David Ruebain is one of the most thoughtful thinkers I know on disability, equality and the law. He is currently a Pro-Vice Chancellor at the University of Sussex with strategic responsibility for Culture, Equality and Inclusion including dignity and respect. He is an adviser to the football premier league, the former director of legal policy at the equality and human rights commission and has been in the top 25 most influential disabled people in the UK.
We chat on:
Social change seems to come about in a complex way. But peaceful protests seem to have had influence on some social topics. What is the importance of protest? In particular, thinking about the disability rights movement.
David gives insights into his role and view into the UK disability rights movement. The roles of agency and simplicity of message. The comparison with the climate protest movements.
David’s work with the UK football premier league and also the equality commission. What types of policies are successful for equality and diversity. What challenges are structural and what that implies for solutions.
The role of interdependence and that means at the moment. Whether the law can deliver inclusion and what that means.
How ordinary talking about equality seems now vs the 1970s. But how it itself will not be enough for humanity.
“Equality is what we all wanted in the seventies; for those of us who considered ourselves progressive. But now it feels fairly vanilla really as an idea. Equality is simply about level playing fields, with its sort of a zero sum game approach to if two people are in a race, nobody should be unfairly disadvantaged for any relevant consideration, which of course is true. It's sort of almost unarguable. But it isn't especially ambitious. … But if we are really to bring about the change which will ensure the survival of the species and other species, it will need more than equality, I think.”
We end on David’s current projects and life advice.
“....do what you need to do to believe in yourself because so many of us don't or doubt ourselves. That doesn't mean to say-- I think first of all, that knowing there's nothing profoundly wrong with anyone, including whoever you are. But secondly, knowing that from that perspective you get to learn and evolve; it doesn't mean you say rigid in the position. So there's something the risk of sounding like a not very good therapist. There's something about really believing in yourself…”
Listen below (or wherever you listen to pods) or on video (above or on YouTube) and the transcript is below.
PODCAST INFO
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Anchor: https://anchor.fm/benjamin-yeoh
Transcript with David Ruebain (only lightly edited)
Ben (00:02):
Hey everyone. I am super excited to be speaking to David Ruebain. David is one of the most thoughtful thinkers I know on disability, equality, and the law. He's currently a pro vice chancellor at the University of Sussex with strategic responsibility for culture, equality, and inclusion, including dignity and respect. He is an advisor to the Football Premier League, the former director of Legal Policy at the Quality and Human Rights Commission, and has been in the top 25 most influential disabled people in the UK. David, welcome.
David (00:37):
Thanks very much, Ben. Thanks for having me.
Ben (00:40):
Social change seems to come about in a complex way, but peaceful protests seem to have had influence on some of these social topics. You were involved in the disability rights movement, particularly here in the UK, and protests seemed to be quite an important part of that movement. How important do you think is protesting social change movements and what other factors do you think go into this type of social change?
David (01:09):
I think it's tremendously important. I don't know that I can say it's necessary for every area of change; I don't know that. But it has certainly been critical in affecting significant areas of change, I would say over the centuries. And as you mentioned, I was heavily involved in the disability rights movement in the 1980s and 1990s. I saw firsthand really the kind of step changes that arose as a result of increasing activism. At one point, I was vice chair of the Rights Now campaign, which was at the time, a national coalition of organizations campaigning for civil rights for disabled people. I mean, perhaps I should say that the principle demands at the time were for a significant change, a step change in understanding and thinking about disability from one which is often called the medical model or charity model, which is about repair or rehabilitation or providing minimum standards of accommodation and finance and so on to one which sought to treat disabled people as equals and afford them legal rights as such in the way that had happened at that point to some extent, at least for women and for black and racially minoritized people.
Nowadays, I suspect we see that as being almost prosaic and ordinary. But at the time, it was quite a radical agenda to think of disability as a civil rights issue and not just a medical or a quasi medical issue. Disabled people themselves had began campaigning for it in a number of ways. But really, the change accelerated through activism, through demonstrations, occupations; various forms of civil disobedience. And the Rights Now campaign, to which I refer was what became an umbrella organization, was something like 80 or 90 civil society organizations, which collectively represented, I'm pretty sure over a million people. Because it included the trade unions local authorities, as well as disability organizations. One can debate and discuss the extent to which laws-- which is what was demanded. Laws came into effect because of that.
But I do remember that at the time, the initial response of government to a demand for civil rights legislation for disabled peoples was, "It's not necessary." And then after a couple of years, it became, "It might be useful, but it's too expensive." And then a few years later, it became, "It might be possible in some instances, but it will conflict with other legitimate rights." And then later on it became, "It's not a priority." And then eventually it was, "All right then." Nothing conceptually or intellectually had changed in those various stages. But to my mind, there is no doubt that the external pressure led to the eventual enactment of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which was the first piece of legislation. Now, I should say that some disabled people in their allies thought that that was insufficient. It is stronger now-- Current legislation is stronger than it was then. But to my mind, I thought it was a huge victory, really. And it was because conceptually, if nothing else, it placed disability as an issue of exclusion and underrepresentation as much as a medical or a private medical tragedy.
