(Written in 2023) I realise I am wading into a contentious and in fact extremely momentous issue. Many of the points I will make are not provable, in the sense that their veracity can’t be strictly measured against unequivocal empirical evidence. They are more in the tradition of philosophical arguments, a framing of the issues…

I get an occasional letter from the English Faculty at Cambridge. I don’t normally bother to read it. I did English and scraped along on a minimal amount of academic work. But when, years later, I did a creative writing course, I realized that I was much more interested in the craft side of writing,…

That’s the message of “The Better Angels of our Nature. Why Violence has Declined”, by Steven Pinker, the Harvard-based psychologist. The trends in all kinds of violence – and Pinker’s book has enormous quantities of data to back it – including wars, genocide, murder, domestic violence, and violent crime generally – have all trended down…

  It began when I came across this picture online. I think it was taken by a Russian photographer after Berlin fell to the Russians (presumably sometime at the beginning of May 1945). Child soldiers had fought in panzer units in France and Hungary, and many children were recruited in a last-ditch attempt to defend…

End of term report from the UN Fifteen years ago, world leaders agreed to a set of development goals to be achieved by this year – on broad measures like education, poverty, healthcare etc. (The Millennium Development Goals). There’s been massive progress in many areas. One or two highlights: MDG 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and…

(2018) So first the case against helmets – from this video in the Guardian. OK there is obviously a widespread debate on the use of bike helmets – I’ve read around and there are as many, possibly more, campaigning websites arguing against helmet use as those arguing in favour. Something like the impact on overall…

There are philosophers – like David Chalmers and John Searle – who argue that you can’t say that human consciousness has entirely objective properties – at least a part of it is essentially a subjective thing. Searle says it’s “ontologically subjective” – ie that its very existence is subjective – there is no such thing…

In the long-running debate about science and what it can do, and what it can explain, the sceptic has frequently resorted to this ultimate gambit: “But science can’t answer the question of why. Above all, it can’t answer why the universe exists in the first place.” QED. But this isn’t a very good argument. The…

I have just read part of a Saul Bellow novel, “Mr. Sammler’s Planet” – various blurbs on this late 60s novel: “Of all American Jewish writers…Bellow is not merely the most gifted by far, but the most serious.” “Bellow is the premier American novelist” and “Easily the most exciting novel Bellow has written.” I had…