Mathieu Lefèvre: CEO More in Common Think Tank - The deeper truth about our polarised world. BBUG...

Les gens qui sont les plus confusés sont votre close-cire, donc les gens autour de

vous.

C'est qui les

gens

qui sont les plus confusés. Mais le deuxième groupe, pour une demographie, le deuxième groupe, sont les influencers

de l'influencer,

plus que les médias traditionnelles. Donc, ces influencers

de l

'influencé vraiment, vraiment important. Et beaucoup d'entre

eux

sont, comme, à un loss. Ils ne connaissent pas comment faire cette importance, cette confiance,

cette confiance

que les gens placent en eux.

La

réalité est que

environ

un quartier

d

'américains

sans

un diplôme d'université, donc un en quatre américains sans un diplôme d'université, report à avoir un ami. Donc, cela, plus que votre opinion de tout, représente la

façon

dont vous voyez le monde. Si nous parlons de ces choses, la défense de la presse

libre,

la défense des droits de la

société

civile, la société civile, la société civile, la

société

civile,

la

société civile, la société civile,

la société civile. Ce

sont les meilleures ways de parler de l'Europe, de parler de l'Europe ou de l'Union Européenne, qui est toujours seen comme un peu boring ou un peu antagoniste pour les gens. Mais ce sentiment d'être que nous sommes plus fortes, c'est très présent dans l'Union Européenne. Ce qui me motivent, c'est que

j

'ai beaucoup peur de l'état de notre société. J'ai trois enfants. J'ai vraiment peur de l'université qu'ils vont développer. J'ai, dans un passé,

j

'ai vécu pour beaucoup de ans, dans des sociétés qui descendent à une actual guerre civile.

J

'ai vécu pour trois ans. J'ai vécu pour trois

ans. J'ai vécu

pour trois ans.

J

'ai vécu pour

trois ans. J

'ai vécu

pour trois ans.

J'ai vécu pour

trois ans. Je ne

dirais pas

que

Baden-Baden soit à devenir Kandahar. Non à tout. C'est complètement stupide pour moi de dire.

Aujourd'hui,

mon guest est Mathieu Lefebvre-Martin, co-founder et CEO de More Incommon,

an

international think tank that explores what drives societies apart and what holds them together.

More

Incommon has become one of the most relevant organizations working at the intersection of research, politics, and civil society.

Building

evidence, creating narratives, and advising institutions on how to strengthen social cohesion. Bonjour Mathieu.

Bonjour Mathieu.

Thank you.

Thanks for having

me. Nice to have you.

We

both are French, so there's something we have in

common.

Yeah, we have something in common already. Let's do this in French. So what's your personal story? Where do you come from and what shaped you?

So part of what shaped me is the fact that I am both French, my father is French, and my mother is American. But my mother was born in Hungary and she emigrated to the United States as a political refugee with my grandparents when she was nine. So this question of what we have in common particularly for immigrants or refugees in the context of my grandparents really shaped me. My grandparents were also political dissidents. They were jailed by the Soviet regime in Hungary in the 1950s for opposing authoritarianism. So that's also a thread that kind of runs through me.

Intergenerational trauma? Right. Maybe.

Yes. Why

did you start More in Common?

So More

in Common's origin story comes from a very tragic day in June 2016. There was a member of parliament in the UK called Jo Cox, who was a young woman, a young mother, and she was assassinated in her constituency in June 2016. Her constituency is in the north of the UK in New Yorkshire, and she was killed by a far right terrorist. And she's somebody that

the

founding group of More in Common knew. And we take our name from her first speech in the House of Commons in the British Parliament, where she said that she believed that people have more in common than what separates them. So that's the origin story for our organization. And it's kind of our philosophy. As you alluded to now, nine years later, we're a group of about 70 people working in many different countries. But we still retain that as our mantra, the belief

that

what unites people is stronger than what divides them. So that's the origin story for our work.

How

did you make this into a mission?

We

made it into a mission. I mean, it felt a little bit, you know, obvious at the time.

It

was such a traumatic period. And if you travel back in your mind and listeners travel back in their mind to 2016, it was a very tense period.

