Living in a Broken World: Prophetic Anger and Public Compassion

Wednesday Forum – 16 March 2022

We are living through dangerous times. Many of us are unaware of the times we live in except for a few days when global mainstream media decide to feature it before another feel-good news takes over. We face critical problems, globally and locally, across the board. While a sense of urgency should govern our behaviour, most of us are quite relaxed and go in a ‘business-usual’ manner: even as our global eco-footprint gets larger and larger every year, as we break eco-planetary limits, as we lose species after species every day, and as over 500 of our below 15 young olds face death every hour. The list is long. All these ‘going-ons’ do not show that compassion governs much of our private and public life. At present, we face the danger of global temperature, increasing the danger the future will have on all life on Earth. I believe the only way to turn this around in the long term lies not in ‘technology-infatuation’ and ‘GNP-seduced economic performance’. It lies in our local and global sense of urgency guided by prophetic anger and public compassion.

Nadarajah Manickam (Nat) is a sociologist who has worked over the last 42 odd years in many capacities and positions in multi-faceted and inter-connected projects and initiatives. Nat is invited by Xavier University Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India to set up a Centre for New Humanities and Compassion Studies. At present , he serves as an (honourary) educational consultant setting up the Multiversity Platform at Loyola Extension Services, Loyola College of Social Sciences, Trivandrum, Kerala, India.

The full poster of this event is available here.