Man’s (In)Humanity To Man

(Preliminary note: I have kept to the original noun (viz man) in this blogpiece, recognising that today this is regarded as a sexist description.)

In 1784 the Scottish bard, Robert Burns, composed his poem Man Was Made To Mourn.¹ One of the eleven stanzas of the poem includes the lines,

‘Man’s inhumanity to man

Makes countless thousands mourn!’

During the 250 years since the penning of this poem the phrase ‘Man’s inhumanity to man’ has been quoted many thousands of times, mostly as ratification of the inevitability of human atrocities. The phrase, quoted this way, suggests that malevolence is innate to the human condition.

Such implication, however, may not have been Robert Burns’ intention. Burns wrote the poem soon after meeting the father of a woman, Kate Kemp, whom he wished to court. Kate though, was out looking for a lost cow at the time of Burns’ visit. Burns thus had to spend time with her father, a man of ill-temper. Burns’ ill-fated visit with Kate’s father may have been the inspiration for the inhumanity wording. Most of the poem he composed on his walk home.

It may also have been that Burns was recording his antagonism towards the class inequalities that were prevalent at the time in Scotland and throughout Great Britain. The Industrial Revolution was well underway, concomitant with poor working conditions, rising inequality, and unhealthy living conditions. The young Robert Burns (25 years old at the time of writing the poem) would have been appalled at what was happening and passionate about protesting it through his poetry.

Hence, the words ‘man’s inhumanity to man’ must be read in the context of the time, Burns’ age, and his meeting with a cantankerous father of his love interest.

I would guess that many who quote the phrase today do not know where it came from, nor perhaps, who wrote it, and why it was written.

Today, it is a line thrown out as verification that humans are basically ill-willed and immoral at heart. When we see clips of warfare and violence happening in Gaza, Ukraine, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, or Somalia Burns’ phrase is sometimes quoted as if to say ‘well, that’s just the inhumanity of human nature.’

But, is this the case?

One of the reasons we see clips like those mentioned above is because they are newsworthy. In other words, they are out of the ordinary, they are literally – news, something new and not something usual. They are un-usual.

And, being unusual, they cannot logically be cited as proof that human nature is basically ill-willed, violent, or in-human.

Furthermore, when a comparative analysis of how different cultures understand the basic nature of humans, we have to concede that the notion that humans are innately inhuman is not a global understanding.

Certainly, it seems, violence and ill-will occur in all cultures. Sadly however, it seems that western culture is unique in its rendering of human nature as being inhuman at core.

The American First Nations author, activist, and historian, Jack Forbes for example, writes of the First Nation notion of wetiko, which he describes as a disease that has no respect for the cycle of life and death and is without any sense of sacredness. But, as he notes ‘Non-wetikos may, at times, be cruel, but their cruelty is individual and sporadic, not part of a system of cruelty.’ It was this system of cruelty that he saw within the western culture, particularly that part of western culture that colonised the Americas.²

The cultures of SE Asia share a similar conceptualisation, with Buddhism especially speaking of Buddha nature, which has been expressed as the innate capacity for awakening, compassion, and understanding that resides in everyone.

Amidst the struggle against the apartheid system in South Africa Bishop Desmond Tutu was able to proclaim that, ‘You know human beings are basically good. You know that’s where we have to start. That everything else is an aberration.’³

Sadly however, western culture has so infused the whole world (via colonisation and/or economic hegemony) that western ideas, understandings, and concepts now dominate globally. From within this western worldview it is difficult to look from outside to see that this worldview is not a universal one.

Tragically, when this view of the of man’s inhumanity to man is normalised, assumed to be true, and legitimised it becomes very difficult to confront and change those situations in which violence, ill-will, and inhumanity do take place. After all, if this is the way things are, then they cannot be changed, only shifted slightly until the next outbreak of inhumanity.

Man’s inhumanity to man must be questioned and shifted towards the more central tenet of: Each person’s humanity to each other person.

Notes:

1. Robert Burns, Man was Made to Mourn, in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, first published by John Wilson of Kilmarnock in 1786

2. Forbes, Jack D., Columbus and other Cannibals: The Wetiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism, and Terrorism, Seven Stories Press, New York, Revised Edition, 1992. Original version 1979

3. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, The Book of Joy, Avery, New York, 2016

I Wonder What They Think?

