Introduction Until the present crisis and the cessation of most social and economic activity the main concern in people’s minds was the economic challenges and opportunities created by Brexit. By contrast with the challenges ahead presented by the economic fallout of the national lockdown, those posed by Brexit now seem insignificant. Predictions vary as to… Continue reading The Economic Future of the Nation: Human Value and Institutional Wealth
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.
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
Beauty: more than the eye of the beholder (part 3)
In memory of Roger Scruton (1944-2020) Changes in the apperception of the beautiful across historical time and the very individuality of the experience of beauty, have led to a false doctrine of the relativity of beauty. In fact, the history of the development of knowledge supports an alternative view, that the variability across time and… Continue reading Beauty: more than the eye of the beholder (part 3)
The Political Logic of the Excluded Middle
For several years the received opinion is that the middle ground of politics has been abandoned here in the UK, in America and in much of Europe. There is, indeed, a superficial plausibility to this assertion, evidenced by the intemperate language of much of political debate. However, I believe that the underlying reality is quite… Continue reading The Political Logic of the Excluded Middle
What actually is ‘Community’?
Almost no pundit, politician or purveyor of good causes can today make their case without extolling its benefits for ‘the community’ or miscellaneous ‘communities’. The importance of community has become a touchstone of contemporary thinking, on both the political left and the right. It might be thought that what socialists and conservatives mean by community… Continue reading What actually is ‘Community’?
Dilemmas regarding the justice of claims for national independence
As most of the world knows – although there are surely corners where the news has not permeated or imposed its importance on the local consciousness – the United Kingdom is undergoing a protracted political crisis in its attempt the leave the European Union. Views on the meaning of this differ, to put it mildly;… Continue reading Dilemmas regarding the justice of claims for national independence
An assessment of the status of climate change modelling as a scientific paradigm (part 2)
The latest news that the Antarctic has undergone rapid melting in the period 2014-2017 (Vaughan, 2019), undoing 35 years of gradual growth, one of the touchstones of climate change sceptics, effectively demolishes the argument that global warming is not real. Nevertheless, the pressure by activists for radical and immediate restructuring of the economy is potentially… Continue reading An assessment of the status of climate change modelling as a scientific paradigm (part 2)