Thinking Beyond The Curriculum
Read More“How the BBC dealt with John Davidson’s attendance at the BAFTAs last week is definitely morally questionable and offensive, but not because they let the racial slur slip past the censors when other insults were cut…“
Read More“The more we recognise how much of the way we do things in the world is the result of human choice rather than unavoidable circumstances, and that some different choices could make a different world, the sooner we might start making such choices and dismantling the impoverished way things are for something better.“
Read More“the more I read, the more my instinct for defending Noam Chomsky seemed to have finally run out of ground“
Read More“Winning is important to people only because capitalism has made it so. Winning is a means, in our rigged and unfair system, for some of our intentionally limited resources or opportunities to be granted to the victor(s). Winning means access to prizes previously forbidden or inaccessible. But it’s important to acknowledge that prizes are a social construct made meaningful only because of their manufactured scarceness or the inequalities we’ve chosen to allow in the distribution of the resources from which the prize comes.“
Read More“To say there are things of philosophical interest about Donald Trump’s unilateral kidnapping of Venezuela’s president and takeover of the country’s economic resources by force, is to, perhaps, show the failings of philosophy.”
Read More“This is not a defence of capitalism, nor a defence of the current order, but it is a defence of the notion that perhaps the proliferation of corporate chain-stores everywhere, which once made me mourn the quirky individuality of the independent high street, is not necessarily a bad thing.“
Read More"Freedom is not as self-evident as these young people seem to think it is, and an appeal to individual freedom is not the knock-down killer argument they seem to think that it is. In a world where are freedoms are routinely curtailed, often for very good collective reasons, the argument that X can’t be allowed because it will take away some freedom or another is simply insufficient."
Read More“Watching the Starmer government continue the same performative cruelty as their Tory predecessors for the last twelve months, I have to admit that all my anarchist and other radical critics were right and I was wrong: the tone of our oppression has not changed under Labour. “
Read More“Despite the court’s lip-service assurance that this judgement does not suddenly make it ok to discriminate against transgender people in the UK, in practice it absolutely does in ways that are both predictable and disgraceful.“
Read More“why do I get news headlines sent to my phone?“
Read More“I pointed out that while their ‘evidence’ certainly seemed to point to the idea that none of them were being given gifts from Santa - at least not on the Christmases in question - it did not completely remove the possibility that Santa Claus might still exist…“
Read More“one could even call it a ‘reasonable adjustment’ to ensure one’s universal ability to end one’s own life is not unfairly denied to people just because of a physical disability (a protected characteristic under UK law). Not allowing assisted suicide is discriminatory to those of us without the physical capability for killing ourselves.“
Read More“the conversation around VAT on independent schools being a conversation purely based around money, costs and affordability, instead of it being a serious public conversation around education and what a good education should look like is a conversation that fails to address what really ails the current state school system and what the advantages of going to, or working in, the independent sector actually are. “
Read More“Sometimes, when given a completely free choice, to choose any other way but one can be so self-sabotaging that there really is no choice at all. The 2024 US election is one such case. Whoever wins, we lose, but if Trump wins, what we lose is so significant we may never be able to win again.“
Read More"Does a grade truly reflect the work and ability of a student, or is it merely a result of a context and circumstance over which the student is powerless?"
Read More"if these AI machines were conscious then we would effectively be using them as our slaves; they do not have a choice in the matter and are also not getting paid. This raises important questions on the morality of the use of AI" A student writes on AI and slavery...
Read More"The Grenfell Inquiry blamed everyone for the tragedy that took 72 lives, but if everyone is responsible, is anyone responsible?"
Read More"In the wake of this summer’s comments from Donald Trump’s vice-presidential running mate, J.D. Vance, about ‘childless cat ladies’ (and as a US citizen who is registered to vote in November and will be voting for Kamala Harris…who actually does have step-children) I thought it might be worth reviewing the sound reasons for my own decision not to have children and defending the decision of others who have done likewise..."
Read More“It is because I am an anarchist, that I will still be voting within a system I don’t believe in for whatever limited, but vital, changes I can bring within that system, to make life better for those it oppresses the most…“
Read More“As a self-identified punk since my teenage years, I am very used to feeling shame about watching the Eurovision Song Contest each year, and even hiding the fact from people who know me…“