When I was a teenager and a young man, during the 1960s and 1970s, the world was divided into unequal segments. Sometimes these were labelled developed/undeveloped (later underdeveloped) nations. One depiction was Global North/Global South – a rather sanitised portrayal. Sometimes three divisions were pictured; First World, Second World, Third World, much the same way that social classes were demarcated. We all knew which class and what world had most of the wealth. To make that clear some referred to the inequality in stark reality – rich and poor.

Plus, then, there was no Internet.

Today we still have rich and poor, both between and within nations. Arguably, the gap between rich and poor has increased over the past few decades. The ‘World Social Report 2025’ notes that two-thirds of the world’s population live in countries in which inequality is growing. One-third of the world's population live on an income of between US$2.15 and US$6.85 per day. Even a minor setback can push people into extreme poverty. As it is, one in ten people in the world (more than 800 million people) live in extreme poverty right now, with 600 million of these living in sub-Saharan Africa,

But, we have the Internet.

In the past few months on the Internet I have seen posts from people writing about, and displaying photos of; their overseas trips, the sumptuous meals they have consumed in elegant restaurants, and the new EV (Electric Vehicle) or Hybrid they have purchased.

As I read these posts I wondered: I wonder what they think? ‘They’ being the 800 million people living in poverty.

(Please note that what follows is not a personal criticism of those posts I have just alluded to. What follows is simply an observation on just how unequally divided the world is.)

Let me try (most likely insufficiently and inexpertly) to fit into the shoes of those 800 million and try to understand that question.

Travel

Only around one in ten people in the world travel internationally by aeroplane. Most of these are people who live in the ‘rich’ world – Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand. Furthermore, citizens of these nations undertake around 2 – 2.5 air trips per capita, per year.

Citizens of ‘rich’ nations leave their countries and enter other countries with a passport almost entirely without restriction.

Meanwhile, in 2024, 122.6 million people were forcibly displaced from their homes. 43.7 million of these are refugees, meaning that they have had to flee their own country and seek refuge and safety in another country.

Refugees cannot simply fly from one country to another without restriction. They are not tourists. You won’t see any travel photos up on the Internet.

I wonder what they think?

Food

Around 2.3 billion people in 67 countries are facing moderate or severe levels of food insecurity.’ Residents of Gaza, Sudan, South Sudan, Haiti, and Mali are at severe risk, with almost 2 million people on the ‘brink of famine.’

Children are at particular risk with half of all deaths of children aged under 5 attributable to malnutrition.

You can bet that not too many photos of meagre bowls of rice or other grain appear on the Internet.

I wonder what they think?

Electric Vehicles

In the world of the automobile the Electric Vehicle (EV) and/or Hybrid vehicle is the latest vehicle of choice amongst the world’s ‘rich’ nations. Originally touted as a response to carbon emissions and climate change, many of these purchases today represent the next status symbol acquisition.

For many in ‘poor’ nations, and especially indigenous communities, EVs represent the next phase of neo-colonialism. To manufacture an EV requires a greater variety of minerals than does the traditional combustion vehicle. Many of these minerals (e.g. cobalt, lithium) are found in the lands of traditional First Nations people. To get at them requires communities to be relocated and, far too often, lands and waterways to be polluted.

One of the main sources of lithium, for example, is the Tibetan Plateau. In May 2016 hundreds of protestors in the city of Tagong, on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau, threw dead fish onto the streets. The dead fish had come from the Liqi River where toxic waste from the Gazizhou Rongda Lithium mine wreaked havoc.¹

I wonder what they think? In this case we can read exactly what they think. A Tibetan website declares that ‘Green transport in one place should not come at the cost of environmental and social damage in another.’

Internet Access

Having pondered these three examples of how desperately unequal our world is I then had another thought. It was a thought that brought me up short. I was hoist by my own petard.

Here I am, using the Internet, to ask what those who are not rich enough to have access to the Internet think of our travel, meals, and purchase of EVs. In 2023 only 63% of the world’s population had access to the Internet. Less than 30% of those living in sub-Saharan Africa have access to the Internet.

