Those of you who were in this Hall on Speech Day this year will know that I talked briefly about a short story by Kurt Vonnegut, called Harrison Bergeron, and I concluded with the following statement: “One of the inescapable conclusions is that without brilliance, without difference, without the whole range of abilities, talents, backgrounds and interests, life would be incredibly dull. And that education should be all about keeping handicap systems away, removing any weights and obstacles, freeing up individuals’ talents and uniqueness, allowing for passions to develop and curiosity to be pursued, even – and perhaps especially – at a time when there are global pressures and burdens to bear. Young people need to come out of school with a freshness of heart and spirit, with an appreciation of beauty, with a love of diversity and range, with optimism and hope.”
There was a time during the pandemic when I decided not to watch the news. It was, quite simply, too depressing to see hospital wards stuffed full of extremely sick people and to hear every hour or two about the next worries on a deadly disease about which we had no real knowledge and no sign of a vaccination. I don’t know how vividly you remember those early days, but, in truth, watching the news was affecting my own sense of optimism. It was not a great feeling. Switching it off, for a whole month at one stage, was a tonic. I don’t do social media, so, really, I had nothing particularly awful coming at me despite the direness of the day.
I was thinking of doing the same thing again the other day. Look at the news now. It just all seems so awful—war in Europe, climate change catastrophe, cost of living crisis, broken politics. The list goes on and on. Do we ever read anything which provides a case for optimism in the news? It is our own fault in many ways; bad news, disaster, outrage, and conflict all sell papers. Good news rarely does.
However, one article these holidays has renewed my faith and lifted me from the mire, and it was written by that most maligned of species, an expert. Professor Bobby Duffy is Director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London (KCL). He wrote in the Times in July that, despite what the news will have us know, the world is a far better place than we have ever known it. It is a great article because not only does it tell us things we instinctively know – for instance, in 1950, 30 in 1,000 infants died before their first birthday; now, the figure is three in 1,000; life expectancy at birth back then was about 65 years; for babies born in 2020 it’s about 89; cancer survival rates have doubled in the past 40 years – and so on; but it also tells us some lesser known facts – greenhouse gas emissions in the UK have halved since 1990; the UK murder rate has declined substantially in the last 20 years; and despite talk of a dementia tsunami, there has been a 20 per cent fall in the past two decades. Furthermore, there has been social progress which we sometimes forget. Our attitudes towards homosexuality, for instance, have changed significantly in 40 years, thank goodness. I myself went to a civil partnership service on the very first day they were allowed, in 2004, indeed the day when Elton John had a civil partnership ceremony; it was one of the happiest occasions I have ever been to – this couple, my wife’s uncle was one of them, had been together in secret for almost 40 years. How sad is that? And since 2004, though we clearly have some way to go, we now have weddings and a far more accepting attitude all round.
But interestingly, Professor Duffy also explains why negativity breeds negativity. After a stream of news about teenage pregnancies pre-pandemic, the public were asked to guess the percentage of teenage girls who give birth every year. Their average guess was 19%, when the reality is just 1%. This, to me, highlights the danger of the news. It is pretty obvious that a fifth of girls in any sixth form class in the UK is not pregnant – yet just by reading the news, one can get a completely distorted view.
So, back to optimism. Firstly, optimism is good for you. It is good for your health, your sleep, your relationships, your work and so on. Not blind optimism, not simply “it will all be ok no matter what I do”, but a real, evidence-based optimism. Optimism takes effort. To have it, you need to work hard to become successful at something, and to understand that you can do and you can make a difference, both to yourself and to the world around you. This realisation of agency, the fact that you can personally make a difference to things, is also one of the cornerstones of happiness. It is worth having. One step on this pathway, if you choose to follow the news, is not to accept it at face value. As Steven Pinker, a Harvard professor and a wonderful and optimistic thinker, apparently said, “News is a non-random sample of the worst events on earth.” So, think about it, before lapping it up. And in your own life, don’t accept that you can’t do maths, or you don’t like history, or this homework is impossible, or that a hastily completed homework will just have to do. Give it your attention; work at it; find out that things are indeed possible; and you will find that the real, hard-earned optimism this brings will gather pace and make a real difference to your life.