Do people really love themselves? Some writers think that people do not love themselves, saying that true self-love, in the sense of self-acceptance, is learned, often very painfully so. I agree.   Nigel Pocock   Part of the difficulty is that people confuse self-esteem and self-love. I concur, with Scott […]

I want to examine the key issue of how to establish a balance of diversity and unity. Too much diversity, and society will fragment; too much unity and we have a closed society. How do we find the balance? Is it too much to suggest that it is possible to […]

What unites all fundamentalists is an over-riding commitment to a sacred text, through which all of truth must be interpreted. The sacred text cannot be questioned; only obeyed.    Nigel Pocock   In the past the word ‘fanatick’ (sic) meant an ‘enthusiast’ and it usually seems to have had an […]

The Nazis hid their crimes behind the famous legend that ‘Work makes free’. Indeed! But both agreed that extermination was the only suitable outcome.   Nigel Pocock   It has long fascinated historians and others how such an apparently sophisticated society as ancient Rome could also be so barbaric, an […]