Rutger Bregman Profile picture
Sep 7, 2020 5 tweets 3 min read Read on X
NEWS! I'm so honoured to be guest editor of this week's The Big Issue, UK's wonderful street newspaper. Theme: CYNICISM IS OUT, HOPE IS IN. On the cover: exclusive illustration by the great @charliemackesy! /1 Image
We've got brilliant pieces by @helenlewis and @NesrineMalik on activism and social change. I've interviewed filmmaker Richard Curtis (Love Actually, About Time, etc) about his films, activism and how he's being radicalised by his kids. (Teaser: bigissue.com/latest/richard…) /2
Here's a short version of my own essay about the jaw-dropping generational shift we're seeing right now. If you were young in the 1990s, it was avant-garde to be cynical and nihilistic. Nowadays, activism is the new realism.
bigissue.com/latest/rutger-… /3
Of course we have a piece on the power of universal basic income, or in this case: giving cash to homeless people. An interview with Claire Williams, who's doing an extraordinary experiment in Vancouver with giving money to rough sleepers. /4
Long story short: buy as many copies as you can for everyone you know. Buy from one of the 2,000+ street vendors for just £3, or subscribe, or buy it (if you're not in the UK) in the Big Issue App - you don't want to miss this :)
bigissue.com/magazines/rutg… /5 [the end]

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More from @rcbregman

Nov 6
When Trump won in 2016, we devoted countless hours to analyzing the chasm between our values and those of vast swathes of America. If only we'd 'listen' and feel 'empathy' for Trump voters, we might find a path to heal the world.

Can we please not do that again?
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Can we please look in the mirror instead?

Because here’s the thing: playtime is over. Autocracy and fascism (yes, that’s what it’s called) are on the rise around the world. This is not a Disney movie. These are f*cking serious times. /2 Image
So to all those privileged white-collar folks who are shocked by the outcome of this election – go and DO something. No, you're not fine the way you are. It's all hands on deck, and many of you are wasting your time and talents in well-paid but socially useless jobs.  /3
Read 8 tweets
Nov 4
🥁🥁🥁 ... and here it is!! After three years of work, my new book is now available for pre-order! I’m so, so excited about it. Because this time it's not just a book, but also a movement we’re launching – and everyone is invited to join. Image
Moral ambition is the combination of two things: the idealism of an activist and the ambition of an entrepreneur. It’s about devoting your career to the greatest challenges of our time, and making the world a wildly better place.

--> rutgerbregman.com/books/moral-am…
In the book, I study the lives of the great pioneers who came before us: the abolitionists and the suffragettes, the Jonas Salks and the Katharine McCormicks. And I write about the builders, the problem-solvers, and the doers who lead the way today. Image
Read 7 tweets
Aug 27
Powerful piece, with some uncomfortable observations.

'... proponents of income redistribution were less likely to give blood. “If everyone in the population gave at the same rate as government aid advocates, the supply would drop by about 30 percent."'

A short 🧵-->

/1vox.com/culture/368201…
During the 2010s, many progressives and leftists came to believe that improving the world does *not* start with the individual. Instead, we should strive for ‘systemic change’. /2
'In many ways, the growing emphasis on collective action felt clarifying, righteous, and long overdue',
@rmc031 writes...

... but were there downsides as well? /3
Read 12 tweets
Jul 10
I've got some big news to share today! 1) I’m moving to New York City 🇺🇲 2) We’re looking for a CEO for The School for Moral Ambition 🚀 /1
For those who don’t know me: I’ve spent ten years in what I like to call the ‘awareness-business’: writing articles and books, giving talks and sending lots of tweets about the many problems in this world. /2
I’ve built up an audience, gone viral, got invited by Seth Meyers and Trevor Noah, got disinvited by the World Economic Forum, and yet I’m plagued by a nagging feeling that I haven’t done much to make this world a better place. /3
Read 13 tweets
Jun 17
People who follow the news are more likely to agree with statements such as ‘Most people care only about themselves.’ They more often believe that we as individuals are helpless to better the world. They are more likely to be stressed and depressed. /1
First to open up this field of research, back in the 1990s, was George Gerbner (1919–2005). He also coined a term to describe the phenomenon he found: 'mean world syndrome' (), whose clinical symptoms are cynicism, misanthropy and pessimism. /2lnkd.in/eMMxzWy5
A few years ago, a team of Dutch sociologists analysed how aeroplane crashes are reported in the media. Between 1991 and 2005, when the number of accidents consistently dropped, they found media attention for such accidents consistently grew (source: ) /3tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
Read 10 tweets
May 19
For the first time in history, billionaires have a lower effective tax rate than working-class Americans. It’s time to tax those billionaires. And no, that’s not communism, that’s common sense.
Check out the plummeting tax rates of the super rich in the US (from this great piece by @gabriel_zucman: ). It's no different for billionaires in other countries. nytimes.com/interactive/20…
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Taxing the rich is what we did in the 1950s and 60s, during the so-called 'Golden Age of Capitalism', when we had much higher rates of economic growth and Eisenhower was president.
Read 6 tweets

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