British politics and the lost art of rhetoric
Hilary Benn and others were acclaimed for their speeches in the Syria debate in the Commons. But if this was the House at its best, its best is not good enough.
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Author: Julian Baggini
Razed to Life
We often feel it is important to preserve what we have inherited, but unless we appreciate that we would not even have such an inheritance unless others had been willing to tamper with what they in turn were bequeathed, we cannot understand what is really at stake and what matters.
ReadIs there sense in common sense?
The war between common sense and good sense is a phoney one, in philosophy, science and in life. No one believes that common sense is a sufficient guide to truth but likewise no one can even start the journey there without accepting some basic assumptions about logic, language and the world that are shared with passengers on the Clapham omnibus.
ReadHow ‘Human Becoming’ Joins East and West
There is good sense in Roger Ames’s suggestion that we would be better to talk in terms of human becoming rather than human being. If we are like books that are still being written or plays in mid-performance, then clearly we are still in the process of becoming who we are. But this is not the kind of becoming that ends in being, like the building of a house which ends with a complete construction. Rather, our only being is becoming: when the becoming ends, we end, too. A performance is thus a better metaphor for the human narrative than a novel.
ReadHow do we respect others’ choices?
True respect in a multicultural society first requires that everyone sees others as capable of hearing their criticisms and entering into robust debate about them. There is nothing respectful in thinking that people are either too tender or too murderously zealous to defend themselves civilly.
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