My question has changed. I now find myself asking: I wonder what I think of this inequality?

Note:

1. Washington Post, 26 December 2016.

Red Dust Healing – Book Review

Imagine you are sitting in a yarning circle¹, a fire blazing in the middle. Maybe you are outside sitting around a fire in a desert in Western Australia. Uncle Tom Powell is telling stories. Uncle Tom’s stories have power – power to heal.

This imaginative fire and yarning circle is what it is like to read through Red Dust Healing: the One Day Workshop.² Tom Powell has been running Red Dust Healing workshops, seminars, and story-telling for more than twenty years. This delightful short book is a transcription of one of his one-day workshops.

Tom is a Warramunga man from the Wiradjuri Nation³ and brings 60,000+ years of accumulated knowledge and wisdom of his people into his workshops. He uses various tools, images, and metaphors to help workshop participants to heal their pains, traumas, abuses, and other forms of suffering.

The healing offered by Tom can be applied at personal, family, and collective levels. As Tom is wont to say, ‘It’s not your fault.’ Recognising that pain and suffering may have arisen in an abusive childhood, or from years of colonisation that Australian first-nations people have suffered, the tools for healing can be learnt and applied by anyone, including the descendants of colonisers.

Many of Tom’s tools and metaphors come from the natural world. Trees, fish, birds, kangaroos, and feathers are all offered as means towards remembering the lessons in his stories. It has always been this way – nature is our healer.

Tom is also known for his paradoxical one-liners, which he uses to further reinforce the lessons contained within his stories. Many of his one-liners are scattered throughout the book. A particularly poignant one-liner of Tom’s is, ‘Follow me, I’m right behind you.’ Tom states this with humility and graciousness. As he writes on the final page:

‘What I teach in Red Dust Healing is everything I’ve learned from my Mum and Dad. Everything I’ve learned from our Old People; everything I've learned I’ve learned from you. I get my strength from you. It’s true. I mean it and I wouldn’t tell you if it wasn’t true.’

Even the way the book acknowledges his authorship recognises this teamwork. The cover of the book does not state by Tom Powell; rather it states, with Tom Powell – you, me, and all those who participate are co-authors.

Tom’s sense of collaboration comes through in every page of the book, yet he always acknowledges the uniqueness of every participant in his workshops. Another of his one-liners summarises this well; ‘Scatter out and stick together.’

Tom relates stories in a kind, compelling, and humorous manner. This book captures that story-telling style well.

The book is only 80 pages long and includes many diagrams and graphics, making it very easy to read in one sitting, although you will most likely want to dip into it many times to connect with the tools and metaphors within.

Red Dust Healing is only available through the Red Dust website (https://thereddust.com/) It is available for A$50 plus postage. A phone number is provided to order a copy. For those outside of Australia, there is a ‘Contact’ form. I’m sure that if you contact Tom through this means he will be willing to let you know the cost of postage to wherever you are.

Notes:

1. A yarning circle is a process that comes from Aboriginal culture. It is where people learn, share, pass on knowledge, and build respectful relationships through a narrative format.

2. Tom Powell (with), Red Dust Healing: the One Day Workshop, Red Dust Healing Pty Ltd., 2025

3. The Wiradjuri Nation occupy land to the west of Sydney, Australia.

Rugged Individualism: Where Did It Come From?

Lastweek’s blog noted that there was a strong correlation between using first-person singular pronouns (e.g. I, me, mine, myself) and depression. That blog also noted that the use of these pronouns had increased dramatically since the early 1980s.

We might ask: Where did this focus on me, myself, and I come from?

One of the strands that has contributed to this is the rugged individual archetype and the associated myth of the lone hero. They have been with us for a long time.

Stories and myths of this archetype stretch back at least as far as Greek and Roman mythology. Many of us will have heard of, or read of, the exploits of heroes such as Jason, Odysseus, Perseus, Hercules, Romulus, and Remus. Within Norse mythology we know of Odin, Thor, and Hodr. In English mythology we have the rugged individual myths of Beowulf, King Arthur, and Robin Hood. All men. There have been female heroines, although many of us would be hard pressed to name many of them.

