Is feudal ritual really a convincing model for contemporary revolution?

The case for rethinking poppy day to acknowledge the reality of war

Whilst all work and no play is not a recipe for anyone’s good health, nor is the one-sided encouragement by many to ‘stay at home’, metaphorically and, for some, literally.

A response to Is this the end of the line for the impartial documentary? (Guardian film blog, 9 November 2009), David Cox’s report on the Battle of Ideas Satellite event, Campaigning documentaries: the thin line between passion and propaganda at Sheffield Doc/Fest on Friday 6 November 2009

Conventional explanations of the problems of education fail to fully account for its crisis of meaning. Market-mimicking measures are a symptom, not a cause, of the crisis. Likewise, politics is not so much the cause as the solution, as it is through political discussion and contestation that the crisis might be resolved.

If philosophers are not to continue to sell philosophy as therapy they have to do three things that will challenge contemporary attitudes. They must negate their own working principles and argue for knowledge, for the assertion and defence of opinion, and make a stand against idle criticism.

The vast majority of the population continues to be overwhelmingly dependent on close personal relationships and sceptical about or resistant to ideas of professional intervention in the face of emotional difficulties. In other words, therapeutic ideas may encounter resistance in the everyday and not just in the realm of academic debate.

Twenty years ago, the revolution of 1989/90, the implosion of Stalinism in Europe and the end of German partition were celebrated as a triumph for democracy and freedom. The iron curtain fell, the East German party dictatorship and shortage economy were vanquished and, as in the rest of Eastern Europe, pluralist party democracy was introduced along with the market. In the GDR, the spectacular uprising of eastern Germans had tipped the scale, put the final nail into the moribund Stalinist order across Eastern Europe, ending the division of the continent and Germany. Enthusiasm about this historical transformation was therefore especially strong in Germany.

Trial by jury is under attack on two fronts. Firstly, from those who argue that it is both too expensive and inefficient or that the public cannot be trusted. Secondly, the democratic principles of trial by jury are being undermined by the increasing regulation and micro-management of evidence by the state.

Whatever it looks like, a new welfare settlement – or social contract, as the Conservatives prefer to call it – can only emerge out of a shared set of values, or at least a public contestation of what those values should be.

Some commentators call for a return to productive investment and a regeneration of manufacturing. But is there something intrinsically wrong with an economy based on services and on consumption? Something better and sounder in an economy based on production? There is little to be gained by a naive and moralistic reaction against services in the name of manufacturing, against consumption in the name of production. We need, instead, to take a closer look at what is really happening in the economy in terms of the creation of new value and the ability of British capitalists to turn a profit.

Whilst there remain academics in every institution who continue to value and defend the legitimacy of criticism, a lack of confidence in aesthetic judgement reaches to the top of the academy. The vacuum left by the evacuation of judgement is often filled with Literary Theory, a shabby gauze of politically interested stock responses and clichés where sensitive, flexible judgement should be.

Has ‘judgement’ within criticism has reached a state of crisis? I want to show you how in my experience, this is certainly not the case. Instead, I believe, this shift represents a movement away from unexamined, unreasoned acceptance of the essentially arbitrary authority of a few ‘great’ critics, to the current situation where critical authority rests purely upon reasoned, rational judgements, coupled with extensive subject knowledge.

Now that Flammarion’s ‘aerial ascent’ is within the reach of most of us in the developed world, we regard it without wonder. But in a way, the very lack of drama involved in modern flight is the fruition of its early promise.

Martin Bell is a UNICEF Ambassador, a former broadcast war reporter and former Independent MP for Tatton where he replaced Neil Hamilton on the back of Labour anti-Tory sleaze campaigns. He has just published his latest book, A Very British Revolution: The Expenses Scandal and How to Save Our Democracy. The book traces the history of the scandal and calls for a thorough reform of the House of Commons on the basis that Parliament belongs to us and not to politicians who can no longer be trusted with politics. Angus Kennedy interviewed him at the beginning of October and reflects here on that interview, the book and the meaning of the ongoing expenses scandal for politics in Britain today.

Whatever barometer one uses, when it comes to culture, both artistic and more generally, America has led the world over the past 100 years

A variety of tools have been developed to encourage individuals to voluntarily change aspects of their everyday practices to reduce carbon emissions. But rather than inducing fear, we should focus on the benefits of sustainable living as the best model of the ‘good life’.

The limitations of wind and solar power, along with the fact that fossil fuels are both finite and contributing to climate change, mean the nuclear option is ever more compelling.

Ask most people what they want when they flick a light switch in their homes, and they’ll tell you that they want energy that is cheap, clean and always available. But the order in which they rank ‘abundant, cheap and clean’ sets out the battlefield that is energy policy.

Is design’s intervention in healthcare a good thing, or will it ultimately make matters worse—especially for those in greatest need of a cure?

If we are to understand what significance society now attaches to privacy and thus what this means for the future, we need to examine this question through the prism of trust rather than technological solutions or regulatory impulses.

A re-examination of the debate about ‘therapy culture’ and its institutionalisation in education and social policy.

How is the teaching profession changing, and what effect do these changes have on education? Is the idea of teaching as an inspiring vocation a thing of the past?

An essay to accompany Milestone, an exhibition commemorating the 10th anniversary of publication of the Macpherson Report, at the Stephen Lawrence Gallery, Greenwich, and St Andrew Holborn Crypt in London from 17 September to 15 October 2009.

As so much becomes public, or at least publically available, where does privacy belong? For those who cannot remember any but a wired world, the idea of private space makes no sense and probably has no purpose.

The fortune of cricket in India, perhaps unlike anywhere else in the cricketing world, is closely allied with its identity as a nation

The Truth concerns a lot more than scientific platitudes: all sorts of figures have laid claim to knowing the truth about the human condition and their societies, from novelists and journalists to campaigners and politicians. In fact, one of the most important things about putting forward new ideas and persuading others is that no particular credentials are necessary.

The idea that we could and should change the world was the stuff of politics in the past, and students’ or workers’ radicalism expressed this in a radical form. Today that politics has lost its meaning, and all that’s left for so-called radicals is to call for a more extreme version of what ‘politics’ is about today. The form is still there, but the content has changed.

In order to develop a more incisive critique of contemporary society, it is necessary to consider not only the particular nuances of the financial economy, but also the broader historical context, and the relationship between capitalism and wider social and political forces.

This essay defends the material basis of progress and the right of developing countries to undergo development, and finally argues that material development offers the only way to avoid the environmental disasters that we are constantly warned are just around the corner.

When it comes to thinking about culture and artworks, torn between a multiculturalist melange and celebration of cynicism, the problem seems not to be we don’t know who artworks or culture belong to, more that we want nothing to do with the whole lot of them.

Both the fetishisation of strong leadership and the reaction against it stem from a one-sided focus on leaders as personalities, and neglect of the other side of the relationship. Leadership is a relationship, not merely a personal quality.

The language of contemporary politics is packed full of jargon. It stands in for real political discourse and debate but is no substitute. In its place we need to rehabilitate rhetoric: language designed to convince others of the rightness of our propositions.

There is an assumption that people in general are increasingly vulnerable and in need of ‘support’. In this sense, the adoption reforms are a product of a wider ‘cultural’ problem – not in the ethnic or anthropological sense, but with regards our political culture and the ideas that it tends to generate.

We are now a nation obsessed with our bowels and bumpy bits, indulging in the guilty pleasure of a meat-feast pizza then seeking penance with the cholesterol kit. But why should it follow that a healthier population must be more obsessed with health?

The growth of identity politics means that instead of the universal claim for negative liberty, all minority groups are now encouraged to fight their corner for their piece of the recognition pie. In one fell swoop, such policies not only fix people into categories which are themselves restrictive, but also isolate groups from wider society.

By emphasising the recovery and naming of bodies, what becomes of the unnamed dead? Who takes responsibility for those whose remains will not only never be recovered and identified but will never be missed? Does the emphasis placed upon ‘our’ dead by forensic science dilute or obstruct sympathy for the death of ‘others’?

An adequate approach to the relationship between theory and practice would acknowledge the value of the many kinds of intellectual contributions that get called popular philosophy, without over-egging their importance or dismissing them as philosophy lite.

Two students from Barton Court Grammar School in an email head-to-head on whether man or machine should be exploring space in the twenty first century

Although the interwar years of Weimar Germany and 1960s Britain appeared to be golden moments for anti-establishment mirth, it is easy to miss the insubordinate heart of satire that is still beating as strong today, as thoughtful humour is so often social critique by stealth.

The plausibility of evolutionary psychology rests on the question of whether psychological attributes are analogous to anatomical structures in their origins and in their functioning. If not, it is a mistake to explain them in terms of evolutionary theory which explains physical, anatomical features determined by biological mechanisms.

What both Republicans and Democrats fail to grasp is that international legitimacy of the kind that caused the West to accept American leadership after World War Two must derive, ultimately, from domestic politics. International legitimacy cannot be restored solely through actions in the international sphere.

Disenchantment with the elitism of European politicians and institutions may lay the basis for a more positive reassertion of popular control over political decision-making at the national level. This would mean recognising that the problems of European integration are only magnifications of problems whose origins lie at home.

Counter-intuitively, in a world of often disconnected and atomised individuals, alcohol can play a part in bringing communities back together again.

A recent survey suggests the Western public may be less worried about the rise of China than the ‘China-bashing’ media suggest, and more optimistic about its future development.

The end of Left and Right, if it has occurred, needs to be taken seriously. It amounts to no less than the collapse of a way of looking at, and doing, ‘politics’.

We need to be less concerned about when is the right age for children to start reading, and how, and much more worried about what counts as being great literature, in having real standards that children can aim at.

Don Eales recalls the political power of popular song, and asks where the voices of challenge and dissent are today.

Professor James Woudhuysen argues that an Olympics ‘Win/Win’ won’t work

Despite using no words, instrumental music speaks volumes. A simple jig makes people dance in delight and a melancholy melody reduces people to tears; union songs, hymns, football chants and even the national anthem bring people together with shared values, ideas and aims; and everybody has their own special songs.

In the early 1970s Michael Young edited and contributed to Knowledge and Control: New Directions in the Sociology of Education. This proved to be a hugely influential, perhaps defining, work within the field.

The West has a great legacy that emphasises not centralised power, but decentralisation, subsidiarity, federalism. This is the legacy of cherishing individual liberty, a very precious contribution to the world, and one I would like to emphasise.

Critics of tests and examinations - apparently forces of good in a heartless world - are everywhere. They claim that children are ‘over-tested’ because they face national tests at ages 7, 11 and 14, followed by further national examinations at 16 (GCSEs), 17 (AS-levels) and 18 (A-levels or ‘equivalents’).

There has been much debate over the past two decades about the relationship between the curriculum and values. Primarily this has been driven by a crisis of confidence in the value of subjects themselves.

The holy grail of modern neuroscience is to unravel the mechanics of consciousness and explain the machine that gives rise to the mind. The new science of the mind promises to uncover the biological basis for many aspects of the human character and potentially to know our thoughts better than we know them ourselves.

As a lover of documentaries and films generally, I believe the answer to the question can films change the world is unequivocally ‘no’.

There has been much academic and public discussion over the past few years over the idea that the process of secularisation, witnessed over the past century or two, may have come to an end. How do you understand the secularisation thesis and do you think it still holds true?

The launch of the Academics For Academic Freedom (AFAF) statement of academic freedom (available at www.afaf.org.uk) led to some interesting debates. The most curious responses came from a small number of individuals who were reluctant to sign.

One of the most startling features of the culture surrounding modern parenting is the tidal wave of advice parents can expect to receive about what is best for their children. Where in the past ‘muddling through’ was perfectly acceptable, today the job of raising children is understood to be too important to leave to parents. Instead, the government, and a bevy of interested parties, are on hand to enable and ‘support’ Good Parenting.

In a recent essay, Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger, academic and commentator on globalisation Arjun Appadurai comments on how the West is increasingly dominated by a fear of the lone bomber with explosives strapped to their chest.

Developing the broadest possible understanding of religiosity, this paper argues that this dichotomy is actually disorientating us from possibly profounder ones.

MAN is born free; and everywhere he is in chain stores. Such a perversion of a pivotal text appears glib, but this is not the intent.  I invite readers to comprehend its meaning in the context that its original author, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, intended.

Is the iPod eclipsing the inner voice? Rather than stifling internal monologue, listening whilst moving through the city can be a welcome supplement to an urban identity in flux.

Debating Matters showcase debate: “Books should remain the essence of public libraries”

Why is scientific expertise and science itself so often regarded with suspicion while nonsense about science and nonsense passing itself off as science seems to be having an increasingly easy time of it?

Discussion on Africa’s prospects, possibilities and priorities rarely treat this vast continent as a place populated by smart, aspirant individuals capable of delivering progress and prosperity.

‘A scar on the conscience of the world’ is Tony Blair’s description of Africa. There you have the miserable morality tale in a nutshell: angst-ridden Western politicians wringing their hands over the unholy alliance of corrupt African governments in league with greedy multinationals while the disease-blighted, fly-addled masses starve.

The Golden Age of Hollywood evokes nostalgic images of a time when film stars were larger-than-life characters whose on-screen presence was breathtaking and awe-inspiring; a time when the film studio was were dreams were made, and the cinema a place where people shared them.

Is there any room left for poetry that is purely for pleasure? The answer seems to be yes, based on quick reference to the fact that poetry is by definition the most aesthetic of all literary genres, and hence is nothing but pleasure.

‘I teach a class called “Everyone Can Draw”’, an American artist once told me glumly. ‘It should be called “Not Everyone Can Draw Well”.’