Where

I live in France, we were still emerging from the trauma of the wave of terrorist attacks in 2015 in the Bataclan, etc.

The

Brexit referendum in the UK was extremely tense and very polarized time. And of course, this was right in the middle of the campaign that would see Donald Trump elected to the White House for the first time. So you remember that time was a very tense mission. And when Joe was assassinated and working with her husband and others, it felt like history was tapping us on the shoulder, as my friend and co-founder likes to say, that it was obvious that we needed to do something to understand why society looked like it was fracturing. So it wasn't an act of intellectual courage, if you will.

It just felt obvious to us that we needed to do this and in part to do it as a result of this tragedy and this assassination.

I

ask you a question, which maybe most listeners will already know, but still, what is a think tank?

So

I think more in common is partly a think tank and partly a lot more than that. But I think labels don't matter that much. But I think in the best sense of the word, a think tank is a place where,

you

know, people who have an expertise in one or more areas can provide ideas and have the time and the space to think about the future of society. But very importantly, to feed those ideas that research all of that work to the people who are kind of on the front line. So our issue is mainly polarization and social cohesion. So it's very important to us that

we

do research and we, you know, in any given year, we survey probably 100,000 people or more. We do focus groups. We work on a whole bunch of issues. But it's really important that we don't just do research, that we feed that research in very tangible ways to

actors

in civil society, to politicians, to governments, to big philanthropic organizations, to business groups

in

order to turn that research into action. It's very important that it just it doesn't remain in the think category, but it also really goes into the do category. Because when it comes to polarization and social cohesion, describing the problems is not enough. There is a temptation to describe the sinking ship of our societies. That's not enough. There's always a description, a temptation to describe more. But we really want to push to doing.

I

heard you trained a group of influencers to understand how this information works. What did you learn?

Well,

what we learned is that, first of all, the attention economy has shifted a lot. So, whereas in a previous era, you know, the Frankfurter Allgemeine or the Guardian or the Wall Street Journal commanded the attention of people, they still do. And they're still very important. But new online audiences have emerged, including very, very large audiences. If you think about podcasts like the one we're doing now or social media influencers. So it's a realization that the attention economy and the crucible of where ideas and paradigms are shaped has shifted. And part of that is to online influencers. And so we were really keen to engage with that audience.

So what we've been doing is to train some very large online influencers who have large Instagram or YouTube channels. You know, some of them have millions of followers and they don't necessarily work on issues that are close to our issues. We work with beauty influencers or baking influencers. But they came to us because they're worried about disinformation. They're worried that about two things. First of all, they say that they are being asked to say things that are not true. And they're worried about their own brand. Frankly, they say, if I say things that are not true, that are, you know, fake news,

I

worry that people will take me seriously. And then the second thing they came to us about is to say, I'm being asked to take a stand on social issues,

whether

it's issues about the war in the Middle East or Ukraine or COVID vaccines, etc. And I don't really know what my role is in saying that. So we kind of gave them broad training about the expectations around social media influencers, about how disinformation works. And they were very grateful and very receptive. The reality is that when you ask people, who do you trust? There's a real crisis of trust happening. And and I'm not saying this is a good or a bad thing, but the people that are most trusted are your close circle. So people around you, that's who people trust the most. But the second for some demographic, the second group is online influencers more than the traditional media.

So these online influencers really, really matter. And many of them are kind of caught at a loss. They don't know how to manage this importance, this trust that people place in them. So that's the conversation we have with them. We also train video game designers and other people who command that attention.

Tomorrow thinking Europe in motion.

Who

are the people you're working with or your colleagues? What kind of career profile do they have? What kind of background?

I

think one of the greatest privileges that I have, and I say this very genuinely, is to work with a phenomenal group of people. And I think what's common to our colleagues at Morn Common working in seven countries, it's about 70 people, is that they have a deeply felt care for society.

There's

a patriotism to all of them. They're proud of their countries. They're proud of being in democratic societies, but they worry about the direction we're going. There's also attributes to this team.

They

are very ambitious about what we want to achieve, but they're very humble. We start from a place of evidence. So we do this large scale research to not opine on what we think about society, but really to draw on evidence of what people are saying.