Ben (05:17):
And that first law, as you've alluded to, was not the final step. And in fact, arguably the journey is still ongoing. I guess hearing that, there's two things I reflect upon. One is, I guess what it's like being both parts of such a broad movement. And you look at some movements today, I'm interested in kind of the decentralization of leadership to some extent, or like multi collaboration between many kind of people and stakeholder groups of not necessarily a leader, but there always does seem to coalesce around certain figures. And I wondered how you think about that in terms of sort of structurally organization in terms of social movements. That also echoes into my question alongside that which is, the part of the kind of culture change piece, because the law obviously was a great step change.
But I reflect back listening to the stories and hearing things now. But this idea of a social model of disability or this idea that it's not all about the money or financialization. It's about making a more inclusive place that's sort of seemed to be the start of that movement as well. And that culture change piece, you can't really legislate for. I mean, you don't really legislate for either. It's in how people think. So I guess it's an interconnected one is with a broad social change movement in getting a lot of people and that decentralization and how do you think that goes, do you think that's part of the key for getting the broad culture change piece to go alongside the law?
David (06:55):
Yes, I do. I think if I understand your point, Ben, I think-- I mean, many more erudite people than me have written about power having to be taken, not given and related maxims like that. But I think that-- I mean, if we take the environmental crisis, which you and I have spoken about it and I know that you know a lot about it as well in terms of your work. I think many people will have strong views about the activities of extinction rebellion. Some are very supportive and others oppose their actions because of its disruptiveness. But it is very much-- and I don't try and say that I understand or know everything. [ ] I even think everything that happens is wrong. But it is based on quite a compelled theory of chain, how societies evolve and change by reaching a critical mass of activity.
And in reaching that critical mass of activity, a level of disruption is required. Now, of course, you can debate and dispute, "Where the line should be. Is there a line that there should be? Should we not disrupt certain things because it causes too many other problems, or it's too difficult?" And there are legitimate conversations to be had there. But I do think that there is merit, at the very least, in communal action. Because otherwise without that, then we're left with what to my mind seems to be very narrow models of democratic participation, which is basically either involvement in an established party and/or voting. But whether it's citizens assemblies, whether it's demonstrations, whether it's petitions or other forms of town hall meetings, other forms of activity; nonviolent direct action as well. It seems to me that that is a key characteristic of change and probably has been in every major change event over the centuries.
Ben (09:36):
Yeah. I think of-- What is it that quote? I think, is it Martha Luther King Jr. That the creative dedicated minority has always made the world better or some such like that. Yeah, I think you've convinced me. I flip-flopped on protest movements of where they are. We're particularly related to climate because it's so intersectional and broad. But I think you have raised in general my feeling about how these movements can do. And I think-- going back to my point, which I think you did get. I'm really interested in essentially, particularly in the climate movement, a real emphasis on a decentralized way or in some ways this is touching on inclusivity, but the fact that they don't put the power in a few people. I mean, they have leaders just by nature of the kind of charisma force of what those people are doing. But quite purposely, they don't want those same kind of power structures. And I think that's really interesting in spreading that. Although the flip side is then you've got some groups which will do things that other people don't agree with within the movement. So there are some downsides to it, but I think it's really interesting how broad that is and the kind of governance or non-governance structure of being decentralized.
David (10:48):
Yeah, and I mean, it raises-- I think communal activity is complicated. It doesn't lend itself to neat, straightforward, logical processes and outcomes. It's messy; kind of wide engagement is a messy process. But I think ultimately in a way, is it is its strength. So in the Rights Now campaign as I mentioned, we had 70, 80, 80 plus member organizations from disabled people's organizations, to parents organizations, to trades unions, political organizations, local authorities. And each of them had their own particularities around the issue and their own perspective. And probably if we had been interrogating them all, they would've said something slightly different. But it was essential that we were able to contain all of that. So our demands were very, very simple and deliberately so; rights not charity. We especially didn't go into a lot of detail about what that would mean for X, Y, or Z with a significant level of detail because at that point, we may not have maintained the cohesion of the collective.
And it was able to hold a range of diverse viewpoints because of the unifying central objective. That's a reason for a devolved model as you are describing. It's probably not the other one because I think people need to feel that they have agency. If things are too centralized or indeed hierarchical, you basically-- anybody who's not in the position of power is a foot soldier for want of a better phrase. It's very hard to maintain enthusiasm just as a foot soldier because you've got your own mind and your own thoughts and feelings and priorities and commitments. So I think in the long run those things don't work. And so even if you're just thinking of end goals, I think it's important to have a level of devolution and democracy really.
Ben (13:20):
So I'm hearing simplicity and agency; quite important ingredients in the movement. And reflecting maybe the last one on the kind of disability rights movement of that time. Were there other important steps or pieces of the puzzle that you'd articulate for anyone thinking around this? Whether you were targeting some key policy makers as well, or whether it was going in a way having a broad movement and then going kind of hand, hand combat to convince people or whether there was some other kind of tactical strategy in the movement that you felt was a key reason for success?
David (13:59):
Yeah, I mean, we had many advantages, if I'm honest. In the case of disability, even if you're not a disabled person-- and most people aren't... Disability is one of those identities which everybody can acquire. I mean, that itself is a whole other conversation about what is an identity and is it just a fact or is it a set of beliefs and whatever. But nonetheless, putting that to one side, anyone can become disabled. And indeed, if you live long enough, you probably will. Even if you're not-- thankfully nowadays most people have good contact with other disabled people or they may be family members or parents or companions or partners or coworkers or whatever. The idea of rights, not charity, was broken down into very simple evidential nuggets.
Like, "Why can't I live with my friend?" Or, "Why should my coworker not be able to get in the building?" It was probably slightly more elegantly put than those, but... They were kind of very simple moral imperatives, and that was coupled with... I think we were at a moment in time in a wider political sense, the kind of individualism and autonomy, which had been very much foregrounded by Margaret Thatcher and Thatcherism in the early 1980s. Had really begun to look very tired and offensive to some people. We'd been through the minor strike, we'd been through a heavy period of de-industrialization, and depending on how you think about it, a shift from a materials based industrial society to a much more knowledge based economy. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but with that came tensions and destructions of communities and so on.
So there was a strong feeling increasingly widely held that foregrounding of individualism was wrong. And we'd seen the poll tax, which is a classic example of that, which is where-- For those listeners who were old enough will remember that it was all about everybody paying the same amount regardless of your income for council services. And there was such a visceral reaction against that because it was an ultimate individualistic rather than societal response to being in a community that it was ultimately rejected and finally brought down Margaret Thatcher. So the Rights Now campaign and Civil Rights for Disabled people rode those waves.
Also, the kind of longer arc of history about civil rights for black people and for women, as I mentioned and emerged in other issues for marginalized people. So there's very much. I think we were lucky, or I think we were of our time at that moment. 1991, George Bush not known for his kind of very liberal or progressive tendencies. Was it George Bush? Have I got that right? Anyway, whoever was the president in 1991 in America certainly was a Republican, passed the Americans with Disabilities Act four years ahead of the United Kingdom. We already had evidence of the fact that those voices which were saying that it's too costly, we can't afford it, disabled people don't need it, whatever, it was increasingly impossible for the change to be resisted. So I think there was a constellation and a conflation of a whole range of forces which allowed it to happen. I'm probably answering a completely different question at this point, but...
Ben (18:24):
No, I think that makes a lot of sense. So, I mean, one of the big pieces you highlighted was empathy. People could understand it.
David (18:31):
Yes.
Ben (18:31):
And then I think this really important moment in time or riding a wave, or maybe history comes in these kind of waves as you had if you go back a little while away, slavery, women's rights, black and minority rights coming through, and then the movement in the US. There's a little bit with that within climate and climate justice as well. But I do think one of the things that climate struggles with actually is this empathy piece, because it's more diffuse. It's a crisis which is pervasive and everywhere. And you can't ask that same question of your neighbor, particularly in rich nations, where actually it falls. It falls unequally not as badly in rich nations. But you can't ask for your friend who can't get access to a building or those very visceral why questions when it's desertification in Africa or this kind of diffuse.
So I think that is a key difference. But it is interesting here you also talking about a moment in time, because I do think the environment is seeing that somewhat. Perhaps pivoting a little bit to your work with the equality commission from there. My wider question here is that when I look at your work, there's a really strong thread of essentially evidence-based work, what actually might really work as opposed to, for instance, in corporate world, slightly different, I guess from academic and everyday place. But in corporate world, when I think about or I see corporate, culture, and diversity, a lot of it is just simply, I think your phrase is, "Let's just be a little bit nicer to one another." That's a kind of common sense culture thing is not really to do with diversity, inclusion, DNI, or culture or quality or all of those things which is kind of common sense. And then also there are some things which are contested and maybe don't really work or are not as clear as some other things. So I was wondering what kind of evidence-based work are you most attracted by and what did you learn in the equality commission? Is that where a lot of that came from?
David (20:36):
Yeah, I mean, it's a great question, Ben. But actually it's a really important question for me. Before I joined the Equality and Human Rights Commission, I was a lawyer; a litigator in private practice. I basically sued organizations who we were alleging had either discriminated or had treated an individual, my client unlawfully. It's actually great fun suing; it's really, really good fun. It's a bit like a task and finish group with a clear end point, and you either win or you lose. So if you like playing-- I don't wish to trivialize this in any way-- I don't mean this in that way. But if you like playing games and you want to win and you believe in the cause and you enjoy what you do, which luckily, I have always been able to do. You can try really hard for something and if you're successful, you are successful. And then you move on to the next case, and then the next case.
So it's a bit like having a fight with very clear rules sort of thing. Then there is an outcome, and hopefully you'll succeed. And often we did-- not always-- often we did. But what I found from that, and why I stopped practicing eventually was because the change was limited; were two things. The change was limited. If you were successful, you would afford a remedy to your client. If you were really successful, you would bring about wider change which would hopefully benefit some other people as well if it was a change in the law or in processes or approaches. But it was incremental and often you ended up taking similar cases time and time again.
The other thing is it became very-- If I was ever in any doubt, it became very clear to me from the outset that this wasn't about good versus evil at all. This was about a structural set of arrangements. So the organizations who were acting in ways which was disadvantaging the people that I was representing. Clearly they shouldn't have been, and I didn't want them to, but they weren't doing it out of malevolence. I don't rule that out. I'm not saying that nobody's malevolent; some people may well be malevolent. But in my experience, that's not the common approach. And increasingly, I was attracted by theoretical understandings of oppression as structural. So the work that I went to do at the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which was as director of legal policy, which was really about looking at levers for national change and then subsequently in my other work, has been about-- obviously behaviors are important and egregious behaviors of any sort should not be permitted.
But beyond that, what is the cause for the evidential data backed approach, which shows chronic areas of underrepresentation and disadvantage. We know a lot more about it than we ever did and we know what are the issues. And they are overarching these structural issues; some of which are cultural, some of which are legal, some of which are organizational. But it is that, which it's not necessarily easy to resolve, but it is very much about that in my view. And I think that interestingly, I'm lessened notwithstanding that-- I think civility and kindness and respect for everybody is important. I almost take that as a given in terms of what we've expected. And actually I'm looking at I think the challenging areas are these much bigger issues.
Ben (24:55):
Yeah, that's fair. So I'll come on to I guess institutional bias or institutional racism, whether it's conscious bias or not; and not just racism, there are other structural things. But maybe before that, I would be interested if in that time or your reflection over the past decades on, what do you think are the kind of policies or guidelines which work which are most effective now that we have a foundational kind of piece of law in place? You've got more knowledge and awareness, although it's still a journey coming through. Are there any particular policies, either at the organizational level or things we should be advocating or looking to that you think like, these are my experience, are some of the most effective to looking at this area?
David (25:47):
I'll give you a couple of examples. So for large organizations, in Britain, the law requires that they publish annually in a certain format their gender pay gap, which is the mean, and I think sometimes median pay for men and women and the gap there in. And then there's a level of details sometimes which also has to be published. And that is really interesting because first of all, the gender pay gap is what it's not about is paying men and women different amounts for doing the same job. That would be straightforwardly unlawful. That would be what's called positive. That would be what's called direct discrimination and straightforwardly unlawful. What it is the average pay for men and the average pay for women and what that reaches for are issues of occupational segregation.
So it's a hierarchical organization, what's the distribution-- broadly speaking, it turns out to be about distribution between men and women in different grades. So if there is a gender pay gap, it's because there are many drivers. It's not only this, but often it's because women tend to do the more lower pay jobs than men than more higher pay jobs. But then there are particularities which are different in different organizations. What you can find. So the gender pay gap is an indicator to something, but it isn't, in my view, an end in itself. It's an indicator to possible structural issues. Why are all the people at C-suite level men, if they are? That's a structural issue probably. I mean, there may be also. I have to be [inaudible 00:27:48] egregious behaviors like sexual harassment and so on as well, which will play a part. But even if there wasn't, there would still be structural issues.
But actually it's possible to have a zero gender pay gap and for there still to be structural issues. So you could have a complex organization like a university where if you look at the mean or medium pay for men and women, you end up at roughly the same, so there's no pay gap. But there are maybe pockets of university activity where there are no women or no men for whatever reason. What I learned from that is in seeking to drive forward culture change and advanced equality, diversity and inclusion, there isn't really no... You can say, "We want to have proportionate numbers of men and women or black and or racially marginalized people and white people according to the populations or disabled people, which is roughly running at 15%," you can say that. And they will be useful indicators, but they're not the end point if the end point is really about full inclusion. I don't think any of us really know exactly what that would look like. I think it's a journey that we're on.
But the other example I would give, because you ask about successful initiative. I say that because I trying to point to the complexities I think of some of this work. But at the Premier League, we've instigated something called a premier league equality, diversity, and inclusion standard. Well, the Premier League has instigated that. That's a requirement of all clubs who wish to play in the Premier League. So obviously all clubs are going to do this because they're not going to refuse to be in the Premier League because they don't want to do it. It's a systemic change program that all clubs have to participate in, which requires collection of qualitative and quantitative data, effective analysis, and a production of an action plan. It's a standard approach for systemic change work.
And what we've seen is significant change over the years in not only the representation of marginalized people in football clubs-- I'm not so much talking about players themselves, although that's also an issue. But broader staff, fan bases, community activity, things like that. But also amazing initiatives that they do which in my view is sort of leading other sectors. If you would've asked me 10 years ago, "Would I think football could lead other sectors in inclusion?" I would've thought, "I think it's unlikely." But in many respects it is in terms of what organizations like football clubs could do within their communities and to be inclusive. That's very much process based, but I think it works.
Ben (00:31:09):
Yeah. That's really fascinating. And in your comments is kind of oblique critique of why quotas might not necessarily work because it's not to do with the structural, the process; and it's to do with the system. So one individual thing may not happen to work. I mean, there might be other arguments for and against, but a blunt quota may not get at a systems problem. Whereas at least if you start to do some of these things about understanding where the situation is and some of the causal roots and all of this, you might engender some of that change. And you kind of preempted my question about your experience on football in the Premier League. So perhaps I'll ask it wider about what do you think of organizations, which is not necessarily any their "fault" or an individual fault of how these behaviors and things have come about.
But there are claims particularly in the UK, but I think it applies to quite a lot of organizations where you look at this in the US or even in Europe around institutional bias, either racism or things like that. And then issues around that and changing that. I think in the UK particularly, there's-- Well, across a lot of things, but there's a renewed focus on the London police force. So I was wondering reflections on how that's happened over time. And again, perhaps a little bit what we can do for-- Your example in the UK, football's actually quite a good example of actually something which is steadily improved and probably much more than people would've predicted 10 years ago, which I think is kind of a hopeful point.
But there is still quite a lot of debate around that. So I'd be interested in all your reflections on that. And what we will do, particularly when maybe some of it is you could argue on the kind of unconscious bias part, and then some of it just seems to be behaviors which have built up over a long period of organizational time. So you don't really-- in fact, it's probably unfair to pin it on any one particular person. And it's a layering on layering of leadership over time. Some UK organizations seem to be particularly stuck with this as a challenge.
David (00:33:32):
Yeah, really interesting points, Ben. There's a couple of things I want to pick up. Well, first of all, you are right that more and more, I understand the issues to be structural and therefore not much less about end point change, which you might argue, is what something like a quota is. However, I actually do think there's a lot of merit in arguing for quotas. I mean, quotas in many instances is currently unlawful in UK law at least. So it's very difficult to operate lawfully if that's what you want to do. But the reason why I say it can be important is because culture is so contingent on things like dominant ideologies-- and group think and atmospheres and so on.
And if you have cultures which are relatively homogenous, which I suspect is part of the issue with the metropolitan police, although I don't know-- firsthand, I certainly don't know. Then they tend to replicate themselves and allow for some of these horrible, egregious things or create spaces for these horrible and egregious things to happen. And conversely, they mitigate against the idea of a sense of belonging for a wider group of people. One way of improving centers of belonging, which can in term disrupt hegemons and dominant cultures and make things more diverse and sort of embed diversity as an empirical experience, not just about numbers of people. One way of doing it is by having quotas. By saying, "We are underrepresented in this area, so we are just going to have a large number of these people coming in."
And of course, again, that's likely to be unlawful. We don't have positive discrimination in this country except for the asymmetric categories of disability, funny enough, and also marriage and civil partnership. It's very difficult to do that. There are some things you can do, which organizations are experimenting in terms of group higher work. But really belonging, in my view, is something which has become more and more understood in recent years for cultures. And if you are going to engender a sense of belonging for everybody, you're going to have to address homogeneity. So the argument for diversity is well understood and well made even from a bottom line argument; the general argument that heterogeneous organizations do better than homogeneous organizations, almost self-evident. But actually there are more subtle ways in which it's important, which is around-- Well, I'm probably repeating myself here; where if you have diverse groups, you are able to better people individually feel safer and more themselves and therefore are able to thrive.
Ben (00:36:59):
And, and for someone like the police force, you want to feel that the police force is a reflection of you and your society.
David (00:37:06):
Of course.
Ben (00:37:06):
I couldn't help but think that if your police force was 50/50-- let's put it the other way. More extremely. If it was 60 40 women and say 40, 50% made of minorities and conglomerate. I would find it really difficult to believe that you wouldn't via that just structure be quite different from where you are today. And maybe it's because you couldn't repeat what you had before within that. So I do take that point. And I have seen-- For instance, there's a decent amount of corporates organizations where you may not have that quota as the outcome, but they're looking at, for instance, balanced and diverse shortlists for whatever that you are looking for.
So even though, like in senior management, yes, you're still expecting it to be men, but if you're looking at a short list of six people, you need to really ensure that three are women and you've got some diversity in there because if your shortlist is only six men, you're never going to get there because of that. And particularly at the shortlist stage with all of those types of things. I was really interested also maybe picking up on some of that because we kind of touched on it, on your thoughts on the kind of inclusion piece. Because equality or a lot of equality law is kind of all-around about fairness. And to some degree there's this kind of-- you've described it as a zero sum game within some of that.
I look at some of it where you are kind of saying, "Oh, is someone worth an hour of work on this, or can you do that or not?" It's still very much within a market structure, not necessarily with this inclusion piece. And then I think also of my own experience-- So I'm going to put another 'I' word here. Maybe you can reflect on a kind of interdependency and the fact that we as humans, and actually all of the world is very interdependent on so many things, whether it's natural or physical or in humans relationships being social creatures. I have a little story or an anecdote about what I see in a kind of area, which is called music therapy, which I'm sure you'll know about. But where this therapist who's a musician essentially enables music to come out of another person; often a disabled person, but not always sometimes someone with a lot of other needs.
And what's really unique about this from a creative perspective and even a philosophical perspective, is that the musician is the enabler. The piece doesn't work without the two of them or without the group. But actually, the primary creation of the music or the creative act is not from the musician, it's from the therapist is often from the other person or the group. But it doesn't work without the two of them. It's only an independent piece of work. It's put often in the therapy world, but I see it as often really beautiful creative acts of the level of that you see on any other creative works. And I often think about that in terms of independence and how actually that's closer to how humans are and how we actually work in the real world. In any event, bringing it around was like your thoughts about how things have changed or your view on this inclusion piece which has now talked a lot about alongside equality and things like that and how it is actually maybe another step in terms of thinking about society change or culture and where we might be heading.
David (00:40:54):
Well, I have to say, I think interdependence is having its moment and I'm delighted about that, Ben. Not for all the reasons that you say, but also others. In fact, I have been working on this myself in various talks that I've been giving recently and in my inaugural professorial lecture last year. If I may, I just might look back to an earlier part of our conversation. I mentioned that one of the reasons why I stopped practicing as a lawyer and moved into strategy and policy work and then into higher education doing that, is because it felt to me that the law had its limitations, certainly as a litigator. I think more generally the law is-- In a recent lecture I gave, I tested this rhetorical question of, "Can the law deliver inclusion?" In short, my answer is it's a necessary but not sufficient condition to have good laws.
And the reason for that is the law can impact on errors of public life, but it's ability to transform more fundamentally is very limited. So very crudely it can tell an employer that it can or cannot take certain approaches as to who it hires and how it deals with its employees. But it can't say anything to you and I about who we have relationships with or who we invite for dinner or anything like that. And nor should it, by the way, in my view. Beyond the law, I think we need to put attention strategically on relationships. When I say strategically, I don't mean just relationships or things that happen or don't happen depending on circumstance.
I think we need to look at that as a tool of liberation-- relationships as a tool of liberation and political change. And profoundly, that is because of as you say, the concept of interdependence. Because as much as anything else, the narrative certainly of sort of 20th, 21st century western societies is of independence. This idea that we should all be able to manage on our own and be on our own, maybe with some the exception of having families. But otherwise, that's it. It's contrary to other cultures, and I'm very mindful of ideas of Ubuntu in Africa. This philosophical concept of I am because you are, and therefore the fact of relationship or community being the essence of my sense of myself. John Donne wrote about, "No Man Is an island." Many artists and philosophers and writers have explored it.
But I think it's coming to its own because more and more people are reacting against this idea of independence. Interdependence in my view, is also not the same as dependence, which is very one way. And it's also different from co-dependence, which seems to be a kind of therapeutic type of where two people with mutually connecting sets of distresses are reliant upon each other. So it is important. I'm not trying to be tricksy in this, but it's important to kind of think about what it means. And I think also that it is-- Disabled people talk a lot about interdependence because they have always been characterized as being unhealthfully dependent whereas the reality is we are all dependent and ideally interdependent. More and more I feel that it is the key to systemic and structural change.
Ben (00:45:02):
I think it also goes beyond or alongside this movement and the human piece to a couple of other areas that we've talked on tangentially, but I see, which is around climate and actually around business and the world. So we've got to a state-- and I think we were always in this state-- but where organizations and business just rely not just dependently on supply chains and things, which is there, but there is an interdependence around all of this. We've seen this for some of the geopolitical tensions and where we've seen businesses and organizations almost at this meta-level expression. It's very obvious within climate that we are very dependent and actually have interdependence on much to do with the environment. And then you see it in the micro with pets, for instance. So not just within human relationships.
And there's the kind of a growing understanding on that with other sentient beings. So interdependence, I really do see as it having its moment, and actually it's trickling around of our understanding of so many complex systems with that. And to your point, you have cultures within Africa, you've had artists. I think I listened to a talk where you spoke about dharma and Buddhist concepts of this as well. So, I do think there's something really interesting on that and we will have to see where that goes.
David (00:46:32):
Yes. I'm sort of quite excited about it. So many people are talking about it at the moment, and it feels like, again, it has its moment. Just one other thing about equality. Equality is what we all wanted in the seventies; for those of us who considered ourselves progressive. But now it feels fairly vanilla really as an idea. Equality is simply about level playing fields, with its sort of a zero sum game approach to if two people are in a race, nobody should be unfairly disadvantaged for any relevant consideration, which of course is true. It's sort of almost unarguable. But it isn't especially ambitious. And I have to say, I think, looping back to how we started this conversation with these major meta global existential challenges like climate change, whatever your perspective about likelihood of resolution or not, it is probably one of the most significant problems the world is facing, if not the most significant problem. I don't think concepts of equality are sufficient to try and really address, philosophically at least. I mean, they have their place for sure, not least in the way that you mentioned earlier, the disproportionate impacts on different populations and countries around the world in part dependent on their wealth. And so there are relevant considerations of equality there. But if we are really to bring about the change which will ensure the survival of the species and other species, it will need more than equality, I think.
Ben (00:48:21):
Yeah. I agree. But I also do think it's really interesting about how vanilla equality is. I don't think anyone really argues against, for instance, equality of opportunity. It's the mainstream like 95%. I would even say up to 99, but you've always got a minority strangeness somewhere of that. And that wasn't the case in the seventies. There was a live debate around it, and-- if you want to call it the progressive movement, I won that argument. So it is no longer a progressive idea; it's now a mainstream idea, which is kind of in the name of how you progress along. And I see this as a continuation. That's why I'm very interested in these social change movements, because these are human constructs.
Laws are only important to humans. They're not important, at least first order to the trees or the dogs, except for where humans interact with the trees and the dogs. And we've had that from, as we've mentioned, slavery to women's rights to minority, equality and things. And then, "Well, where does this go next? And these other things; some inclusion, interdependency, some of these other things, which I think is really fascinating. Obviously in the moment you don't really know where it's going, and in the moment you're also in the minority. So in the seventies, equality was a progressive idea. In the1900, 1890, women's equality was a progressive idea. In 1800, lack of slavery was a progressive idea. So it's kind of really interesting, I think, how that social progress happened.
Perhaps just one final little section then with something which I know you've sort of been involved in and has been the university level, which we probably should touch on; again, which is a bit intersectional of this. So one is some of the debates around-- I guess they're calling it the freedom of speech thing and the other with identity which you mentioned right at the beginning. The debates around how much is a construct, what is the construct, and where we are, which is quite fluid at the moment versus where it is. And I think that's interesting as well, because it wasn't so much in the seventies, the topic that people would've come across and has now progressed there.
And you've done a lot of work within academic circles and those sort of systems. I think people who just read the sort of media reports or aren't really actively involved or see this often get a kind of-- not a very broad view of what's really happening. So I'd be interested to see from where you are how you are feeling around a lot of the debates around identity and free speech. I mean, a lot of it seems to me sort of common sense and people just asking for reasonable things and we're working on getting those right. But there's some other things there.
David (00:51:13):
Yeah. I mean, certainly for universities-- especially for universities, freedom of speech is critical, really. The idea that we can interrogate and test concepts and ideas howsoever, and follow the evidence, even if we end up making a mistake or saying the wrong thing, it's critical. There are obviously laws which limit freedom of speech, whether it's around hate speech or harassment or defamation or matters to do with property rights; contract laws and who owns intellectual property and thing. So there are a variety of laws where-- It's not true to say that free speech is absolute, but free speech is certainly tremendously important. And I think we're in we're in a time, not just in this country, but in many countries where those concepts are colliding with a particular sense that many people have about the essentialness of their identities or whatever those identities are.
And I think it's very interesting, very complicated and very difficult to resolve. So if I take one example, I'm a disabled person, so I identify as a disabled person and there is an objective reality to me being a disabled person, but it is also constructed. So somebody with my particular impairment, my medical condition in a different time and space and different world wouldn't have the identity of disability that I have at the moment, even though I might have the same impairment. So there's a complex mix of the essential and the inessential where one is talking about identity. And that plays out and crashes against ideas of freedom of speech, particularly where the speech appears to profoundly undermine the identity. The challenge for us all who are working in this area is to navigate that; to navigate that in a way which doesn't compromise either the importance of freedom of speech, because without that in a university environment, we are really denuded. So it is an essential element to it, but also doesn't compromise our emotional and evidential understanding of people's individual sense of themselves and what matters.
Squaring that circle is not easy. I think it's possible. I say that even though I may not have all of the answers at all. But I think we have to square that circle, and I think we can, because I do come at this issue like I do with all issues from the perspective that there's no fundamental conflict between only two groups of humans. Of course there is actual conflict-- some of it is horrible over the centuries as we've seen. But I don't think in terms of the essentialness of humans, I don't think that there's any real conflict. And so we have to navigate a way through all of this he says loosely, but nonetheless, relevantly.
Ben (00:54:48):
Not with all the answers, but we're on a journey on that. And that sounds quite hopeful as well. So maybe last couple of questions here would be, what are your projects or thoughts that you are working on? Obviously, this interdependency, you had this lecture which you can listen to on YouTube on whether law provides inclusion, although we've given the punchline already; so necessary but not sufficient. But other current projects and thoughts you'd like to share?
David (00:55:24):
I mean, there's lots we're doing at Sussex and also at the Premier League. But I think probably-- And this is true I think for many of my colleagues in other universities and other sectors as well, I think that there are big challenges around what we mean by identity, what is essential, what is not essential. But profoundly how people can keep a sense of themselves, their sense of belonging and safety, even in environments which may feel like it's critiquing something, which is profound for them. That's probably one of the major more trickier issues for universities, certainly at the moment in terms of EDI and culture work. There are chronic areas of underrepresentation for which I think there are solutions. And underrepresentation is a signifier for other things. But there are chronic areas of underrepresentation which for certain groups which there are still-- if I could just give you one example.