The term rugged individual is only recently coined, by US President Herbert Hoover, has been portrayed in Hollywood style Westerns. Butch Cassidy, Wild Bill Hickock, Buffalo Bill, Davy Crockett, and others have all etched their rugged individual heroism onto the minds of young boys growing up in the first half of the 20^th century. Those growing up in the latter half of that century were habituated by male heroes such as James Bond, Indiana Jones, Magnum, Rambo, Jason Bourne, and Neo.

These rugged individuals do not need others to fulfill their destiny; they are highly resilient, can withstand a hail of bullets, leap from burning buildings, and of course, save the threatened damsel in distress. The hero rises above his pain, is always in control, and is never vulnerable. It is one of the most toxic archetypes young men can be exposed to. It is an absurd and unattainable self.

Rugged individualism (akin to toxic individualism) promotes an outlook that views other people as competitors rather than as our peers. Accordingly, such an outlook fosters self-promotion and, at its extremity, narcissism. Furthermore, rugged individualism cultivates a belief that one can, and should, solve one’s own problems, even if the solving involves addictive behaviours, such as alcohol and drug misuse, or gambling. A person entrenched in the mythology of the rugged individual is unlikely to be able to reach out for help, further aggravating the likelihood of resorting to unhealthy behaviours.

Francis Weller likens the rugged individual archetype to a prison and says, ‘We are imprisoned by this (hero) image, forced into a fiction of false independence that severs our kinship with the earth, with sensuous reality, and with the myriad wonders of the world. This is a source of grief for many of us.’¹

Sadly, when individuals come to this grief, and crash headfirst into recognising that individualism does not benefit them, the illusion is so firmly entrenched that it becomes extremely difficult to break away from the addictions, habits, and obsessions that have arisen to shore up the false sense of invulnerability.

Paradoxically, it is the very notion of the Self in westernised culture that promotes this sad state of affairs. Western culture, to a large extent, conceives of the Self as a self-sufficient, separate, and a discrete entity. The Self in this construction can be conceptualised as a homunculus residing within our body, responsible to no-one but itself.

Other cultures, especially indigenous ones and those of the Orient, perceive the Self in a different manner. So much so, that within a couple of these cultures the concept of no-Self is more frequently found. The concept of no-Self could be explored in depth and take up much space. A brief clarification will be presented here. No-Self does not mean literally that there is no self and no individual person. It simply means that all selves come into being, live, and pass on, as part of a highly entangled web of life.

Buddhism, for example, calls this concept dependent co-arising; a concept in which nothing arises by and of itself. Rather, phenomena arise by a dynamic interaction of mutually conditioned events. Although this concept is central to Buddhism, and hence to the cultures that embrace it, other cultures have similar concepts.

Within such a concept the idea of the rugged individual is unlikely to gain traction.

Rates of depression vary considerably around the world. It is telling that the highest rates are found in North America, Europe (although Poland bucks the trend), Scandinavia, Australia, and middle East nations. All of whom, to varying degrees, have a high regard for the individual.

On the other hand, the nations where rates of depression are lowest are found mainly in SE Asia, West Africa, and some South American countries. Significantly, these are nations that view the person as being part of a whole, not a separate individual. They are also amongst the least European colonised nations on Earth.

Surely that tells us something.

Notes:

1. Weller, Francis, The Wild Edge of Sorrow, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, CA, 2015

Me and My Depression

Narcissus

How often do we hear that one of the ways to release oneself from the tentacles of depression is to use self-affirmation statements. Statements such as, I alone hold the truth of who I am.

A google search of self-affirmations recently showed me 99 such affirmations. Tellingly, 66 of the 99 began the affirmation with the first-person singular pronoun I. A further 8 affirmations began with the word My. Furthermore, only seven of the affirmations did not include the pronouns I, me, mine, or myself.¹ That is a staggering 93% of affirmations that include the first-person singular pronoun.

Do these affirmations work? I guess the answer to that question depends on the question: work towards what purpose?

If the purpose is to overcome feelings of anxiety or depression, then the answer may surprise you. Research suggests that those who use first-person singular pronouns (such as I, me, myself, mine) often are more likely to have feelings of anxiety and depression than those who use these pronouns less often.