So

there are certain characteristics that we have in common. And in addition, which is, I think, a great value, is that

members

of our team are very different.

We

have people on our team who are very religious and people who are not religious. We have people who come from the military. We have people who come from business. We have people who are conservatives. We have people who are very progressive. And we have people who are not very political. So in many ways, this team has common attributes that are this culture that really binds us together.

But

they're also very different, which is a real wealth and a real resource for us and allows us to do better work. I think having viewpoint diversity is extremely important if you're going to do work that has the mission that we have at

More

in Common.

How

can I imagine what you deliver to your clients? Is that a kind of report or like a presentation or does it vary? Is it a movie? Is it a sound piece? How do you operate? How creative are you on that?

We're

probably not creative enough, honestly, and we need to explore new formats. But typically what we do is we try to deliver a good snapshot of how people see the world. Many organizations we work with, whether it's trade unions or businesses or political parties or citizen movements, they're quite removed from people.

You

know, one of the things that we found, and I don't know if you agree and maybe your guests fall into this category, is that

people

who are very passionate about an issue, whether it's taxes or innovation or AI or immigration or climate or whatever,

they

get really passionate about that one issue. And that can make you forget that actually very few people care about your issue. You know, if you take the population at large, most people,

most

ordinary Germans don't look at the world through the lens of any one particular issue. They think about

their

kids and education and safety and housing and the cost of living crisis, which is number one. So what we try to deliver to our partners is that

people

centric lens. How do people see the world?

And

one of the things that we work on a lot is social psychology. So we try to understand not just what people

think

about

the

chancellor or this party or Donald Trump or whatever, but why? What in their psychological makeup explain why they see the world that way? So we talk a lot about understanding people's in group and out group. Who is on your side? Who do people feel is on their side? Do people have social contact? Do people have contact with friends or coworkers, et cetera?

The

reality is that

about

a quarter

of

Americans

without

a college degree. So one in four Americans without a college degree report to having not one friend.

So

that

more

than your opinion about anything shapes how you see the world. This loneliness epidemic that we're seeing all around the world. So we try to deliver those people centric insights to our partners so that they can understand the general context in which their work

is

located, is situated. We talk about providing our partners with starting points. What is the starting point of this audience on your issue, for example?

And

I can give you an example of starting points. That's helpful, but we try to provide that holistic picture of where people are.

Could

you describe other

global

social trends?

Other

global social trends? Certainly. Yeah. So I think that there's a couple. So obviously we work on social cohesion and sort of what

unites

people and what divides people. So I'll share a few.

The

first one in is because I'm an optimist is to start with some positive stuff. Yes, there is a growing feeling of division. And I'll come back to it in

a

second. But there's also a great yearning to connect. People are yearning. They really want to connect with people who are different from them.

In

the societies that we study, we see that three quarters of people broadly speaking say, I really would like to connect more with people who are different from me. That can be across divides like Eastern and Western Germany or income levels or ethnic divisions or education levels. But there's a yearning to connect.

Linked

to that is a crisis of disconnection. There is the both the reality of polarization. Polarization is increasing

for

sure. There's no doubt about it. But perhaps more worryingly and connected is the perception of polarization is increasing. People assume that we are more divided than we really are. And that's due to media, to social media in particular reinforces that. So number one, there is a thirst to connect. But number two, polarization and the perception of polarization is increasing.

And

number three

is

a real sense of loss.

There's

a real sense of loss, loss of trust. Trust indicators are really, really

decreasing.

Trust in institutions, trust in business,

trust

in one another, trust in the media is really falling and is at very worryingly low level. So there's a loss of trust. There's also a loss of voice and agency. Nobody listens to me. You know, I feel unheard. That's something we hear a lot. So there's a loss of voice.

And

then there's also a loss of control. I don't control my life anymore. I used to be kind of in charge of bits of my life. But now global trends, pandemics, wars, social media, immigration has increased this feeling of loss of control.

So

all of those things are a mixed picture. There's a lot of bad stuff in there, but there's some good stuff in there. This yearning to reconnect is a really good thing and an important thing. So that's some of the sort of atmospherics and the context around our work.

In

Berlin, you also have a physical space. Could you explain what's happening there?

