Insight: Prominent in southern Africa, with emphasis on the essential nature of our shared humanity and connectedness.
Insight: Definition of human moral existence in terms of mutuality - that humanity is defined by the interconnectedness of all people to one another.
Insight: The ideas captured by Ubuntu include kindness, goodness, generosity, friendliness, compassion, caring, reciprocity.
Insight: Ubuntu frames virtues of generosity, kindness through active positivity rather than negative alternatives such as 'do no harm.'
Insight: To be described as Ubuntu is to have the character and characteristics of positive ethics.
Insight: The philosophy of ubuntu describes that as social animals who need one another we should live by this fact.
Reference: Jordan Kush Ngubane, 1950s wrote about ubuntu.
Reference: Archbishop Desmond Tutu - spoke about ubuntu at the end of apartheid in South Africa.
Definition: Nguni African notion meaning "Because of you, I exist".
Insight: Humanity is not just dependent on human to human connection, but the dependency we have on animals and landscapes.
Insight: The web of life is not just about our surroundings, biology and geology, but space and time.
Reference: Archbishop Desmond Tutu - spoke of the African ethical concept of Ubuntu: "A person is a person through other persons"; "We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another"; “What you do affects the whole world.”
Insight: The concept of Ubuntu stresses the interconnectedness of humanity.
Definition: A Bantu term for the love of humanity.
Reference: Robert F. Smith - giving a speech to graduating students: "Now, my young brothers, you figure out how you’re going to practice Ubuntu. How are you going to deliver back to your community?"
Definition: An African philosophy based on the belief that we belong to a greater whole, that is bigger than ourselves.
Reference: Nelson Mandela - Ubuntu does not mean that we should not enrich ourselves, but that it should be done in conjunction with the betterment of the community.
Reference: The Boston Celtics in 2007-8 adopted the catch-phrase "Ubuntu", to capture the "togetherness" that they would cling to.
Key Insights & Principles
Philosophy
As humans we are bound by human connectedness, our environment, other animals, landscapes, space and time.
We are who we are because of and through other people.
Our actions have an impact on the world.
Our moral existence can be viewed through our connectedness to others.
Ubuntu includes the virtues of kindness, goodness, generosity, friendliness, compassion, caring, reciprocity.
As social animals, we need each other, and should live by this fact.
