I first heard Peter Singer speak at the University of Western Australia (UWA) in the summer of 2009. The subject was the ethics of what we eat, and the tone of the talk was open and generous. Some in the audience were hardcore animal-rights people, as one would expect at a Singer gig. But the philosopher’s message was that ethical eating is, in fact, a pretty complex matter, bearing not only on animal welfare but also on economic justice and the environmental impact of agriculture, and that what counted as ethical behaviour in one sphere was often difficult to reconcile with ethical behaviour in others. His advice was therefore to do what we could, advice I for one resolved to follow before hogging into the free wine and nibbles around the Beaux-Arts-style reflecting pool.
Society
My sense is that political cartoonists are finding it pretty difficult to encapsulate the events of the last two weeks in our sunburnt country girt by sea. Not because they are so depressing: a good cartoonist can always wring dark humour from a tragedy. But because they are so clearly self-satirising.
Superficially, at least, David Rieff seems well placed to write a book about woke culture. For one thing, cultural criticism runs in the family: his parents were Susan Sontag and Philip Rieff – both intellectuals with a keen understanding of how subjectivities are shaped by social change. For another, his own work has often displayed an astute grasp of the fraught relationship between the historical, the political and the psychological.
The Doomsday Clock was effective Cold War theatre, but does it fail to convey the threat of today’s slowly unfolding existential crises?
When someone tells you who they are, over and over again, it is wise to listen, argues Clive Lewis MP
My new book, Brave New Wild: Can Technology Really Save the Planet? is out and available at/through all fine book stores. And hopefully some disreputable ones too!
‘Every man’s home is his castle’ – but what if you just want the basic human right of shelter?
If politicians are worried about the costs of support for the learning disabled, society must become more transparent about where the money is being spent
The party's candidate for Mayor of Doncaster claimed being English requires Anglo-Saxon 'lineage' and attacked 'third world cultures' in now-deleted posts
EXCLUSIVE: Pauline Giles defended her comments to Byline Times, saying that "we cannot sustain the volume of young black males" that "jeopardises the security of our country"