Sure. Yeah. It's called the Werkstatt. Forgive my

very

bad German accent. And it's basically a place where our team at More in Common Deutschland trains organizations that work on social cohesion. They could be local library groups, local sports groups, local religious groups, civil society organizations at very field level.

And

we train them

on

understanding how people are talking about German society at a fairly macro level. But then we start with a big picture understanding of German society and we provide that to our partners who are really grateful for this macro view. But then we say, OK, well, if we start from this macro view and let's go down progressively step by step to how you in your what implications this has for you in your work.

How

could we increase the diversity of people you are reaching? How could we increase the engagement with the people you are reaching so that that engagement is impactful? It's reaching your goals as an organization. How can we increase your local fundraising? So it's a real sort of boot camp for social cohesion for local organization. It's really, really successful. And my colleagues are doing a fantastic job.

So

how can I imagine you invite a soccer club, for example, with kids and they come to your place and then you ask them question and the output out of those sessions, you integrate them into your consulting or so is that working?

It's really more of an offer of consulting for the soccer clubs. Typically, it wouldn't be for one soccer club. It would be for like a group of soccer clubs in, you know, a land or in eastern Germany or in Bavaria or whatever. So they would come and we would train them on our insights, but then ask them, well, how are you struggling in your role to promote social cohesion? What are some concrete things that we can help you solve?

So

it's less that we're drawing insights from them. It's more like we're doing consulting for them to help them do their work.

Tomorrow thinking, curating change.

Recently, you have been involved into a TV show on Canal Plus called La Fievre. How can a think tank be involved into a TV show?

So

this TV show is really great. It's a it's a fiction show and it was very popular and it's a sort of political drama and it takes place in the world of soccer, football. And it is about polarization. It's about how French society could tip into a sort of cultural war, but including a war war like a physical war because of polarization,

the

toxicity of social media, etc. It's really excellent and it won lots of prizes and it's fantastic.

We

did not create this show. We didn't write this show. We didn't film this show. We didn't act in this show. We just talked with the creator of the show

about

our research, about what we learn in our research, and it just fed into the creative process. So he created characters that are slightly based on our research and our work and including ourselves. And he took it. So he took our work, which is very sort of rational brain and look at society in evidence based ways. And he added that creative element to say, OK, I'm going to turn this into a story.

And

it's really a cautionary tale of what could go wrong

if

polarization is let

to

run its course. So it's a cautionary tale, which is quite helpful, also quite depressing and dark, to be honest. But that mix of, you know, practices was really, really stimulating for us because he and his team brought creative practices and we brought our research practices. And together they made this amazing show, which is really helpful to us, because when you tell a story, when they're characters, you connect with more people. You just have more people watch that kind of thing than our reports, obviously. So it was a really great experience.

And I really encourage people who have the opportunity to work with creatives and storytellers, because that really, really resonates with people in a different part of their brain and their heart.

That's

crucial in our times when no one reads and no one has time for anything.

Yeah,

that's right. The algorithm plays its role and

TikTok

is five second movies. Yes. It's crucial to explain

stories

easily and emotionally. Yeah. In a fast way also.

Where

can you watch that series? You know,

I'm not exactly sure because in France.

Is it

only in France?

La Fievre Canal Plus, you should be able to find it somewhere, but I'm not sure how to find it in Germany, to

be honest. Maybe

on Disney or something. Do you know, Malcolm? You have all those Frenchie.

I saw it on Canal Plus.

You saw it? You saw it, actually. I love it. I love it.

Benjamin Biolet, it's fantastic. Yes,

that's right. Benjamin

Biolet is a great musician.

I love his music. Yes,

that's right. Oh wow, that's fantastic. Now I need to watch it

too. Yeah, it's good.

Another reason. It's really good. It's really good. Great. It's coming back. Season two is coming back soon. Awesome. So now I'm excited. Something to do for the winter. La Fievre Canal Plus. Let's speak about Europe. Europe is a great concept. It's a beautiful idea. It's a lot of different cultures which are really living and working together in peace. And it's part of the Western world and the Western world goes more and more narrow. How much

Europe

or countries in Europe have in common is a big question. How do you look at that?

