Connexity

Book excerpt: CONNEXITY is the philosophical counterpart to Will Hutton's essentially political book. It looks at the profound tension that exists between two recent achievements of humanity: greater freedom (over how to live, who to love, what to believe and say, where to trade), and greater interdependence, or 'connexity' (through the financial markets, military structures, the internet, the ecosystem). This tension has led to crisis: institutions, including governments, sense themselves to be inadequate; individuals are faced with a mass of conflicting information and values. The issue we face, which will ultimately determine human survival in our densely packed planet, is how the tension between these two can be resolved, and a new order established. Mulgan presents his own powerful solution to this crisis. It is based around the notion of 'connexity': breaking down our rigid sense of ourselves as isolated units and seeing our lives as part of a system, a positive network of co-responsibility.