Soft Power examines the moral and cultural sway of technology: how the tools we build shape our lives, and how we might shape them in turn.
To wield soft power is to affect others through attraction rather than coercion; it is subtle and often alluring, which makes it harder to recognize and resist.
Our technologies have always molded our environments and behaviors, often in ways that are difficult to anticipate. That makes it all the more essential to interrogate these technologies as they’re being built and adopted — to recognize soft power as it’s being exercised.
Power itself is neither good nor evil. The real consideration is: how is it exercised, and in service of what?
I am just as interested in how soft power can be wielded for good — how we might design better narratives, cultivate richer aspirations, and build better tools, institutions, and systems that help us orient toward our highest human values and the long-term, collective good.