Yeah. Now,

in

many ways, the worst word to talk about Europe is Europe. Because Europe has, sadly, I mean, I'm personally

very

pro-European. I think it's one of the most exciting social, political, economic projects ever. But I also know that except in some, in a few countries, the word Europe doesn't resonate well with people. It's seen as a foreign thing. It's seen as above ordinary people. The sentiment of being against Europe is still very strong. And not just among the far right, among, you know, lots of people in France, in Germany, in the Netherlands, in many, many countries. So I think one strategy to

talk

about Europe is to avoid the word Europe and say, well, what does Europe stand for? Kind of what do we have in common?

One, a

desire for peace, a desire for strength. I think foreign aggressions and the return of war on our continent, but also geopolitical instability has made people feel that they need Europe more, that they need their partners more, their neighbors more. Some of them might not love the idea of Europe, but now it's become more of a necessity. So it opens up a real opportunity. So,

you

know, if we talk about those things, a defense of the free press, defense of the right of civil society, prosperity, a welfare state that's fair, a fair society, a society of innovation.

Those

are better ways to talk about Europe than actually talk about Europe or the European Union, which is still seen as either boring or quite antagonistic to people. But that feeling that together we are stronger is very present in society. We do a lot of polling on public opinion on Ukraine,

and

we could see that even when the American administration seemed to turn its back on President Zelensky during that terrible White House meeting that we all remember. We did polling very quickly, which was published in hundreds of newspapers all over Europe. And we saw that Europeans said,

we

want to stand

with

Ukraine, but we want to stand together. We feel a need for one another more. So in a weird way, in this very dangerous world, there's more appetite for Europe.

But

again, it's understanding where people's starting points are. Talking about Europe is appealing to many people. Talking about what Europe stands for and what Europe can deliver concretely for me,

that's

a better starting point.

I

would add common values to the

identity

of Europe. I think it's important to think about the identity of Europe. It's crucial, specifically as you described in the times we're living in. And we need to find a way to create Europe's identity because I think it has been missed out to do. They created the structures,

the

money, EU. Also, you have to differentiate between Europe and EU. It's two different things. I love that topic. I really want to find out how we can recreate or actually create Europe's identity.

In

theory, I love that topic, too. In practice, it feels like it's a tall order. You know, if we talk about those things, defense of the free press, defense of the right of civil society, prosperity, a welfare state that's fair, a fair society, a society of innovation,

those

are better ways to talk about Europe than actually talk about Europe or the European Union, which is still seen as either boring or quite antagonistic to people. But that feeling that together we are stronger is very present in society. European identity doesn't feature very highly and it only features very highly among small segments of the population. So

I

agree with you very much that we need to celebrate the values of Europe and, you know, the strength that Europe can bring, that cooperation can bring on things like defense, like innovation, like education.

But

talking about a European identity, I feel, takes us slightly on a detour,

which I'm

not sure is helpful in this moment. I personally am attached to that identity. So I understand that what I'm saying might be off putting to many people who are listening to us. But I think just realistically, we also have to embrace a sort of proud patriotism, which is about talking about our nations in a way.

Some

extreme voices have taken that concept of nation and turned it into nationalism. There's another path for that. There's a sort of proud patriotism way. There's a lot of debate kind of everywhere we work on on the flag. You know, recently in the UK, there was a lot of discussion about the flag. I know in Germany, people in Germany have had a difficult relationship with their flag. Same thing in the United States, in France, in Brazil, etc. But I think we also need to do a reconquering of our flag. And that is not against this European identity that you're talking about. They kind of go in the same direction. As Europe, it's complex. It's complex. It's complicated. Yes.

We're

talking about the work Truth is Capital by Johann Alexei.

He's

using pigment and binder as technique. And you're in front of this huge red painting. And it's basically a red surface you're diving into. Only when you take a second look,

you

recognize the words written on it in red letters. Truth is Capital.

So

it's red letters on a red surface, meaning you're

more

sensing those words than you actually see them.

The

words don't involve a specific meaning. They're open to interpretation of each viewer.

And

the artist himself generates those words during a state of meditation.

Next,

we will speak about my artwork, which we are sitting in front of,

called Truth

is Capital. There it is.

