What does it mean to live in a world with no red lines?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot as the year draws to a close and I’m trying to find my bearings of where we are, collectively.

This feels like a superbly disorienting time to be alive.

Partly because of the speed at which terrifying things are happening. Just this last month in the UK, we’ve seen the increasingly blatant exclusion of trans people from public spaces, the vilification of migrants by parties across the political spectrum, the imprisonment of political activists without a conviction who are now in a critical stage of their hunger strike.

Globally, the rollout of AI warfare, the genocides without consequence, the rise of political violence, the authoritarian leaders elected and re-elected into office, the breakdown of international law, the widespread flooding, earthquakes, fires and hurricanes are just a few things on the pile.

It's hard to keep up. But it’s also difficult to find your bearings when the foundations our societal pillars rest on – such as truth, respect, privacy, human rights etc. - are being deliberately eroded.

It feels like any vaguely coherent international moral standard that we could hold onto as a species is slipping away in broad daylight.

Some might argue that such a thing never existed because atrocities have been committed unhindered the world over. Or, at best, whatever moral order we had was full of double standards – meaning those with the most power got to flaunt them without any meaningful consequence or accountability.

This is all true. And yet I feel as though we have moved into a new era of flagrant I-do-as-I-pleasery.

Perhaps I’m naïve or have been too shielded by my own privilege to see this clearly. Because I used to believe that we had a kind of moral standard that would guide actions on the international stage.

Or that would at least, say, prevent a so-called ‘humanitarian foundation’ set up by the very people who created a famine in Gaza from being weaponised in order to control and kill Palestinians; or that would draw a line under the suggestion that people fleeing from war and prosecution on a dinghy should be pulled back by the French coastguard using huge nets; or that would prosecute anyone who was found to have had a close connection with a convicted child sex trafficker, particularly if they held a high-profile role in the government.

Whether such a standard ever existed or not, we seem to have crossed into a terrain of maximum extraction at any cost with zero accountability.

Photo of a footpath lined with flat rocks leading up a mountain with thick clouds overhead and some sunlight on the horizon, creating a dramatic mood.

“2025 felt like an assault on what it means to be human”, wrote Sarah Kendzior, a political commentator whose writing I turn to frequently to find clarity about the reality we’re in (she tried to warn us about it for over a decade).

Witnessing what I have this year has felt more visceral, somehow. I have had many days and sometimes weeks of moving in a kind of daze, my nervous system overwhelmed at the level of suffering and injustice I was seeing. I would rigidly attach myself to some silly routine to create the illusion that I was somehow still in control - before sooner or later tearing up on the phone to my best friend, who would patiently remind me that I was having an appropriate response to unbearable conditions.

What’s the antidote the erosion of a shared moral compass? I’d say it’s reminding ourselves and each other of our shared humanity, as often as possible.

Here are a few ideas for how to do that:

• Unmediated human connection: It can be spontaneous, intentional, brief, in depth, with a beloved soul or a stranger, in person or on the phone or via a text or letter or screen – none of that is important as long as you are showing someone your full regard and let them know that they mean something to you.

• Proper clarity about your values: Not just a values statement, but a clear understanding of how you put those values into practice, how you embody them, especially when under pressure or when faced with an ethical dilemma. It’s not about perfection but ‘getting the reps in’, as Resmaa Menakem always insists. 

• Local networks: It’s much easier to vilify people when they’re abstract to you, and much harder when you have had a conversation with them, know the names of their children or see them on their morning walk with their dog. Connecting with people who are different from you over a shared concern or need is medicine against division.

• Real art by real people: Creativity connects, opens and expands possibilities. AI steals, averages, frequently lies and consumes an astronomical amount of water.  More than that, “AI works to destroy the parts of ourselves — our empathy, creativity, defiance — that combat authoritarianism”, says Sarah Kendzior. I completely agree.
  
  

• Courage: Not the kind of calculated risk-taking entrepreneurial capitalism encourages but doing things we’re afraid of. This will mean different things for each of us, depending on the level of threat we face and the level of safety and protection we are afforded. For me, courage includes being openly pro-trans, pro-Palestine, pro-migrant, anti-racist, covid conscious and making this a part of my work rather than separating it out.

• Grief: As a species, we are faced with a huge amount of loss, deliberate collapse and chaos. Grief is a doorway to love, and love connects us with our humanity. Finding ways and places to grieve and hold our broken hearts with others creates the possibility for us to move and evolve into something new without denying or minimising where we have been.

As we slouch towards the end of the year, may we gather our pieces and remind ourselves that many of us who are struggling are having a human response to a deeply inhumane system.

It’s a system we all participate in, willingly or not, and that is entirely made up. Which means it can be changed, and we can shape this change by figuring out our own red lines, particularly while looking into the grinning face of authoritarianism.