Researchers from a variety of German Universities in 2015 found that there their ‘present study unravelled some important insights into the link between first-person singular pronoun use and symptoms of depression and anxiety.’² Furthermore, such pronoun use ‘is positively related to brooding.’ The researchers defined brooding as referring to the ‘passive comparison of one’s current state with desired but unreached states.’ They were quick to point out that brooding is qualitatively different from reflection which they characterised as a ‘purposeful turning inward to engage in cognitive problem solving to alleviate one’s depressive symptoms.’

The researchers also clearly mentioned that first-person singular pronoun use is positively related to brooding, but not to reflection. The two states are qualitatively different, with reflection being beneficial, whereas brooding is harmful.

Of course, as any self-respecting statistician will tell you, correlation is not the same as causation. Yet, if we trace the incidence of usage of first-person singular pronouns over time, and the incidence of depression over similar periods of time, the correlation is strong.

The word I in the English language was used approximately 4,000 – 5,000 times in every one million words used between 1800 and 1870. After 1870 the usage of this first-person singular pronoun began to decline to less than 2,500 times per million in the early 1980s. Since then, it’s use has climbed rapidly to around 7,000 times in every one million words today. That is, the word I is used 280% more often today than it was less than 50 years ago. Quite some rise!

Similar increases can be noted in the use of me, myself, and my. All since the early 1980s. Me, for example, is now used four times as often today than it was 50 years ago.

If we track rates of depression over a similar time period, we note a steady increase in depressive symptoms, especially amongst young people.

Is a focus on me, myself, and I making us more depressed?

Many point to a rise in narcissism in recent decades. Indeed, the word narcissist is now used eight times more often nowadays than it was in 1980. Eight times!

Although this short piece is not the place to address the rise of narcissism, it is interesting to note that it’s rise came on the back of the self-development and human potential movements of the late 1960s and 1970s. Many at the time believed that if enough people raised their individual potential, then wider social change would follow. A worthy intention but ultimately flawed as it tended to view the world in a dualistic way – the individual as separate from the wider culture. Furthermore, the rabbit hole of intense self-absorption was opened up, and many followed the rabbit.

Why did the human potential movement not live up to its ideal of social change via individual self-development?

Perhaps because it failed to recognise a simple truth that many teachers and indigenous cultures had known for centuries. There is no separate, disconnected self. The Buddha taught this simple truth 2,500 years ago in his teaching on dependent co-arising. Tribespeople in southern Africa knew it years ago in their concept of ubuntu. The Zulu notion of ubuntu is described by Bishop Tutu as, ‘the philosophy and belief that a person is only a person through other people.’³ The Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, more recently coined the term interbeing and described this as, ‘the many in the one and the one containing the many.’ In a nod to the famous Descartes dictum, Thich Nhat Hanh expressed interbeing as ‘I am, therefore you are. You are, therefore I am. We inter-are.’

These are profoundly different ways of conceptualizing the notion of personhood. They also offer a radically different pathway towards a healthy state of mind.

None of the above is meant to suggest that we do away with words such as I, me, myself, mine; rather it suggests that we should be mindful of recognizing that an intense focus on our individual selves leads to unhealthy outcomes.

Notes:

1. https://www.thegoodtrade.com/features/positive-affirmations-morning-routine/  accessed 30 June 2025

2. Brockmeyer et al., Me, Myself, and I: self-referent word use as an indicator of self-focused attention in relation to depression and anxiety, Frontiers in Psychology, October 2015, Vol 6, article 1564

3. Desmond & Mpho Tutu, The Book of Forgiving, William Collins, London, 2014

Joanna Macy – A Totara Has Fallen

 Tōtara

Kua hinga he tōtara i te wao nui a Tāne. Within Māori culture, this saying is said when a great person dies. Translated it tells us that a tōtara has fallen in the great forest of Tāne.¹ Joanna Macy has been one of the mightiest of all tōtara – a tree that grows up to 30m in height and can live for up to 1,000 years. Tōtara have been growing in Aotearoa (New Zealand) for some 100 million years.

Just as tōtara have been the source of material benefit and of inspiration, so too has Joanna Macy provided comfort, inspiration, and generosity of spirit for the last eight or nine decades. Joanna Macy died this week (on 19 July 2025) at the age of 96.

