Marek Kohn Gives Seminar on Trust Building

Dr. Marek Kohn, Fellow of the Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics at the University of Brighton, gave a talk entitled "Trust & Distrust in Yesterday's & Tomorrow's Europe" on 5 November 2009 from 13:00 to 15:00 in the Main Hall of the International Politics Building at Aberystwyth University. The following is a summary of the talk:

During the First World War, many soldiers on the Western Front responded to the unprecedented conditions of modern warfare by establishing covert truces across the lines. Trust grew between enemies who had decided, against all the beliefs that had brought them to the front, that their interests lay in co-operation. The war changed the map of Europe - and the next war changed it again. Nations that gained and then lost their independence have been left with a deep existential anxiety about their continued survival, and deep scepticism that the old Europe of rival powers really has changed for good. Today, defence anxieties revolve around guided missiles rather than barbed wire and tanks, and the challenge is not how to achieve trust between adversaries in a crisis, but how to develop trust among neighbours in the absence of crisis.

His published works include As We Know It: Coming to Terms with an Evolved Mind, A Reason For Everything: Natural Selection and the English Imagination and most recently, Trust: Self- Interest and the Common Good. A collection of his works can be found on his website. An audio recording of the seminar is now available to be downloaded (mp3, 25.8MB).