Even as Yanis Varoufakis was resigning as Greece’s Minister of Finance last week, he was proclaiming a victory for democracy. The July 5 referendum, in which the Greek population rejected the austerity measures imposed upon it by the Eurozone countries, was, he said, a ‘unique moment when a small European nation rose up against debt-bondage’.... Continue Reading →
The ‘gay cake’ controversy
In July 2014 a gay rights activist named Gareth Lee ordered a cake from Ashers bakery in Belfast. The commission was for a large square sponge bearing the legend ‘Support Gay Marriage’ and the logo of an organisation called QueerSpace. It was also to feature Bert and Ernie, the Sesame Street characters whose sexuality is... Continue Reading →
Just add water: a review of Running Out? by Ruth Morgan
‘I take a bath every month,’ Elizabeth I is purported to have said, ‘whether I need one or not’. Clearly, hygiene standards change, and it is very honest of Ruth A. Morgan to confess, in her preface to Running Out?, to her ‘love affair with the washing machine’ and ‘penchant for long, hot showers’. But,... Continue Reading →
Breathing the haunted air
The surprise election of Victorian GP and relative political newcomer Richard Di Natale to the leadership of the Australian Greens has caused a certain amount of consternation in Canberra: in the press gallery because the transition was achieved with a minimum of fuss, and amongst the party faithful because it was achieved with a minimum... Continue Reading →
Disciplined hope: on Irving Howe
In the long and laudable history of left-wing schism and self-inspection, this year’s winter issue of the progressive US magazine Dissent constituted something of a ‘shirtfront’ moment. It carried a piece by the political philosopher, and co-editor of the magazine, Michael Walzer, accusing the left, or a significant portion of it, of turning a blind... Continue Reading →
Cirque du Žižek
It fell to US journalist Adam Kirsch, writing in The New Republic in 2008, to encapsulate in a single phrase the disconcerting experience of reading a book by Slavoj Žižek. Kirsch called Žižek ‘the deadly jester’, a description that managed to bring together the Slovenian philosopher’s showmanship with his extreme political stance (he is as... Continue Reading →
How to have your coke and snort it too
In 2013 the comedian Russell Brand guest-edited an issue of the New Statesman magazine and declared in his editorial that he had never voted in a general election. An interviewer on the BBC's Newsnight wanted to know why, and also, given the comedian’s apathy, why anyone should care what he had to say. As he... Continue Reading →
The invisible censor
Confessing one’s ignorance is not, perhaps, the ideal way to begin an article, but the recent debate about whether or not Grand Theft Auto V is misogynistic is not one to which I’m able to contribute. The last video games I played regularly were Jet Set Willy and Manic Miner, and, frankly, I was terrible... Continue Reading →
Beyond the ‘blank slate thesis’
At some point in the 1990s, a poster began to appear on the London Underground. It depicted four brains, three of which were identical and one of which was much smaller than the others. From a distance, it appeared to be a crude taxonomy of the kind that one might associate with a nineteenth-century phrenologist.... Continue Reading →
Parochial reflux
As someone who is always in the market for irony, I’ll admit to having felt slightly giddy when I first read that the Abbott government had utilised Australia’s seat on the UN Security Council to formulate a recovery mission to Ukraine in the wake of the MH17 disaster. After all, it was Tony Abbott who,... Continue Reading →