There

it is.

It's

a series of works, always the same text-based

statement on

a big red background. And the text is almost not seeable. It's coming from a meditation I did once, like a few years ago. And it has been getting around through different artworks, which are in different collections worldwide. And this is one of them. And also there's a big version of this at Baden-Baden Unternehmersgespräch in the first floor. Right.

It's

living in front of entrepreneurs for years now. And it peaked a lot of

great

discussions. But again, Truth is Capital. The wording on it is just a vessel, you know, like a fun interpretation, a free interpretation, like an abstract painting. Is there anything happening with you when you read it or when you see the painting?

Yeah. Two things happen. The first thing is that in the literal sense of the word, that in the sense of truth is capital as in important. Truth is incredibly important. And I think that our adhesion to the truth and our attachment to science and to facts is more important than ever. And used to take the form of, obviously, your attack to the truth. Now it takes the form of an act of rebellion in a way to say, no, we are attached to the truth.

Truth

is capital, is a statement of rebellion and of a counterculture now in a weird way. That is a hill that we must die on. That's so interesting. Never heard that one. But also,

I

know because we do lots of opinion research that

many

of the groups that we study, including a section of German society, which we call the invisible third. And this is from our research on more in common Deutschland. If your listeners go look at the invisible third, they'll find it in German.

This

invisible third is about a third of the population in Germany, but also in other countries. We've called them the exhausted majority in other countries. They have a certain psychological profile and they're very distrustful, including of statements like truth is capital.

Because

part of what they would say when you say truth is capital is that they would say,

but

whose truth?

Like,

why are you trying to feed me your truth?

When

we ask people in places like the United States or Brazil, like, are you worried about this information? People in this invisible third segment who are very distrustful of everything, they have low social capital there, you know, you get the picture of who they are.

They

will say,

why

are you mentioning disinformation to me? Is disinformation just another way of saying,

believe

what I'm telling you to believe? While I believe that truth is capital on your artwork, I know that for a lot of people that would not resonate the same way.

They

would want to say, yeah, whose truth?

Like,

are you trying to impose your truth on me by telling me it's capital all in caps? So I think we go back to this notion of starting points like for whom

and

why are you trying to tell me this? So, you know, forcing people down people's throat the fact that facts matter, science matter, truth is capital isn't really going to work with these sections of the population that have just become very distrustful of anything. I'm torn between those two ideas about this, your artwork, which is that, yes, the truth is capital. I agree. And I understand how people, not elite listeners of your podcast might say, yeah, OK, I understand. But you understand how I feel about this, that I feel that I am often given information that I am distrustful of.

What motivates you

to

deeply do what you do?

What motivates me is that

I

worry

very

much about the state of our society. I have three kids. I really do worry about the world that they're going to grow up in. I, in a past life, have lived for many years in societies that descended into actual civil war.

I

lived in Afghanistan for three years. I lived in Lebanon and Syria for three years.

I

know what it looks like when a society descends into civil war. I'm not suggesting that Baden-Baden is about to become Kandahar. Not at all. That would be completely stupid of me to say. But

I

also think that there are signs that our opulent Western societies are descending on the path of conflict. And I think we should worry more rather than less about that. So

what

motivates me is firstly a slight position of fear and concern. When comedians are taken off the air, when media groups are told what to say and journalists are told what to say, that should worry us.

But

the flip side of that coin is that I also, what motivates me is a deep belief that people are better than this version we are shown of ourselves.

That

we are like in a distorting hall of mirrors at the fun fair where we're making ourselves look much more angry or polarized than we really are.

And

I believe people are better than the show that is put on social media, by politics, on cable news. I fundamentally believe in people's decency, their empathy, their care. So it's two things. It's worry and a belief in people.

That's a great finishing.

Believe

in people.

That's

right. Believe in yourself and believe in people.

It's

easy. Okay. Thank you so much. Thanks very much for having me.

It was a

great discussion. Thanks

a lot. Thanks

a lot.

Tomorrow

Thinking,

by

Johan Alexey.

A

podcast developed in the context of the BBUG Fellowship.

Producer,

Malcolm Gompf.

More

podcasts and info

at

tomorrow-thinking.com.