How universities can earn trust, share power in the bitter post-truth era

The enemy of a civilised society is power plus ignorance normalised

James Baldwin, the author, playwright and social critic, whose life is depicted in the remarkable 2016 film I Am Not Your Negro, once said: “It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.” Alongside Baldwin’s commentary, the work of Hannah Arendt teaches us about the “banality of evil”: that everyday, ordinary people are capable of acts of barbarity, cruelty and injustice if the leaders and circumstances around them normalise those behaviours. She famously said:

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced