Posted in Politics, Ideas, Environment on Oct 20th, 2011 Comments
If a windmill is about to blight your cherished view of the green English countryside, you might start to wonder why on earth the Department for Energy and Climate Change thinks it is a good idea to subsidise the monsters at vast cost to the British taxpayer. Why not retune some boilers in Guangdong instead? Or encourage the booming cities of China to power themselves with gas, not coal? There’s a whole raft of practical, carbon-saving steps which can be more cheaply achieved in the growing, bustling emerging world. After all, a ton of carbon saved in China is as good in global terms as a ton saved in the UK. So why ever spoil our green and pleasant land?
Hang on, though. Wasn’t the “green new deal” all about creating jobs in a new sort of economy? Making Britain a leader in an industry of the future? Not to mention making us just a little less dependent for our energy on geopolitically unstable regions of the world. Make China the focus of all our policy effort, and it will be China that reaps the knock-on benefits. Why would we realistically agree to that?
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Cast your mind back five years to 2006, to when environmentalism gripped the world. We were all shocked into buying different lightbulbs by the apocalyptic forecasts of the Stern report, and Al Gore, with the aid of an array of impressive scatter charts, was King Green. It seemed that we were all on course to become bona fide tree huggers.
But it hasn’t quite happened – not yet at least – and if anything, the public appetite for the fight against global warming seems to be waning. In the current economic gloom, everyone seems to have reverted to their more immediate priorities; we’re happy to wallow in the reassuring belief that consumption drives growth, as we click “confirm” on another short haul flight.
So perhaps we’re now suffering from environmental fatigue, and perhaps we’re fed up with being lectured to by a bunch of lentil-munching cyclists. Have the eco-warriors pushed us too far in their attempt to amend our ways? Have we discovered that, when all is said and done, we’re just not that bothered about rising tides in the Maldives? Of course, there are those who dissent from the consensus that we’re headed towards a catastrophe, and advise us to ignore the people they feel are doom-mongers peddling pseudoscience.
How then, should the threat of global warming influence our behaviour? Should we heed the warnings of floods, droughts, burning forests and a world of environmental refugees and change our ways? Or should we maintain that we’re not going to allow the polar bears and our grandchildren to ruin our lives while we rev up our engines and revel in and the pleasures of unabated consumption?
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Posted in Philosophy, Ideas on Jul 1st, 2011 Comments
Modern radical thinker Slavoj Žižek spoke on the 1st July 2011 as part of the ‘Great Minds’ series, and affirmed his status as a great mind of modern philosophy and social, cultural and political theory. Starbucks, social solidarity and self-commodification were among the varied and enlightening topics touched upon by Žižek, all grounded by his interpretation of ideology and its continuing importance.
One of Europe’s foremost Marxist theorists, Žižek criticised modern leftist groups who, he argued, didn’t really know how to cope with the upheaval of the ‘sublime’ moment (revelation that an assumed state of total happiness is actually non-existent). The question of ‘what happens next’ has been asked since the dwindling exhaustion of modernism into postmodernism. Žižek asks us to put ideological pressure on modern life, confirming the presence of ideological symbolism even in blatant popular culture (such as two Oscar-winning films, The King’s Speech and Black Swan [2010]).
His manner was sometimes serious, sometimes comic and vaguely apocalyptic (he is a self confessed pessimist), which all together made for an engaging talk, dense in historical, anecdotal and political references. The combination of issues allowed the modern audience member to examine their own behaviour alongside Hegelian optimism, Freudian self-commodification and Marxist ideas of social roles, in a non ‘academic’ sense, referring to the purchasing of Starbucks coffee as a subconscious purchasing of social solidarity built into the price. An audience member asks ‘isn’t it the case that people know that what they’re doing is buying a coffee that will then, in some sort of self-serving way, make them feel better about themselves?’, thus showing that ideology is no longer a ‘smokescreen’ of sorts. Žižek answers by claiming that we follow things, knowing that they are ideologies, and this does not necessarily make them ‘right’ or true. This is where the notion of ideology seems to be headed; to a total self consciousness – as with a Hegelian resolution of the ‘Zeitgeist’ (Žižek is actually close to the publishing of an 800 page book on Hegel).
In his relatively brief talk, Slavoj Žižek managed to expose our susceptibility to certain ideologies, thus proving their ever present role in modern society - not bad for a Friday night in West London, perhaps the capital of the British bourgeoisie.
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Ten years after 9/11 a new era of beginnings and endings is upon us. The Arab Awakening and Bin Laden’s death, the rise of China, the perils of Pakistan and emergence of Africa, the power of social media and the promise of a new global order all herald a world remade.