Joanna’s life and work could be described with many different metaphors, including that of a tōtara. The metaphor that she herself describes came to her during meditation in India at the age of thirty-seven. In her own words:²

‘To my inner eye appeared a bridge, slightly arching, made of stone. I could see the separate rocks of which it was built, and I wanted to be one of them. Just one, that was enough, if only I could be part of that bridge between the thought-worlds of East and West, connecting the insights of the Buddha Dharma with the modern Western mind. What my role might be – at the podium of a college classroom? at a desk in a library tower? – was less clear to me than the conviction possessing me now: I would be a stone in the building of that bridge.’

Seven years later she published her first book, Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age. Early on Joanna Macy recognised the links between activism, love for the planet, and grief and despair. She had begun to build that bridge. Throughout the rest of her life Joanna Macy found more and more stones to build that bridge. She brought together Buddhist thought, grief work, deep ecology, and systems thinking, along with a highly engaging personality.

Joanna designed and facilitated dozens of experiential practices to help others connect their own personal power with that of the spirit of the world. In 1998 (updated in 2014) she and Molly Brown compiled these exercises and practices into the widely read, and applied, book Coming Back To Life: Practices to reconnect our lives, our world. The exercises and practices that she developed have been repeated all over the world. Undoubtedly, they will continue to be repeated for decades to come.

When Bill Plotkin was writing his influential Nature and the Human Soul, he wanted to interview two people for his chapter on elderhood. He chose Joanna Macy as one of those people. Macy graciously spent time with him. In this remarkable discourse Macy and Plotkin speak of how Joanna Macy did not so much make things happen, but allowed things to be spoken through her. One of the stones in the whole bridge.

Joanna Macy is certainly one of the western world’s true Elders. She will be missed, but not in a lasting sorrowful manner. She will be missed with love and affection, and her work will continue.

One further metaphor for Joanna Macy’s life is that of a Shambhala warrior. Rather than attempt to repeat the prophecy of the Shambhala warriors here, let me allow Joanna Macy to tell it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc42aNYo8vw As you watch this and understand the contribution Joanna Macy has made to this world, it becomes evident that Joanna Macy is a Shambhala warrior – it is not a metaphor of her life. She held both “weapons” within her hands – compassion and insight.

One final thought. Many years ago, Joanna Macy was being introduced at a public event. The MC introduced her by saying, ‘Joanna Macy has thousands of friends, many of whom have not been born yet.’ Her death is likely to see her gain many thousands more friends.

Notes:

1. Tāne is the Māori god of trees and the forest. He is responsible for separating Mother Earth from Father Sky, thus enabling people to dwell in the space between their parents.

2. From her memoir Widening Circles, and cited in Bill Plotkin’s Nature and the Human Soul.

A Different Kind Of Power - Book Review

Disclaimer: This book is the memoir of the former Prime Minister of New Zealand and leader of that country’s Labour Party. I have never been a member of the NZ Labour Party. I also only voted once for Labour, almost eight years before Jacinda Ardern was born. My vote then may just as much have been influenced by the fact that the Labour candidate – Ethel McMillan – shared the same surname as that of my mother’s maiden name.

 

A Different Kind of Power¹ is a refreshing read coming from a politician. Instead of focussing on the political intrigues, power plays, and other external trappings of a leader of a country, Jacinda Ardern allows us, the reader, a candid glimpse into her childhood and family life. These glimpses enable us to make sense of the different kind of power she espoused and later brought to her role as Prime Minister of Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Ardern grew up in two regional towns (Murupara and Morrinsville) and her family often shopped in Rotorua (my own birthplace.) Her family were Mormon and the lessons she learnt in door-knocking then were well utilised in her later life as a politician.

Yet, door-knocking was the least of the lessons she learnt in her younger years. By the time she had entered her mid-teens her mother had had a breakdown, her uncle was severely paralysed following a car accident in which two others were killed, and the brother of her best friend had committed suicide. These events provided the young Ardern with lessons in grief, empathy, and coping with tragedy. All valuable lessons for when, as Prime Minister, she was thrust onto centre stage in three tragic events to shock New Zealanders – a terrorist shooting at mosques in Christchurch where 51 people were killed, an eruption on the island of Whakaari/White Island killing 22 people, and the coronavirus pandemic.

