IO’s week: Innovation is suffering from moral envy

By Bart Brouwers

In our Sunday newsletter, we, as editors, reflect on the past seven days. We do this on the initiative of our cartoonist Albert Jan Rasker. He chooses a subject, draws a picture, and we take it from there.

It seems so obvious to blame a vegetarian for wearing leather shoes, or a climate activist for flying. In recent years, the “virtuous” have become the target of anyone who can detect even a sliver of their behavior. But that is precisely where it goes wrong in our society. Merien ten Houten explains it well in his post: moral envy, a feeling of resentment towards people who are seen as morally superior, stands in the way of innovation and social progress.

Moreover, moral envy makes us reward bullshit jobs more than the really essential ones (like in education and healthcare, as Albert Jan shows), thereby hindering the progress of society even more. Let’s accept that no one is perfect and take an example from the small and large steps others are already taking toward a better world. Tiny effort, big effect.

Here’s the whole article, in which Merien shows what moral envy is all about.

Gerard & Anton Magazine

Our week was – in a very pleasant way! – dominated by preparations for our annual Gerard & Anton Event. For the ninth time already, we are placing 10 promising start-ups on stage and building a party around it. The event, this Thursday at the High Tech Campus, is completely sold out with over 300 guests, so it promises to be a great evening.

Also nice to mention: in addition to the stories about the winners that will appear one by one on Innovation Origins after the event, we have also created a magazine this time: IO Next. If all goes well we will be able to present it during the award ceremony. We will link the digital version to this newsletter next week anyway. We hope it will be the beginning of a monthly magazine, with a different theme each time. The plan is to focus the October issue on our brains.