It is a common element of the myths we human beings like to spin around our lives that our circumstances are progressing in a favourable direction, or at least are about to. Even when things are going badly we look for a silver lining in the cloud to encourage ourselves for the future. And we… Continue reading The Myth of Progress?
Category: Politics
Is “Woke” the New McCarthyism?
In his 1964 essay The Paranoid Style in American Politics, Richard Hofstadter describes the phenomenon of McCarthyism as an example of what he terms the paranoid style and finds it far from being a novel phenomenon but rather a recurrent theme in the history of the United States. He quotes Senator McCarthy from 1951 as… Continue reading Is “Woke” the New McCarthyism?
Working from Home: Opportunity or Threat?
One of the long-term consequences foreseen from the Covid-19 pandemic is that the trend for more people to work from home may continue on the basis that this has certain attractions both for employees (less time and money spent on commuting) and for employers (less expensive office space required). But not all the consequences of… Continue reading Working from Home: Opportunity or Threat?
The spectre haunting the West: Marxism and the contagion of resentment
The spirit of resentment forms the dark heart of Marxism, its viral load, to pursue the analogy, and the dialectic its protective mechanism of transport. For Marxism to affect and infect its host, though, it must exploit its weaknesses. One vulnerability is clearly the existence of actual injustices in society, of which there is an endless supply. The other is the susceptibility of a proportion of the population with above average narcissistic tendencies. Though most people are narcissists to some degree, people with several traits associated with narcissistic personality disorder5 are highly susceptible to radical ideologies, not only leftist, but also far-right, Islamist, and animal rights and environmentalist extremism, for example.
Compassion and politics: a dangerous mix
Once, driving in a foreign land many years ago, I passed a person walking alone on a dark, unlit country road. As random, irrational violent thoughts cross all our minds from time to time, I had an unbidden image of attacking them. Instead of just dismissing the impulse through fear, anger or humour, as those… Continue reading Compassion and politics: a dangerous mix
How Useful Are “R” Values?
We in the UK are 60 days into a lockdown which has devastated our economy in an attempt to address a Covid-19 outbreak which is by now largely on the retreat. But like a rabbit in the headlights, we are stuck with a policy which, although it has successively changed its justification as each of… Continue reading How Useful Are “R” Values?
Privacy at the Dawn of the Totalitarian Digital State
What we witness today in Xinjiang, with the mass surveillance, incarceration and re-education of the Uighur population, is not just a violation of the fundamental rights of those people but a testing ground for the total surveillance society. 2020 will see the completion of China’s compulsory enrolment of every one of its citizens in a… Continue reading Privacy at the Dawn of the Totalitarian Digital State
Are we witnessing the death of freedom?
Don Trubshaw There have been voices raised against the flow in recent weeks, decrying the imposition of authoritarian measures in an attempt to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control. Some see in this the death of freedom. While I am sympathetic to these voices, I believe that the present crisis is only exposing a fundamental… Continue reading Are we witnessing the death of freedom?
The Politics and Economics of Trust in a Time of Crisis
In the present crisis precipitated by the Covid 19 virus there is an elephant in the room. It is a type of Utilitarian argument that the political considerations of the strategy that should be enacted – irrespective of the scientific advice – should be driven by the interests of the greatest number. In its harshest… Continue reading The Politics and Economics of Trust in a Time of Crisis
Book Review: Yoram Hazony, The Virtue of Nationalism
New York, Basic Books, 2018; 285 pages, paper, US$30 The Virtue of Nationalism, by the Israeli theologian and political philosopher Yoram Hazony, is being hailed by some as an important statement of the underpinning political ideology in the age of Brexit, Trump, Modi, Xi, Abe, Erdogan, Putin and of independence proclamations around the world, from… Continue reading Book Review: Yoram Hazony, The Virtue of Nationalism