… where politics & culture meet
‘I was born with a natural disposition toward shallowness’ writes New York Times columnist David Brooks in his introduction to The Road to Character. As Brooks would be the first to admit, this isn’t a bad quality for a columnist to have: the demands of regular opinion writing are such that the big-name commentator is... Continue Reading →
East Grinstead in the 1980s was not the most fascinating place for a teenager. Its historic buildings; its pioneering hospital; the fact that it adjoins the Ashdown Forest, one of the finest examples of heathland in England and the model for the Hundred Acre Wood, in which Pooh and Christopher Robin were wont to frolic:... Continue Reading →
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 →
In a career spanning nearly half a century, the US journalist Barbara Ehrenreich has sought to expose economic inequality and to critique the utopian and delusional character of the arguments used to justify it. In Nickel and Dimed (2001) she revealed how the lives of unskilled workers give the lie to ‘trickledown’ economics, while in... Continue Reading →
It fell to Labor leader Bill Shorten, doing his usual impression of a hole in the air, to encapsulate this week’s mini debate around the Abbott government’s intentions (or lack of them) regarding the unfolding situation in Iraq, where, if this morning’s reports are correct, 80 men have just been massacred (and their wives and... Continue Reading →
The organisers of the 2014 Festival of Dangerous Ideas have made two mistakes in the last week. The first was to call an upcoming talk ‘Honour Killings are Morally Justified’; and the second was to cancel it. The first mistake shows a lack of judgment; the second shows a lack of nerve, plus an almost... Continue Reading →
For all that he tried to extend the scope of human sympathy in his influential oeuvre, Professor Ronald Dworkin, who died last year at the age of 81, was a divisive figure. To his critics, the US philosopher and scholar of constitutional law was the theorist-in-chief of ‘rights culture’ and the poster boy for an... Continue Reading →
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=iT-pOJqh5rk
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/local/brisbane/conversations/201311/r1203534_15602380.mp3
Considered in theoretical terms, the modern ideal of ‘marriage for love’ has never been more popular. In traditional societies such as India and China, arranged marriages (and certainly forced marriages) are less common than they used to be, while for many artists and activists in Muslim-majority communities the freedom to choose one’s life partner has... Continue Reading →
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