ardern's fellowship aims to inculcate 'pragmatic idealism' by drawing on the human strengths of kindness and empathy. Such values could provide the signposts to exit our zeitgeist of megalomania lorded over by the twin grabbers Putin and Trump and their sycophantic acolytes.
New York Times
17-05-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Rutger Bregman Wants to Save Elites From Their Wasted Lives
The world is full of highly intelligent, impressively accomplished and status-aware people whose greatest ambitions seem to start and stop with themselves. For Rutger Bregman, those people represent an irresistible opportunity. Bregman, 37, is a Dutch historian who has written best-selling books arguing that the world is better (mostly meaning wealthier, healthier and more humane) than we're typically led to believe, and also that further improving it is easily within our reach. Sounds a little off in these days of global strife and domineering plutocracy, doesn't it? Even Bregman, who is something of a professional optimist, is willing to admit that the arguments in his first two books — 'Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World' (2017) and 'Humankind: A Hopeful History' (2020) — land less persuasively now than when they were published. But his new book, 'Moral Ambition: Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference,' is his attempt to meet the current moment by redirecting self-interest into social good. He is trying to entice the people I mentioned earlier — society's brightest and most privileged — to turn away from what he sees as meaningless and hollow (albeit lucrative) white-collar jobs in favor of far more exciting and even self-aggrandizing work that aims to solve society's toughest problems. That's also the driving idea behind a nonprofit of which he is a founder, the School for Moral Ambition — a kind of incubator for positive social impact. A key question, though, is how exactly he plans on persuading people to rethink their own goals and values — which is to say, their own lives. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon | iHeart | NYT Audio App Your new book is an argument for why talented, high-achieving people should direct their energies toward more morally ambitious behavior. Do you see your writing as morally ambitious? Well, look, the reason I wrote this book was that I became frustrated with myself. I had a bit of an early midlife crisis. I was mainly spending time in this quote-unquote awareness business: You write books to convince people of certain opinions and then you hope that some other people do the actual work of making the world better. And I was working on a new book about the great moral pioneers of the past — the abolitionists, the suffragettes — but as I was studying their biographies, I experienced this emotion that I describe as moral envy: You're standing on the sidelines and wishing, gosh, wouldn't it be awesome to be in the arena? To actually have skin in the game? Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The Guardian
12-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Why you should quit your job and change the world
'Moral ambition is the desire to stand on the right side of history before it is fashionable, to basically devote your career, your life, to some of the most pressing issues that we face as a species.' Rutger Bregman, historian and author of Moral Ambition, believes that too many of us are in what he calls 'bullshit jobs'. 'What I see is an enormous waste of talent,' he tells Hannah Moore. 'So many people who could go on and do great things, who are stuck in cubicles, writing reports no one's ever going to read, creating PowerPoints no one wants to look at. It's pretty sad, and that needs to change.' He has founded the School for Moral Ambition, which aims to match such individuals with a cause to tackle. 'We want to recruit a Swat team of very talented wealth managers, bankers and corporate lawyers who are currently working for the Empire – sorry, this is a Star Wars reference – and we want to convince them to work for the Rebel Alliance.' He believes they should be 'fighting tax avoidance, fighting tax evasion, because it's not enough for me to just shout, 'tax the rich'. You also need the radical nerds who understand everything about all the loopholes and make all the difference.' Support the Guardian today:
