Keynote Speaker2022 - Kathleen Lynch
An exclusive article written by WCDMUN2022’s Keynote Speaker Prof. Kathleen Lynch
The Importance of young people in politics
When you are young, loved and cared for emotionally and safe and secure economically, you have little reason to think about politics. But it has been the hard political work of your ancestors who devoted time to create the laws and policies that provide you with the security you enjoy at present. It has been the political work of those who laboured to create a more socially just world that makes life liveable and worthwhile for many, though not all, in this part of the world. You cannot afford to be indifferent to politics because it determines the social and environmental conditions in which you live now and under which your children and grandchildren will live in the future.
As the economist Nancy Folbre observed almost 30 years ago, care for the world and for the wellbeing of humanity does not happen by accident: ‘Altruism does not emanate from our genes or fall from the sky. It is socially and culturally constructed, economically and politically reinforced’. It has to be recreated in each new generation.
-Kathleen Lynch UCD
“Care and Capitalism: Why Affective Equality Matters for Social Justice.“
If you wish to read more of Kathleen Lynch’s work, who also features on the Leaving Certificate Politics and Society course as a ‘Key thinker’ she has published a new book which can be found below. It deals with the conflict globally between the interests of neoliberal capitalism and care of each other and other species on the earth