A school experience that Ardern carried with her into her public life as leader of one of New Zealand’s major political parties was debating. She represented her school many times in debating competitions. One of the topics from her school debating years was, That the difference between what we are and what we could be is the greatest waste. She was to think about this topic often in her coming years. That topic and the thinking that went with it undoubtedly influenced her desire for a different kind of power – one based on kindness and empathy. Her answer to a reporter questioning her on her first day as Prime Minister was informed by this debating topic. ‘I want this government to feel different… that it’s going to bring kindness back.’

Becoming Prime Minister though was not comfortable for Ardern. As a youngster she had suffered from imposter syndrome and that stayed with her as she stepped into the most prominent position in New Zealand. A meeting with Queen Elizabeth II however, helped her overcome that hurdle. Not long before Ardern learned that she was going to be New Zealand’s youngest Prime Minister in 150 years, and also only its third female PM, she had been told she was pregnant. Meeting with Queen Elizabeth in private, Prime Minister Ardern asked the queen how, as a woman who had raised children at the same time as holding a prominent public office, if she had any advice for her. Queen Elizabeth’s reply was simple, ‘You just get on with it.’

Jacinda Ardern did so. She got on with it. I do not intend delving into the various policies she and the Labour party implemented during the term of her office. Rather, I wish to concentrate on those moments that displayed her intent to be kind and how others responded to this.

One such moment came five days after the 2019 terrorist shooting at Christchurch mosques.  She visited a school where two of the student’s schoolmates had been killed in the shooting. After a short speech in which Ardern told the students that it was okay to feel sad and that they should not be afraid of asking for help, she asked if there were any questions. After a pause a young girl at the front raised her hand. In Jacinda Ardern’s words, ‘Slowly, with thoughtful deliberation, she asked something I didn’t expect: “How are you?”’ The moment is touching, poignant, and full of hope. It also shows how many community members responded to and reflected back Ardern’s seeking for a different kind of power; kind and empathetic.

Sadly, not all New Zealander’s responded to her with such empathy and grace as this young woman. Ardern relates a couple of personal moments when she was the butt of hatred and bitterness. What she does not write about in the book, though, is that police figures show an increase in threats to her rose from 18 in 2019 to more than 60 in 2022 – a whopping 60% of threats made to all New Zealand MPs combined at the time. A large percentage of these threats were motivated by various conspiracy theories that arose during the covid pandemic. New Zealand was one of the countries that opted for measures that included lock-downs. Sadly, for her, the response by leaders all over the world was a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” She was, similar to all other world leaders, ‘faced with impossible choices.’

But, just as the Queen had advised here a few years earlier, Jacinda Ardern just got on with it – until it was time to go.

Many have suggested that Jacinda Ardern’s decision to step down as the Labour Party leader, and hence the Prime Ministership, was because she could not face the degree of hate and vitriol she was subjected to. In this memoir she makes it clear that there were other factors involved in her decision. The initial prompt was the discovery of a lump on her breast. She asked herself, ‘what if this is cancer?’ How could she continue if that was the case? In her office bathroom a thought arrived – Perhaps I could leave. This experience and the thought it brought to mind was the first in a number of thoughts that brought her to the final decision to step down as Prime Minister.

Whilst she had been Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had continued visiting schools. Often she would ask students the same question – What does a politician look like? More often than not the answers she got back contained a similar theme – selfish, old, untrustworthy, liar, bald. They were answers that disturbed her.

A week before she announced her official resignation she visited another school, this time on a marae (the focal point of a Māori community.) She asked the same question. This time she got a different answer, from a young woman: “’Kind’ she said. ‘I think politicians can be kind.’ I smiled at her. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think they can be kind, too.’”

Jacinda Ardern may not have convinced all in the New Zealand community (not even of her colleagues in parliament) of the need and possibility of a different kind of power based on kindness. But, for that young woman at the school that day it was distinct possibility.

It remains to be seen whether kindness does permeate political thinking and debate. A Different Kind Of Power helps to keep the possibility alive.

Note:

1. Jacinda Ardern, A Different Kind Of Power, Penguin Random House, Australia & New Zealand, 2025