It’s interesting when commentators from both Left and Right advance a common description and diagnosis of what is wrong with society. It makes you think there may be something in it. Steve Latham What I’ve noticed is the concept of ‘demoralization’. It’s used in two ways. Firstly, it […]
In Focus
In Focus
Aesthetic extremes
Birds have never looked so utterly strange, gorgeous and non-human as they do in Tim Flack’s “Birds”. Set against completely black or white backgrounds, they are photographed with a starkness that renders them beautiful but also uncanny. Sean Sheehan Flack says the simple backgrounds help to heighten our […]
Multiculturalism: freedom and tolerance
Clearly the issue of multiculturalism is ultimately about social change. This is together with the capacity to live in a ‘tolerant’ way with other groups that hold diametrically opposing beliefs. . Nigel Pocock . But what if these groups believe in tyranny, whether of theocracy, materialism, secularism or of any […]
Dialogues in representative democracy
An acquaintance from my neighbourhood had had a recent operation, when my partner found her in the local shop. Everything had gone well while in the hospital, our neighbour asserted, even the fact that she “shared a room with a white woman”. Mabel Encinas My partner was shocked […]
The service economy, an economy of affect
The waitress comes over to take our order, and greets us with a cheery ‘Hi guys!’ Or, the call-centre operative insists on calling me by my first name, in an assumption of easy camaraderie. Steve Latham These are symptoms of the ‘first name syndrome’. Prevalent in our society, […]