The time is ripe for a complete rethink of what ‘diversity’ means. How can it be encouraged in the visual arts in order to challenge the assumptions currently made about people from ethnic minorities in the sector?

Great music, pop music: two almost self-contradictory ideas. One can only deplore this fallacious dichotomy, which sets great music, often defined as classical music, at loggerheads with pop.

As Brucie and co hit our screens again this autumn with family favourite Strictly Come Dancing, just watch your tippy-toes don’t get trampled on by the stampede of policy pundits rushing to grab a piece of the sequin-flashing action.

Should art change the world? I take this to mean, should art improve society? If that is its meaning, the question shows we all have the managerial state in our bones like syphilis.

Citizenship education is failing to engage young people in politics and is undermining their education.

A friend of mine went to meet a stranger recently. Only, this person wasn’t really a stranger at all. They had already spent hours together on a social networking site. Judging by her messages, picture and blog, my friend felt confident that she would be likeable… perhaps even lovable. Yet he was also anxious and unsure.

Being ‘well-travelled’ has traditionally been considered a positive attribute, along with characteristics such as being ‘well-read’.

Marilyn Monroe is said to have had a thing for Albert Einstein. Sadly, it is unlikely they ever met.

Dear Alan, I know that you are a keen advocate of Labour’s ethical activism. However, I think that ethical or moral frameworks do not necessarily make a good guide for political policy-making.

The Guardian sketchwriter Simon Hoggart has often commented that the way to tell if a statement is mere motherhood-and-apple-pie or a serious pronouncement is to see if anyone could conceivably hold to its opposite.

In July, ahead of the Queen’s speech and the housing green paper, the newly-installed prime minister Gordon Brown announced with great fanfare that three million new homes would be built by 2020. This comes not a moment too soon.

Norman Lewis substitutes the myth of the ‘digital native’ with the parable of the ‘indoor child’; neither narrative fully accounts for the complex, multi-faceted, relationship that exists between young people and new technology, argues Robin Walsh.

In his preface to Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, Jean-Paul Sartre wrote that France’s brutal efforts to suppress self-determination in the Algerian War in the name of civilisation was ‘the strip-tease of our humanism…

Job done. The global economy requires it; readers and advertisers demand it; professional journalists do their damnedest to meet and even create demand; and somehow the re-design is completed (almost) on time, the circulation figures don’t fall that far, and the paper we routinely put to bed still has some exciting stories in it.

Centre-screen, a lion is basking in the sun. Three young cubs tumble, prowl and pounce around him - play-hunting, play-fighting, and occasionally launching themselves at their father, until he loses patience and brushes them away with a mighty paw.

Maria Grasso: What is your understanding of the idea that we now live in a period which is characterised by the ‘end of ideology’?

A month after a rain-drenched rally of 15,000 in Trafalgar Square on 7 May 2007, the Strangers into Citizens campaign ‘is growing faster than its sponsors dared hope’, according to the Observer (Cohen 3.6.2007).

The modern world is damaging children. They are cooped up inside - impassive and apathetic, and unable to create their own fun and entertainment.

‘We are armed only with peer reviewed science’, declared the banner at the head of the Climate Camp march along the proposed route of the third runway at Heathrow in August. And in one sense they were - literally.

What substance is there to the notion of widespread popular political disengagement from politics in established democracies?

Slackers, disengaged, alienated, disenfranchised? However you look at it, the general consensus seems to be that there’s trouble afoot amongst the young’uns of Britain today.

From hand-me-down clothes to the reuse of scrap metal, people have recycled throughout history. However, it was usually poverty that forced people to ‘make do and mend’.

The question is not whether ethical shopping can ‘save the world’. In itself, of course, it cannot.

The countdown to the upcoming American presidential election in November 2008 has started early. Way early, with prospective candidates from both major parties taking part in debates, raising money and travelling the country since the spring of 2006.

For many, 2007 will mark the year that the New Labour autocrats finally achieved their greatest coup; forcing people by law - with threatened legal sanction - to be healthier.

I am against the ‘war on terror’. I do not think our governments should attempt to mobilize society, its citizens, resources, and political ideas to ‘fight’ terrorism.

Student politics has never existed in a bubble. It has always been a reflection, or a reaction to, what is happening at the level of national politics and in broader society.

In the 1997 general election, New Labour’s manifesto included a rather peculiar statement.  Apparently their pledge to connect schools to the internet made them the ‘pioneer of new thinking’.

The quick answer to this question would be: ‘No, ICT is not transforming learning, it never has and it never will.’

Technology, we are frequently told, is fundamentally transforming education.