The Professorship of Exemplarity analyses global geopolitics with Professor Emilio Lamo de Espinosa

Last Wednesday, 30 April, the Auditorium of CUNEF Universidad hosted a discussion on “Global Geopolitics” between Emilio Lamo de Espinosa, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and Javier Gomá Lanzón, Chair of Exemplarity at CUNEF Universidad. During the discussion, Lamo de Espinosa highlighted some key insights into the current geopolitical landscape:

• Their enormous complexity makes modern societies especially vulnerable to “black swans”, unpredictable events with an extremely negative impact on the economy and society.
• These “black swans” include events such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the 2008 financial crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic or the war in Ukraine.
• Artificial Intelligence could become the most important technological disruptor of the 21st century, with a global impact not only on the economy, but also on defence and security.
• For the first time in history, there is a single human society, resulting from globalisation and giving rise to governance issues: society is global, but governments are not.
• When faced with surprising and/or unexpected phenomena, human beings come up with two types of explanations: the hyper-intelligence or conspiracy theory, which suspects a group of people of acting together to make things happen, and the hypo-intelligence or social bungle theory.
• The social bungle theory studies the unintended consequences of certain actions or decisions. It could be considered the basis of Social Sciences.
• Europe has lost the ability to write its own history and shape its own destiny. This is why we need a powerful European federation, something like the United States of Europe.
• The world must find ways to drive prosperity among the African and Asian migratory masses.