In recent years many have expressed a concern that Western individualism has created a society of atomised, isolated selves. At the same time, the values of personal choice and autonomy remain sacrosanct. Individualism is thus seen as both the great achievement and bane of Western civilisation.
ReadSarah Bakewell’s new book is a kind of collaboration between her exhilarated younger self and the more measured, adult writer she has become. These co-authors are as generous with each other as they are with their subjects, resulting in a work that is both warm and intellectually rigorous.
ReadThere is nothing new in “playing God”, it’s just that we’re getting better at it.
ReadThis book really walks the literary high wire, and Roberts not only keeps his balance, he makes the spectacle compelling. I can’t think of another such ostentatiously clever novel that is so dramatically successful, as rigorous psychologically as it is logically. Like Kant’s thing in itself, Roberts’s eponymous novel does not fit into any standard categories.
ReadA balancing act needs to be pulled off, acknowledging what populism identifies correctly as deep problems in our politics while resisting the often conspiratorial details and simplistic, unworkable solutions. This requires neither dismissing the populists out of hand nor granting too much to them. Most of all, it requires making the case that society can only hold together and make progress if it adopts a more moderate, consensual, boring, mainstream kind of politics.
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