Readers have written in, from time to time, criticising the proposition that Nothing Is Absolutely True. Personal correspondence with others suggests that they have reservations about it which they don’t express. Here we offer a passage which seems to us to formulate these objections, or at least some of the main ones, with power and… read more »
The Inquisition destroyed the bodies of its victims (or had the secular authorities do so) for the good of their souls. For its first cenury or so, while still enthusiastic (and still feeling itself insecure) the Anglican Church followed suit. Later it stopped going to such extremes, but it long set the spiritual above the… read more »
Reformers have been active for a long time now, and have achieved many successes. Yet the number of reforms needed remains as great as ever, and may even be increasing. This suggests some built-in source for our continuing difficulties, and here we ask whether they may not arise, at least in part, from the solution… read more »
Although nobody has been rude enough to raise the question, readers must have wondered why IC should speak so often in favour of familiar capitalism, with the market and the state; the system does have substantial disadvantages. An explanation appears when one notices a similarity between capitalism and getting old: bad as each of them… read more »
Will we give England back to the oak trees? Probably not, yet until we do we stand on shaky ground when agitating for conservation of the Amazonian rainforest. Will we give up industry and agriculture, return to scratching the ground with a hoe, use nothing more sophisticated than the bow and arrow? Probably not, yet… read more »
Nigel Barley’s personal observations lead him to a refreshingly astringent view both of anthropological cliches and of lay misconceptions. Members of the profession disapproving of something encountered in the field risk charges of ethnocentrism; not so if they express delight in it, although this response shows just as much lack of proper detachment. [1] Laypeople… read more »
THINKERS not wanting to accept that relations between the major ideological groups set the main outlines of the social structure (continuing domination by the state among them) often seek an alternative explanation, and they commonly argue that the state maintains itself by force, more or less direct. The theory seldom gets put very clearly (perhaps… read more »
From the French Revolution Forward society seemed to be growing more open, more secular, more rational. Education and literacy spread, free thought and even outright atheism became socially acceptable, democracy largely replaced monarchy, and a prospect of socialism, communism, even anarchy, opened in the distance. The Great War revealed other possibilities, but that got dismissed… read more »
EXPEDIENCY: the ideology in which conscience comes as a still, small voice saying somebody may be watching. LIBERAL reformers of the 19th C feared an extended franchise: ‘The masses were then, as now, more conservative than their champions: (Peter Gay in The Cultivation of Hatred). AN ideology is a way of organising reality. ANOTHER driver… read more »
South Africa, Afghanistan, Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and even once-mighty Russia; the states have been taking a pounding. In our more optimistic or pessimistic moments (according to ideology) we may even find ourselves contemplating the end of the institution. Orthodox anarchists tell us that our troubles come from the state. Get rid of it, with… read more »