To Find Answers We Must Look To The Stars

A Ukrainian soldier told me that to find answers we must look to the stars. I was volunteering in Transcarpathia and sat with him while he pointed out constellations above the mountains. Through a combination of broken English and drawings in the sand, he said that the stars will never reply to our questions. That, I suppose, is the tragedy of humanity – we must learn that wisdom does not lie in a solution but within the question itself.

The stars, our celestial mirrors, help us to understand what our question really is and where it truly comes from. I recently travelled alone to volunteer in Zimbabwe during the election - I remember the tattered posters of propaganda, where only a few months earlier a young boy had taken one for his art project and was never seen again. His family told me this was seen as a form of protest, and he was taken away to be punished. The passion with which they spoke awoke me to the universality of philosophy and politics – their pain was profound yet they saw the possibility for a changed tomorrow. I developed my interest in human rights through my winning project on refugees for the Above and Beyond Competition. Inspired, I attended the book launch for Adam Etison’s “Human Rights: Moral or Political?” which enabled me to hear open discussion about political philosophy; a topic which I explored further in Slavoj Žižek’s insightful “Against the Double Blackmail”, where a revolutionary solution to global issues like terrorism was provided.

Following this, I conducted an analysis of the refugee crisis for my EPQ while researching the ethical implications of borders – studying texts such as Plato’s Republic. Although this was often prejudiced against lower members of society, I was amazed at how relevant classical writings were to modern-day issues. Aristotle’s Politics would argue, for instance, that we should teach societies to value refugees by allowing them to be contributors to their host countries. The idea that philosophies from thousands of years ago could be applied to conflict resolution today is incredible. Studying the Crusades developed my understanding of Islam, and led me to research further into Middle Eastern politics with Nick Brooke’s Review of The Rise of Islamic State, and Adam Bower’s Norms Without the Great Powers – where I was exposed to the consequences of international governance and forced to consider the practicalities of achieving utopia in the modern world. Intoxicated with utopian ideals, Rutger Bregman’s Utopia for Realists made a huge impression on me. Bregman’s argument for open borders, confirmed by debates I partook in as a member of the BBC Global Philosophy Club, shaped the conclusion in my EPQ that borders need to be opened and political power assigned to international organisations to solve our “globalisation of indifference”. I am fascinated by the logic in philosophical and political thought – and to apply myself further in this area I have taken CS50x, an introduction by Harvard University to the intellectual enterprises of computer science.

This, coupled with tutoring mathematics and gaining a Crest Award after winning the Go4SET Project, has developed my analytic thinking and raised my awareness of the explosive potential of artificial intelligence. I attended The Crisis of Global Politics: Lessons from Continental Philosophy which asserted that the AI Revolution is already here. Similarly, an article in Philosophy Now reminded me that we cannot address the ethical challenges of AI on the level of a single nation – global solidarity is the way forward. As Head Girl, I led a diverse group while presenting to large audiences - including a conference where I discussed adapting the Swedish education system to cope with international pressures. I will never stop attempting to illuminate the big questions that face a dramatically changing world. Perhaps then I disagree with the Ukrainian soldier. To find answers we must not look to the stars but, rather, within ourselves.