PU#242 - AND I DID NOT SPEAK OUT: On Our Obligation To Acknowledge That Things Are Not Right
Read More“It was important, once, we were told, that we learn the lessons of history. “
231. ABNORMAL NORMS - On Philosophy’s Futility In Our Continuing Decline
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.”
216. HAS WORLD WAR III STARTED? - On Defining Conflict
Read More“My students, raised on Remembrance Sundays and Lest We Forgets, are therefore asking me “do you think there’s going to be another world war?”
And I want to assure them that there won’t be, but my initial gut response is to ask instead how sure they are that we’re not already having one?“
183. I WATCHED EUROVISION - Does That Make Me a Bad Person?
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…“
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.”
169. REMEMBRANCE - Why Never Forgetting Keeps Us Forgetting
Read More“Asking for a cease-fire and ending a bloody conflict is the very definition of honouring those who died in the futility of war. Seeking peace instead of violence is the only worthwhile message of “never forget” when we remember those who needlessly lost their lives in wars or else we are forgetting.“
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.”
113. SIMULATED HORROR - Is It OK To Spend Your Free Time Plotting Imaginary Violence?
Read More“A student asked me my thoughts on children playing violent video games. My first response was to ask him why he thought it mattered that the players were children. Why not adults playing violent video games too?“
111. THE FOG OF WAR - Student Questions Arising From The Situation In Ukraine
Read More“This week, understandably, I have been asked a lot of questions about the ongoing situation in Ukraine.“
110. THERE IS NO JUST WAR - There Is Just...War
Read More“It is the concept of nations that lies at the root of the problem of war. It is the global economic systems of manipulated scarcity, inequality and hoarding that motivates taking by violence what can’t be gained legitimately. When we ignore the underlying motivations of invasion and speak only of the good and the bad, we sweep under the rug the tricky truth that we are all culpable for maintaining a global political system that nurtures the conditions for war far more than it inculcates the conditions for peace.“
99. DUNE BUGGED ME - On Being Bored of War
Read More“We have been primed to be ready for war. We have been conditioned to expect it imminently. We have been told that a time will come when we have to pick a side and that we may not even be able to trust our closest friends. We have been fed the ideological norms of conflict escalation and had massacre and genocide normalised. All in the name of entertainment. To assume such repeated and sustained messaging will have no impact is to ignore the evidence of all other successful marketing strategies.“
94. TWENTY YEARS LATER: What Is The Purpose of Remembering 9/11?
Read More“It is not said enough that on September 11th, 2001, a significant number of people around the world witnessed on live television the death of nearly three thousand people. Seeing one person die would be considered a trauma. Something requiring years of therapy. Something from which we might never recover. Who knows how many of the terrible events of the last twenty years are the result of a traumatised humanity who never got the professional help they needed to come to terms with what they saw when those towers fell?“
92. WORKING ON HOLIDAY: Am I Really About To Defend Dominic Raab?
Read More“the issue I would like to consider as we return for the 2021/22 academic year is, surprisingly, given my usual vocal opposition to all things Tory, whether Dominic Raab actually did anything wrong by staying on holiday while Afghanistan fell to the Taliban. Or, more broadly, whether holiday should mean holiday - a total cessation of work - even when your work brings with it important responsibilities.“
84. NO TRUE ARGUMENT - How A Basic Fallacy Stops Criticism And Prevents Peace
Read More“That this well documented fallacy remains so effective and so frequently used is one of the frustrating reminders that knowledge of philosophy, and of the mechanics of arguments, is not necessarily a path to happiness or contentedness. Often, it simply means being fully aware that an argument is faulty, but seeing it work to convince people regardless.“
44. THE HOLLOW CROWN - On The Emptiness of VE Day Celebrations
Read More“Patriotism, in the form of flag waving jingoism, is the poison which sickens the well from which the water of peace tries to flow.”
21. WHAT MUST WE REMEMBER? - On The Worth of Remembrance Day
Read More“as long as we have had Remembrance Day and worn our red poppies, we have continued to have wars. If we truly want to honour those whose lives were lost saving the lives of others we ought to put every effort we can into ensuring the sorts of wars which cost them their lives are never fought again.”