Individualism ‘great intellectual pitfall of our times,’ says Higgins

Individualism has been "one of the great intellectual pitfalls of our times", President Michael D Higgins said yesterday, the second day of his official visit to Scotland.

Speaking in Edinburgh, the President said the challenges of the 21st century such as migration and climate change would require empathy for "those we have never met".

Mr Higgins also said Ireland and Scotland were "nations who wield intellectual insight with moral authority rather than a sword" and hailed Scotland's decision to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in the 2014 independence referendum.

“In a number of my own speeches as President of Ireland, I have sought to challenge some of the assumptions that underpin much of the contemporary public discourse on social and economic life, in particular the accepted wisdom of individual interests and an instrumental form of reason, which I hold to be one of the great intellectual pitfalls of our times,” the President told graduating students at the University of Edinburgh, where he was receiving an honorary degree.

“This new century is indeed one of pressing global issues, from climate change to large scale migration and displacement – issues that challenge us to exercise our capacity for empathy, to feel for the plight of those we have never met as we do for those with whom we share a city or a country,” Mr Higgins said.

Scotland and Ireland have a special role in using the power of education to change the world, Mr Higgins said.

“Scotland and Ireland are nations who facilitate and value dialogue, nations who wield intellectual insight with moral authority rather than a sword. We are nations that believe, in a special way, in the power of education and ideas to change the world, to be emancipatory.”

The President said the challenge for the upcoming generation was to redress and overcome past failures. He called for work to eliminate poverty, “make redundant the instruments of war”, safeguard the planet from climate change, and “deliver the results of science and technology for the full benefit of all humanity”.

The president's speech name-checked figures from the Scottish Enlightenment and Edinburgh alumni including David Hume, Charles Darwin and Alexander Graham Bell.

Yesterday evening, University of Edinburgh principal Prof Sir Timothy O’Shea, hosted a dinner in honour of the President.

Mr Higgins is due to address the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood in Edinburgh today. He will leave Scotland for France tomorrow ahead of an event to mark the centenary of the Battle of the Somme.