“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.” (Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind, 1977) The problem of evil is one of the oldest problems in human thought. Every religion and many philosophical systems have contended with its nature and… Continue reading The Imperfect Paradise: Narratives of Ordinary Life and the Incursion of Evil
Author: Don Trubshaw
Don Trubshaw is a co-founder of the website Societal Values. He has a PhD in the philosophy and sociology of education and teaches in Higher Education.
Book Review: Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, “Cynical Theories: How Universities Made Everything about Race, Gender and Identity – and Why This Harms Everybody”
It tells us something when a potential reviewer of a book is warned that so doing could spell the end of their academic career, or when a scheduled lecture or guest speaker is cancelled because students declare themselves unsafe while threatening violent disruption, or the plug is pulled on important research because one person feels… Continue reading Book Review: Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, “Cynical Theories: How Universities Made Everything about Race, Gender and Identity – and Why This Harms Everybody”
Sergei Plays Russian Roulette
[Trrrrr] Allo; This is Sergei; You know me from your televisors If you xaven’t forgotten me already [Click] I started the veek as a cuddly stars of TV advert Life was simples Aall I had to do was to turn up to verk in my pyjamas and be myself Now I find maayself an international… Continue reading Sergei Plays Russian Roulette
The Theatre of Unreason: War and Identity Politics
Is there a connection between Putin’s war in Ukraine and identity politics? The de facto Russian dictator’s contempt for the woke politics of the Western world is well-documented, though the extent to which a consideration of the West as morally corrupt has played any part in his decision-making is unknown. So the attempt by some… Continue reading The Theatre of Unreason: War and Identity Politics
Social Morality from Kant’s Categorical Imperative to Transcendent Individualism
“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.” (Immanuel Kant, Epitaph) In the Metaphysic of Morals Immanuel Kant proposed what he considered to be the rational basis of all morality,… Continue reading Social Morality from Kant’s Categorical Imperative to Transcendent Individualism
Boris cleans up for Christmas
Crickey, this omicron business is coming at a bad time of year, although a good time for me. Let’s me sweep that business about parties during last year’s Christmas lockdown under the carpet. Did you know that they deliberately passed over the Greek letter Xi, which should have been the next in line for naming… Continue reading Boris cleans up for Christmas
The Totalitarian Ratchet: how fear, ignorance and disgust is eroding the democratic spirit and presages an ominous future.
The recent decision by Austria to mandate vaccinations for all its citizens, followed now by Germany and the Czech Republic, is the latest turn of the ratchet in the process by which democracies collapse into authoritarian, even fascist, states. It is one thing when a dictatorship is imposed on an unwilling population by a minority;… Continue reading The Totalitarian Ratchet: how fear, ignorance and disgust is eroding the democratic spirit and presages an ominous future.
Cluster____’s Last Stand
Now gather round children; Today I’m going to tell you a story about one of the heroes of our country, General Cluster____ Please Miss? Yes, Jerome? Wasn’t he a white man? Well, yes, Jerome, strictly speaking he was Then didn’t he have white privilege, like you were telling us about Miss? Well, no, not really,… Continue reading Cluster____’s Last Stand
On the Virtue of Conflict
Viruses and vaccines are very much on our mind at the moment, and they stand in also as ready metaphors for social dangers and prophylactics. There may well be more to the analogy than convenient literary devices though. The similarities between biological entities and societies seen from a systemic perspective has intellectual respectability. In fact,… Continue reading On the Virtue of Conflict
Top Trumps
The next people to face the Dragon’s Breath are a young man from Swindon [pause for sneer], called Bobbie and a young woman from Middlesbrough called Al – he’s the one with the spiky red hair and the nose-ring and she’s the one with the forked beard and the wooden leg, just in case…. Together… Continue reading Top Trumps