Whenever there is technological change, there is always political disruption. We’re currently living through one of the most profound technological revolutions in human history – so can we really expect our politics to remain unchanged? Technology and politics writer James O’Malley presents a provocative and sometimes shocking prognosis for democracy….
‘Evil begins when YOU begin treating other people as things’. Terry Pratchett What is sex? What does it mean to enter a sexual encounter with another person? I say it is it an intimate, comfortable, reciprocal, safe, pleasurable meeting of bodies with the goal of enjoyment, and not premised on…
Many of us still have to make up our mind on the EU Referendum. Rather than the vital facts we generally have heard exaggerated claims and biased conjecture, making it virtually impossible for the average person to take a well-informed view. Indeed, is it so complex a matter that all…
During the parliamentary debate on 2nd December 2015 on the bombing of Islamic State targets in Syria, Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn made an impassioned speech in favour of the government’s motion. A key reason he provided was that Islamic State were “fascists and fascists must be defeated”. This was…
The Panama Papers have revealed the corruption and greed of the global elite. They have also underlined the hollowing out of democracy. We now inhabit a world in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in human history. The hoovering of wealth to the top has accelerated since the…
Readers of the Ethical Record might remember from 1993 the intemperate rant against humanism by John Carroll. In Humanism: The Wreck of Western Culture, Carroll insisted that humanism is dead while also declaring it to be a major threat to western civilisation. Though hardly a coherent or measured criticism, Carroll’s…
1. The Paradox of Modern Humanism At the heart of modern humanism is a paradoxical combination of attitudes: scepticism about religion, but optimism about human nature. By optimism about human nature I mean the view that, not only is it possible for us to be nice to each other, but…
The Howard League is an independent charity, a membership organisation that campaigns for less crime, safer communities, fewer people in prison. In 2016, we celebrate our 150th anniversary – having been founded in 1866 by admirers of John Howard, commonly thought of as the first ever prison reformer. FENNER BROCKWAY…
Trident is Britain’s nuclear weapon system. The government likes to refer to it as the nuclear ‘deterrent’, but whether or not it actually works as a deterrent is an open question which we shall consider in a moment. What cannot be disputed is that Trident is a weapon system, designed…
Radio, television and Times journalist Hazhir Teimourian gave the keynote speech at the Ethical Society’s Annual Reunion of Kindred Societies a few years ago; he has also spoken to the Society on Sunday mornings on the situation in the Middle East. In 1998, he gave four autobiographical talks on BBC…