British Caribbean heritage colleagues, they are considerably underrepresented. And I think that there are really complex issues of structural issues of race and class which need to be unpicked and addressed in many areas. And there are broader issues of belonging, which I think if we're able to tackle that-- and they're probably complimentary to tackling the other areas of underrepresentation which are important to address. And then there are legacy issues; what I call legacy issues. Ones where in many ways the arguments have been won, but we are still not getting it right. They're still stupid access issues for disabled people. So we're not arguing about the principles here anymore. We're arguing about having still not worked through all the changes we need to operationalize, if I can put it that way.
And then there are these much more ephemeral issues about what does good culture look like beyond EDI work. I think we can probably all imagine what it would-- We all want to belong, we all want to feel that we're operating in a collegiate environment. We all want to be supported by and support our colleagues. Again, often these things reach for interdependence issues. We all-- whether in a work environment, we all want to feel safe, we all want to feel productive and meaningful, we want to feel that we're having meaningful work and meaningful lives. Maybe I'll stop there because there's a lot to think about.
Ben (00:58:33):
Yeah, I'll pick up on the legacy issues. I think that's really true. I guess in the business world, they call it implementation or execution. We won the principles, but actually, it's getting it in place. I see that a lot in special education needs where there's a lot of things which you now have a right to in law, but cannot actually access it. A lot of it comes down to Maverick money, but that's also intersectional structures or resources and all other things.
David (00:59:02):
Yeah, I remember that.
Ben (00:59:03):
And then actually some legacy is also legacy of history, whether that's empire and all of those things as well. But to your first point as well, I would put a lot of that emphasis on this challenge of agency or having feeling agency, which is intertwined with identity. And I will swear again into the climate thing because where on the crisis where you feel you lose agency, where you feel you can't do anything, you stop doing something and therefore you then lose. Actually kind of almost ironically. Whether you were going to win or not in the first place is almost beyond the point. If you don't think you have any agency, you are not even referring back to an early part of the conversation; not that it is, but you're not in the game. If you don't think you're going to win the race, you are almost never going to race it. Even if you aren't going to actually win the race, it kind of doesn't matter. You have to have the sense of agency and whether that's within identity and all of that. I feel that's a really important piece.
I get a little bit worried meeting some young people who either through climate anxiety or an identity thing have feel that they've lost their agency because they lose it through one of those pieces. And then I think you've got all of these other problems which occur kind of unnecessarily, as in, I understand why this has come about, but it doesn't need to be that case. And so that's something which I think is quite important.
Perhaps reflecting on that, the final question would be, do you have any thoughts on general life advice? So advice for people who are thinking about social change movements or are in law or are worried about rights or things like that. So it can be kind of on career journey or something like that, or life advice in terms of how you live your life, either as a minority or just as a person going through that you reflected on in your years of wisdom.
David (01:01:09):
Well, it would almost feel impertinent for me to give advice to people. I'll do my best, Ben, but can I just say one... I just want to underscore your point about-- I really don't think that we can underestimate the current impact of the legacy issues of things like slavery and colonialism and how they... I mean, we may think, "Well, of course we abolished slavery, whatever it was, 200 years ago or something. And we had colonies for 50 years or more." But the consequences of that in the way they play out in thinking and organizational design, although they have been unpicked to a considerable degree, are still prevalent. And I think that's part of the explanation for ongoing racism, basically. So I completely endorse that point.
It's very difficult to give-- Everybody is an in individual and I know that for me, I never really had a career plan other than just I found the things that interested me and I just went at it really as much as I could. I was lucky enough or fortuitous enough to be able to do things, to be born at the time I was born, and therefore able to pick up on a zeitgeist, which interested me. So it was a lucky combination of events in my own circumstances. But I do think relationships-- not to sound too pedestrian about this. I do think relationships are important; having relationships, trusting relationships beyond families is what I mean as well-- what Armistead Maupin calls your logical family, not just your biological family.
I think that it's trite to talk about working harder and things like that so I'm not going to. But I am going to say things like, do what you need to do to believe in yourself because so many of us don't or doubt ourselves. That doesn't mean to say-- I think first of all, that knowing there's nothing profoundly wrong with anyone, including whoever you are. But secondly, knowing that from that perspective you get to learn and evolve; it doesn't mean you say rigid in the position. So there's something the risk of sounding like a not very good therapist. There's something about really believing in yourself, I do think, because in every case where somebody doesn't believe or like themselves, it's not true.
Ben (01:04:49):
That seems really good advice to me. So believing and backing yourself-- and I think your first point is choose your friends or make sure you have relationships beyond your family and have established them and invested in them. So with that, great advice, David. Thank you very much.
David (01:05:15):
Thanks, Ben. Thanks. I really enjoyed it as ever.
