Skip to content

Index: Politics & Culture

· David Cameron’s non-winning ways.

Sunday, 10 April 2011

By reaching a swift understanding with Mr Clegg, himself all too well aware that he was the election’s big loser, Mr Cameron ushered in the age of compromise and tactical retreat that has marked the last 11 months.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, Noted elsewhere | | Comments (0)

· Ink-stained hippie wretches and their far-out newspapers.

Wednesday, 6 April 2011

The medium has changed (from small magazines, to cheaply printed local community newspapers to Twitter), but the message is the same: Social movements need organic forms of communication because without it, they die.

Also filed in Books & Publishing, Chronicle & Notices, Noted elsewhere | | Comments (0)

· Who’s the sharper expert – a politician or a monkey with a dart?

Tuesday, 5 April 2011

Everywhere we turn, we find an expert declaiming on some future trend, concerning nearly every activity. Should we pay much attention? No…

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, Psychology, Philosophy & Education | | Comments (0)

· Elitists, anarchists, progressives, and their views of ‘sclerotic’ democracy.

Wednesday, 30 March 2011

Principle plays a part in motivating elites who hoist the flag of social reform: the free-market ideal, they argue, is a source of misery when pursued too unrestrainedly. But Henry James pointed to another, suppressed motive.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, Noted elsewhere | | Comments (0)

· Islam, Caesar and the simple problem in the Middle East.

Tuesday, 29 March 2011

There is a very simple problem in the Middle East: simple, that is, conceptually, not simple from the point of view of finding a practical solution to it. Islam has not found a doctrinal way of rendering unto Caesar those things which are Caesar’s.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, Noted elsewhere | | Comments (0)

· Remember when there was a French Left? Neither does France.

Monday, 28 March 2011

If the French vote tracks a slow shift in the national electorate toward middle-class conservatism, the German vote appears to be shaped more by immediate dynamics.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, Noted elsewhere | | Comments (0)

· Civility: Truth plus respect plus offense equals offense?

Wednesday, 23 March 2011

In the type of censorship that Collini is concerned with, the power equation is typically reversed. When, in contemporary society, a particular view is labelled “offensive”, it is usually on the basis that the offended party is in some way at a disadvantage in relation to the person who has expressed the offending view.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, Noted elsewhere | | Comments (0)

· How Benghazi looks from under Manhattan’s no-fly zone.

Sunday, 20 March 2011

We need to deal with longstanding allies like Jordan, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia—which continue to resist democratic reforms—and to help the Egyptian people consolidate democracy and create jobs and economic opportunity. The most productive role for America in the Middle East today is diplomatic and economic, not military.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, Noted elsewhere | | Comments (0)

· Obscure eggheads: ‘ If power corrupts, then lack of power corrupts absolutely’.

Tuesday, 15 March 2011

But money is certainly not the only coin in which the modern intellectual likes to be paid. There is, after all, nothing quite like celebrity, and proximity to power can easily become for an intellectual in search of renown what a candle is for a moth. If, as they say, power corrupts, then lack of power corrupts absolutely.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, Noted elsewhere | | Comments (0)

· Violence in the Old West? Only when the government marched in.

Thursday, 10 March 2011

The civil society of the American West in the nineteenth century was much more peaceful than American cities are today, and the evidence suggests that in fact the Old West was not a very violent place at all. History also reveals that the expanded presence of the U.S. government was the real cause of a culture of violence in the American West.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, History & Travel, Noted elsewhere | | Comments (0)

· The bad taste of acrimony in a debate over genetically-modified food.

Thursday, 10 March 2011

It is indeed a pity that several aspects of debate in this country on genetically modified (GM) crops and foods have adopted the adversarial approach rather than a consensual one.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, Noted elsewhere, Science, Medicine & Technology | | Comments (0)

· Hungry for a little global warming?

Wednesday, 9 March 2011

Most of the under-developed world has no access to hearty seeds, advanced farming and equipment, irrigation technology or the ability to rotate crops or keep land fallow.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, Science, Medicine & Technology | | Comments (0)

· The art of entitlement.

Sunday, 27 February 2011

For all their positive aspects, arts funding bodies today are actually blunting the entrepreneurial skills of creative people.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, Noted elsewhere | | Comments (0)

· How pragmatic is Barack Obama’s belief in compromise?

Monday, 21 February 2011

Obama’s ideas and convictions do not themselves explain his performance as president. It is Obama’s political skills, not his ideas, that seem to be his problem. Kloppenberg provides an excellent summary of the pragmatic tradition–a tradition rooted in the belief that there are no eternal truths, that all ideas and convictions must meet the test of usefulness. (Or, as James put it, ideas have to “work.”)

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, Noted elsewhere, Psychology, Philosophy & Education | | Comments (0)

An American city in ruins.

Saturday, 8 January 2011

“Detroit in Ruins,” a selection of photographs of Detroit by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, Noted elsewhere | | Comments (0)
The Fortnightly Review