Essays
Exploratory CW essay pieces look at the broader trends in contemporary society, politics and culture.
A selection of the Battle of Ideas’ Battles in Print is also available here.
Chocolate covered broccoli
Game Based Learning 2009, The Brewery, London, 19-20 March 2009Jonathan Blow, one of the greatest minds in the gaming industry today once stated that ’games inherently teach’. These teachers did little with this fact.
Changing cultural paradigm
Subcultural pluralism and the new social order: the end of the culture war and the dawn of a new American societyAmerica is no longer the ‘melting pot’: it no longer assimilates minority groups into the majority culture. Instead of a homogeneous cultural majority imposing Western values on ethnic minorities, we now have heterogeneous cultural pluralism developing through acculturation.
Maggots feeding on the body of art
Reflections on modern art, morality and the state of contemporary cultureA traditionalist, nationalist perspective argues that modern art has steadily been eroding traditional British values, whilst today’s cultural institutions are a love-in for the liberal elite.
The unquiet grave
Federico García Lorca and the politics of the deadDuring his final—for most Spaniards, long overdue—illness, Generalissimo Franco had St Teresa of Avila’s desiccated forearm at his bedside the whole while, and to this day, everyone mimes back-scratching whenever the subject is brought up.
‘Deradicalisation’ as ideological conformism
A critique of the UK's 'Contest 2 counter-terror strategy'The idea of ‘de-programming’ in itself has a long and ugly history, often associated with practices of brainwashing, thought reform or mind control as used by New Religious Movements and other cultish groups. Such programmes attempt to ‘gut-check’ participants into thinking along more ‘appropriate’ lines that serve to inhibit critical thinking and express support for the status quo.
Resisting emotional education
Changing the Subject: Views from International Politics, Oxford Brookes University, 3 February 2008Therapeutic apparatuses have particularly insidious ways of reincorporating dissenters as people who are ‘in denial’, as Nolan’s disturbing paper showed. However, we should never overestimate the power of officialdom to manage society and recast subjectivity by fiat.
What Confucius said
An exploration of Confucianism as a humanist discourse on civil conduct and personal liberty, and its changing relationship with the Chinese state.The gradual appropriation of Confucianism as a state-endorsed Chinese ideology undermines the Confucian ideal of personal liberty, virtue and civil social harmony.
Radical unreasonable reason
A comparison of terrorist radicalism as spectacle with a responsible radicalism not limited by communitarian interest.An exploration of two types of political radicalism, with a defence of using reason to make unreasonable demands.
Intentism – the Resurrection of the Author
The beginning of a new movement in art and literature?Far from being a regressive reaction to postmodernism, Intentism is a small part of what happens next.
The poverty of moral philosophy
Can philosophers rejuvenate ethical debate in the public sphere?By declaring the ‘solution to the Palestinian problem [is] in no way complex’, Ted Honderich articulates a Western disengagement from ethical debate that has become depressingly mainstream.
New Cultural Paradigm: Community Art at the End of the Culture War
As the inauguration of President Obama marks the end of an era, what next for the arts?Mass culture is now composed of an array of equally entitled subcultures connected through a ubiquitous techno-social environment of camera phones, social networking on the internet and cable television channels dedicated to specific audiences.
Knowing me, knowing you
‘Therapeutic education’ and the human subjectIf bourgeois liberalism is guilty of neglecting the complexities of human experience and the social constraints on individual subjectivity, today’s therapy culture, even when informed by supposedly hard science, is no less guilty of constructing an idea of human nature on the basis of partial and one-sided impressions.
The Protestant origins of our liberal tradition
The author of Milton’s Vision: the Birth of Christian Liberty argues for a liberalism that is open to its religious originsLuther and others discovered a basic theme of Paul’s letters was the contrast between rules-based Judaism, and freedom-loving Christianity.
Waking up from the American Dream?
A Battles in Print essayAt present America is fighting various battles – some on the outside, some inside the country. For one, American militaries are operating in Afghanistan and Iraq, in Somalia, Georgia and Lebanon; further troops are stationed in Turkey, Kenya and South Korea. For the other, the United States quarrel with a presidential election, the credit crunch, gas prices, and decisions on abortion, gun laws and same-sex marriages.
The problem with families
A Battles in Print essayWhat is the state’s role in raising the next generation? Can parents be trusted to bring up children without interference from government?