In this special Intelligence² event, former Foreign Secretary David Miliband and other leading experts from Oxford Analytica, the global strategic analysis and advisory firm, will chart the tumultuous path since September 11th and show how it will shape tomorrow’s volatile global order.
Why did the hunt for Osama bin Laden take so long?
Is counterterrorism counterproductive?
Have the “Wars of 9/11” been worth the money and lives expended?
What has their effect been on the Middle East and the Muslim world?
How have Russia and China responded and, in Beijing’s case, managed to strengthen its geopolitical standing during the decade following the attack?
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Posted in Ideas, Education, Sociology on Jun 8th, 2011 Comments
Why are there so many Chinese maths and music prodigies? Because Chinese mothers believe schoolwork and music practice come first, that an A-minus is a bad grade, that sleepovers, TV and computer games should never be allowed and that the only activities their children should be permitted to do are ones in which they can eventually win a medal – and that medal must be gold. These methods certainly seem to get results, so perhaps western parents should start being more pushy with their children. But is it defensible to cajole and bully one's offspring to success? Isn't it better to be raising happy, rounded individuals rather than burnt-out brainboxes? Who's right and who's wrong?
Come and hear the arguments presented by Amy Chua, author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, set to be one of the most talked about books of 2011, and on the opposite side Justine Roberts, co-founder of Mumsnet, the phenomenally successful parenting website.
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Posted in Science, Philosophy, Ideas on Feb 21st, 2011 Comments
John Gray and Adam Phillips will be discussing themes raised in Gray's forthcoming book The Immortalization Commission: Science and the Strange Quest to Cheat Death. In the late 19th century the implication of Darwin's theories was that humans were animals like any other, alone in an uncaring universe. The refusal to accept this and to insist instead on our immortality resulted in a series of experiments. Gray examines two major examples: the belief that the science-backed Communism of the new USSR could reshape the planet, remaking humanity and freeing us from death (and in the process return Lenin back to life), and the belief among a group of Edwardian intellectuals that there was a form of life after death accessed through mediums and automatic writing. These attempts may seem deluded to us in the 21st century but can we claim to be no longer gripped by the hope that somehow science can make us invincible?
http://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/immortality
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Interview with John Gray
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Posted in Science, Ideas, Sociology on Dec 10th, 2010 Comments
This weeks quick debate.
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Steak and kidney pie. The Sunday roast. Mmm, delicious. In fact more than delicious, part of our way of life. Part of our common humanity, too, since eating meat is probably what allowed our brains to grow big enough to become fully human in the first place. So how could anyone be persuaded to give up eating it? Easy, say the vegetarians. Go to an abattoir. Listen to the shrieks, look at the fear in the eyes of the cow. Then go to a supermarket and look at the results of that bloodfest all neatly packaged up to disguise the cruelty and suffering that preceded the shrink wrap. No one with a streak of compassion, no one who calls themselves human could then stretch out their hand, plonk the slaughter in their shopping basket and feel they were doing right. Or could they? Come to the debate and find out.
Speakers for the motion - Abbas Daneshvari, Heather Mills and Peter Singer
Speakers against the motion - Julian Baggini, Robin Dunbar and Paul Levy
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Posted in Ideas, Government, Britain on Dec 5th, 2010 Comments
Event information:
An elected second chamber. Who could argue with that? Surely it’s what all good democrats would like to see in place of the present House of Lords with its party appointees and hereditary rump? Or is it? Never forget the overweening dominance of political parties in British political life. If members of the Lords have to submit to the same electoral cycle as MPs won’t they just suffer the same fate as MPs and become entirely dependent for advancement on the party leadership? Become the Cabinet’s creatures?
Elections may confer the patina of legitimacy to political arrangements, but in Britain’s elective dictatorship, as Lord Hailsham called it, they simply end up reinforcing the power of the executive in parliament. And since the purpose of a second chamber is to serve as a check on the arrogance of executive power, since an independence of spirit is required whenever members of that chamber revise legislation and use their suspensive veto, then open elections to the Lords are surely the last thing we need?
Appoint them; elect them indirectly; choose them from pre-selected professional categories; any system you like, but not direct elections. Or so those resistant to reform like to argue. Are they just being ante-deluvian diehards? Is this just cover for the retention of existing privileges? Or are they right?
Speakers for the motion - Vernon Bogdanor, Shami Chakrabarti and Sir Simon Jenkins
Speakers against the motion - Lord Adonis, Billy Bragg and Polly Toynbee
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