PU #252 - WHEN IS INFORMATION NOT POWER? - On Knowing Less To Stay Sane
Read More“if somebody had the information about when you would die, and what you would die of, would you want it?“
224. LIP SERVICE - On the Difficulty of Transforming What is Entrenched
Read More“As Audre Lorde so famously put it: “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”. Yet schools, as reproducers of the dominant culture of any given society by design, are the very definition of “the master’s house” and it is they which are giving students their useless tools. “
220. HELLO HUMANS - A Teacher Writes on Their Inclusive Classroom
Read More“the bell rang and I could not think of a response in the thirty seconds I had to dismiss the class so left the question unanswered. I have been thinking about a response ever since so I have decided to write this.“
218. FLAGS - Against Lamppost Patriotism
“Once we did have a symbol of the country that used to make me proud:
hotels welcoming those seeking asylum from persecution with open arms.
Now the hotels are being shut down by angry mobs
and all we have in their place are cheap flags tied from lampposts
wilting damply in the rain. “
Read More211. TRANS RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS - Why the UK Supreme Court Got It Wrong
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.“
192. BAND PRAXIS - Punk and the Anarchist Squint
Band Praxis - Punk and the Anarchist Squint by DaN McKee (taken from The Anarchism and Punk Book Project’s Book 2 - DIY or Die: Do it Yourself, Do it Together & Punk Anarchism)
Read More184. NOT CONVINCED BY POLITICAL ARGUMENT - On the UK General Election 2024
Read More“We are changed in our political views when new ideas or arguments confront us in our every-day, non-political, life. Often these ‘arguments’ are experiential rather than logical: something seen, heard, witnessed or experienced first hand which have no formal logical structure but imprint some deep shift in values nevertheless. We change our minds because we are changed. Not because we are convinced by arguments.“
178. FREE PALESTINE - On Anti-Semitism
Read More“As a Jew, I want to live in a world without anti-Semitism. I also want to live in a world with a free Palestine. These two ideas are not mutually exclusive, or in tension with each other. And we need to ask questions of motivation from those repeatedly peddling the myth that they are.”
177. REACHING ROCK BOTTOM - Why England Needs to Sober Up
Read More“I guess what I am really doing is posing the following thought experiment: do you think a sober society would have sat by and done nothing for twenty-four years as their country failed to meet even the most basic standards of functioning anymore? And does the fact that England is not a sober society give us some explanation as to why the English have seemingly done exactly that?“
167. THERE CAN BE NO JUSTICE THROUGH BLOODSHED - Israel, Gaza, Palestine, and the need for some different thinking.
Read More“Politics should not be a team sport. When it is, we’re doing it wrong. Usually because we’ve been manipulated by those who benefit from the division. It should never be Israel versus Palestine. My team versus yours. It should be ensuring our collectively assured mutual existence, always. Finding new ways to live together. Mutual aid. Walls and borders torn down. Sharing instead of seizing. Acknowledging wrongdoing and finding a way forward.”
166. WHAT'S IN A NAME? - What The Trivial Can Tell Us About The Significant
Read More“if my utterly inconsequential change of capitalisation could not be easily noted and assimilated into the understanding of work colleagues, friends or family, then I could barely imagine what it would be for a far more important identity marker to be so similarly ignored“
164. CHALLENGING UNIFORM - The Unwarranted Assumption Behind What Children Wear at School
Read More“We realised that there was a big, and unjustifiable, leap that has been made to get from the starting assumption of needing a uniform to the end conclusion that children need to be dressing up everyday like businesspeople from a bygone age. That even if you wanted to justify the idea of enforcing a uniform, you needed to go a long way further from that to justify the bizarre uniforms most schools actually make their poor students wear.“
157. I WON'T MISS SIR - On Naming Our Teachers
Read More“Any time we approach an area of education with an attitude of it being too difficult or even impossible for someone to do something, we make it so through a process of self-fulfilling-prophecy.“
153. PHILOSOPHY AND THE CORONATION - Questions Raised By The Crowning Of A New King
Read More“The coronation of a new King is an undoubtedly historic moment, but it raises a lot of philosophical questions…“
147. NOT ALL GOBSTOPPERS ARE EVERLASTING - Why I'm OK With Changing The Words of Roald Dahl
Read More“Don’t let the illusion of sole authorship fool you. Published writing has always been edited by many and influenced by audiences. If you want to read the unblemished, pure and unfiltered draft straight from the author’s mind and onto the page, read something self-published (like this blog…although I do tend to do a few drafts). Anything else you read, assume there have been drafts, edits, alterations, corrections, and the input of many. The author, often, is a group of authors. Dahl is no different.“
146. THEY/THEM - Why We Need To Be Gender-Neutral About God
Read More“of course God - a being defined in terms of transcendence - would not be confined to one single point on a spectrum or one limited half of a binary. The very terms of transcendence that makes God God would necessitate God being beyond either a gender binary or the limits of a single gender. The omnipotent God responsible for creating both men and women in their own image, logic would suggest, must possess an image inclusive of both male and female (and everything in between).“
144. CHALLENGING PERCEPTIONS - Why Top Tier Football Clubs Continue To Do Women's Football A Disservice
Read More“Why complain about this in a philosophy blog? Because a perpetual area of philosophical inquiry concerns perception versus reality, and sometimes this coming apart of perception from reality (or reality from perception) often leads to questions in ethics too. I believe this problem - of the women’s teams of football clubs not sharing the same home ground as their male counterparts - touches on both.“
136. NO GODS NO MASTER-DONS - Decolonising Twitter Migration
Read More“The site of struggle here being the realm of social media might seem trivial to some, and online colonisation lacks the bloodshed and brutality of historical imperialisms, but as a living model it has been instructive of the sorts of behaviours we see offline too.“
135. UNLOCKING CAGES - Language, Asylum, Immigration and Abolition
Read More“When one takes a step back and realises that amidst all the language of ‘asylum seekers’, ‘detainees’, and ‘illegal immigrants’ what we are really talking about is human beings, it is hard not to hang your head in shame at the way our country routinely treats certain human beings.“
134. LIVING WITH GHOSTS - Haunted by Football
Read More‘I don’t believe in ghosts, yet I am living with one…‘