Vice-Chancellor's Democracy Forum, with Fintan O'Toole

The Vice-Chancellor's Democracy Forum (VCDF) is UTS’s premier public lecture series. Each year, the Vice-Chancellor invites significant thinkers across various fields to engage in open dialogue on topics crucial to today's society and its advancement.

UTS is pleased to announce Fintan O'Toole, as the second speaker for our 2024 series. Don't miss one of the world's most influential columnists and writers in his highly anticipated talk, "The Perils of Self-Pity: Democracy and Identity in the Age of Trump." 

In this extraordinary "year of elections" , voters in many parts of the world are being asked, not just to choose between parties and candidates, but to decide whether they still believe in the democratic system itself. In this talk, Fintan O'Toole asks why systems and values that had been taken for granted for so long are now in such peril. He argues that a central part of the problem is the distortion of the sense of victimhood. There are profound injustices but the rising far-right movements have little interest in remedying them, Instead, they take the language of resistance to oppression and distort it into a self-pity in which even those who are highly privileged can feel sorry for themselves -- and imagine themselves to be victims of some other group. The result is a politics of tribalism in which defeating the Other is much more important than gaining anything tangible. How, he asks, can we combat this drift into tribalism and restore the sense of common purpose without which democracy becomes hollow?

Attendees will have the chance to hear directly from Fintan, alongside Anna Funder and Roy Green, as they delve into why our cherished systems and values are facing unprecedented threats.

Don’t miss this chance to dive deep into the pressing issues of our time with one of today’s most influential voices!