DEEP THOUGHT A Series with Andreea Petre-Goncalves SOFTLY REVOLT AGAINST THE MACHINE Ideas / Conversations | Sat 27th Jun | 5-7 pm Post WWII reality in Europe and North America was built on an unholy tandem between feminine ideas of solidarity (of building back, with safety nets, after a cataclysmic event) and the masculine rapaciousness of the profit seeking machine (within which the military industrial complex is an element). The idea that the machine is the engine that enables the caring softness metamorphosised over the course of time, to make the pursuit of lucre a societal end in its own right. After decades of fetishising masculine ideas of technology-enabled progress rewarded with limitless profit, we stand on the precipice of being swallowed up by the machine, our own flesh expendable, our collective home about to be set alight. Regaining the confidence of feminine softness, leading with love rather than dominating with greed, will take courage that is hopefully still engrained in our muscle memory. A radically different narrative of what is true and of who we are is urgently needed. Telling a story of human oneness and soft solidarity is therefore existential - but we’ve been trained to see it as unserious. Can we still lovingly revolt against the machine we’ve come to idolise? Join us for a – feminine, if you like - conversation. Open to everyone __________________________________________________________ ABOUT THE HOST Andreea Petre-Goncalves was 8 years old when totalitarian Communism collapsed overnight in her native Romania. She saw then how quickly yesterday’s absolute truth can become tomorrow reviled atrocity. She knows that societal narratives can shift fast, and when they do, they make deep system re-set possible. For two decades she worked for international development, human rights, health and sustainability in the EU institutions and international NGOs. In 2019 she set up Flare, a Brussels-based think-and-do tank that experiments with practical ways of shifting the collective ideas we hold of what is normal and desirable. This work builds on 15 years of her researching and writing about societal narrative shifts. She is a BMW Foundation Responsible Leader and a member of Global Diplomacy Lab.